Cody Sperber - Entrepreneur, Author, Philanthropist & Real Estate Mentor | How To Be A Clever Investor

College wasn't for me. I knew very early on so I went to the Navy and when I was in the Navy my dad bought me a book Rich Dad Poor Dad and it was a life-changing moment too because I flash back to Michael Pollack and I'm like When that's cool to be able to do real estate So now I'm out of the Navy and a friend of mine pulls up to a lunch Meeting that we were having and a brand new Mercedes I said dude. I know you don't have any How the hell did you get this new car and so Cody Spurber the clever investor? He is a digital marketing genius, you know kind of guru for sure self-taught self-made last year I sent out 54 million emails. I have a 48% open rate and I made $10.8 million from clicking an email button How do you differentiate description of a mentor that you found that helped you close that deal at 14 months Versus all the courses people look for mentors and these are buying products But then there was a pivotal person that actually took you over the finish line Sometimes you need somebody that can teach you things you can't learn in books that real life wisdom and the ability to navigate you In a real deal. I'm glad I bought all the books. I wouldn't change it for the world while He taught me one important lesson very early. He said listen Cody Yes, he's gonna get you out of here He poured love into me. Okay, you kill it up to me as they can. What makes you a great monitor? I think it's I mean, it's probably a little personality, you know, I'm Just remember this one of the other lessons my mentor used to say is in real estate You'll never have a money problem. You'll only have a Welcome to success story. I'm your host Scott Clary the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast now Work they've supported the show for almost two years now So I want to just give a shout out to them HubSpot is an incredible tool for business leaders If you've never tried it before you obviously have to check it out You've heard a lot about it on this show, but Outside of just HubSpot being amazing they're incorporating AI tools that as a business leader You have to pay attention to because right now we're living through the industrial age of AI There are already tons of innovative ways to leverage AI tech to streamline and grow your business HubSpot just launched two free AI tools that can help you automate some of the more tedious parts of marketing and Managing the CRM so content assistant and chat spot our brand new GPT powered features that can instantly brainstorm blog topics Write ad copy filter contacts run reports and so much more They're like virtual assistants that never complain never quit that quickly dig through data dumps to find you the needle in the haystack So to learn more about using AI to grow a better business had to HubSpot dot com slash artificial dash intelligence Getting into real estate was definitely the biggest pivotal moment of my life because when you when you're young And you don't have a lot of money and you don't have successful people around you. It's You know, you don't you don't have clarity on a path. It's just more like I'm gonna go like when I was a kid I'm gonna go be a marine biologist right? I'm gonna go be a history professor like you think of things that maybe would be enjoyable to go do for the rest of your life Never in my wildest dreams did I think I was even qualified to become a real estate investor? I thought that was for rich people. I thought you had to have a license and you know same stuff Most people think about when they think about owning property it's There was a guy in town. His name was Michael Pollack. I used to walk by his building every single day Because both my parents work so unlike the weak kids nowadays and he dropped off right in the front, you know I used to walk about three four miles or ride my bike and I passed by his building every single day and His name was on the side of the building. I thought wow like as a little kid like how do I get my name on the building? You know and then I started paying attention because it's kind of like You know like when you when you buy a car and also you start seeing that car everywhere It activated my reticular activation system and I was like starting to see wow that street corner is owned by Michael Pollack That he owns Pollack cinemas he owns Pollack, you know corners Whatever the name of the and they were everywhere in Mesa, Arizona And if you're from the area you you know who this guy is because he's kind of a Donald Trump character long flowing hair You used to drive around I read an article one time later on and light it where he drives around in an RV And he literally parks his RV in the parking lot of the commercial Street corner he wants to buy like the shopping center and he'll sit there until he does a deal with the current owners Like help camp out in their parking lot. He's wild like super super eclectic But anyway, so I see his name and I'm like When these days I'm gonna stop in this building and find out what this guy does and eventually I did and the late Because I said hey, can I go see Michael Pollack and she said no He's busy like nobody's walks in and sees Michael. I think I was like maybe in seventh grade and But she I said what do you guys do? And she said oh we were real estate investors And so that planted that seed for me, but I didn't do anything about it. You know, you don't know and your parents They weren't they weren't entrepreneurs. No, no not till later on Okay, my dad became an entrepreneur after getting fired like maybe 30 times And you know eventually and and he started because my uncle Was fixing vcrs and my dad was like well, why don't we do this as a business and it started off as vcr repair I mean that's that's how big his vision was his dad passed away when he was 12 So he didn't have any guidance either and always had to fend for himself and so great parents, but not entrepreneurial until my dad started that vcr company with uncle, but here I am now As an adult college wasn't for me. I knew very early on that wasn't my thing and so I went to the Navy And when I was in the Navy my dad bought me a book rich dad poor dad and I'm out it in the Persian Gulf I'm reading this book and it's talking about real estate talking about assets and liabilities I had never heard of it describe this way and it was a life-changing moment too because it was like another seed was planted And I flash back to Michael Pollack and I'm like when that be cool to be able to do real estate So now I'm out of the Navy I'm going to ASU because the Navy's paying for it and a friend of mine pulls up to a lunch Meeting that we were having and a brand new Mercedes And I said dude, I know you you don't have any money. How the hell did you get this new car? And he said I flipped the house and I made $80,000 and I was just blown. I said you're full of shit No way by the way, can I cuss on this? I said you're full of shit. I'm like, how did you do that? Do you have a real estate license? He's like, no, you don't need a license. I'm like, well, where'd you get the money? He goes, you don't need any money Not like my wheels are spinning. I'm thinking You know your reaction is the same reaction as everybody when they first watch it I'm like real estate influence or talk about how they get into the game It doesn't make sense to a lot of people like it really doesn't make sense if you come from a background where your Your parents bought the house and they got a mortgage and that's and you know you had to have a down payment You're saving up for that down payment none of this really computes. Well now we're exposed now we are social media TV shows all we're exposed back then 19 years ago none of this existed and I was just like somebody penciled it out on a napkin You find a motivated seller then you put their house under contract then you find a cash buyer These are landlords or rehabbers that have more money but then time and they don't have time to go find good deals And so you're basically a matchmaker and you go find these discounted deals and you serve it up to them And then they buy it from you and they pay you like a fee called a wholesale fee or a finder's fee for putting the deal together And mine happened to be $80,000 which was astronomically big and very lucky. He never did another 80G deal But it of he bought this car with this money, you know because you know That's what he wanted and so Not the smart. Yeah, whatever. Hey, whatever I did the same dumb shit too But but I took the napkin yeah, and I stared at it for weeks Because I was pissed and I couldn't figure out there was nothing online There wasn't a lot of information and I was kind of getting pissed because I was like if this is true How come I never heard of it? How come they don't teach this in school? How come my dad never talked to me about hey man Here's a creative way to build wealth the book rich dad poor dad say get assets limit liability my dad never said that You know and yet here is my goofy friend who you know We used to party together and get lit now. He's like ballin out. Yeah, and so I went down this this this rabbit hole of trying to figure it out In the way we did it back then was read newspapers And then the back of the newspaper was an ad from a guru We're coming in town real estate seminar 300 dollars That's the only way you learn that's how we learn back then and so I flew all over the country trying to find these seminars and they Loved me because I would walk in and I had some credit limit on my credit card I didn't have cash, but I had credit limit on my credit card and I bought every book in tape as soon as they offered it If it sounded good, I'm like throwing my credit card up on stage like they Sold the shit out of me. Yeah, but I didn't care because I was like obsessed with this concept of like getting wealthy in real estate You know end the story with this dude They don't tell you how frickin hard it is to get started. No, that's that was my next question It's like okay, so you bought every tape. You're like a guru's like web dream. Yeah, but a lot of people screw it up They don't take action. I mean even now when people have access to unlimited information And they still pay for something they pay for a course at paper time with a mentor They still fuck it up and it's not even in real estate. It's in literally everything I mean any job or skill or thing that you could possibly learn to take Your life to the next level doesn't matter whatever you want to do It's about taking action and that's the piece Well, in my thing is and now being an educator had over 80,000 students come through my programs It's not that they're not wanting to take action It's that there's a series of things that happen and very early on when you're just starting to learn For me it was drinking out of a fire hose. I bought too many courses. I went to too many seminars I talked to too many people and everybody had a frickin opinion and I was I'm more like Engineering-brained, right? Even though I'm even though I'm very creative in like a great marketer and like able to like really like Be creative My brain works like step one step two step three so when you open a book that you pay a thousand dollars for these binders How they used to get you and there's like seven binders and it's like going to school, right? Well, it's not in chronological order doing a deal doesn't happen like step one step two step three Like they teach in the thing and I so I was getting overwhelmed and I was getting frustrated because it will first month You're all like coming out of the gates. You're so excited Telling everybody I'm gonna get real estate rich Then by month three or four you're starting to second-guess yourself the little voice is getting louder your friends are starting to make fun of you You know your credit card bills are due. You're starting to get you know frustrated about that By month six my parents were sitting me down going dude. You're making a mistake My girl is saying go get a job We got to pay these bills like what are you doing? This isn't in reality reality now I'm thinking am I too young? Did Is it not for me? Am I not capable of doing it all the all the self limiting bullshit Some people have a ton of bad past experiences and so they try it up into the point they hit friction or you know It doesn't work out on their time frame and then they just throw in the towel and majority of people that in my experience It has nothing to do with them and has to do with somebody else steering their ship They come in they find out you're trying to do this. It's a significant other It's your parents it's somebody that you love and they tell you all the reasons that you shouldn't do it It's not gonna work and next thing you know you're off on a tangent People the thing with real estate and this is why I love this vehicle. It's Tangible I can go in and touch the real estate. I can't do that with stocks. I don't have any control over stocks with real estate I have control and so Because of leverage I can buy Let's say I had money. Let's say I had a hundred thousand dollars I could go buy five hundred thousand dollars or worth of real estate with a hundred grand in capital And even if it's not my money, I could go to you and say Scott. I know you have money, dude I found this deal. We need a hundred grand We're gonna take your hundred grand and go get a real loan with it by five hundred thousand dollars worth of real estate I'm going to turn it into an Airbnb and we're gonna split the profits So I can put the whole deal together using your money and the bank's money. It's leverage leverage is the key to being a great entrepreneur being a great real estate investor And on top of that the tax benefits of real estate is insane Not many other money-making vehicles can you make ridiculous money quickly whether flipping or renting and creating cash flow pair that with the leverage pair that with the ability to not pay taxes You know, let's say you work really hard at a job and you make a hundred fifty grand a year You're at the top of the food chain making a hundred fifty grand a year in the world. Right? You're doing great Good for a job. The problem is you're paying sixty of it. Yeah, to the government And I think and now I just saw a stat hundred and new york feels like thirty-six So but what if you were able to do that while at the same time Living below your means. Yeah, then turning around taking all available capital and leveraging all your friends Capital to go buy real estate that provides enough tax benefits to offset your earned income Yeah, once that clicked in my mind. I was like oh my god. This is it for me I have to do this business. I have to figure this out. It took me 14 months to do one deal Most people don't have it in them to go 14 months without doing a single deal Now I've done thousands of deals. I own development companies. I got 23 houses going up right now I got over 40 million dollars. I'm floating out on the streets I lend money I own clever investor, which is in the one of the larger education companies Like I said, we had over 80 90,000 students come through our programs Almost everybody that you know of nowadays. That's really big has been a student of mine or has studied what I've done because How big we scaled None of that would have been possible If I would allow overwhelmed told me back If I would have listened to my parents when they sat me down and try to crush my dreams You're making a mistake. Stay focused on college. Don't do this And I they were my heroes, you know, it's like how how do you not listen to somebody that you really love Who's guided you your whole life, but you know in your core they're wrong But you're on the edge because you're so defeated and you have so many people in the real estate game because there's big money There's a lot of voices a lot of opinions manipulation a lot of opinions a lot of pushing and pulling you have to be really tough to stay the course And it's like that three feet from gold analogy. It's like I knew I was close But I couldn't quite connect it all together And the thing that made it work for me It was it was the one thing Without this one thing I would not have made it Because I did quit or nine months in I quit for a few months and then I got back in it But when I got back in it this time I said you know what I'm not gonna do this on my own I'm not gonna wing it. I'm not it's not a good strategy I'm now $30,000 in credit card debt Every person that was supporting me in the beginning bailed I'm alone right I've been close to pulling off a deal 45 times and for some reason it keeps falling apart I'm in my own way. I'm over talking I'm over selling like this is like the stuff all all new new salespeople new entrepreneurs face And I'm out of resources. I have to make this work And finding a mentor was the game changer for me I want to ask you a quick question first. How do you differentiate? How do you differentiate the description of a mentor That you found that helped you close that deal at 14 months versus all the courses in the bullshit and all because When people look for mentors and they start buying products and they start Opening themselves up to education But then there was a pivotal person that actually took you over the finish line Yeah, because Sometimes you need somebody that can teach you things you can't learn in books that real life Wisdom and the ability to navigate you in a real deal I'm glad I bought all the books. I wouldn't change it for the world like I am so grateful for that experience Because one I appreciate it more when you finally get that win It's kind of like Roger Bannister running the four-minute mile It's like it's real I can do this and what's funny is after he ran the four-minute mile You know for thousands of years no human ever did it and every expert said it couldn't be done right not possible Perth you need perfect weather perfect wet Wind conditions perfect Field conditions like everything had to be perfect for them to even potentially do it And then this dude does it and then what happens immediately after he does it Other people do it hundreds of other athletes start doing it literally within months another guy did it out of Australia and so it's like When belief changes Right and you move from like Knowing from from hoping to knowing Uh, you just operate differently. I guy toughened up and with Lyle I didn't have the resources to hire Lyle but like Dropping a crack head in the middle of any city in in the world and saying go find drugs They're gonna find their drugs right? They're gonna come up with whatever resources they need to get what they want because That kind of motivation is different than I want to get rich I was never doing this to get rich Yeah, I wanted to be rich of course like who doesn't I want to control I wanted to stop being bullied. I wanted to stop being pushed around my whole life, you know, I've moved 678 times before six grade my dad was a pro getting fired every two years So I'm moving state to state. I never have a stable friend group of friends when I did I was a smart mouth Young looking easy to pick on kid I was the outlier right teachers didn't like me because I was hyperactive and I wanted to control them and and teach the class You know, I didn't I always looked at my teachers like did you guys are bozos? You know like you're not gonna you're not gonna be up. What are you teaching me? You know like memorization skills like I'm good bro and so It was I was I was really good at pissing people off and Because of that I got a lot of fight. I got put picked on a lot And so as I was getting older I was like you're I don't want to work out a job I don't want to have somebody control my time. I don't want To be out of control ever again in my life. So I'm gonna do whatever it takes to gain back control. So With Lyle He really You know he taught me one important lesson very early on he said listen Cody Yes, he's gonna get you out of Egypt But no is gonna take you to the promised land Your challenge right now is you're saying yes to everybody and everything and you're trying to do all these things We need to put some blinders on you dude. You're like a racehorse with all this youthful with all this youthful enthusiasm But like you're you're sabotaging your own success. So put the blinders on Let's simplify and let's master the mundane You're not gonna like it. It's gonna suck But you're gonna do the same repetitive thing over and over and over until we get a result and uh and and He poured love into me When somebody is really there for you and they really believe in love on you You kind of know I got somebody in my corner finally that's been there done that that's blazed the trail I wasn't out there winging it any longer He knew exactly what was gonna happen He could see the next 30 steps before I couldn't visualize anything. He could see it all And so from the time I hired him to the time I got a deal was two months That's all fast. It happened and I made 40 g's on that first deal and it was a very hard deal It was a foreclosure bankruptcy divorce scenario I didn't know anything about eat any of that stuff. I had never even done a deal before But yet here I am working this really complicated deal with a while in my corner able to pull it together get it done At that when I quit I was so broke that I went and got a job as a bookkeeper just to make a few bucks I was making 34 grand a year as a bookkeeper and I didn't even know how to do books I went and read bookkeeping for dummies in order to get this job and uh To make 40 grand on your first deal just like Jeremy making 80 grand it was life changing money I'd never made that kind of money before in a single deal the whole deal even as complicated as it was Maybe took 10 hours to pull together Can I ask why out of all the deals because Lyle's telling you to focus and and sort of put blinders on disqualify the shit That you shouldn't be focusing on great. It's very smart But what about this particular deal Even as complex as it was allowed you to close it so quickly well it when you're out Generating leads What we're really looking for in the real estate space when when you're doing creative real estate is a motivated seller Right, we're look we're not most people if you look down the normal street in America 85% of all of those homeowners that own those houses. They're not motivated They will never sell at a discount. They're gonna take their time fix it up higher real target full market But at any point in time about 15% of those homeowners They're going through divorce They're bad with money. They're falling behind. They have to relocate. They had a death Maybe the house flooded fire damage the house is old and ugly and can't qualify for a traditional loan There's some motivation in their world that's really pushing them to look outside the norm And if you've ever drove down the street and you see those little signs on the side of the road we buy houses you now We see like the commercials and the billboards. That's what those guys are doing. They're finding motivated sellers And so you don't really know who's gonna show up when you're putting out marketing You're just know that I'm putting out marketing to get myself in the game So hopefully somebody today will call me and we can potentially work a deal Some deals were real easy and not complicated at all so to answer your question This particular deal fell in my lap and I I called Lyle and I said man, I got a lead This guy says he's in foreclosure bankruptcy and divorce and that he's being mandated to sell his property by the attorneys I don't know what I'm doing. What should I do? He said come on over right? I'm gonna I'm gonna give you some words of wisdom I go over to Lyle's house And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking he's gonna give me some Yoda shit right like he's gonna like really like In part like this is what you do step one step two step three and He said tell me tell me about the deal and I gave him all the information that I could And he said listen, you're gonna drive over to this man's house and you're going to do two things And that's it he's like lean in like it's like really wise right lean it he goes You're just gonna be authentic and you're gonna be enthusiastic I'm like okay and what next yeah and like what what what what do I do that? Yeah, you know, he's like that's it That's all I'm telling you That is some Yoda shit, though, and I'm like Lyle you're not helping me here like got it to be Authentic and enthusiastic. What do I say when he asks me a question like I'm gonna just be a deer and headlights He's like don't worry about it. You'll be fine. Go do it He what I a great mentor allows you to discover the truth a great mentor Isn't gonna just give you all this information Because at just like parenting kids like they're not gonna listen to you anyway right the the the situation's gonna unfold however It does but when I showed up over at this man's house what Lyle was trying to teach me is when you're in foreclosure There's hundreds of people knocking on your door. There's hundreds of bill collectors when you're going through divorce There's an insane amount of pain and stress and lack of sleep and problems in your life and bankruptcy too and so This guy's being bombarded by people who are too technical who don't give a shit about him personally That just wanted to get the deal done And instead he took all that away from me and said just go build a relationship with this man Just go connect Don't worry about the deal. Don't worry about the house. Don't worry about the outcome Just go build a relationship. So when I showed up at his house this guy was very guarded And I'm standing on his doorstep and by the way when I first pulled up over there Because I drove a piece of shit niece on pickup truck and I was embarrassed And I'm carrying around contracts and note cards and pens and when you're nervous you shake right you don't you don't really realize You're shaking until you look at your paperwork and you're like oh shit. I gotta I gotta control this And so I parked my car down the street because I'm embarrassed I don't want this guy to see my piece of shit car thinking this guy can't help me And as I'm walking down the street the neighbors out watering his lawn and I stop and talk to the neighbor And I said how do you like this neighborhood and we're shooting the shit And I said I'm about to go talk to John or whatever the guy's name was And he said oh good luck with that He's literally kicked every single person off his lawn. There's been hundreds of people here over the last few weeks That's the first words from the neighbor and I'm thinking fuck I'm fucked Great like I'm never getting this deal But I stayed the course and I go knock on the door and I'm standing outside of this guy's on his porch talking to him Never once bringing up the house never once trying to Structure a deal close them on anything nothing. No, I just I just kept looping in my mind like the authentic enthusiastic So I was just trying to be super positive and ask a lot to open ended questions and for example like you know like It's gotta be rough going through all of these things. What's it like? All right Eventually after asking a bunch of questions The guy after about seven eight minutes ten minutes of standing on his porch. He said do you want to come inside? I said yeah, I had never been actually in the house before I always got kicked off the doorstep And so now I'm in this man's house and we're talking for 30 40 50 minutes about everything but the deal And I'm he's softening up over time. He's softening up. He's softening up About an hour in he goes hey Cody. I'm starving man. I was about to make spaghetti. Do you want some food? I'm like this guy's gonna cook me dinner like this is amazing. Yeah, I'd love some We have an entire dinner. He's crying. I'm asking him. What advice would you give a young guy like me to avoid situations like this If you can go back in time, what would you change? It was almost like this podcast We're just talking and about Maybe two hours in two and a half hours into this meeting. We had dinner now. He's cried. I've cried He said I said listen John. I got to be honest with you like I'm not qualified to do this deal with you I don't I've never done a deal my mentor liel is helping me I don't know anything about foreclosure bankruptcy or divorce. I'm sorry. I'm probably not your guy And he sat there for a couple seconds. He said what he what is that on the table? And I said oh, this is the contracts and paperwork. I brought just in case I was able to help you He thought about it for a second. He goes slide slide that over here. Let me look at it Right gave it to him. I didn't even know how to fill out a contract barely And uh, and he goes I want to do a deal with you. Give me your pen. We're gonna figure this out All right, sir. Are you sure? And he said you'll figure you'll be good. We'll work through it together The attorney we did I'll get in touch with my attorneys. We'll figure it out We filled out a contract that day which turned into this 40k deal about three weeks later I sold that prop I locked it up and I flipped that contract to a local rehabber because this particular house happened to be In the historic district of downtown Phoenix and takes a very special process to renovate a historic house And there was a rehabber in town that I had met months and months earlier That said if you ever get something in downtown Phoenix historic district give me a call And that was literally it. I called the guy and I said what would you offer me for the house I didn't even know what to price it at And he said I'll pay you this amount for it which happened to be 40 grand more than I had it under contract for That deal closed And uh, it was it was life changing because that day I quit my job as a bookkeeper making 34 grand a year. I now made more because I promised my self. Yeah, I promised myself My goal this is how big I was thinking in the beginning my goal was to make four thousand dollars a month wholesaling houses Consistently for 90 days for three months in a row then I would quit my job Here I am not doing a deal for 14 months and finally doing it and making 40g's. I was like fuck this. I'm quit my job So I quit my job that day and I bought myself something special. Oh, and I gave my dad some money. He needed some money So it was cool as like I was able to help my family help this man out Quit my job and then I went immediately and I bought myself a gift And it's a funny thing just for people listening I just wanted to share this part just because When you're so broke and you're so stressed all the time you're trying to get this new business up off the ground You don't sleep very good Your brain is racing you have all this anxiety And uh, I said to myself when I do my first big deal I'm gonna buy the nicest bed Like a temper pietit king the fancy one that's super perfect And I went and I bought this you know really expensive bed with some of that profit It was like my Mercedes. Yeah, but to me it was important because for 14 months. I didn't sleep very good I tried so hard to get this business off the ground that I stressed myself out the whole time But something funny happens after you do your first deal. I grabbed your banister. You know, it's real The distance between deal zero and deal one Was much longer than the distance between deal one and two And only took me a couple months to get my next deal and then a couple weeks to get my next deal And then I started building systems in processes because Lyle man Lyle engaged Once he saw that it I was listening and it was starting to click and I realized that all real estate is Is a people business if I can master the art of influence persuasion and building rapport Asking motivational engaging questions and just gathering information. I don't have to be an expert Eventually I became an expert, but in the beginning it was just he saw that I was getting it Just learn to connect You're get some deals you won't get other deals But if you never connect you'll get no deals And so Then once he saw me getting it then he went back in and started filling in the pieces like here's the systems you use Here's how to stay organized here's how to master your paperwork Here's how to generate better quality leads here's how to keep the properties that you're finding instead of flipping them for a quick payday Here's how to actually win the tax game Here's how to structure a creative deal where you never have to go to a bank Like nowadays think of think of think of this Between 2020 and 2022 53% of every mortgage in the United States originated Everybody refied when the rates dropped And there are now Five point seven trillion dollars worth of loans That are out of four percent or better rate Why would I ever go to a bank if I want to buy your house and you have a three percent mortgage on it Why would I go buy your house pay a premium because Prices are out in all time high and go to a bank and get any percent mortgage Makes no sense This is why nobody's buying real estate right now traditionally This is why mortgage brokers are going out of business and realtors are going out of business Because when the government pulls their levers And interest rates go up like they have they've doubled more than doubled Real estate becomes unaffordable to the middle class and to poor people And what happens is guys like me who are creative that understand creative finance We go screw going to a bank first off if you're an entrepreneur you hate going to a bank of course The mountain of paperwork they crawl up your ass they they underwrite you so aggressively For a five thousand dollar loan like it's awful So if I could work it out with the seller 33% of all real estate in America's own free and clear Really There is a tremendous amount of free and clear property There's an insane amount of people with phenomenal mortgages on their property Why would I go to a bank ever again If I can learn how to do what's called a subject to transaction a wrap around mortgage a seller carry back A ITD or a contract for D these are creative finance terms Not to get too nerdy on this podcast, but for anybody listening go look those things up and start to expose yourself What if you were a first time you all know the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network They have incredible podcasts So please go check out the roster, but one of my favorite shows is Nudge hosted by Phil Agnew You just have to understand that some of the smallest changes can have the biggest impacts on your life And on Nudge this is what Phil goes through he speaks about Evidence back tips to help you kick bad habits get a raise grow a business every single episode is bite sized 20 minutes It comes packed with practical device from some of the most prolific Entrepreneurs behavioral scientists in the world and it's the UK's fastest growing business podcast I definitely recommend you go check it out. You should listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts Want you to get nerdy because I want people to understand the possibilities and the potential because for a lot of people that have never Involved in real estate. This is very confusing to them. Mm-hmm. This is very confusing and it's took me months and months and months to learn Your story is is great your origin story is great And I don't want to just gloss over the fact that I'm worried that with too much education similar to what you experienced When you're first going to these gurus with too much education people start to look at it as one plus one always equals two So if I understand all these terms before I go to my first house I'm gonna for sure close the deal and I think that they miss a human component. I mean yeah, you're Yeah, you figured this out with your first house. I mean my my backgrounds and sales Sales is always human marketing is always human. Yes, people feel they can like hack the system by Overindexing on knowledge before they even start mm-hmm, and I don't feel like that ever works and to your point It didn't work for you for 14 but it doesn't matter how many contracts or systems or anything you know If you can't build a rapport with the person especially With one of the most emotionally charged and important transactions in many people's lives Selling your home by far. Yeah, you're not going to close the deal So I appreciate that but I still want to understand If somebody is good at the rapport building human component Then where do they go from there? Yeah, that's that's where I want to nerd out at some of this Yeah, and I think I love creative finance because once I understood I can bypass the banks And in some cases get the seller it's called seller participation get the seller to literally hand me their house no money down no interest rate 0% interest Payments that are affordable and I just like take those 33% this is where everybody needs to start Go to a mortgage calculator us mortgage calculator dot org. They're free right just go to google any mortgage calculator There's only three levers that we need to learn how to pull right if you think about how loans work you have down payment Like how much like first you have the amount right so it's like how much are we buying this for When when I'm negotiating with the seller the biggest sticking point is always price right And if you understand like if I'm trying to buy your house you want 500 grand for it And I want to pay 350 grand for it. You're gonna tell me no a lot of times But if I say I'll pay 500 grand You're right away. You're like okay. What with you're thinking let's do this And I'll pay 500 grand if you are willing To just be a little creative with me for a certain period of time. It doesn't have to be forever where Instead of me going to a bank and borrowing at 8% and in making it totally Unaffordable for me to pay you your price I'm willing to pay you full price if you give me good terms You be my bank You're the banker's always the smartest person in every transaction because they don't care About the real estate like once you sell or finance me a house if the toilet breaks It's not your problem. You're not a landlord You're the bank you have a note you have an income stream that we're creating And so if you own this real estate free and clear we have we're negotiating over price But the levers we're gonna pull are down payment Interest rate length of loan Those three things are really the terms we're gonna go back and forth on Because to you price is important and then maybe the next thing that's important is earning interest on your money If I'm gonna carry back the note I want to earn 3% 4% 5% Well, okay, just think about chess you make this move. I make this move you make this move I make this move and if I only have three levers to pull You we're already agreeing on price I now find out through conversations that you want to earn some interest because initially I'm gonna try to offer you something where it's principle only payments But then I hear you say something like no that ain't gonna work for me the last guy tried to do that to me I said no, I want at least 4% So right away. I know that's gonna be a sticking point I might be able to get you to three, but I probably won't be able to get you to zero Now I could get you to zero If I increase the price from 500,000 to 520 you might go I'll do that But let's just say you want 4% Well, then I'm gonna extend out the length of loan from 30 years to 40 years Or I might say okay, but then I'm gonna put 0% down And you said no, no, no, I want some money down and I say okay, well if you want money down Would you be willing to take principle only payments Would you be able to take if you want $10,000 down to show that I have Skin in the game. What if we put zero down initially and then in six months I put five grand down and then I the one year mark I pay the other five It's like a tiered or hey you want 4% interest great in year zero. I pay zero Year one I pay 1% year 2 2% 3% 4 and it's a tiered interest rate system up until year five where it flattens out at 4% What I'm trying to teach you guys is it's literally where you pull a lever? I pull a lever. It's we're negotiating back and forth on terms We start with free and clear real estate because it's the easiest to wrap your head around now Once I understand how to do that and structure a creative or a seller financial now I can come back and go all right Well, what if they have a mortgage on their property? How do I take over that really great? Existing. Yeah, why would I not want to try to convince the seller? To sell me the house with the loan in place People need to and there's probably a million questions going through people's head right now like well You can't just take over somebody's mortgage like are you assuming it? No, we're not assuming it We're not even asking the bank. This is called a subject to transaction where we're taken over the property Subject to the existing mortgage staying in place So if you already have a 3% mortgage and I buy a lot of houses this way by the way I'll show up and say I'll pay you the price you want no realtor fees So you're going to save money on realtor fees And I'm going to step in and I'm going to start making payments This works really good for people who bought in the last few years or refinanced in the last few years Maybe only put 3% down. I just did a house in Vegas like this Six bedroom five bath pool spa. I paid the lady 8 grand down That's it and she needed the 8 grand to move she wanted moving fees and I like she wanted to move But I just have a quick question because I one of the questions I want you to answer and you can answer it at any point Because you're on you're on a roll right now But what about peat this is this for a certain type of market because if you're saying That I can go into a free and clear or I can do a I can do this Strategy with the mortgage and I'm going to have a subject to and I'm going to take that over um The the biggest question that I think I can think of is why would this person do the deal with you Yeah, they need a 500k wire Yeah, well not everybody needs a 500k wire So a lot of people when they bought the house in the in the like the last Two years and they only put 3% down And then now the economy sucks and prices have come down in a lot of markets, right? They come down 15 20 percent There's price drops happening on the MLS every single day now It was never like that because of supply and demand now it's happening all the time So now I I don't have a lot of equity in my house And if I try to sell traditionally By the time I pay realtor fees closing costs market it for three months because the average days on market is now 60 to 90 days By the time I pay all that stuff I make zero dollars anyway Right So if I roll in and I say listen screw paying realtor fees. I'll pay you I'll take over and pay you full price for your house But and I'll take over your mortgage. I'll start making mortgage payments I'll put all my banking information in your Online mortgage system and it'll just pull payments right out If you don't trust me we can hire a third-party servicing company to like be an independent third-party that Watches me make the payments. I pay them. They pay the mortgage. They give you a receipt And now everybody in the transaction knows that we're all good Let me take over your mortgage maybe for five years or 10 years and then after that I'll refinance and cash you out But you got a great two three percent mortgage. Let me just start making payments on that I'll pay you eight grand cash for your moving expenses. You're out I then come in I fully furnish out the place. I fixed a couple little things and I turn it into an Airbnb Now this thing's making me nine grand a month. It's costing me three Because your mortgage is so good and I'm off to the races in three months. I make all my Initial out or maybe four months. I make all my initial capital outlay back And I got this great little Airbnb in Las Vegas. That's just print and cash six grand a month and pure cash flow I put it my portfolio forget it move on to the next one I now have this mortgage that maybe last 10 years where the lady's gonna leave her mortgage in place and at the 10 year mark I'm gonna refinance or sell the property or Pay it off do whatever I want to do with it And if for some reason I don't want the deal anymore. There's a little clause in my thing that says at any point in time I can hand it back to you There's there's so many levers that you can pull so when you go into these situations like You have the human component, but then there's all these different lovers of creative finance I love it. I mean, so I'm building out a private equity firm and we're doing very similar things with businesses Very obviously there's gonna be a ton of businesses. I know exactly. I'm very excited, but Very very similar but different. I mean a lot of seller financing a lot of creative financing options But you don't have the one thing that I miss about real estate is there's no tax advantages in business to the same extent The same degree there's not as much you can leverage LP money you can leverage other people's money, but still I feel like even there there are Lenders set up exclusively just for real estate because lenders feel like real estate is tangible more tangible than a business So it seems like it's easier to even raise money for an acquisition if you even want to raise money good deal The money flows towards great deals. I realize that yeah, it's wild actually how many people are like well You know if you have real estate come talk to me, but like not really interested in that acquisition So just just remember this one of the other lessons and things my mentor used to say is in real estate You'll never have a money problem. Yeah, you'll only have a creativity problem That's a that's a good that's a baller phrase That's some young stuff right there. Yeah, and when and really what he was saying is stop thinking that you need oh Don't wait to get started because you have to have all this cash. It's That I can't even tell you how many times I didn't have the resources. I didn't have the answers And it's made me tens of millions of dollars over the years by figuring out a creative way to structure a deal How many doors do you have now? I have about 50 luxury Airbnb's I have a 298 unit in Georgia That I'm a partner in I have an 81 unit in Arizona by ASU These are bigger ones Own lots a little single family rentals in like tertiary markets Like these are like creative finance deals like I used to take over a ton of Double-wide manufacturer trailers in Kingman, Arizona like these random little markets Where seller financing is common, right? It's like you can't qualify for a loan on a double-wide trailer on a two acre parcel But it's still great real estate that the the Manufactured house was in great shape and it still rents for 1300 bucks a month So it's like these these property and I got into it for 350 bucks a month So I'm making a thousand bucks in cash loan. I got dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of those floating around In a bunch of different states It is overwhelming though when you look at all the different options So somebody's like getting into the game into the real estate game There's so many different things you can invest in and you can work on and you can flip homes You can do single-family you can do multi-res and you can do section eight you do all this shit What do you say is like the the simplest purist form of just getting started wholesaling wholesaling what I did with that guy's Property you find a great deal because here's what I love about wholesaling it teaches you the business So like earlier you mentioned like You know learning the language of real estate. How important it is to do all these courses and all this stuff I do think it's important to Build the scaffolding in your brain to learn the language to start researching all this stuff There's nothing wrong with knowledge It's just you got to apply you got to really get out of the classroom and get into the real world as fast as possible You'll learn more through failing in deal-making and doorknock and all of that Yeah, I've done it all I've I've done it all but wholesaling what I love about it is you don't need you need very little resources So you could start with literally no fancy watch no office no Like no power suit like you don't need any of that shit. You need some contracts You need to know how to find a motivated seller and you need to report building skills Influence skills and if you can put that together and with a little bit of hustle go find one of those 15% of people that at any given time life hit some hard Or the properties of disaster and work out a deal to buy it at a discount If you can do that there are guys like me that have tons of cash that want those deals And I'll write a check and so you'll use my money to close the deal and you'll make that finders fee And so it can never have another I made my I made my first million dollars wholesaling. I didn't rehab. I didn't I didn't do anything I didn't own real estate until I wholesaled and mastered the wholesaling game and scaled that business The challenge with wholesaling is it's a job. It's a pain in the ass There's a lot of work involved It's stressful because until you actually build a pipeline like in sales. You got to build a really good pipeline it could be Flood drought flood drought flood drought and it's really hard if you have a family or if you're kind of doing this on the side as a side hustle If you don't have good systems and consistency in in your habits and in your lead gen It's like you might pop a deal make 10 grand and then not do a nail the deal for six months and you get defeated yeah But I will say this wholesaling is not real estate investing wholesaling is is like um Garage sales Find like a cheap item and you flip it for a little bit more is arbitrage it just arbitrage yeah until and I realized this when I made my first one point three million dollars. I'm on my tax bill And I spent one point three million dollars bawling out that year having a fucking blast and then I got a six hundred thousand dollar tax bill And I was like fuck How am I gonna pay this tax bill it was my first time making any significant money like I went from like sucking Yeah, it's at 14 months for nothing for 14 months and then went then 14 within one year of doing that first deal I mean 1.3 million dollars So once it clicked it was like here we go baby And I loved it because for me it was my full-time gig and I was I had already put in 14 months of building relationships and stuff with people So some of that started to close oh all those little seeds I planted along the way I didn't realize how beneficial they were gonna be once I actually started becoming a deal maker Now that I'm crushing deals I get this tax bill and I'm my mentor's like I told you from day one You're not a real estate investor You don't want to listen because you're this young gunner and your hard-headed and you think you know it all Go ahead and pay your tax bill off and I'm like I can't I don't have any money. I mean I might have had yeah 70 grand or 60 grand yeah, I didn't have 600 grand And he's like what are you gonna do and I'm like I'm gonna fucking double my wholesaling business That's what I'm gonna do like that was my plan out I was like I'm gonna just gonna make double the amount of money goes great You're gonna pay double the taxes next year then So you're just going backwards bro, and I'm like well, what do I do? And he goes you got to own the real estate because until you understand depreciation Until you get into commercial and multi-family until you learn what a cost segregation study is your fucked So go ahead and work your way out of this hole And being a hard-headed dumbass. I was like I could do this. I could double triple my business Took me four years to pay that 600 grand I didn't realize when you owe 600 grand to the government Not only do they send you letters yelling at you all the fucking time with giant red tape like a type at the top Threatening to take your house your cars put in jail There's a little line in there that says penalties and fees And it's like 20 grand every time 25 grand every fucking time they send you a letter So I was going backwards. I couldn't I could I did double my business and I did pay double the taxes It took me four years to get myself out of that hole. It was the most painful Greatest lesson as a young real estate investor because I quickly after that second year Trying to work my way out of it. I was like fuck this. I'm going because my plan was wholesale and now add in Bigger paydays renovations Because I'm selling wholesale deals to other guys. I make 10 they make 70 After they renovate the house and I'm like I could fucking do this. I could figure this out Which FYI every time you add a new strategy you're gonna have to restart It's like you're a baby draft trying to learn how to walk again Contractors now ripping me off They would do the wildest shit. They would I would I would meet somebody at like a rea meeting And they'd be like oh I'm the best contractor in town I work with investors just like you they would smell that I'm new right and they're like I got you Don't worry. I got great track record and I'd be like okay. Let's let's do a deal We go buy like $30,000 worth of materials next day. I'd get a phone call Cody bad news all the materials were stolen And I'm fucking like what like I don't have another 30 grand to like just buy more material like what are we doing He's like I don't know insurance claim or something So I don't know what's going on. I didn't realize This fucking asshole was taking stealing the materials returning them getting credits on Prepaid cards and all this other shit in hustling me But you don't know oh by the way dude wasn't even licensed You don't know till you're wise to it. He's got a fucking business car that says he's licensed But I was such a dumbass kid That I didn't go to the register of contractors website look him He used to be licensed. He lost his license. I wonder yeah. Yeah. Now he's scamming Green guys like me so then I you know you add in rehabbing and then eventually you're like smart enough And then you're like starting to own And once I got over to the ownership game and became a real real estate investor I started I kept doing running all my businesses because my real estate business turned into a real estate business Then an education company then a software company then a data company and then We started throwing masterminds and live events in when when was that shift 2010 but how many years after you had started wholesaling seven seven I got in in 2003 You were investing before you started doing all the other stuff. Oh for seven years. I I did I scaled the business You got to understand 2008 The market imploded and I was at ground zero Arizona's ground zero Florida and Arizona were the two markets that just got obliterated during the last crash And I was at the right place at the right time with the right business model And I'm looking around going holy shit I used to have to work so hard to find distressed real estate now it's everywhere Everybody was losing their house houses that cost $150,000 just six months earlier and now selling at auction for 20 grand And I'm like I have a money problem right I was making money about spending it still I had just started building a portfolio of rental properties. I was now rehabbing I I built a little crew and now the market falls apart. So I just figured out my life in the market they move the cheese But like Leo said I don't have a money problem. I have a creativity problem. We have a new problem Properties are selling at auction for pennies on the dollar and I need cash lots of it now And so I'm sitting there thinking to myself where the fuck am I going to get millions of dollars And I was reading the newspaper and it said Canadian dollar strongest in history against the US dollar And I'm like I'm going to Canada. I'm gonna figure this out a lot of Canadians bought So I know put out I took out an ad you're gonna love the story Sorry for hijacking your podcast here. You're good bro. You're good. I'm like a storyteller man I love this shit. No dude. I love that. I love to come up and I love that listen I just want people to like understand you're weaving the lessons into the story. So I'm cool with it. Yeah um I put out an ad in the Toronto son or some Toronto newspapers That said real estate investing seminar Grand Sheraton airport in or whatever it was uh Buy um Arizona properties for pennies on the dollar come learn how free I get about 30 people to show up I have no idea what I'm doing. I have never thrown a seminar I didn't have a plan other than I'm gonna run a seminar and I'm gonna see who shows up And I'm gonna convince these people that down in Arizona this magic is happening And that we need to go down there and buy real estate The challenges and I'll be their boots on the ground. I'll be their deal finder. I'll wholesale them the houses But I need somebody with cash About 30 people showed up by the and I stood up in front of all of them and I said guys Don't know really what I'm doing Hey, this is like this is my ammo right? I don't know what I'm doing But we're gonna become best friends because I'm gonna make you all very rich because these properties And I showed a couple deal examples of like houses. This one was Just sold for 160,000 went for 44,000 down at auction. This one did it and about Seven eight or nine people said I'm in What do I do? And I you know all of them had 500 grand 800 grand 300 grand And I said look, I'm gonna fly back to Arizona There's no paperwork at the auction. There's no rules like it's the fucking wild west I go down there and I need the way Arizona auctions work is when a house goes up for foreclosure They release the opening bid 24 hours ahead of time Then you have a certain amount of time to go drive these potential Investment opportunities to see if they're vacant or occupied what they look like are they burnt down are they intact? Are they gutted a lot of you got to go back in time a lot of people like Just gutted their houses and left the keys on the counter and left They were sitting vacant for years people stole all the copper all the AC units all the appliances all the cabinetry Sometimes you would walk in it'd be a shell But from the outside you couldn't tell so I had to get really creative like learning how to break into these houses and like see what I'm about to You had 24 out like at this point in time. Yeah, 24 hours Well, you have longer because you know they're coming because the way the foreclosure process works is if you stop making payments Normally about three payments four payments in they file what's called a notice a default That is the first public record that your house is in foreclosure from the date that's filed until the auction occurs is 91 days So I had 91 days knowing it would go to auction But 24 hours before they'd release the opening bid and now I knew kind of what I was dealing with So we could pre drive properties, but like I would take all the opening bids do quick Comps and things on my computer Find out of like the 60 70 80 100 houses going the next day. Here's 12 that I want to go drive right now And those are the ones we go do driver ports on And I would call I would tell the Canadians I'd say listen in order for me to even qualify to bid on a property I need a $10,000 cashier's check so all seven of you you're going to wire me $10,000 each On pure faith that I'm not going to steal your money There's no contracts. There's no paperwork and when I do win a bid there's no keys There's no title. There's nothing they literally say here's your receipt Congratulations, I have to go kick in the door bring out a locksmith and then maybe Three months later they they mail you a trustees deed Saying you're the owner And by the way that trustees deed was in my name They would have to trust me enough that I was going to screw them over Not screw them over that I was going to deed it over to them And so what I would do is I'd say guys there's seven of you in the game You're all going to wire me 10 g's And we're going to round robin. I'm going to start here and there's so many houses going I think I could buy two three a day So at least once a week one of you guys is buying a house And we're just going to go down the line and if you pass it'll move to the next guy move to the next guy But from the time we win the bid Until five o'clock the next day you have to wire me the remaining balance So if you've given me 10 in the property cost 40 you got to wire me another 30 before five o'clock the next day So there is no missing a wire cutoff because you will lose your 10 grand We have to make this work is this whole system like this was wild in 2008 And obviously you can still skim these records for for closures now and use that as part of your strategy But as a system just as why like if somebody's like hey, I want to do that But a lot has changed. I mean, yes, totally. Yeah, it's just there's not a lot of inventory coming through this No, but would you not set up in like 2023 would you not set up some sort of agreement that would guarantee You passing over the D to be invented. I mean, you could I just didn't but you just didn't nah nah I was like things are happening so wild dude like I mean, maybe maybe it's not a lot to these people maybe they're like listen I know the person they built the like if they're you know if you have a a name out there In the market. I didn't have shit Nowadays I mean to be different people know me they wire me 500 grand all the time. No go but like Back then it was just look. I'm looking you in the eyes. We're gonna go get rich together fly down anytime you want You could literally fly in to town the next day if you want and come touch your house that we're doing But um, I just I just look I've always played the long game. I just saw the bigger picture I'm gonna hustle one guy out of a house or some shit like that. It's like no So so I And they would all wire me Some days I would get a couple hundred grand in wires because I'd buy three houses down at auction and I would go do it and then my Cruise would go quickly do a renovation on it to get it into rental shape. I hired a property manager there to rent the properties out And then as soon as they were fully done and rented out and I got the trustees deed. I transfer everything over to them Walk away and I was make I my guarantee to them is I would make between five and ten grand per deal That was my fee for going down to the auction and bidding then if I did the renovation I'd make another flat five thousand dollar fee on top of the renovation cost for just managing the projects But we were doing 20 30 at a time 40 at a time So I was making I mean think about it. I'm buying three houses a day five grand each it's 15 grand a day Then another five grand each for the renovations every day of the week from 2008-9 to 2013 I thought that I mean tens of millions of dollars Just to close a nice little pretty loop a little bow put a little bow on this one I may be kept 25 houses in total from that entire period And over time when I needed money I would just offload them and sell them These Canadians because we bought hundreds and hundreds and hundreds maybe over a thousand houses They kept every single one There's not a Christmas that goes by I don't get Christmas cards from these guys because they're free They have insane cash flow now all those houses are paid off If they ever want any money they just refi the house pull out some Some put put a loan on it and With debt there's no tax event Of course, yeah, so now they have all this money and then their tenant just pays it back off pays back Have you ever thought back to the total total assets under management for that period? Dude such what it is right now. I mean, they're probably worth three to four times the amount that we were buying them for at least So yeah, I there's my biggest mistake And if you were to say what's the number one regret? I don't I wouldn't say I would go back in time and change it Because it was a great lesson But if I would it just figured out a way to raise debt instead of selling off all those houses And kept them all I would I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. You know, I give you like we're done dude I own I own 4,000 houses and I'm done. I'm out But you know, it's all good They love me though. I get these Christmas cards reminding me of my mistake I want to talk about the Kelly Rocho. I do not take my podcast recommendations lightly But I have truly admired Kelly's journey from the get-go she was a fresh employee at a fortune 500 received seven promotions in eight years All this while building a company that blossomed into an eight-figure empire today She's a best-selling author top-ranked podcaster the proud owner and co-owner of six thriving companies And let's not forget she's an ink 500 awardee proving that growth isn't just a goal. It is a lifestyle Now her podcast the Kelly Rocho dies deep into business growth strategies Specifically targeted for those hitting these six and seven figure mark, but it's not all business She also explores the habits mindset and disciplines of the world's most successful people It's a podcast. It's perfect whether you're just getting started or you're trying to uplevel your success game But here's a deal kicker for me She is a super mom and a wife she embodies the truth that you don't have to sacrifice your home life for success She believes and shows that life-changing wealth wild success a happy marriage and fulfilling home can coexist That is goal So tune in to the Kelly Rocho on Apple Spotify wherever get your podcasts trust me. It's time well invested That's amazing So as you grow out this empire, I mean obviously by this point massive success But you're also like an incredibly good marketer Yeah, and I recognize that and and you know, we're just shooting the ship before we even started rolling in and the the content you put out This the size of your personal brand you told me you did like 100 million directors direct response. I've done about a hundred million so far online Through online education. Yeah, that's absolutely insane So so what allows you to be because? Okay, you kill it at the real estate game. What makes you a great marketer? There's a lot of people kill it out real estate and our great marketers I think it's I mean, it's probably a little personality. You know, I'm I'm I'm goofy, but yet technical I'm very confident and aggressive yet I use Self-deprecation a lot In my style is to make fun of myself Which allows yeah, it connects there's a lot of rapport building there because I just don't take life too seriously like I and when you truly love like I love What real estate's done for me like I'm so passionate about it I feel like it's my obligation to tell people about it and when you really believe that Because it's been so life-changing to mean so life-changing or so many other people it started slowly like it just Some dude came up to me and was like how are you doing what you doing? Yeah, and at first I was kind of just talking real estate to everybody and then one guy offered me five grand or ten grand for a day And I was like you're gonna pay me $10,000 for a day of my time like I couldn't even believe it That's because we're never thinking big enough right? We're always just kind of thinking like well This is just what I do, you know, it's like I would talk to you for free But if you really want me to give you my systems give spend an entire day break it all down step by step Show like just hand you like the franchise like it's here's the model like good luck Ten grand okay, let's do it and then fast tracks 20 years of their life Yo dude dude it was game changer. I wish I had that and in Lyle didn't because he was older He didn't have those kind of things for me. He had old-school paper files and I had to like figure all that stuff the text stuff out But I was at the right place at the right time for the foreclosure meltdown. I was at the right place at the right time for the education boom Facebook was just getting going linked in was just getting going IG wasn't even in existence and so For me to take out a flip camera or a camcorder and record myself doing a deal Then take that and upload it online It was the new concept people weren't creating content back then For me to set up a camcorder and get on a whiteboard and map out how a sub two transaction works or a wrap around mortgage or how wholesaling really works and my What I'm really great at is taking a complicated concept and simplifying it into like really simple Terms and concepts that anybody goes I could do that And I'm a very approachable type of guy like now. I'm a little I'm like muscular Cody right cuz like I'm on this mission to like be ripped rich in rare I like that like good mission like I'm on this mission to like you're still a nice guy Well dude, I said this another podcast think of this one in ten American households are millionaires But only one in 25,000 Americans have a six pack I Want to be the dude that's rich with a six pack yeah, right and that's a fucked up stat because it's like so many people are unhealthy out there I didn't realize that dude how many people have you seen especially here in like Miami They're they're they're at the pool. They got the sweetest gold Rolex you've ever seen and they're obese Oh, yeah, and you're like dude All this money making all this well wealth that you've created and say that even Miami there's there's Miami is fitter than some places You go to some other cities early. Yeah, that is true. There's some good looking people here But just but you kind of look at it and you go I know my mom passed away last year from cancer and I would give every dollar I've ever made and own Away For her to be back and have more time And not even really for me, but for my dad We would trade it all for better health, but yet we treat our health like it's a secondary thought and so As I've gotten older you start to value things differently. It's like I'm not I'm not really I don't care about the money I really never did but I do care about being here for a long time so I can make more impact Setting a better standard for my kids, you know people are watching And we're over here, you know Wondering why I just read an article that in the next 12 years 50 Percent 51% it was Something like that half of every human on earth will be considered obese That's super sad That's a that's a fucked up staff. I don't get why rich people smoke. Oh, did I see him vaping all the time? And I'm like what are you doing? I mean that blows my mind because I know people that are rich Now and got rich and all they want to do is get fit Very similar to you. All they want to do is get fixed. They want to live a long time Well, it's just it's I want a great relationship. God. I want to be a great friend I want to set a standard because I believe it's your obligation to be successful in all areas Not just one not just making money Yeah, you know, and it takes a tremendous amount of work and dedication to be healthy to have a good relationship with your significant Have a conversation in a relationship with God. It's like building a muscle you got to do it every day It's back to basics mastering the mundane Half the time when I talk to God I don't hear anything I never hear anything back Right there's like it's like one way conversation But I'm repetitively doing it because I I want to attack that aspect of my life just like I attack business In over time as they build that muscle Things I start to pay attention. I'm like, you know, maybe I'm not hearing you But things are happening and I'm now more aware that the you're moving pieces around for me And I and I and now I'm starting to have faith Now I'm starting to believe a little bit more now it's starting to work Now I'm going to church more now I'm going now I'm reading the Bible more not to get religious Because I don't even like organized religion at all. I just realized last year going through divorce Having my mom pass away That my intimacy circles were all fucked up. Yeah, like I was way out of whack Wondering why I'm not being a great friend why my marriage is falling apart Wondering, you know, reflecting on like what does it mean to be a super dad? You know like how to how to really connecting the people who feel like you over indexed on on money for two not even mind Yeah, dude business dude if you want to get real and wrong and the last part of this podcast And this is probably the most important thing I can even talk about today. I agree. Yeah. Yeah Look entrepreneurs Typically the ones that last that make that don't quit That will go 14 fucking months with no deal flow and everybody doubting you and being sidelined and bullied and pushed around and Taking advantage of and sued by partners and stolen from by people that work for you and that's all the bullshit that happens We're a little sick where we have Trauma from our childhood that we translate into achievement It's a superpower and it's the number one thing that'll hold you back from getting to the next level It'll get you going But you you'll never level up to the real true potential If you don't step back at some point and go This pain that I carry around that I compartmentalize in berry That allows me to be a great entrepreneur that allows me to attack this thing and and be under extreme pressure But still keep moving That thing I need to learn how to go deeper because with relationships And Some men do this all fucked up some men Hide their pain in drugs and alcohol and addiction Some people do it with porn and sex and drug and those kind of things and some use it towards achievement And even if they have achievements, there's some it's all of it. Yeah. That's why I was going to get at There's nothing more dangerous than an in a rich bored entrepreneur Rightly we can get ourselves into some fucked up situations and so for me It's like okay here. Here I am I made it 14 years in my marriage. I'm now bored. I don't want to be in the marriage anymore I don't have a good relationship with my son. I don't know why I can't connect I don't know why I'm and at the time I wasn't really doing this is you know four years ago I don't know why I'm not Healthy the way I should be I have I'm an atheist. I have zero relationship with God like I that's not even a thought I'm kind of like this is stupid. What's the point? Um, and I can't figure out why I can't get to the next level I've achieved all this success. I'm building this personal brand, but yet I feel like I'm saying one thing but doing another Right? It's like it's easy to get on IG and be like let's dominate. Let's crush Yeah, but then you shut it off and yeah, and then I justify oh well I'm not happy in my marriage. So therefore I'm gonna act like an idiot or I you know I'm gonna open up because I got millions of social media followers. I'm gonna start engaging with other women on DM It's like all that shit is just pain translating into bad behaviors bad habits and until my mom died in my marriage fell apart when I finally hit rock bottom and I said you know what? I've been doing things a certain way for many years and it's gotten me to where I am but I need help. I need to go back to basics and I need to really figure out why I'm acting out the way I'm acting out. I cheated on my wife You know, I'm not a great dad. I have no relationship with God. Let's step back and let's restart And it takes my mom dying in my arms From cancer for me to finally hit that rock bottom place where I'm just a disaster my dad's a disaster my marriages Disaster and I'm just defeated where I'm just like, you know what? I'm gonna check myself in For as long as it takes into some form of a men's retreat that really addresses a lot of the shit You know, we all we all carry around a story for me My mom being a bisexual uh being bisexual my dad and my mom almost divorcing four or five times separating a bunch of times my dad getting fired every two years and moving around a ton and My three uncles all being addicted to heroin one going to prison for being a pedophile for the rest of his life died in prison The other one laundered money for the Russian mafia in Atlanta my other uncle is a professional con artist These are all on my mom's side of the family There's a lot of ancestral trauma on my mom's side of the family they grew up in the Appalachian Mountains very poor trailer park trash That kind of shit My dad's dad died when he was 13 years old. He's Jewish His mom is not Jewish his dad was full Jewish the whole Jewish side of the family disconnected from us Instantaneously wanted nothing to do with us. So we we were surviving living in little tiny trailer parks little rentals My grandparents were pentacostle crazy tongues speaking snake handling fucking nut jobs recovering alcoholics abusive their whole lives Uneducated never even graduated a high school grade school none of that shit just dropouts and You look around and you wonder why you're driving down the street and somebody cuts you off And you lose your fucking mind in traffic and all of a sudden you become a psychopath racist and you're screaming at your steering wheel and you're like Whole day is ruined, but you don't know where the hell that you don't know where it came from yeah The poor lady at the restaurant who makes minimum wage plus some tips brings you a burger instead of your chicken meal And you light her up in front everybody You get a flat tire and you're screaming at your family Stay in the fucking car You know, it's like what the fuck is a matter with you? Why are you acting out? It's because I was unhappy internally. I had this pain. I didn't know I had it if you would have asked me How was your childhood? I would say it was it's cool. Everything's fine. I didn't know we were broke I didn't know I was unhappy I never even thought about these things because I compartmentalized and buried them like a fucking pro It's kind of like Dexter. Yeah, I can have a dark pat I dark passenger and then the next hour it never happened So I can go cheat and then come home. How's your day? Fucking great amazing meetings Da da da and it's like here I am a millions of followers I'm a dad to two kids and I'm setting the worst fucking standard because I'm not an alignment And I knew I wasn't an alignment for years. I wasn't an alignment Now I only cheated with one girl But I shouldn't have done it and that catalyst with my mom dying All of this just came together. I hit this rock bottom place And I checked myself into psychological counseling services in Scottsdale, Arizona paid him 10 grand And I did one years worth of therapy in one week. I shut off social I shut my businesses off. I own seven eight companies that are all doing over 10 million dollars a year and uh, it was just like I had to I had because I learned something First thing they teach you is you cannot give what you do not have And I didn't have unconditional love for myself So how can I have unconditional love for my wife? How can I have unconditional love for my kids? I saw in Hudson who's identical to me The things I hate most in myself So here we are me and my son who's now almost about turn 14. We're budding heads Because he's just like me. He's hyperactive uncontrollable He wants to run gain. He wants to control thing And I want to do it too and am I in my work life? I control everything and I come home to chaos I come home to a wife that I forced into her masculine Because I was checked out and focused on my businesses I wasn't given her what she needed so she went masculine on me You don't want to you don't want to fuck a girl who's masculine all the time Who is giving you to do checklist every time she sees you? It's like Fuck I fucking do this all day long. I go to war every day When I come home. I want soft. I want caretaking. I want you to baby me like I want to be like a little baby at home Like I don't want to have to a checklist and so we were two best friends Going one degree in two different directions And all of a sudden four years ten years goes by and you look across this canyon and you're like Hi over there. I don't know how to get back to you But we did life well because we were best friends And we lost the intimacy connection and this is why I said earlier you got to have your intimacy circles In right alignment in therapy. I did EMDR horse therapy acting therapy group therapy individual therapy We went so fucking deep. I had open heart surgery on my inner child and It was like 10,000 pounds came off me I all of a sudden I realized What I the work I needed to do and over the next year I went to work And I kept doing the things that I should have always been doing setting the standard I always should have been setting now my relationship with my soon-to-be ex-wife is phenomenal We're super connected super in alignment My stuff but you're still divorced. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, we're Look, I broke the contract She has a standard in morals and integrity and I I didn't I broke it In that relationship needs to die. I don't know what the future holds But as of right now she's dating somebody else. I'm dating somebody else. We're great. We're great co-parents better Than we have been in years. I'm a better dad than I've ever been I know everything about my kids. I know who their friends are their fears are I know what they're doing when they're doing it. We're texting and talking all the time I'm so connected with them I couldn't be more in love with my kids and happier with the relationship that we're We we're forming and have and especially with Hudson We were always cool, but now we're really cool um You know it started off with me secretly going to church to sit in the back Listening and listen crying and praying Building that prayer muscle Building that connection and over the last year. I'm starting to be more connected. Have more faith be more grateful Joining Christian men's groups just not because I want to be some Bible thumping Dude, it's because I just want to be around people that have faith And I'm open to a lot But I want to make sure that God My creator is in the bullseye of the intimacy circle Because it's like a dartboard dartboard. Yeah The bullseye is you and God then it's you and your significant other then it's your kids then it's your your Your extended family and your best friends then it's your co-workers then it's everybody else I had it all fucking mixed up Depending on what I was doing at the moment before this that you think therapy was bullshit I thought it was stupid like I didn't I didn't know if I thought it was bullshit But like sitting around talking to somebody once a week or once every two weeks and just like okay So catch me up. How are things going? I think is is whack This type of therapy is different EMDR is designed to take traumatic events because your subconscious Holds yeah, you're paying right and then this is the reaction. You don't know why you're doing it But it's because in subconsciously you programmed yourself a certain way MDR they do it with light. It's rapid eye movement therapy They do it light and they do it with buzzers in your hands I did it with buzzers in my hands and it buzzes in your left hand and buzzes in your right hand and back and forth and back for it And it tricks your brain to to engage both sides of your brain and as that's happening if they're a really good trained therapist they use They use these motivational interviewing questions to bring you to a point in time that's really painful so like maybe My mom is in my arms. It's the last few hours of her life She's wheezing and moaning and and writhing in pain my dad's in the corner crying I'm crying. I'm losing my shit the pain is unbearable If I even think that thought it would be like a eight or nine or ten out of ten I instantly go emotional. I can't fucking control it You do a therapy session where they use NLP to reprogram The way you think about that event Could be a death it could be a car accident it could be something tragic whatever You do three four of those sessions over three four hours it drops it from a ten to a two to a one to a zero Now I can talk about my mom. I don't I'm not crying. I'm not losing myself. That's because I did the work Now I now I understand the the lesson in the blessing in the event Because I'm in alignment with my purpose With my family with my my core values I'm a different human. I operate different When I used to walk into a room the environment Sometimes would change me Now I walk into a room and I'm the fucking weatherman I Change the weather I walk in and I set the standard I set the tone remember where I go and everybody knows it I don't have to say it. I don't have to walk around like I'm the fucking man They just go that guy's vibrating at a different frequency and it's because I am Not because I want to level up. I don't even care about the next level I want to set a standard for my family for my friends every day. I wake up. I'm I'm texting five friends How much I love them and how grateful I am you know When you operate in alignment Every door starts opening all the opportunities and potential start happening for you And then you go This is this is what it means to have faith. This is what it means to to have a relationship with God Things just start happening for you Do you think that The personality the entrepreneur the person like you said before that's a little bit off It's not how to 100% based in reality to build something exceptional because you have to put so much into it Do you think that this is something that an early entrepreneur has to think about Right now even if they don't feel they need it you feel like this will be the end result for everyone I would I would look I I know a lot of people I've been blessed enough to throw some of the biggest events in in the country in the real estate space I've had every major speaker from Andy forcella to add my lead to Robert Kia's all the big dogs have been on my stages and being an influencer or a speaker I speak on a lot of other people stages. I run masterminds and I get to know these guys I know who's real on stage and behind the stage like who's the same dude. Yeah I also know which guys go off to the strip clubs and fucking party and cheat and do all that other shit I Would say You want to be powerful get an alignment Go deeper be willing to put in the work you can still be great in achieve a lot But do it in a more positive way than just using this pain to hide an achievement But you're overweight your obese your family life sucks and you have no relationship with God I would encourage them to go earlier because I wish I would have Yeah, you know, you know who knows how that would have turned out for me but That's powerful. However it happens for you though. It's it's it's it's a good thing You know as long as you even if in the moment feels traumatic and stressful and Like life's falling apart. I mean like some guys need some guys need slapped some guys need punched Guys like meaning ran the fuck over And once I get ran over and I'm just like at rock bottom's basement. Yeah, then I'm willing to change Maybe somebody listening to this that's doing what I call yellow light behavior They're now engaging in DMs with other women they're Maybe they they've already cheated one time or they're gambling a lot more than they should or they're they're you know They're they're justifying smoking a little bit more weed or doing those drugs because they just need that fucking release Whatever that unhealthy behavior is If you're right there and about to do it my hope is that when you hear this You pause just long enough to say I really need to get I if I want to really level up. I need to get back in alignment I it's not too late You can stop this even if you've already done it if I would have went Immediately after I did it and went said this fucking happened. I'm unhappy. I did these things We need to we need to go address this right now it would have saved me four years of hiding lying covering it up Being out of alignment holding me back You You can achieve a lot in four years when you're in alignment You can also fucking derail four great years of your life being out of alignment Now Hudson's 14 it happened when he was 10 I can have a great relationship since he was 10 but I waited Because I was too much of a pussy to fucking go deep and address it and I just covered it up with more achievement More acting out more justification. We all do it and and I up until my mom died and I went through all this therapy. I don't think I cried for at least 10 years at least Not once. I couldn't even get myself to cry. I was so I had so little empathy and just enough narcissistic tendencies and just enough compartmentalization of my pain that I couldn't cry because I wasn't connected Now I hear mute I hear a song and I'm like crying in the car and it's like I just kind of embrace it. I'm just like, hey man. This feels good. I'm gonna go for it I don't care who sees what it feels you know the way I feel about it is just so much better And I get done with my little cry and and the rest of that day I absolutely murder it So yeah, go for it um before we close this out What are some last I mean, I love that we went there I really am happy that we went to thank you. I appreciate that man Because I think these conversations are the ones that other people have to hear And like you said you see the people on stage but not a lot of people see the the guys off stage Not a lot of people see the struggles. They just see the end result, right? They see a divorce in the paper or the entrepreneur that has the third wife or whatever it is But they don't know how people deal with it So yeah, no I it's it's probably the most important thing that we could ever talk about make him money's great uh, yeah Being great is way better What are what are last words of wisdom that you want to leave a young entrepreneur building anything could be in real So could be building anything what's what's the one thing that you wish somebody would have told you you're just starting out Man trust your intuition. It tells you a lot, you know, you're you're your your body is telling you the truth You can lie to a lot of people You can lie to your family your friends people on social, but when you look in the mirror you can't lie to yourself You know the truth you know what you need You know if it's the right decision for you It's hard to have that kind of confidence when you're young Oh, yeah, the biggest mistake people make is they allow other people to steer their ship and derail them from their potential I would say uh You know you might not have clarity on exactly the path right now But you do have a feeling in your gut of what what you should be working on and what you should be doing So have the enough strength to tell everybody else. No You know and and and and that's what I meant earlier like Yes, get you out of Egypt But no does take you to the promised land learn to say no to people that don't serve you Learn to say no to that second cousin that you don't even have a relationship with that want you to go to some Wedding on the other side of the country and you're gonna blow your last $3,000 on to You know be nice. Yeah. No, just say no. Hey, this isn't In alignment with what I'm trying to do right now and people will forgive you now I'm telling you right now all the haters all the negative stuff Every person that doubted me Or tried to get me to go in a different direction When you become successful and you push through that noise and however long that takes You will it will normalize and you will set a standard for them Because hate really is only two things they're either saying um I'm trying to protect you So my fear is you're gonna get hurt right loved ones do this. Oh, don't do that You're gonna and they're just talking you out of it because they're they're trying to they're trying to show love But they're just doing it in a really negative way um Or your enthusiasm and intention is reminding them of their own shortcomings And when they're reminded of their own shortcomings jealousy and hate comes out So it's only those two things they're that everything else It falls into one of those two categories and so If you stay the course and you eventually become six Successful because it is your obligation and you treat it as such. It's not a destination. It's an obligation If you just operate this is my software download. I operate as a successful human being every day I'd go work out. I eat healthy. I work hard. I set great standards. I love my friends. I Enormalizes and all of those people one of three things will happen They either come back to you eventually and ask you for advice. They'll ask you for a job or they'll ask to borrow money And it happens to all of us And you know you did the right thing when those things start happening and my last piece of advice is show those people grace Because it is also your obligation to help them up And this is why I do what I do when I teach and I run these masterminds and I throw these events because We don't know any better. It takes a while. Sometimes you got to hear it seven eight ten times and we're negative nancies until nine time And then all of a sudden we get on board and then we're like fuck I was in my own way I should have done this a lot sooner But eventually if you're just consistent enough people do get on board and when they do it's life changing for them It's life changing for you. So trust yourself. You got this. Okay. Um, where are people going to find you? My favorite thing I got going on right now is my podcast the clever investor show Super excited. I'm just on episode 18 19 right now like we're just gunning you the badass names don't don't I got some big name Yeah, no, I'm super excited about I'm having a ton of fun great interviews so Podcast the clever investor show at clever investor on all social platforms and If you want any free resources just go to www dot r e i success kit dot com It's a free kit. It's about a thousand dollars in value. You customize it for yourself And it gives you like all the stuff we talked about creative real estate raising money whole sailing There's you know all kinds of downloads and videos and stuff I try to give people a ton of free value So that way they can get a taste and see if it's for them and then obviously I want them to buy all my shit Because I would love to work with them But either way just my youtube channel has a ton of free. Yeah, I know it's a good channel I was watching some of the videos you put out a lot. I try. Yeah, you put out a lot of shit. Okay. What No, thank you for having me on man. This has been a great conversation last question. I ask everyone I start with the same question and with the same question. What is success mean to you man success is The way you feel about life I think like I said, it's a standard. Yeah, it's just my operating software and if It's not a level or a destination or an amount of money. It's an Impact that you make on the people that watch you and are around you and if you are Setting that standard and you're impacting the people that matter the most and you're successful in my eyes And if you feel good about it, that's great because you only got this one one shot You know somebody dies in your arms you realize that real quick I got to make every second of every day count and I hope people have more success in their lives and more areas than just wealth Because you can you can have it all and you can feel that you have it all I the last year of my life has been the greatest year of my life so far From a feeling standpoint because I'm doing the things that are the right things now and The impact I'm feeling the impact the love is unconditional And that's there's a different because conditional love is different than unconditional love and and yeah If I can help them on their success journey. Thank you, man. I appreciate you a lot. That was awesome. There you go