Investing in the Only True Recession-Proof Asset: Yourself! with Lewis Howes

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 405.

Lewis:
I said, “I only know sports, so I need to make my life like it is a sport.” What does all great athletes have? They have great coaches. They have great teams, and they are able to set goals. If I can figure out how to do that in the next phase, then I think hopefully I’ll be alright.

Intro:
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Brandon:
What is going on, everyone? It’s Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets podcast, the weekend edition, here with David Greene. What’s up, David? Welcome back to the show. How you doing, man?

David:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was a blast. I’m feeling really good. I think our audience is going to feel really good too. I’m doing great. Thanks for asking, Brandon. It’s very nice.

Brandon:
Well, good. Well, good. We just got finished recording with Mr. Lewis Howes. Lewis is a super successful, legit podcaster, entrepreneur, business owner than a lot of really, really great things. I mean, he’s actually a professional football player, all American in two sports in college, USA men’s national handball team athlete. He’s got a show called The School of Greatness. I think he has over 250 million downloads on that with 1000 episodes. He’s been on The Ellen Show, Today’s Show, and a lot of other major shows, really legit, successful guy.
We are really excited to be able to interview him today and bring him to you guys. With that said, let’s get right into things with today’s quick tip.

David:
Quick tip.

Brandon:
One thing that Lewis talks about today you’ll hear is social media, a little bit about social media and building a personal brand. Now, for real estate investors or for anybody, this is so vital, because people will check you out on social media. The quick tip is very simple. Go to all your social media platforms, whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, TikTok, and ask yourself like, “Am I portraying the person that I want the world to see, that I want the world to see?” I mean, “Do I look professional enough? Am I putting out my goals there? Am I showing that I’m able to help others? Is what I’m portraying line up with my mission?”
That’ll make more sense later as we get into today’s show. That’s your quick tip today. Just take five minutes to look at all your social channels and make sure that it’s the way you want it to look, and if not, make some changes. Anything you want to add on that, David?

David:
Our guest talks a lot about things that we’re afraid of dictating the decisions that we make in life. He gives some amazing advice for purposely facing the thing you’re afraid of. I would just add on to the quick tip, there may be things that we put about ourselves, portray ourselves on social media that are directly related to our fears. “I don’t think I’m successful enough. I want to look more successful than I am.” Ask yourself if social media is something that you’re using to fuel your fears as opposed to fuel your goals, and make those corrections. You won’t regret it.

Brandon:
Very good. Very awesome. Now, it’s time to get to this interview. Like I said, Lewis Howes is somebody that I look up to a lot online. He talks a lot about how to build relationships, how to reach out, including a formula for getting someone to respond to you on social media. He talks about the three words that you should be using for any kind of upgrade, whether you’re at a restaurant or a hotel or an airline, how to do that. We’ll talk about creating a one life… or sorry, a one-sentence mission statement for your business and for your life.
We talk a lot about insecurities and how to overcome them, and how to even use them and harness them for greater success in life and so much more. There’s just so much gold in this episode. You guys are going to love it, so grab a pen and paper, take some notes, and let’s get into this thing.
All right, Mr. Lewis Howes, welcome to the show, man. It’s good to have you here.

Lewis:
Thanks, bro. Appreciate it.

Brandon:
You’re somebody I’ve been watching for years grow your brand, your business, your podcast. Really been impressive what you’ve been doing, but today, I want to introduce you to our audience. Our audience might… They’re not as much in the necessarily internet marketing or entrepreneurship space or even in a business or personal development. There are a lot of real estate investors. For those who don’t know you, I want to introduce you because you’re admirable guy. Can you walk us through, I mean, a little bit of your early story, man? What’s your background, and how did you get into this world of, I guess, this life?

Lewis:
60-second point of view, I grew up in a small town in Ohio called Delaware, Ohio, about an hour from Columbus, and had a big dream to be an athlete, be a pro athlete, was a two sport all-American in college, then went on to play arena football making $250 a week, got injured as I was trying to make my way up to the NFL. That was the ranks coming up there. I realized that it was the greatest feeling of my life that year and a half playing football, even if I was only making 250 bucks because it was like, “I’m doing something I love. I’m catching a football. I’m playing a sport that I’ve always dreamed to play, and I’m making money.”
I would have done it for free, but it was nice to make 250 bucks. I wish I was making more because I didn’t have any savings after I got injured, and so I ended up moving in with my sister for a year and a half in Columbus, Ohio, living on her couch, trying to figure out at 24, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Now that my identity is over, what can I do to make money?” I never thought I would be an entrepreneur. I had zero skills or talents of selling anything. I never had a lemonade stand or sold baseball cards, or I had no hustles in school growing up.
I just wanted to be an athlete, and so when that identity was over, I was truly like, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I have no transferable skills.” I didn’t graduate yet from college, so I still had some credits that was shy. I was like, “Who’s going to hire me?” This was in 2007, ’08 and ’09 during the last economic downturn. I was like, “Who would hire a college dropout who made 250 bucks a week playing arena football? No one.” They weren’t hiring people with business degrees or masters, let alone people that didn’t graduate college in 2008.
I said to myself, “What can I do where I understand how to live life in the next phase?” I said, “I only know sports, so I need to make my life like it is a sport.” What does all great athletes have? They have great coaches. They have great teams, and they are able to set goals. If I can figure out how to do that in the next phase, then I think hopefully I’ll be alright. I started reaching out to mentors really quickly. They started giving me advice. One of them said, “Why don’t you check out LinkedIn?” Another one said, “You need to overcome your fear of public speaking if you want to communicate and do well in business or at a job.”
Those two mentors really guided me. I started taking public speaking class every week at Toastmasters for the next year to overcome that fear. I started building my network and relationships on LinkedIn for about six hours a day during that year and a half with my sister. I just said, “I’m going to learn. I’m going to find other great people, see what they’ve done well, and start taking action on my goals.” Started doing the online marketing stuff, because I had a laptop in my sister’s place, and I got into marketing quickly.
I just started studying every book and interview and blog, and started creating things, built online marketing courses, sold that company, made some money in a couple years, and then I said, “Okay, what do I want to do? I really want to sit down and interview people, the world’s greatest athletes, minds, business leaders and tell their stories.” That’s what my last seven and a half years has been with the School of Greatness.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. I mean, you got a phenomenal show, and you talk to a lot of really, really high level people, really top performers. Do you find certain, and this is a broad question, but certain threads that tie a lot of the top performers together? Are there things that you’re like, “Well, of course, you’re successful. I see this with almost everybody I talk to?”

Lewis:
Yeah, vision, they’re unwavering in their vision of what they want. The Olympic gold medalists don’t just say, “I think I want to win a gold medal in the Olympics.” They are so clear at a young age, and then they dedicate their life to that vision. If you look at Musk or even Trump, no one’s just like, “Oh, I think I want to do this. I think I want to start a car company. I think I want to be the president, or I think I want to build a real estate empire.” It’s like you guys are very clear on your real estate vision, and you went all in on it.
You obsessed about it until you mastered it. Number one, they’re very clear in their vision. Number two, they all have some adversity that they need to face at some point, and usually multiple times. All the greats learn to master their adversity. They don’t shy back and fall backwards. They actually say, “Okay, how am I going to become this adversity, and essentially learn to use it as one of my skill sets as opposed to something that holds me back?” They turn their adversity into their advantage.
The third thing I would say is they all have, eventually, a sense of service, something you want to do to give back. I think the ones that transcend success and turn into greatness don’t make it about them. They make it about other people, because success is all about us, what we accomplished, but greatness is all about what we can give to others or the world.

David:
I know you mentioned during that awesome story there that you were staying at your sister’s place. For the guests that aren’t familiar with your story, can you share a little bit about what was going on in your life when you were at your sister’s house, and maybe how that period of time helped you develop the three things that you just mentioned right there?

Lewis:
What was going on was a sense of depression, loneliness, insecurity, poorness. I mean, I was just eating off my sister every day. I didn’t have any money. I was essentially begging people for food many times. I remember going to a Toastmasters class once, and they had bread and cheese in the back. I don’t know if you guys know what Toastmasters is, but it’s a public speaking class. They had bread and cheese and crackers in the back. I was literally… This is when I had a cast on.
I had a full arm cast from my shoulder to my fingers in this position, like Rookie of the Year, but after I took the cast off six months later, I didn’t have superhuman strength like that kid did in that movie. I was in this position for six months holding my arm up.

Brandon:
That was my favorite movie when I was a kid, by the way, Rookie of the Year.

Lewis:
That’s great.

Brandon:
I loved that movie.

Lewis:
It was really frustrating to be in this position when you can’t straighten your arm. You can’t turn your hand. You can’t do anything, and so I went into this Toastmasters class. They had food in the back. I literally was stuffing my pockets with food, putting in napkins, stuffing it. This man who gave a speech there saw me doing this. He said, “What are you doing?” I go, “I’m really hungry.” I’m just like, “I used to be a football player. I’m starving. I don’t have any money.” He said, “Let me go buy you lunch.” He bought me lunch.
I just started saying… He’s like, “Why are you here?” He could see I was down and out. This is like… I couldn’t even wear a normal shirt at this time, because my shirts won’t go over the cast. It was so big, so I had cut off wife beater. I just really looked out of place. Everyone in this Toastmasters had suits on. They were all professionals, and I was this 24-year-old bumb. He said, “Why are you here?” I said, “I’m trying to figure out the next stage of my life, and I need some great coaching. I need to overcome my fears. I just feel like I have no sense of direction.”
He ended up becoming another mentor, and we ended up writing a book together. My first book, I wrote a year and a half later, which was about LinkedIn, because I was spending all my time on LinkedIn. I was helping him how to use it and how to meet people for his business. He was like, “You need to write a book about this.” I was like, “I have no clue how to write a book. I almost flunked out of English in high school.” He said, “Well, I’ve written four books, so why don’t we write it together? I’ll guide you, and I’ll tell you what you need to write.”
“I’ll work on it. I’ll get it printed. I’ll do all that stuff, but you just write the content you know,” because I really built a brand around being a LinkedIn expert, because that’s all I did. I just obsessed over learning how to use LinkedIn. Like you guys obsessed over how to buy and flip duplexes, I was like, “LinkedIn is going to be my thing,” because I have a laptop on my sister’s couch. I feel like this could be an opportunity to build relationships, maybe find a job, or something with my life. I just went all in on that one thing, and started becoming the expert around it, and started branding myself as the LinkedIn guy.
Everyone at that time was talking about how to use social media back in 2008, 2009. No one was talking about one platform the way that I was talking about LinkedIn. I was saying, “Screw all social media. Just focus on this, and here’s the results you can get,” because I was not branding myself as a social media expert, I was branding myself as the LinkedIn guy, opportunities started to flood in from that branding strategy. I leveraged that. Once I broke through in one category, then I was able to break through in other categories, and use those relationships for the next phase of my life.
I really spent a year and a half on my sister’s couch learning, researching, testing things, reaching out to mentors, and just constantly seeing how can I develop new skills that maybe will be transferable someday. I didn’t know because at that point, I still wasn’t really making any money. I was just trying to figure out who am I? What do I want to do, and who can help me?

Brandon:
I love that you say that idea of you went all in on this thing. Rather than just say, “I’m a social media guy,” it’s like, “I’m going to be particular on this.” Now, I was listening to the interview you did with Jay Shetty. That’s his name, right, Jay?

Lewis:
Yep.

Brandon:
You did an interview with him on his show, On Purpose. [inaudible 00:13:36]. I’m not sure if I’m getting it right. Give him a shout out. I was listening to it this morning while I was out for a walk, and you mentioned a lot of people. I wrote down this point, because I thought it was so good. A lot of people just go way too wide way too fast. You were talking about the importance of just really focusing in on something first. Can you talk about how that applies, why that’s so important?

Lewis:
Imagine there’s a wall in front of us. You’re in a house, and you’re trying to tear down the wall, but you want to try to do everything. You hit the wall in every different point, and you never break through the wall. You’re punching it. You can’t break through the wall because you’re hitting it in all different points all over the wall. You’re putting your energy spread out everywhere, as opposed to, “I’m going to go in one direction, one focused area, and I’m going to keep punching until I break through this wall and this certain place.”
Once we break through the wall, we get out to the other side of the wall. Now, we can open up a broader net. Now, we’ve expanded our awareness, our capabilities, our skill sets. From the other side, we can then start going wider. Most people start wide. Maybe in real estate like, “I’m going to do duplexes. Then I’m going to buy 10 apartments. Then I’m going to buy four homes in this development, and then I’m going to all over the country,” as opposed to, “Let me just focus on apartments in Delaware, Ohio, and just start with 10 there and figure that out, and become the best at that one thing.”
As opposed to, “Well, I’m going to build this, and I’m going to do commercial real estate and this.” No, wait until you focus on the one thing. Master it. Then with that skill set, that experience, that expertise, then, “Okay, I’m going to try these other types of real estate investments.” I’m not sure if that’s what you guys would say.

Brandon:
That’s exactly. I think we need to relisten to that last 30 seconds to a minute over and-

Lewis:
It’s because I think you’re going to, “Okay, I’m going to be the expert in Twitter or Facebook and YouTube.” We don’t have that much time and energy to go all in on everything when we start out. When we build resources, when we build a team, then we can spread it and go wider and diversify, but I’m always telling people to go all in on the thing that you’re most talented or most excited about in the beginning. Don’t stop. A lot of people… This is a great example, Jay Shetty, since you mentioned him. I met Jay three years ago when he had 200,000 followers on his whole social media platform.
No one really knew who he was at the time. We met literally three years ago like this week, essentially. We spent a whole day together in New York City. After about a year, he really blew up. Over the next year, he went from 200,000 around this time of the year to in January, he had two million followers a few months later. Then at the end of that year, so 2018, he had 20 million followers. Started 2019, he had 20 million followers, and he’s grown to 37 million now. In 2018, he was like, “Oh, man, everything’s growing. I want to launch a podcast. I want to do a book. I want to do events here. I want to do all these other things now.”
I said, “Listen, man.” This was when he had two million followers. I said, “Listen, this thing is blowing up faster than I’ve ever seen. Screw the podcast. Screw the book until you reach 10 million followers, until you reach 20 million. Go all in on this viral video creation thing.” He was doing one a week at the time. I said, “You should be doing three a week until it stops growing. Go all in because it’s working right now until it stops. Then when you see it taper off, okay, now’s the time to transfer that into the book, into the podcast, into a coaching program,” which he did in the last year.
It’s all worked out in a beautiful way. But if he would have started early when it was just two million, when things were growing, and he said, “Let me transfer this energy and do all these other different things,” he probably wouldn’t have the following he has now, and he went all in on it. I think that’s why it’s important for anyone listening in real estate to go all in on the one thing, and focus on it. Whatever that thing is that you’re excited about, that you’re interested and that you know about, go all in on it.

Brandon:
That’s so good, because people just try to do way too much in the beginning. Podcasts are partially to blame for, right, because we listen to a podcast like, “Oh, that sounds amazing. Oh, I’m going to start that business. I’m going to go do an Amazon business and a real estate thing.” Like, “Yeah. Well, if you can just focus on the thing that fires you up, that you’re good at, that you can do, all in, pour into that thing.”

Lewis:
Say, “Listen, I’m not going to take on shiny objects until I get 10 apartments, until I get 30.” Whatever it is the thing that you’re going to do, okay, make a number, “And until this, I’m going to say no to everything else. All my money is going to go back into the next one of these things of this investment. Then when I hit 10, okay, I’ll dabble in commercial real estate. I’ll dabble in whatever else there is. I’ll dabble in that and see if I like it,” but I feel like you got to make the bread and butter the bread and butter until you’ve maxed it out or until you’ve got so much extra resources, time or team to go try the next thing, but this is tough.

David:
Well, let’s unpack that a little bit. Let’s talk about why it’s hard to do that, because I know when you don’t have much, when you’re sleeping on your sister’s couch, anything sounds good. When you are hungry, you’re not picky about what you eat, right? It can go from, “I’m starving,” to, “There is a buffet in front of me,” and we’re telling them, “No, you got to focus on just the vegetables. You can’t go eat all that junk right now.” It’s hard to tell yourself no when you’ve been hungry for this long. Can you maybe explain how you were able to have the discipline to focus on that one thing when you’re like, “Oh, it’s all there. I gotta go grab everything. I may never get other chance?”

Lewis:
When I was 24, I was like, “I’m going to focus,” once I realized that LinkedIn was a way for me to make money. Someone paid me $100 when I was doing a LinkedIn profile makeover review for them. I go, “What? You’ll pay me for this?” I was like, “Let me try to find more people that would do this.” I kept doing that, and I kept charging more. Then I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do LinkedIn networking events, because everyone’s trying to find a job and find business opportunities.” I did 20 networking events using LinkedIn to bring people together in person back in 2008, 2009.
Then I was like, “Let me go deeper. Let me write a book about LinkedIn. Let me do webinars about LinkedIn. Let me create a course about LinkedIn.” I just said, “I’m going to do everything on this topic,” but then as I started stocking cash and realizing I’m not going to be hungry anymore, I was like, “Okay, now I can try the next thing.” What I would say to everyone here is… and what I do now for myself because I have an abundance of opportunities that are all amazing that come my way. My only Achilles heel is me saying yes to too many things that will take me away from the mission.
Everyone listening or watching right now, I would say if you don’t have a one-sentence mission statement for your business, and a one-sentence mission statement for your personal life, then you’re going to be making decisions that aren’t going to support you in the long run. My one-sentence mission for my business is similar to my mission for my life. They bleed together because I am a personal brand, and my mission is my life, is to inspire and impact 100 million people every single week to help them live a better life. It’s my one-sentence mission.
I asked myself, “When all these opportunities come in, does this serve the mission? Yes or no? If it doesn’t, okay, am I willing to do this as a creative side project for fun knowing it’s going to take my time, attention and energy away from the main mission and slowing it down? Am I okay with that?” Maybe I am because it brings me fun, or it’s creative, or it’s interesting, or whatever. That’s cool, but the more clear I am on my mission, the easier it is for me to say yes or no to things, or to know like, “Will this help me with the mission? Yes or no?”
Maybe someone listening is saying, “I want to have $3 million in real estate investments in the next 15 years, whatever.” I’m just making this up.

David:
Sure.

Lewis:
Okay, then don’t go invest in this other stupid stuff if this is the main mission for your financial business goals. Just focus on that, and if you can, ask yourself, “What would it take to do this in half the time? If my life depended on it, and I had to do this for seven and a half years, what would I need to do? What would I need to shift?” But again, if my life depended on it, and I had to do it in three years, or someone’s going to shoot me in the head, and I’ll die, could I make it happen?” The answer is usually, yes, you could. You just aren’t having an interesting enough imagination to see an urgency to focus your energy to make it happen.
I feel like a lot of us just aren’t clear. That’s when I go back to the greatest minds. They are very clear on their vision of what they want, and they live with a sense of urgency of why they want it and getting it now. I try to think of, “Okay, if this is the big goal, if my life depended on it, could I do it in half the amount of time? If so, what would need to happen? Who would I need to hire? What relationships would I need to build with distribution?” Whatever it may be, I think about the solutions, not, “Well, is it possible?”
No, it doesn’t matter if it’s possible. If I had to, what would I need to do? I think writing a one-sentence mission statement for your business or financial goals, and then a one sentence for your life and making decisions based on your mission brings you a lot more happiness.

Brandon:
That’s so good, because people just make choices based on whatever. Have you heard of the book Lifeonaire?” It’s like millionaire with the word life in front of it.

Lewis:
No.

Brandon:
It’s a phenomenal book. I’m going to send it to you, because it’s so good.

Lewis:
Please, it’s cool.

Brandon:
This book is about the rules that we play by in life should be dictated by the purpose of that life, not like-

Lewis:
Absolutely.

Brandon:
… but we play by other people’s rules all the time. If the goal of life is to make a million dollars, you’re going to play by certain rules. But the goal of life is not to make a million dollars or a billion dollars, whatever, then what rules are we playing by? All of a sudden, it makes you just rethink like, “What am I doing?” Things like, “You shouldn’t pay off all your debt, because if you pay off your mortgage at 3%, you can invest that money in the stock market and blah, blah.”
Well, that’s true if the goal of life is to get as rich as possible, but assuming the goal is not that, so in other words, having that vision of what your life’s about, that’s why the book, the title, Lifeonaire. It’s about having more life, not more money.

Lewis:
It’s probably one of the reasons why… Listen, I’m not educated in real estate as much as I want to be, and it’s probably one of the reasons I’ve been resistant to buying a home, because I don’t want to… Personally, my mission is to invest in my business and my brand to impact more people. Living in Los Angeles, the smallest home, a two-bedroom, two bath is three million in West Hollywood. It’s like, “Why put in whatever that is 20% of that 600 and 800 grand, whatever that is, I don’t know, and use all that cash when I could put that into hiring 10 people that could support the vision of my life better, and invest in other things or invest in a real estate fund that’s paying me a dividend every month, and use that cash to support my vision?”
I don’t want to deal with the property taxes. I don’t want to deal with the headache of cleaning up the pool. I don’t want to deal with fixing the roof or whatever, the appliances. I don’t want to deal with that stress of trying to understand it. For me, at this point in my life, I’m not married. I don’t have kids. I’m sure one day I’ll want to buy my home, but I don’t see the value of it based on my mission. If all I cared about was something else in my life and having that security and real estate, real estate, real estate, then maybe it would be a priority.

David:
I think that’s a really good point when you consider who you take counsel from, that it’s easy to get into this binary way of thinking, “Are they good, or are they bad? Are you a disciple of Dave Ramsey or Grant Cardone?” Grant Cardone’s going to say, “10x your life. Go big. Take whatever you thought you could do and multiply it by 10.” Dave Ramsey is going to say, “Don’t be stupid. Be careful. Play really good defense.” Both of them are right in the way that they are advising you for how to build your life, so if you’re not clear on where you want to go, how do you know who to listen to?
How do you know what coach to be taking advice from? You’re just going to be stuck treading waters going in a million directions and not going anywhere.

Lewis:
I’m always looking at models in my life. As an athlete growing up, I had models of decathletes, and wide receivers that I looked up to, the positions and the sports that I played. I would watch how they moved, how they played, their mindset. I would watch their interviews. It’s the same thing with the model of the life I’m at now. I really look at, “Okay, what is The Rock doing? What is Oprah doing? What is LeBron James doing?” I see myself as like, “If those three had a baby, that’s what I would want to be,” is like, The Rock, Oprah, LeBron James.
Okay, let me look at those models, and see what they’re all doing. They’re all building their brands. They’re all giving back. They’re all building their own empire in whatever lane it is. I resonate with all three of them, and I feel like I try to pull from each one of them. That’s the kind of life that I’m living.

David:
That’s really good. Brandon, do you have three people that you look to and you say, “I’d love to be a combination of these three?”

Brandon:
David Greene, Lewis Howes and Kevin. I don’t know. I mean, I definitely do, because it’s easy to just go, “I want to be super rich like Grant Cardone, or I want to be super famous like Oprah,” but I also want to look at… Sometimes, you see people who have an amazing life in one area, and they have not such an amazing in the other area, right? I want to find the people who are most [crosstalk 00:27:05].

Lewis:
Oprah has no kids and is not married, and it’s like, “Okay, well, I don’t want that, but maybe The Rock, where he’s got kids and he waited 10 years to get married is something I could do.” It’s like…

Brandon:
I’d be like The Rock. That’s be all right. I can handle it. He actually is one of the more well rounded people, I feel like, out there.

David:
You would be the branch, not the rock.

Brandon:
The branch.

David:
Yeah, there you go.

Brandon:
Because I’m so awkwardly tall.

David:
Six foot six. Yes.

Lewis:
Are you 6’6″?

Brandon:
6’5.5″, I’m around 6’5.5″ guy. How tall are you?

Lewis:
I’m 6’4″, so you’re probably 6’4.5″, right?

Brandon:
All right. Exactly. I want to know… First of all, I will say this, I’m the real estate guy, right? Everyone knows me like the real estate guy, but I actually agree 100% that I think a lot of people should not invest in real estate, at least not the way that I do or David does, because their highest and best use is not that. They’re an amazing public speaker. They should probably be doing something with public speaking, or they’re amazing writing books or at LinkedIn or whatever. Just everyone listening understands just because we talk about real estate doesn’t mean you should necessarily do it.
Hence, the reason we’re not doing these shows here on the weekends as well is let’s talk about other ways to grow success but… Then you take that money, and you invest it in things that are super, super good investments, meaning like other people. I think people are one of the best investments if not one if not definitely the best. You also mentioned you put money in a real estate fund. Now your money is growing, so you earn it. You earn it one way, and you can invest it and grow it in another way.

Lewis:
I just don’t want to manage it, because then I would have to deal with stress of it personally, because the idea of real estate excites me. The idea of managing real estate does not excite me. Even the idea of like, “Okay, well, I can just buy homes and have a property manager,” but the idea of dealing with the property manager and logistics and stress of that, for me does not work for me personally, my personality. I understand that if I want to build wealth in America, I have to be involved in real estate in some way. Obviously, there’s people that build companies and sell companies where they can generate extreme amounts of wealth.
Obviously, the richest people in America are involved in real estate, and they build their wealth that way. I just understand the value of concentrating effort in my business to generate wealth there in my business, but diversifying that by putting it in real estate as well if something happened where my business crashed, and I had no money or something. That’s why I think it’s important to diversify in some ways, but to have a concentrated effort on one place also.

David:
Well, that’s what the best systems… Let’s take a professional sports team. The best coaches take things off of their players and say, “You focus on this.” When you’re carrying the burden of everything, it’s very hard to be good at any one thing. I think, Lewis, what you’re describing is you developed that ability to say, “If I was to go make money in this area, I would lose money ultimately, because I’m not able to excel at what my role is, the thing that I’m supposed to be good at.” Now, I’m guessing your football career probably had a lot to do with you got 11 men on the field.
They’re all doing a very specific thing, but they have to work in harmony. If the left tackle is thinking about what the wide receiver is supposed to be doing, how are they ever going to be good at what they do, right? It takes some trust. It takes some faith, and it takes a good system. Do you think that your background in that helps you develop this understanding of it’s okay to say no to a lot of things, so I can focus on my job?

Lewis:
I think so. I mean, as a business owner, I don’t know if you have that luxury to say, “You stop to learn everything.” Especially when I started out, I was every player on the field in my business, because I had no money, so I’m learning how to hire people, how to manage money, how to make money, how to build a product, how to sell, how to design website, everything. I think probably what a coach maybe would have is like, “Okay, you learn enough of every position of what needs to be in place, and you can step in when you need to help out there.”
But truly, it’s learning how to put the right people in place, which is the stage I’m at now as we continue to hire more and more people. How can I empower them and step away from being the one who’s always done it all, and just say, “Here, I empower you?” It’s hard to let go of that once you’ve done it for a long time, but I know that in order for me to reach the next level, I need to let go of something that’s been holding me back. That’s definitely one of them, but I think it’s… I’ve been telling my COO more and more like, “I don’t care what I need to invest or how much this next hire is, or whatever it is. I need to be focusing on my skills the best, because that’s what’s going to help us accelerate the mission.”
It’s hard when you’re the business owner because all your money that you’re investing back in people, and what if it doesn’t work out? You just gotta deal with that. It’s part of the cost of doing business. But the more I can focus on my skill set, that only really I can do in this business, the more successful it’ll be. The more time I spend on trying to do things that I’m not the best at, the longer it’ll take to get there.

David:
That translates easily into real estate sales. If you’re the guy who analyzes the deal, and you’re spending all your time talking to contractors and trying to manage the timeline, you’re losing money. I just heard Ryan Serhant talk about this. He’s a really, really big real estate agent in New York, one of the biggest in the country. He made that exact same comment you just said, “I need to focus on things only I can do. Only I can talk to the real estate developer. Only I can talk to the guy building the skyscraper, that we’re going to sell the stuff.”
I don’t have to be the only one doing paperwork. I don’t have to be the only one finding lender partners. I think that as people are building their portfolio, if they keep that in mind, I have to find the deal. I have to analyze the deal. I have to find the people that I have to bring, and get other people doing the rest of it. You find success just starts to become a whole lot easier than when you’re trying to do everything.

Lewis:
That’s true.

David:
I want to ask you… There’s a lot of talk that we could be heading into a recession, and whether we are, whether we’re not, there’s one coming at some point, just like there’s always a recovery coming. What advice do you have for people that can’t stop worrying about what if it’s not ideal? What if something goes wrong?

Lewis:
Well, it’s not going to be ideal, I don’t think, for anyone unless you’re, I don’t know, a mask company or something like that.

David:
Yeah, if you make N95 masks, you’d probably feel pretty good.

Lewis:
Exactly. I mean, there are actually some businesses that are thriving during this time more than ever, but I think it’s probably rare. I just come back down to I’m always thinking if I lost everything, what do I need to have in order to relaunch in a moment so that I wouldn’t be worried about money or making money or anything like that? It comes down to the quality of my relationships, comes down to the amount of skills that I’ve developed myself and continue to develop. The third thing, it comes down to, well, I would say relationships/reputation I have with those relationships like, their ability to believe in me, skills I have, and then also, the third thing is…
Oh man, I had it but I can’t remember what it is right now. Skills, relationships, I’ll just leave with those two. I can’t remember what the third one is, but I feel like if you have that and you have a personal brand, then you can always launch something again. You can always bounce back. Even if I lost everything, I feel like I’ve got those three things, which I feel like I could call up one person and do a business deal with and make money. I could come up with a new product or project, and launch it to my audience, or even if I lost my audience, I could find one partner and say, “Hey, can we launch this to your audience, and do a 50/50 rev deal?”
I just feel like… Oh, the third thing I was going to say is my ability to embrace my insecurities and fear. I feel like people are afraid that their legs are going to cut out underneath them during this next year. People are afraid. I dealt with that fear 12 years ago when I was going after my dream, and then I got cut out during the recession. I got injured. There was no money, and I realized I could survive and make it. Now, I had no kids, no responsibilities, and I had a sister that let me live for free for a year and a half. I had some support there, obviously, which would be different now.
But I feel like this is something I’m always coaching people is every single year, I write down a list of my three biggest fears. I write down a list. Again, it’s important, I think, to have a mission statement for your finances or your business career, and a mission for your life. At the top of the year, I write down what are my three biggest fears. These are usually psychological fears, internal fears, insecurities. Not like, “I’m afraid of spiders,” but more of like, “I’m afraid of people judging me if I launch this project. I’m afraid to put this book out there. I’m afraid if I do my first real estate deal, I’m going to lose money.”
Whatever that fear is, it’s usually like an inner psychological conversation that we have. In every new success or accomplishment is a different season, and bigger fears and insecurities could potentially come up, even if you’re conquering ones from the past. I feel like a lot of people aren’t doing that experiment on a yearly basis, and it hurts us because I felt like right when COVID hit, I was like, “I’m prepared for this.” I was like, “Even if I lose everything, I’m prepared, because for the last 12 years, all I’ve been doing has been tackling my insecurities and fears, killing my ego as often as I can, humbling myself through my failures, and saving.”
I’ve been saving, so it’s like, “Okay, if everything goes to crap, I’ve got savings.” Not everyone is starting at that place where they don’t have savings, but I feel like if we’re always staying ready, we don’t have to get ready. That’s a football terminology. It’s like, “Stay ready, so you don’t get to get ready.” We stay ready by constantly conquering our insecurities, our fears, and our self doubt. Challenges, most of us shy away from it, because it’s extremely uncomfortable to face our insecurities and self doubt.
It’s really tough to face judgment, criticism, the fear of failure, the fear of success. These are all things that are hard. But when we practice them on a daily basis, I just feel like it makes you indestructible when chaos and a recession ensues.

Brandon:
Let me give an example. I’m curious of how you would address some of this. One thing I struggled with for a long time as a big fear of mine was this fear of rejection, right?

Lewis:
Yes.

Brandon:
I mean, I think a lot of us start with it. We want to be liked. I was going to start a real estate fund, so I was going to do this, but I kept resisting it for years, because I said, “I don’t like raising money.” I told this on a recent podcast, and I was going to say it again now, is I have this coach, and he was asking me, “Well, why don’t you raise any money?” I was like, “Well…” It really came down to when he asked me why about 10 times is because I feel like when people don’t give me… when they say no to me, they’re saying they don’t like me.
It was a fear of rejection, right, if you’re not being liked? I worked through that, and now today, I have a big real estate fund, so I feel like I came out to the side. But how do you recommend? What do you do to overcome fear, to overcome that? Once you identify what your fears are like, how do you overcome them? How do you get through that?

Lewis:
Have you ever watched Batman?

Brandon:
I love Batman.

Lewis:
Dark Knight?

Brandon:
Yeah.

Lewis:
Batman Begins. I’m a fan of those movies. It’s a cliche story, I guess, but when Bruce Wayne falls in the well, and he’s afraid of the bats, he comes back later in his life, and he says, “I’m still afraid. I need to live in the darkness. I need to live with the bats. I need to become one with the bat and become the bat essentially.” For me, that’s why I think it’s important to first identify what is my fear. I’ll give an example, public speaking, I could not stand up in front of a group of three, four or five people and share a one-minute speech, a one-minute thought.
Really, I can only speak to people one on one. But when it was a group of people, it was like I didn’t know how to manage it. I felt like people were laughing at me. I felt like I wasn’t interesting. I felt like they were going to talk about me behind my back. I was completely insecure with this. When I met this mentor, he was like, “You need to go to Toastmasters every week until this is no longer a fear. Because whether you’re looking for a job, and you’re going to be presenting something in a boardroom in a company, or you want to be a professional speaker, or you’re going to be an entrepreneur, whatever it is, this is a skill you’re going to need in any area of your life if you want to persuade people and make an impact. Because if you can’t communicate your message, it’s going to be truly a lot harder to make an impact.”
As an athlete, I felt like I could get away with it because I never had to speak. I just had to perform on a field. I let my actions be my words to inspire people, but I no longer had that, I guess, thing to fall back on. I couldn’t just perform and be an athlete and not have to say anything. If I wanted to get a job, I had to do an interview of anything. I remember being terrified for months in Toastmasters, but I gave myself the mission and the goal. I said, “I’m going to here every week until I’m not afraid, until I’m not sweating, until I’m not trembling, until I’m not stuttering.”
For months, all those things happened until… What I did is I was like, “Okay, I’m going to fill myself every time. I’m going to experience extreme embarrassment and humiliation over and over and over again until it doesn’t make me humiliated anymore. I would watch myself, and I would agonize on the game film watching back my speeches of how horrible I was, how I didn’t have any vocabulary, how I couldn’t look people in the eyes. I said, “Okay, what’s one thing I can do a little bit better next week for my next speech?”
Every week, I would get a little better, and I say, “Wow, okay, I did do this better. I improved there. I got better feedback.” I created an experiment for myself where I said, “I’m going to humiliate myself over and over again until I don’t feel humiliated anymore.” I think a lot of us don’t put ourselves in an environment of pain, emotional pain. I did this when I was going into my junior year in high school. I was terrified to speak to girls. I don’t know if you guys were super confident talking to girls growing up, but I had zero confidence.
I wanted to be liked by girls and guys, right? I could not ever get the courage to go up and talk to a girl that I thought was cute or attracted to. Going to my junior year, “I said, Okay, enough is enough. I’m sick and tired of feeling so insecure all the time.” For one summer, I gave myself an experiment. I said, “Every single day, when I see a girl that I’m attracted to or I get butterflies when I see them, I’m going to walk right up to them, and I’m going to have a conversation.” For the first two weeks, it was horrifying, how embarrassed I was. It’s so bad, because I’m just like, “Hi, my name…”
Stuttering, I have no clue what I’m saying. I have zero skills. I have zero confidence. Girls would laugh at me. Girls would run away from me. It was horrifying. Everything you don’t want to happen as a young boy happened, and the way you don’t want it. I just said, “I’m going to keep committing to this, and I’m gonna try a little bit better the next time, and I’m just trying to figure out what works.” By the end of the summer, I swear to you, I’m having the time of my life. I’m talking to… I’m 15 or 16. I’m talking to 40 year old women just to experiment.
Like, “Okay, I’m just going to say hi to them. I’m not trying to pick any girls up. I’m just want to overcome this fear.” Every year, I do this. I write down my fears, and I go all in on them until they become a strength, until they become something that I really feel like I’m good at or not afraid of anymore. It’s identifying it, and then saying, “Okay, I’m going to go all in,” and experience the rejection over and over. You should say, “Okay, I’m going to ask 10 people that I really respect, and I’m going to experience them saying no, rejecting me, laughing at me, saying, “No, it’s not right. It’s not good enough.”
Then saying, “Thank you for the feedback,” because they’re going to tell you what they need in order to invest in your fund. You can say, “Okay, what would my fund need to look like in order for you to give me a million dollars? What would it need to have for you to feel like it’s worthy of your time? What would I need to be creating for you in order to trust me more?” Then you can get amazing feedback, so everything I do is just getting feedback through the humiliation, but a lot of us never want to experience that failure or humiliation because it’s so painful. It sucks. I don’t like it, but I know it’s necessary to get what I want.

Brandon:
That’s powerful stuff, just the idea of identifying what that fear is, and then trying to embrace that is like, “I’m going to improve that.” It’s intentionally trying to change your life versus sitting in the backseat.

Lewis:
It’s so hard.

Brandon:
It’s hard.

Lewis:
I did the same thing. Another quick story, I mean, every year, I do this. I did this with salsa dancing. I went to a salsa club one time when I was 20, I don’t know, 20, 23, 24. Right around this time, I was on my sister’s couch. I was mesmerized, mesmerized by… It was all Latinos. I was the only white guy. Imagine being 6’4″ in a salsa club with all 5’5″ Latinos. I stand out like a sore thumb, and I would go there every week once a week for months, and just watch in the corner. Never danced because I was so scared, but I wanted to learn how to salsa dance, but I just didn’t want to embarrass myself because everyone was so amazing.
Eventually, one girl dragged me out. This is after months of resisting and never going to dance, but I would be there to watch. She drags me out, and I literally am sweating. I’m so humiliated. She’s teaching me the basic steps, and I’m like, “Everyone is laughing at me. Everyone thinks I’m an idiot. I don’t even know what I’m doing. I can’t understand this.” I’m stepping on her. After about 10 minutes, I looked up no one cares. No one’s looking at me. No one’s laughing at me. If anything, they’re like, “Yeah, great job. Keep it up. Come back.”
They were encouraging. It’s what made me say, “Okay, I’m going all in on this,” and I obsessed over salsa dancing every day for the next three and a half months taking group classes, taking private lessons, studying on YouTube, practicing in the mirror, until I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. Now, I travel the world, or I did before COVID, traveled the world to the biggest cities in the world. I’ll go anywhere where people don’t speak the language. I can walk right up to any club to the best dancer in the club, and dance with confidence and ease, because I allowed myself to feel humiliation for months.

David:
Well, that’s the Batman story or moral that he faced those bats. There’s a scene where he’s standing in the cave, and they’re all running right by him. He’s terrified, but he’s making himself, and he actually harnessed it. The Batman idea is that he now uses that same fear against his enemies. You were able to harness your fear of the dancing and the talking to women, and now, you use that for the business that you build. You make a living talking to people and all kinds of different people.

Lewis:
Exactly. I never imagined I’d be able to do this, but I embraced it.

David:
That’s the awesome part about when you do something that emotionally difficult that I can just imagine, as you were talking, watching you in that salsa studio, sweating and terrified just…

Lewis:
Sweating.

David:
We’re using words like, “I was scared, but that doesn’t really do justice to the emotion that you’re actually feeling.”

Lewis:
No, trembling.

David:
Yes. The price you paid was that you faced it, and the reward is now this career and this brand that you’ve built. That’s just why it’s so worth pursuing, because you don’t know how amazing it’s going to be on the other side.

Lewis:
Exactly. Brandon, probably for you, you were afraid. I don’t know how long you were thinking about launching this fund or-

Brandon:
For a while.

Lewis:
How many years were you thinking about it?

Brandon:
At least probably five years of me thinking I should take this to the next level, and [inaudible 00:46:41].

Lewis:
Wow. Did you get some rejections when you finally started asking people?

Brandon:
I asked two of my good friends, and they rejected me. That stopped me for two more years, because I asked two friends. They said no.

Lewis:
You were like, “Okay, if my two friends won’t invest in me, then how am I going to reach out to strangers that I barely know?”

Brandon:
I found out later they didn’t have any money. Of course, I didn’t [crosstalk 00:46:58].

Lewis:
Exactly. That’s what I’m saying.

Brandon:
That’s ridiculous.

Lewis:
The more you experience it, you got more comfortable with it. I’m sure you started asking people and people said yes, and then some people said no, and you’re like, “Okay, I’ll just keep asking.”

Brandon:
It’s almost a numbers game more than anything now, which is interesting.

Lewis:
It is.

Brandon:
The other thing I find interesting with the insecurity and the fear thing, and I’ve shared this on the podcast before, but my biggest insecurity in life, my biggest insecurity has always been my voice. Ever since I was a kid, I have a lisp. I was in speech therapy, and I’ve always struggle with it. Isn’t it ironic sometimes? It’s like the Batman thing, right? The thing that I am most ashamed about in my life is the thing that I am being used the widest.

Lewis:
It’s funny, right?

Brandon:
Public speaking terrified me and talking in front of people.

Lewis:
I didn’t even know you had a lisp. I couldn’t even hear it.

Brandon:
I work on it.

Lewis:
There you go.

Brandon:
I have a lazy talking. It’s ironic that that definitely sometimes works that way when you lean into it. The first, “Do you want a podcast?” No way, I would never do a podcast. That’d be ridiculous.

Lewis:
Exactly.

Brandon:
You’ll lean into it.

Lewis:
I think people are more inspired by those that have some adversity or challenge, and they keep doing it in spite of their adversity. Even if you’re like, “Hey, guys, I’m really nervous on this first podcast. I’m insecure because I got a lisp or whatever, and I’ve never been on radio. I don’t know what I’m doing, but God, I’m so excited to teach about real estate because it’s transformed my life. I feel like I’m doing a disservice by not overcoming this and just sharing it with you.” People are more inspired the fact that you’re not this super competent speaker, that you don’t have this training, but you have a wisdom that you want to share, and that’s what they get excited about.

Brandon:
I think that a huge part of it is the heart at which you teach that stuff, the heart at which you do that stuff. I feel the same way. I go to jujitsu now. We had Jocko Willink on the show, and he challenged me to-

Lewis:
He’s great.

Brandon:
He’s great. He challenged me to go and do it, so I go the next day. It was the most painfully, embarrassing, awkward. I didn’t even get on the mat. I just stood there looking at it in the wall, and I still feel like that every time I show up every time, but I’m going to keep showing up. It’s the same thing, because I’m like, “Eventually, I’ll be good at this. I’ll figure it out.”

Lewis:
Exactly. Exactly.

Brandon:
I beat a 75-pound 60-year-old lady last time. It was amazing.

Lewis:
Amazing.

Brandon:
I felt really good about myself. It’s a thing. I have a very limited version of the story you told about going to the salsa dancing and taking those fears. I used to… Do you ever go to the Minnesota state fair? Do you ever go up to Minnesota when you’re younger to the state fair?

Lewis:
No, I went to Southwest Minnesota State but I never went to the fair.

Brandon:
Well, state fair, you’re missing out. It’s amazing. They got sweet Martha’s cookies. They’re the best chocolate chip cookies you’ll ever have.

Lewis:
That sounds good.

Brandon:
Of course, it’s a state fair, so you don’t buy them by the cup or by the plate, by the bucket.

Lewis:
Pound.

Brandon:
It’s this giant bucket of cookies. I would make it a point because I was so afraid of getting rejected and even talking to strangers, I would go and ask everybody with a bucket if I could have a cookie. Whenever I go to the fair, is ask them if I can get a cookie, because it was a small thing that forced me to face a little bit of that fear.

Lewis:
That’s smart.

Brandon:
Then I got free cookies.

Lewis:
The people gave you cookies.

Brandon:
I think one person ever turned me down.

Lewis:
I do this at college football games when people are tailgating. I always do this because I’m like, “I’m not going to go spend and buy an $8 bratwurst or a hot dog.” Everyone’s making their own burgers and hot dogs, and people got so much stuff in their food that I just be like, “Hey, has anyone got a dough I can buy it for $1 from you?” They’ll usually just give it to you. It’s just risking people saying no, and the fear of humiliation for five seconds and then moving on, but the rewards are so much greater. I always use this line.
I just feel like I get upgraded on planes and hotels and free stuff all the time, because I use this one line that has transformed my last 10 years. My friend, Paul Evans, told me this line 10 years ago. He said, “Anytime you want something, say, what’s the chance that I could get a free hot dog? What’s the chance you’d be willing to give me a cookie? What’s the chance you can give me a free upgrade in this room, whatever it is? What’s the chance?”
Every time I use that, it almost always works. What’s the chance you could hook me up here? What’s the chance to do this for me?

Brandon:
That was good.

Lewis:
Just risking for someone to say no, but what if they say yes?

Brandon:
That’s really good.

David:
Well, phrasing it that way is really smart, because if you ask me, “What’s the chance, David, that you would sell my house for free?” I would say it’s not going to happen, but if that was something you wanted, here’s a way that we could make a sense of that.

Lewis:
Exactly.

David:
You’ve experienced a small amount of rejection, but more importantly, you are going to receive what it would take to get there. I think, Brandon, I could just picture you… So much of your personality makes more sense after sharing that true story, because you’re very hard to say no to. I think that getting rejected a couple times and not liking that sting caused you to respond by preparing ahead of time, “Okay, if I make my voice sound like this, or I don’t ask right away, I gotta say something else first to get the conversation going, then I’m gonna bring it in.”
You’ve naturally built up this way to connect with people because you don’t want to get told no for this free cookie. Now, it became a strength. I mean, I think that that’s really brilliant that you guys mentioned that.

Brandon:
That’s funny.

Lewis:
The cookie master. What are those [inaudible 00:51:56], sweet Mary’s?

Brandon:
Sweet Martha’s, Sweet Martha’s.

Lewis:
Sweet Martha’s, [inaudible 00:52:00] try them out.

Brandon:
They’re by the bucket. They’re amazing. All right, let’s jump down. I want to move on to a slightly different topic here before we get you out of here. I mean, you connect with a ton of big guests in your shows. I’m always just in awe of like, “Oh, man, Lewis is interviewing that person,” and you are on Ellen. That’s amazing, right? I want to know how you connect with these people. How are you… What do you do for networking? What’s your tips for connecting with because this applies to people.
You might want to be trying to connect with that local investor or that local TV station. You want to get some press for your company, whatever. What have you found that’s just been really helpful for networking?

Lewis:
That’s one of my skills, I guess, that I’ve been doing since my LinkedIn days back in 2008, 2009 was I learned quickly how to message someone on LinkedIn and get a response, because I was reaching out to the successful leaders in the Columbus area originally. First, no one was replying to me when I said, “Hey, can I pick your brain for 10 minutes? I’m a struggling person with no direction in my life, and I need help.” No one cared. Yeah. But when I started to try different things, and make it about them, and make it about their success, and do my research, and figure out what is meaningful to them, then I started crafting my messages differently.
For example, I was trying to find three things that we had in common in the first sentence of any message. I might say, “Okay, what do we have in common based on their LinkedIn profile? I see that they went to Ohio State, and I see that they have an interest in salsa dancing, and also that we have three mutual friends.” I would use those three references in the beginning of the first sentence, “Hey, I saw that you went to Ohio State, so did my brother, and I’m a big Ohio State Buckeye fan. I see that you love salsa dancing. It’s one of your interests. I’ve been dancing for three years.”
“Brandon, David, and Kevin are our mutual friends. Brandon said something really nice about you the other day when I talked to him about you.” First line, it’s like when you find three things that are mutual interests, people are automatically going to say, “Oh, I’m going to feel bad if I at least don’t reply.” That’s step one. Get them to be interested to then want to at least reply. Second sentence is all based on research. I really loved what you did in this. I really love this video you did here. I really love how you went from this part of your career to the next part of your career. It’s really inspiring,” something about them that is interesting to you about their success.
Then the third thing for me is all about how can I serve them, not, how can they serve me? I would say early on when I had nothing to give, I’d say I’d love to learn about your story of success and how you went from here to here. I’d love to hear that if you’re willing to share with me five minutes about your story of success. Never in that three-sentence email draft did I say, “Can you give me advice? Can you help me find a job? Can you help me do this? Can you invest in something?” It was more about building a relationship and creating connection, and trying to add value.
Now, the 10, 12 years ago when I had no value, it was, “Can you share your story of success, because that was the only thing I could think of?” What I realized is when people when they have achieved something, most of the time, if you phrase it the right way, they want to tell their story of success. They want to tell you, “How smart I am, how I overcame this challenge, and why I’m so smart,” essentially. We’re fed by that ego of like, “I appreciate you acknowledging that I’ve succeeded. You see me. You hear me. Let me share back with you.”
I would get on the phone, or a lot of these people would meet me in person for coffee or something and give me 30, 60 minutes. I would just sit there and hear them share their story. Never would I ask them for anything. Never would I ask for advice, but the way I phrased the questions, they would give me the advice that I needed based on them telling their success story. At the end of it, I wouldn’t ask for anything. They would say, “That was a fun conversation. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Maybe I’d say, “I’m really looking for this, and I’d love some support if you have it.” But most of the time, I would just say, “No, I’m not looking for anything, but if I can connect you with anyone in the future, please let me know.” I still would never ask for anything. I would kind of delay the ask for many, many years, and just try to give, give, give. That’s been my last 12-year makeup is never ask, always give and serve in some way possible. Giving might just be listening. That’s what it might be, and just saying, “What’s your biggest challenge right now?” Them telling me, “Well, we’re really struggling in our company with finding a designer.”
I’d say, “Okay, let me find you a designer and match them to you.” This has all been about value. That’s how I’ve connected with a lot of people. I’m also big on following up and following through as an athlete. You score points in the follow through. Getting someone like Kevin Hart on, I messaged his publicist every month for four and a half years. It just happened to be the right timing. He had a self-help book that came out, and it made sense to come on the show then. It didn’t make sense when he had all these other movies, but now it makes sense.
I kept showing up and adding value to the publicist. I try to do the best job I can in the interviews that they want to tell their friends. It’s just a matter of showing up and adding value.

Brandon:
As you grow, as you get a bigger and bigger personal brand, and more people know you, how do you balance your ego between like, “Oh, I’m so good. I did this really well?” I’m sure you probably read Ego is the Enemy, or know of it, Ryan Holiday’s book. How do you balance that, “I’m so great?”

Lewis:
I do things that make me feel humiliated and take my ego down, whether it be intentionally or not intentionally to remind myself I’m just a human. I’ve got a girlfriend that will quickly bring me back to where I need to be if I have an ego. I’ve got family that’ll do that for me, my team. I’m just constantly trying to be grateful and humble the best that I can, but also live in confidence, and live in both worlds. I mean, social media will quickly bring you back down if you do something that people don’t like, and just trying to be like, “Okay, well, let me check myself and see if… Was that accurate? Should I have said that? Do I believe in that, or do I need to take ownership and responsibility and move forward in a different way?”

David:
Is that one of the things you’ve had to confront when it comes to what you’re afraid of every year is actually becoming so successful that your ego gets out of hand?

Lewis:
More of like my audience leaving me or judging me, leaving me. We talked about this before we started. I like to bring on different interesting perspectives on my show, and sometimes, people don’t like that. They think, “How dare you, Lewis.” Elevate someone’s voice who believes in this, but I’m always like, “If I don’t take risks, and I always play safe, then where’s the interest of the fun of that as well?” If I’m trying to have an intention to help people always, I feel like we need to have conversations with people that maybe don’t believe in the same things.
If we’re trying to find connection and unity and healing, we’ve got to learn from different perspectives. That’s going to take me being essentially the facilitator or messenger or the personality curating conversations, taking the heat sometimes. It’s unfortunate when you see a bunch of people unfollow you in a day or leave a bunch of nasty comments or… A couple years ago, I went through a breakup. The person I dated decided to say, “Well, here’s all the things that Lewis did wrong and what he did in this, and my feelings on him publicly,” which I thought wasn’t really cool, so I had to learn how to take heat from people judging without actually knowing the full story or actually knowing the truth.
They heard the truth from one person, and I never shared the truth, my truth, but I just had to accept, “Okay, people are going to hate me, gossip and judge me because they think something, whether it’s true or not, and they don’t know the context.” That’s tough to not be able to defend yourself, to be like, “Oh, people just assume this, and they have no clue.” But it was also like, “Okay, this is humbling. I get to let go of all these needs to please everyone. I’m not going to be able to please everyone.” In some way, it gave me a sense of freedom going through this ego death of this person blasting me and shaming me about whatever, because they were hurt, and they can share whatever they want.
But I had to let go of the need to everyone to like me, which was hard, because like you said, Brandon, we want everyone to like us. We’re not intentionally trying to upset people. When I’ve built goodwill in people and all I tried to do is be positive for seven years, man, it’s tough. That was a fear, and going through it made me realize, “Okay. I’m okay. On the other side, I’m still alive. My business is here.” I’ve actually cut out people in my life that were taking so much energy from me, that were fake friends who quickly judged me.
Now, I can focus my energy and attention on the people that I know are here for me, even if I made a mistake or something happens or people judge me. It was actually a powerful experience that I want to take back.

David:
I guess it is that probably unlocked pieces of your own talent that were being shoved down out of fear that if this comes out, people might see this, or people might see that. That was a whole new set of bats that you’re going to have to confront when that comes.

Lewis:
Absolutely. I was definitely afraid of other people’s opinions and needing to look good and needing people to like me. I’m not trying to do things to get people to not like me. It’s not like I intentionally want people to get mad at me, but I’m also going to stand for what I believe in, and share my truth on things, knowing that some people aren’t going to like it and people are gonna leave me, and people are going to be upset and hurt by it. It’s unfortunate, but I’m not afraid to put myself out there as much anymore when I make certain decisions.

Brandon:
Really good stuff, man. Hey, we’re going to head over in a minute over to the last segment of the show. It’s called are famous four, but before we get there, is there anything like… I mean, there’s probably roughly give or take a quarter million people listening right now to this. What do you need? What can our audience bring to you right now? Is there guests you’re looking for or connections or anything that would just benefit your life that maybe somebody out there could help you with?

Lewis:
I mean, my top five list of guests since I first started… I mean, Will Smith and The Rock and Jim Carrey have been in the top five from the beginning, so if anyone knows… I’m close to their team.

Brandon:
Jim Carrey lives a half mile from me out here in Maui.

Lewis:
Really?

Brandon:
Yeah.

Lewis:
It’s funny because I moved into a building here in LA, and the next couple weeks, I saw him in the building. He was actually living in the penthouse of the building I lived in. I think he’s moved by now from there, but Jim Carrey. If anyone knows Jim Carrey, I’d love to interview him.

Brandon:
That’s cool.

Lewis:
I actually have talked to his publicist for years too, but if anyone has a closer connection. The Rock has been on my hit list since seven years. I feel like we have a similar story from being failed football players into building brands. Obviously, his brand is way bigger. Those-

Brandon:
You’ll catch him. You got this.

Lewis:
Exactly. I’m just here to serve people and help people, but I’m always looking for great guests.

Brandon:
That’s cool, man, very cool. Well, with that said, let’s head over to the last segment of the show with our…

Speaker 4:
Famous Four.

Brandon:
The part of the show where we ask the same four questions to every guest every week. We’re just going to modify the first question slightly, because it’s normally a real estate related one. I normally ask, “What’s your favorite real estate related book,” but I want to actually go to other resources. What are some, either podcasts or online websites-

Lewis:
How many people say Rich Dad, Poor Dad?

Brandon:
Everybody said Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

David:
Everybody.

Lewis:
Everyone.

Brandon:
I said it. It’s a great book, but it’s the book. What resources do you rely on? We’ll ask you other business books here in a second, but just in terms of resources that have helped you a lot in your life, what would you point people towards?

Lewis:
Business resources or just any resources?

Brandon:
It could be business or life. It could be any resources that you just think people should be checking out right now to benefit themselves.

Lewis:
Oh man, gosh, monday.com, which is a project management tool that we just started using to help have all of our systems, processes, documents all in one place as opposed to what I did for most 10 years of just having Google Docs spread out everywhere and managing it that way. That’s the first thing that came to mind. That’s top of mind. Resources.

Brandon:
It could be that. It could be anything, podcasts you like.

David:
The speaker you like to listen to.

Lewis:
I really like listening to people that have spiritual truth. I don’t consider myself religious, but I love spiritual thought leaders who keep me grounded and keep me thinking of a bigger purpose and a mission for life. I’m interviewing this guy, Rob Bell, later this week who [crosstalk 01:05:02].

Brandon:
I know Rob Bell. I don’t know him, but…

Lewis:
I’ve had him on a few times. He’s a buddy of mine, and [inaudible 01:05:08].

Brandon:
[inaudible 01:05:09] Love Wins and Velvet Elvis.

Lewis:
Exactly. I just listened to… His podcast is great. His books are great. If you just feel like you need some spiritual grounding in your life, no matter what religion you are, he’s great. I mean, Jay Shetty, I think is great. He’s got some good stuff on just keeping you grounded as well. I think a lot of us just need to continue to stay grounded in our mindset, because with all the distractions, all the fear, anxiety, the most powerful thing we can do is take care of our mind and our thoughts. 82% of our thoughts on a daily basis are recurring thoughts.
Most of those thoughts for most people are negative. We can learn how to reprogram the way we think internally, and start saying nicer things to ourselves and start having more belief in ourselves as opposed to saying, “I’m never going to mount anything. This is going to fail. What if this goes wrong? What if all these things go right, and what if it goes bigger and better than anything we’ve ever imagined? What if we had those conversations with ourselves?” Finding people like Rob Bell, Jay Shetty, who really give us tools to stay in that mental state of peace and calm I think is…
The greatest enemy is negative thought. It’s what holds us back. That would be a couple people I recommend, and then maybe a book. I mean, I always go back to The Alchemist. I don’t read too many books all the way through, but The Alchemist, I feel like, is a great reminder for people to remember who they are and what their mission is. If this one-sentence mission statement resonated with you, I would say go back and read that book if you haven’t read The Alchemist. Give yourself the homework of writing down a one-sentence mission statement in the next 24 or 48 hours.
Messaging you guys on social media, or you can tag me at Lewis Howes on social media, and sharing your one-sentence mission. I believe that resource of you having focus and writing it up on your wall or putting it on your phone is going to make your life that much more amazing when you’re clear on your mission.

Brandon:
That’s awesome.

David:
That’s awesome. What about some of your favorite hobbies?

Lewis:
Salsa dancing is a big passion of mine. I also do acro yoga, even though I haven’t done any of these activities in about a year and a half because of COVID, and other things. Acro yoga is where it’s like partner yoga. I like putting people on my hands, doing handstands in the air when I’m standing up kind of like acrobatic stuff. I’m a big basketball player. I love basketball, but I’m really just a student of… My hobby every day is studying people, observing people, listening to people, and trying to become a master of human behavior, because I feel like if we can understand why people are the way they are, then we can connect to them.
We can both benefit in certain ways. I’m always studying people. I watch a lot of movies. I feel like I get inspired through movies, ad it gives me creative ideas, so movies are hobbies, too.

Brandon:
There you go. All right, well, my last question of the day, and then we’ll let David ask his last. What do you think separates successful people? If you have to boil this down… I know I asked this earlier, but what separates success from people from those who give up, they fail, or they just never get started?

Lewis:
Obsession. I feel like it’s hard to fail when you’re obsessed about something. Something I’ve done… I don’t know if this is just part of my makeup or part of whatever, but I’m like a bulldog. I’m just obsessively wanting to know the answer. I’m obsessively wanting to get the result, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen. For me, that obsession… I’ve heard Conor McGregor talk about it. He’s like, “I’m just obsessed with the process. I’m obsessed. I’m obsessed, and I love it.”
Grant Cardone talks about being obsessed. I mean, I don’t think you can achieve great results by not being obsessed, by dabbling, by trying to do everything, by hitting the wall on every spot as opposed to like, “I’m going to drill in this one spot over and over again to break through the wall.” Some level of obsession on your craft and on your dreams instead of dabbling.

David:
I love that. When you pair the strong, intense desire to get good at something with the concentration of putting it all into one area, you become that laser that can drill right through whatever’s in front of you as opposed to the light bulb, which spreads its light everywhere, but it doesn’t really get through obstacles. At the other end of your success or before you get there is going to be some form of obstacle and if you want to get through that.

Lewis:
I think the book’s, what, Essentialism, where they show a circle of energy in every direction, and it goes nowhere, and then a circle with one arrow and it’s going in one direction. It’s all the same concept. It’s just focus energy.

David:
That’s what you teach at the School of Greatness, right, focus energy?

Lewis:
That’s right, man.

David:
I love that. That’s awesome. All right, Lewis, well, thank you very much for sharing your wisdom. It’s not just your wisdom, but the collective wisdom of all these people that you’ve talked to that you brought in with us. You’ve been a bit of a laser yourself, and I really appreciate you for that. Can you tell us where our listeners can find out more about you?

Lewis:
Lewis Howes anywhere online, and School of Greatness podcast or on audio or YouTube. Just say hi.

Brandon:
Very cool.

David:
Awesome.

Brandon:
Well, thank you, appreciate you a ton. Again, I’ve been looking up to you for years, so it’s great to finally connect and [crosstalk 01:10:40].

Lewis:
Appreciate you guys. I got to dive into more real estate in the future once I find the excitement and the interest in it, because I don’t think people should dive in unless they’re really curious and passionate about it. But one day when I met that next season of life, I’ll be reaching out and saying, “Hey, what should I do? Should I do duplexes? Should I do renovations? Should I do commercial real estate? What should I do?” Then I’ll learn from you guys.

Brandon:
You know what’s funny? It’s actually… This is true story. Back, I don’t know, 10 years ago now, maybe 12 years ago, when I first got into the world of a little bit of education online, I started an old blog called Real Estate in Your 20s. I remember my original goal was someday, I wanted to be the guy that celebrities and podcasts as an author would go talk to and they want to know real… That was the vision which is funny today.

Lewis:
Wow.

Brandon:
Now, I get phone calls from people. I’m like, “You listen to my podcast?”

Lewis:
They’re asking about this.

Brandon:
Yeah. It’s surreal.

Lewis:
How many… What’s your, guys, recent portfolio? What does it look like? What do you guys have?

Brandon:
David, what do you got, David?

David:
I’m at just under 40 single family homes for my own personal portfolio.

Lewis:
Wow. Is that spread through a few states? Is that a one state? Is that…

David:
That’s over five different states. The first book I wrote for this company, BiggerPockets Publishing, was called Long Distance Real Estate Investing.

Lewis:
Nice.

David:
I was a police officer. I worked a bunch of overtime obsessed on that one thing, saved up the money, bought one rental properties.

Lewis:
Wow.

David:
Then just like what you said, I got good at that one thing, and then I expand it out from there. I started writing blog articles to teach people how to do it. That led to book deals. That led to teaching. That led to this podcast. Now, I’m a real estate broker in California, and I help clients to do loans.

Lewis:
How many did you buy while you were still a cop, full-time cop?

David:
25.

Lewis:
No way.

David:
It was painstakingly growing.

Brandon:
Dude, dude, Lewis, you should hear David’s-

Lewis:
That’s frugal life every time he goes into this 80,000 dollar mortgage.

Brandon:
You should hear his story. His story is insane. He was like worked 100 hours a week.

Lewis:
That’s impressive. If you can buy 25 in whatever 15, 20 years as a cop with a… I don’t know. I’m assuming you’re only making 80 grand a year max, depending on what city you’re in. That’s some like… You gotta get creative. You got to find like, “Where do I get the loans from? Where do I do this? How much of my money do I have to put down?” You’re a living proof that if you could do it, then anyone could do it at that level.

Brandon:
David’s the picture of focused energy on [crosstalk 01:12:55].

Lewis:
Your main thing is just single family homes. That’s the main thing.

David:
That’s what I did, but see, that built into a business now where I help other people who I can help them buy properties, and we can help do the loans.

Lewis:
Of course.

David:
Your point was so smart that you get really good at that thing, and you expand out from there. I know I’ve said that five times, but for everyone listening, that is the recipe for being successful.

Lewis:
That’s great. Just curious, of those 40 homes, how much in cash every year does that bring in in income after paying the 10% fees, after the property taxes, after fixing the roofs and everything?

David:
That nets me right around a quarter million on the single family portfolio, but a lot of the wealth you build from real estate isn’t just the cash flow that comes in. It’s paying down the mortgages. The property’s appreciating.

Lewis:
Exactly.

David:
At a certain point, I will sell those, transfer those into what Grant Cardone does, and that will probably go up to around a million a year in passive income that the real estate generates for me.

Lewis:
Wow, and buy the larger apartment complex, right?

David:
That’s exactly right.

Lewis:
The units.

David:
Yep.

Lewis:
[Crosstalk 01:13:56].

David:
Real estate really is get rich slow game.

Lewis:
It is.

David:
It should be boring, and it should just be focused energy drilling away like, building a tunnel right through that mountain.

Lewis:
It’s almost like the first home. Even if you’re like, “Oh, I’m making $435 a month in rental income after expenses,” but at the end of the year, you really don’t because you got to fix everything. It takes-

David:
That’s exactly right.

Lewis:
It takes that third or fourth home where you’re like, “Now, I’m making 500 a month, 700 a month.”

David:
Because I’ve refined the system, but 10 years in, 15 years in, that 400 is now 1000 or 1,500 as inflation goes over, and that it’s like planting a tree. That tree grows and just starts to put up a lot more fruit.

Lewis:
Of course. Get rich slow.

David:
Well-

Lewis:
What about you, Brandon?

Brandon:
I got a couple of dozen smaller deals, and then I got into the larger stuff. I buy mostly mobile home parks today. I got 600 pads for mobile home parks and-

Lewis:
600 lots.

Brandon:
Lots with homes on them and-

Lewis:
Interesting. Do you own a whole mobile park?

Brandon:
We own the land and the whole thing, and then people own their own homes and actually rent them out which is a fascinatingly weird [inaudible 01:14:58].

Lewis:
You own the land. You don’t own any homes on the mobile side.

Brandon:
We end up owning some homes just out of necessity because people leave and stuff, but yeah.

Lewis:
Right, so you bought…

Brandon:
We want to be the land owners.

Lewis:
They just rend the land to put their home.

Brandon:
Very much.

Lewis:
Wow.

Brandon:
Which basically means they do their own repairs and maintenance, which is one of the reason that they stay forever in their own homes.

Lewis:
That’s nice.

Brandon:
That’s a nice-

Lewis:
You never have to fix anything up. That’s another level. That’s like-

Brandon:
[crosstalk 01:15:23].

David:
Exactly why he went there because he doesn’t like dealing with headaches.

Brandon:
Well, I don’t like contractors and headaches. No, but the-

Lewis:
Pay me land rent, but do you get less rent for the land?

Brandon:
Yes. Yes. It’s a couple hundred dollars a month per unit. It’s not much.

Lewis:
It’s not much, but you don’t have to deal with all the stress.

Brandon:
Exactly. When you have 500, 600, 700 them like-

David:
Well, he could scale bigger because he’s not dealing with the stress, so he can go 10 times bigger with the same work.

Lewis:
Interesting.

Brandon:
Well, the beautiful part of a mobile home parks is the stories you get. We went to do a bank robber, actually went and robbed a bank. That was amazing. We had a prostitute that wasn’t actually a prostitute. She was actually robbing people, but who couldn’t then report it because they were [inaudible 01:15:57].

Lewis:
My gosh. Oh my gosh.

Brandon:
It’s a huge story. Anyway, that was good. Those are fun. That’s why we’re in the home parks.

Lewis:
That’s hilarious. What’s the vision for you, Brandon, 2025? If you could have anything in real estate vision, what would that be?

Brandon:
You’re definitely an interviewer, right? You know how to turn this around. This is fascinating. Really, the true story, this one’s a longer story, but I had a vision. Two years ago or a year and a half ago, I said, “$50 million in real estate by December 31st, 2021.” It’s actually on my wall, and a huge vision statement. I’m big on vision stuff. Anyway, and we’re going to hit that here in about two months from now. Now, my-

Lewis:
50 million in real estate, is that through the fund?

Brandon:
I wanted to own 50 million real estate through the fund. Now, it’s like, “Well, what’s the next level?” We’re kicking around, I don’t know, how ambitious we want to be. Honestly, that’s the famous question [inaudible 01:16:40].

Lewis:
Trends in your life and your goals, I guess. Do you want to beat Grant Cardone, keep 10x-ing every year?

Brandon:
Exactly, that’s the question.

Lewis:
Do you want to like, “I’m making a few million a year, and I feel pretty good?”

Brandon:
I really like surfing. I really like snorkeling and hanging out in Maui with my family and my kids. Currently, it’s 50 million a year is where I’m setting it. We’ll see if I’m going to 10X that, but 50 million a year is a good number.

Lewis:
That’s great. That’s awesome. What about you, David?

Brandon:
What are you doing, David?

David:
Five years from now, my business goals are to have two businesses that make seven figures a month, and then probably about eight to nine other income streams. That would be I’m a mortgage broker in California as well as a real estate broker, so building up my teams to where I’m doing that, and then just basically funneling 100% of that income into owning more real estate.

Lewis:
More real estate. Wow.

David:
Then my role will just be to be the top real estate educator in the country. I just teach everybody, “This is how you do it,” and then those businesses create the income that I can then put into deals. I can take those deals, make it a case study to teach people and create, a self-sustaining ecosystem that just spins faster and faster as I grow.

Lewis:
That’s exciting, man.

Brandon:
I’m going to ask same question to you, man. Where are you headed?

Lewis:
For me, it’s impacting 100 million lives a week, and helping them live a better life. That’s five years out, but I’m also trying to do it every year. I’m like, “What would it take if I had to do it this year, and I’m trying to accelerate it?” A lot of it comes down to it’s hard to reach 100 million people without video, because audio, as you guys have seen, it’s hard to make a one-piece of audio content pop and go viral. It’s almost… I don’t know if anyone’s ever done it. Maybe it’s like Joe Rogan or something with Elon Musk smoking weed or something like that.

David:
That’s about it. That’s about it.

Lewis:
It’s more like the video takes off, and people watch the clip. It’s really figuring out how do we build our own production company with viral video content that has the ability to reach 10 million people a week for each video so that we could collectively reach 100 million people with all of our content to help give people tools and inspiration to improve their lives? That’s…

Brandon:
You need an amazing accent like Jay Shetty.

Lewis:
Exactly, a British accent that makes you different and unique.

Brandon:
You gotta get that. You gotta get that.

David:
And trustworthy. You can say anything. Australian or British people will trust whatever you say.

Lewis:
Exactly. You guys are both really inspiring, what you guys have created. I know your audiences love your wisdom, and your just down to earth mentality. It’s amazing to see a couple of guys. Someone with a lisp who’s to steal cookies in Madison or St. Paul, Minnesota wherever it was, and a cop who can transform his own life one day at a time, one house at a time, and then transition out of that and give back. You guys have both done amazing things. It’s really inspiring.

Brandon:
Well, thanks, man.

David:
Thanks, Lewis. If you ever want to get in touch with any of the guests we’ve had, we’ve had Jocko Willink, Hal Elrod, Tim Ferriss.

Lewis:
I’ve had all those guys.

David:
Okay. Well if you hear [crosstalk 01:19:35]. There you go.

Lewis:
I’ll look at your list. I’ll look at your list, but I’ve had those three guys for sure.

David:
We’ll put you in touch.

Lewis:
I appreciate you guys very much. Thanks for having me.

David:
Gary Vaynerchuk, had you had Gary yet?

Lewis:
Gary like three times, yeah.

David:
All right.

Lewis:
I’ve known Gary for 11 years.

Brandon:
I saw a video of you guys back way a long time ago.

Lewis:
[inaudible 01:19:52] wrestling war in 2009.

Brandon:
That’s pretty awesome. All right, dude, well, thank you for coming on the show. We appreciate you a lot.

Lewis:
I appreciate you, guys.

Brandon:
Take care.

David:
Great to meet you, Lewis.

Lewis:
Thank you.

Brandon:
All right, and that was our show with Lewis Howes. Awesome show. I knew that was gonna be good. I’ve been looking forward to that for really months since we started talking about trying to get Lewis on the show, and definitely did not disappoint. What do you think, David?

David:
Like you said, he did not disappoint. I think that the goal of this was to say, “Okay, this is how you build wealth through real estate. Here’s some things that may be stopping you from doing it.” We could not have asked for a better guest or a better content to just go right at the heart of this will often get in your own way when it comes to getting what you want out of life.

Brandon:
That’s so true. Everything that he talked about today, I’m thinking like, “Man, this is so good. I want to listen to that again.” Very, very cool. I’m glad we got there. There’s a lot more we didn’t get to of his story. If you guys want to check out his story, make sure you, guys, listen to his show. Listen to other interviews he’s done, and maybe we’ll bring him back here again sometime, and we’ll go deeper, because he’s written some really good books as well. I like the Mask of Masculinity and the School of Greatness, and just a pretty well-rounded guy.
If anybody can connect him with The Rock, let’s do that as a community.

David:
Please, if anyone here knows The Rock, and can make any connection, or Oprah Winfrey. Hey, if you know Oprah, I don’t think he’d mind that either.

Brandon:
I don’t think so. With that said, David, do you want to get us out of here. I’m going to go kayaking with Mr. Ryan Murdoch today.

David:
That sounds awesome. I hope you and Ryan take some good pictures.

Brandon:
If you were here, we could kayak together but…

David:
If I was there, I’d have to spend 14 days in quarantine, and I would not be allowed to kayak. I would be FaceTiming with you.

Brandon:
That’s true. We’d be out in the water. It’d be great. All right.

David:
Thanks, Brandon. I appreciate you, man. This is David Greene for Brandon, the cookie master turner, signing off. Was that a Cookie Monster voice or did I go [inaudible 01:21:34]?

Brandon:
That was Kermit the Frog, I think. I don’t know.

David:
You’re right.

Brandon:
Master of cookies [inaudible 01:21:40].

David:
Doesn’t Cookie Monster say something funny like that? Cookies, that’s what he does. That’s what I was trying to do.

Brandon:
All right, good job.

Speaker 2:
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