Brandon’s Final Episode: Life Beyond Real Estate, w/ David Greene and BiggerPockets Founder Joshua Dorkin

Brandon Turner:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast. Would you like to do it?

David Greene:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show 551.

Joshua Dorkin:
Even just sitting here today, listening to the three of us talk, hearing myself, hearing Brandon, hearing you, Dave. It gives me great hope hearing you particularly, obviously, because I think you’ve got it. You are ready, man, to take lead, to take charge and I don’t know, I get emotional, it makes me feel really good, because like I have a thousand percent confidence that it’s going to do great.

Brandon Turner:
What’s going on everyone it’s Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets Podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David Green and for the first time in a long time, Mr. Josh Dorkin

Joshua Dorkin:
What is this going on, everybody?

Brandon Turner:
What’s up, man? How you been?

Joshua Dorkin:
Hi. How are you?

Brandon Turner:
Man I’m good, I’m honored to be. I don’t think have we ever actually recorded a show in the sea-shed together?

Joshua Dorkin:
We have not and you have lovely blue eyes.

Brandon Turner:
Thank you, I know we are really awkwardly close to each other right now.

Joshua Dorkin:
This is weird, I don’t think I’ve ever looked at you like this.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, I know this is very strange usually we’re on… [crosstalk 00:01:18] pores yeah, you have pimples all over your face yeah, this is getting weird. David?

David Greene:
I’ve been in Josh’s seat before though and it is exactly what he’s describing.

Joshua Dorkin:
Big eyes, gigantic beard.

David Greene:
He’ll do this thing, Josh, when he’s talking, he will look directly at your eyes and not let go and it will feel very awkward and almost violated like Brandon stares that…

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, he does it on purpose.

David Greene:
Don’t show weakness.

Brandon Turner:
What you do is you cross one eye and you leave the other one straight forward so you can’t quite tell what I’m looking at. Anyway, all right well, today’s show is a different type of show because this is for those people who have known, we’ve been talking about the last few months that this is the last official episode where I am the host of the BiggerPockets Podcast.

Joshua Dorkin:
You serious.

Brandon Turner:
You know about this, man.

Joshua Dorkin:
Wait, this is why you guys brought me here?

Brandon Turner:
This is why you’re brought here, yeah. Josh is taking over.

Joshua Dorkin:
No, that’s not true, but I wish. David’s taking over.

Brandon Turner:
David’s taking over.

Joshua Dorkin:
Dave, mozeltoff.

Brandon Turner:
It’s going to be a good time, so here’s the deal, everyone. So over the past nine years in a row, nine full years, we’re going into year 10 here, starting next week. So for the last nine years, the first five, Josh and I did it together for the first… What was your first episode, David? Do you remember?

David Greene:
It’s like 260, 270 maybe?

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, something like that. So pretty much almost exactly halfway. Josh, one of the first half then Josh, you left to take care of family and that put David in charge. We brought in David and David’s been amazing to work with over the last few years and now it’s time for me to do the same. Go take care of family and not quite to the same extreme measure that you had to go through with your family, but maybe give a quick update, Josh, what have you been doing the last few years? How is the family?

Joshua Dorkin:
Family’s good, thank you for asking. I’m actually here a week out of my own surgery, ironically.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah you hobbled in here.

Joshua Dorkin:
I definitely hobbled in, I’ve got a couple of holes.

Brandon Turner:
The nose job was… It looks good, man.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yes, I’m a holy man.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah you didn’t get somewhat stomach issues, like surgery.

Joshua Dorkin:
I had a hernia surgery, so somewhat unpleasant.

Brandon Turner:
Not the same as nose surgery?

Joshua Dorkin:
No. How am I doing? I’m good man, it’s been… What is it? It’s three years since stepping back and I miss all you guys. I miss all the listeners I miss you and you’re frightening blue eyes, I miss the eyes they are.. God, what is going on there?

Brandon Turner:
It’s the light.

Joshua Dorkin:
It is crazy.

David Greene:
It’s beautiful.

Brandon Turner:
That’s what it is, is beautiful.

Joshua Dorkin:
I miss Dave. I’ve been doing really well, family’s good obviously, we’re here on Maui. So we’re loving life here on Maui, we actually…

Brandon Turner:
Josh and I are neighbors now.

Joshua Dorkin:
We are fairly close.

David Greene:
Awesome.

Joshua Dorkin:
We’re fairly close, we did not suffer the same famage that you guys had, I don’t know if you guys talked about.

Brandon Turner:
I don’t know if we ever did talk about it. My backyard is completely destroyed, have you guys ever seen pictures of my Instagram, my cool backyard with a bunch of gardens, I got play area and it was beautiful and it’s gone, wiped off the planet it’s now pickle ball court again.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, Brandon, I don’t know where he was gallivanting around.

Brandon Turner:
I was galling and my wife’s at home.

Joshua Dorkin:
Wife was home it was scary, but all is well.

Brandon Turner:
That was a crazy night, I’m hanging out in Nashville, a BiggerPockets meet up. And she called me, she’s like, “I think the house is going to get swept away.” She was legitimately concerned. So then Ryan called me, “I think my house is going to get swept away.” And then Josh calls me and he is like, “I’m just fine sitting here from my nice house on the hill.”

Joshua Dorkin:
I did offer housing for both Ryan and your wife so.

Brandon Turner:
But they couldn’t even get out the house was an island, that was crazy, anyway.

Joshua Dorkin:
It was nuts.

Brandon Turner:
So the lesson learned, even if you live on the side of a hill in the desert, flood insurance may have been a good idea in this case. I’m going to be out quite a bit of money fixing up my yard because I don’t have flood insurance, so yeah. But who would expect a flood in a desert on the side of a hill? I don’t even live in the bottom of hill anyway.

Joshua Dorkin:
It was bonkers, yeah.

Brandon Turner:
Man, all right, so family’s been all good, I love seeing your family. We’ve had a good couple years here hanging out a lot more often, little beach surfing.

Joshua Dorkin:
Well see that’s the thing it doesn’t happen that often, which is I think partially why you’re stepping back.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, I say it’s because the family, really it’s for that Josh, I just want to surf more with you man. [crosstalk 00:05:31].

David Greene:
Josh is family, right?

Brandon Turner:
Josh is family [crosstalk 00:05:34] Yes, we are oana, that is true. We are oana and we hang out and we surf and we’re going to do more of that this year.

Joshua Dorkin:
That’s exciting, but I’m good, I’ve been really spending the bulk of my time, what have I been doing? It’s so hard.

David Greene:
You built up so hard.

Joshua Dorkin:
I’ve been doing a lot of construction and I’ve been doing a lot of investing. Investing in a bunch of real estate deals, startup deals, I’ve been advising small companies, startup companies, so that’s been a lot of fun, I’ve actually really enjoyed that. Helping folks on the marketing side and community side and other areas of expertise where I can provide some help and ah, man, what else? Spending a lot of time with the fam a lot of time just focused on just in myself, taking care of myself, burnout is real as I’m sure most people listening understand.

Brandon Turner:
What have you learned? You working a lot of hours for a lot of years. What have you learned that could help listeners about avoiding burnout or dealing with burnout?

Joshua Dorkin:
It’s not worth it, straight up, it’s not worth it. So it’s interesting because in the midst of it, I was probably one of the biggest proponents and advocates of hustle culture, right? Work, your butt off grind, ironically, I am now not so much of a proponent of that, but really I think it comes down to mental health and physical health. I think when you’re doing that, you don’t have the chance to take care of yourself. And if you can’t take care of yourself, things will suffer, your work’s going to suffer, your family life’s going to suffer, your other areas of who you are of your being will suffer. So I’m definitely more of a proponent of balance today than I was. Now that’s not to say that you shouldn’t work hard, you shouldn’t hustle, if you’re trying to start something up working 60 hour weeks or 80 hour weeks, honestly it’s necessary sometimes.
I took it to an even greater extreme than that, but I think just being focused and if you can eliminate a lot of the junk time, things like social media, we all just jump to our phones instantly and flick away on things. It’s ridiculous and you look and you’ll see, you’ve spent three hours on your phone and what did you do? You did nothing, right? So if you eliminate that, it’s not necessarily about being as productive as you can be for every second, but it’s a draining activity and we all say, “Hey, I’m working.” But you’re flicking around, right. Are you working? Maybe a little bit, maybe somewhat. What do you guys think about that? I’m curious.

Brandon Turner:
Man, I’m so terrible with my phone, I go in spurts, where I shot off everything and uninstall everything, but I tend to come back on again and I look at my hours, it’s like, you spend four hours and 55 minutes a day and your phone I’m like, “how is that my life?” I’m contemplating, I said this on a recent show, I’m contemplating spending the entire year of 2022 with my phone plugged in my office and never taking it out. The downside is I lose my camera and I love my camera, but there’s ways around that I’m sure.

Joshua Dorkin:
And you lose the phone connection with people.

Brandon Turner:
But if it’s my office, at least like I can, when I’m in my office, working on something I can come in here. It’s just like, I won’t sit in my office and scroll TikTok for three hours because that would be weird. Well I don’t know, maybe if I’m out of podcasting, maybe I will sit in my office.

Joshua Dorkin:
Maybe another way is to have two phones. I mean, ah, yeah, too. Yeah. And not everybody can do this obviously, but you have like just a cheap old flip phone that you take around with you to communicate with friends, family, things like that and then…

Brandon Turner:
Have I showed you my light phone.

Joshua Dorkin:
I have not seen it.

Brandon Turner:
So I have a phone called the light phone. I think it’s L I T but it might be L I G H D. Light phone is this phone that’s like the Kindle readers that are like the black and white Kindle. It’s that same thing on a phone. So there’s no color, it’s just like that, whatever, I don’t know, they have a name for it, and you can text, but it’s awkwardly texting, you can call, you can even do GPS now and I think they have Uber and that’s about it, then maybe you can put songs on there. That’s it and so I got this phone, it’s 20 bucks a month, it cost me a few hundred bucks to buy it and then I haven’t used it at all, but I’ve had it now for nine months in my possession, and I’ve thought about the it’s lack in the camera. That’s the only thing I worry about is the camera. What do you think about burnout, Dave? You’re burning it at all ends.

David Greene:
I think I’d love to do a whole show with Josh just on this topic because my personal opinion is that as human beings, we have an incredible ability to lie to ourselves. And this shows up a lot of the time when we say, “I’m working my but off.” I just never like when someone says it or, “I’m doing the best I can.” Because that’s rarely ever true. I think a lot of the time you see this with realtors, they show up at the office, they are in a chair, looking at a computer, googling things and answering emails, but that’s not work. They’re not actually doing the activities that will get them to where they want to go, which is okay. It’s not okay when you trick yourself of thinking that you are doing that. So there’s people that are like, “I’m working every day to get to financial freedom.”
But you’re really not, you’re looking at stuff on Zillow and you’re half-heartedly sending emails to realtors and you’re waiting for other people to try to basically intervene and get you to success. So I love what Josh said when you said, sometimes we’re just scrolling through our phone and we’re calling it work and you go home the end of the day and you tell yourself I put in a day’s work, but you didn’t do any of the things that mattered. And then you feel like I’m robbing my family of time and that’s something Brandon’s been really… Talked about it a lot that his phone takes away from family time and I just love that he’s not lying to himself. We see this with the Fitbit thing, when I was a cop, this was very popular, cops would wear a Fitbit and say, I got 10,000 steps and I did exercise.
And I just remember, your heart never goes up when you’re walking and it’s very easy to walk that. That isn’t exercise, just say, “I didn’t exercise.” It was tricky, because you lie to yourself and you tell yourself. At one point in my life, I did that, where I’m eating healthy, I got a subway sandwich instead of a hamburger. That was a lie that I told of myself so I could feel better. And I like to try to eliminate those things that aren’t true because then you’re left with the reality and maybe you aren’t working towards your goal and you’re still taking time away from your family.

Joshua Dorkin:
I’m happy to do that by the way, David, if you want to have me in and we can talk about it but…

David Greene:
It’d be great [crosstalk 00:11:35] I’d love that.

Joshua Dorkin:
So burnout, I think that’s a big thing. I think some of the other stuff is really just making sure to eat well. It’s something I’ve really started to focus on a lot is just eating way more healthfully to actually exercise, thus the hernia maybe, maybe not, I’m not sure where that came from actually.

Brandon Turner:
Well I got to imagine Josh, you got this amazing six pack now from all this exercise that puts a lot of torque on your… You threw a supercharge engine into the car that you’ve been driving this whole time of course you got a hernia, you got to take it easy there.

Joshua Dorkin:
Who knows?

David Greene:
Josh is in the best shape of his life. [crosstalk 00:12:09]

Joshua Dorkin:
Thank you, I’m definitely in the best shape of my life at 45, which is crazy. And that’s the point, you don’t have to wait until you retire to take care of yourself, you don’t have to wait until… And you don’t have to go on through your life and say, “Hey, my peak was 20.” You can continue to focus and work on these things and I think everybody should. And really, I think the last and probably most important thing is the mindful part, definitely spent a lot of time, which I think is, is one of the biggest aids in dealing with… On the burnout, is that mindfulness. Today everyone talks about meditation and things like that, but it’s not necessarily… Meditation is hard, I don’t know if you guys have tried it, it’s really hard. And I’ve spent a lot of time trying and I’m not really very good at it. I find I’m most meditative if I’m sitting on a surfboard.

Brandon Turner:
Me too.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah or if I’m skiing some really difficult hill or I’m just walking through the woods. To me, that’s my mind…

Brandon Turner:
Jogging for me is like that definitely, yeah.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah and so like what I would say to every listening is, what is it that you love? Because I found that in my peak grind, I forgot what I loved, I forgot everything that made me who I am, I forgot everything that actually made me happy outside of my family. And when I rediscovered that post, stepping back from BiggerPockets, I’ve started to find the joy again. I really started to find a glimmer in my eye, the life came back and so, what is it that drives you? Is it jogging around the neighborhood like Brandon says, getting on a bike, is it going through local river and rowing or is it going in the woods, hiking? Whatever it is, find that thing, but don’t let your hustle, don’t let your grind, don’t let your thriving for success get in the way of that because you’ll lose a part of you and you’ll look back and you’ll certainly regret it.

Brandon Turner:
Well, let me ask you a question related to that then, this is something that applies now to me going forward in a large way, it did to you and to a lot of people listening to this show, maybe they’re thinking about quitting their job at some point or leaving a thing that has been such an integral part of their life for a long time. So I’m wondering about that connection with identity, you were a long time… You are BiggerPockets. Josh started bigger pockets, built it for a decade I think, before I even came into the picture, and then we built it together and you led that charge for so many years and then it was over, you left it. How did you get through that shift and define yourself on other side?

Joshua Dorkin:
That was really hard. Interestingly, I’ll walk around now and people won’t know who I am, which is really nice, I think stepping back from the limelight a little bit is nice. It’s something you and I talk about quite a bit. I think it’s hard but for me it was, BiggerPockets was always part of who I was from the very beginning, but I always was meticulous once I started to bring other people on, that I didn’t want the company to be Josh. Josh is not the company the company’s not Josh. Brandon is not BiggerPockets, BiggerPockets is not Brandon. Dave is not Dave’s company and the company’s not Dave. And so from an outward perspective, that’s super important for anybody who’s building a business, particularly if you want to have the opportunity to step away and let the company go on and exist without you.
But in terms of just dealing with the mental component of it, that definitively took me at least a year to start to feel kind of chill about that. The first year I was super uptight, super tense about it, always worrying about every little decision that was being made and that was super challenging, until realizing it’s almost like raising a child. You raise your kid, they get to a point where you’ve given them all the tools that they need hopefully, to go on and live their life. So the I’d say the same was true with the company, I realized that my child had just graduated from high school, was off to college and it had all the tools it needed to continue to grow and thrive and you and Scott and Dave and the rest of the team have helped to bring it forth.
And so I think knowing that and just trusting that it’ll be okay regardless, and if it’s not okay, look, you did your part, you did what you could and now you have to figure out who you are and what’s next, and I will tell you, I am now the three plus years post BP. I’m not necessarily struggling with stepping away from, I’m Josh, from BP, I am struggling however with, what is the next thing for me? And I’ve occupied my time, I’ve made myself busy and I’m doing things, but I haven’t found that next passion play.
We’re helping save the earth and giving to great causes and doing cool things, but I’m still not at a place where I’m like, “oh, if I wanted to, I would love to put 80 hours a 100 hours a week into this.” Nothing yet has jumped out to me, so I think if you have something for those people who are thinking about quitting a job, right. If you’ve got something that you’re passionate about, if you’re thinking about quitting your job to go full time into real estate, or whatever it is, I would say that will help you in dealing with that sense of loss because I think it’s a real sense of loss.

Brandon Turner:
It is, yeah very much so.

Joshua Dorkin:
Dave, what do you think about that? You left being a cop, right? Your identity was, you are a police officer, for so long. Did that mess you up in any way? Or do you feel like because you immediately latched onto real estate investing that it lessened that.

Brandon Turner:
He’s still a cop look at him, I am so scared he’s going to reach for the screen.

Joshua Dorkin:
I’ll let you answer your question, David. But I remember back just to pull back the episode was at 169, is that you were on the first time David?

David Greene:
Yep, 169.

Joshua Dorkin:
And so we started that conversation with… David was the cop who bought a bunch of rentals that’s how this whole thing got with the three of us.

Brandon Turner:
That was great.

Joshua Dorkin:
Anyways, David, how did you feel like you navigated that?

David Greene:
I think if I’m being completely honest and transparent, I would not have been able to leave being a cop if I wouldn’t have been forming a new identity as… I was already a real estate investor, but now I’m someone who’s talks about it on other podcasts, writes books about it, teaches people. Then I got my real estate license and I was develop a new identity as an agent. And right around the time I was able to lead being a cop is the same time that my sales were taken off and I was the top agent in my office and I had a new identity.
So I am very aware that many of our decisions are influenced at a subconscious level by where we find our identity and I wouldn’t have just left cold turkey, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I needed a new thing to transfer over and I think this is just a wise thing to bring up, because many people are stuck in a life they don’t like, but they can’t jump off the lily pad they’re on until they have, well, what’s my next lily pad and their identity is such a piece of why they are on the one that they’re on now.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah and I think what was interesting about your story, Josh is, you had to leave in a quick thing. You didn’t have the next thing to jump to because your daughter, went through that horrible experience, which we talked about that in an episode a long time ago so we don’t need to necessarily rehash the whole thing. But you didn’t have anything to jump to at the time and so that would be a lot wor… I think in my case the obviously open door capital, which by the way you heard it here first, we’re changing the name to ODC, just playing because that big company Opened Door, eventually they’re going to yell at me to change my name.
Even though I was first, doesn’t matter, I’m going to just change the name right now, we’re changing it to ODC, just simple three letters. But I’ve been building that for the last couple years and so again, should help to jump to that. But again, if you’re listen to show right now and you’re like, “I want to quit my job eventually get into real estate full time.” Plant those seeds now, get that new identity forming so when that job does end, whether by your choice or by the universe’s choice, you’ve got a place to jump to.

Joshua Dorkin:
I think one of the things I would not recommend to people is just bouncing. Have a plan, particularly if you know your paycheck to paycheck or you don’t have a large savings. You want to think about, hey listen, I may be miserable in my job or it may not be who I am but before you go, figure out who you are, figure out what it is that you really love. What drives you? What is it that you’re passionate about? Because that hole, that will exist, you don’t want to start looking for that next sense of identity while you’re also struggling to pay the bills. So as hard as it may be, you definitely want to stay where you are, continue the cash coming into your pocket, but at least take your nights, take your weekends, take your lunch breaks and think about it.
And it’s interesting because I have a lot of conversations with friends who are like, “Josh, I kind of hate my job, I’m over it, I’m done.” And I’m like, “okay, look, you’re successful, you’re making a lot of money, at least you recognize it. So what are you going to do about it?” And most of them are too afraid to step down, most of them are too worried about the outside impression, what other people think of them. “Oh, well I was a doctor my whole life, I can’t step down from being a doctor to be something else. What would my mom think?”
And we’re so trained through decades of society telling us we are the person that we said we would be in high school going into college, post-college. And I think what’s helpful for folks is to think of life in phases. You’re allowed to have career changes, you’re allowed to have studied to become a doctor, be a doctor for 10, 15, 20 years, and then go change and become a loan guy, it doesn’t matter, find what it is that you love and don’t let outside constraints outside society or your perception of what your friends, your family, your community thinks. Do what it is that matters to you and of course just do it when the timing is right.

Brandon Turner:
I remember Derek Sivers, he’s the, “say no, unless it’s a hell yes,” guy. So Derek Sivers has once said something about, “we oftentimes as entrepreneurs, we have so many ideas of things we want to be or things we want to build”. And he said, “look, if you’re younger today, you’re probably living to a hundred, if not significantly more because of all technology.” Which means if you’re 30 right now you could have an entire life like business career in your thirties and then in your forties have a completely different one, and then your fifties have a completely different one. It’s like you could have 6, 7, 8, 9 full lives that we could… 50 years ago that was not a thing, you just have one career, but because of living longer or healthier, even if we don’t live to 150, we’ll probably live to a hundred and be healthier up till 95 versus living till 50 and you’re already in a home.
So it just was an interesting, whenever I think that it relieves a lot of the pressure to, “I got to figure out my life right now, I got to stick with…” You could do a whole decade of something, like I did a whole decade of the bigger pockets podcast. And now it’s like, “all right, I have a new thing.”

Joshua Dorkin:
Did you guys have this thing, because for me, when I turned 29, 29 was probably the worst year of my life, borrowing all the drama and stuff that happened to my family. Introspectively, because at 29 I was pretty broke, I had this new company that was not making really any money at all. My friends didn’t believe in my business, my family didn’t necessarily super support it because I was struggling so much. And I looked at all my friends and they were all making a lot of money, they all had a family and kids and things like that. Now I had a lovely wife at the point and things like that, but still a lovely wife, miss Julie, she’s amazing.

Brandon Turner:
We love you Julie.

Joshua Dorkin:
But that year was really hard because I was comparing myself to everybody else. And so I know most of you guys listening have done that, I’m curious for you, Brandon and you Dave, what do you think? Did you guys go through that and what was it that if you struggled with what I struggled with helped you get through it?

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, this brings up another point, I wanted to bring up on this episode, but I remember when I was 29, I was still crawling under houses, putting up insulation, I was still…

Joshua Dorkin:
Were you on a rough?

Brandon Turner:
I was on a rough. Why do you guys make fun of me? When I say roof…

David Greene:
In a rural area.

Brandon Turner:
So I was still doing a lot of my own work, a lot of my own labor, we had started the podcast at that point, because I’m 36 now, so we’ve been doing the podcast a couple years, but I was still doing a lot of the crappy work, living in an area I didn’t like where rained all the time with… And I remember thinking the books promise a different life than what I felt I was living. The idea of real estate and financial freedom and wealth, because it came so quickly, a right around, I turned 30, 31, 32 and then the last three, four years, it’s just been crazy.
But I just remember thinking, this is not necessarily what I thought financial freedom would be, because it was still a grind and I don’t know, I think I just didn’t have the lessons learned on how to be a leader yet and so I was still grinding away at stuff I didn’t like and thought I had to do in order to survive. I was still editing the podcast I think back then maybe even, I did that for the first…

Joshua Dorkin:
That’s why it’s so much better now.

Brandon Turner:
I know.

Joshua Dorkin:
Great job, Dave.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah he’s much better. We’ve had the same editor than for, I don’t know, seven… [crosstalk 00:25:25] It’s crazy.

Joshua Dorkin:
I don’t know. How about you, Dave? Where were you at, at 29?

David Greene:
How did I deal with measuring myself to other people?

Joshua Dorkin:
Sure, or did you go through that phase?

David Greene:
Oh, I still am going through that to be honest, I just was with Brandon the other day in Dallas and he was talking with Brian Murray about the fund that they’re running in the way that they’re buying real estate. And I was telling him, I feel about this big right now because that’s where I want to be, and I’m not doing what you guys are doing, I’m doing other things. And so the emotions are, I didn’t feel successful at all, I felt like I was underperforming, I had let fear dictate too many decisions to get to this point. And in that moment it was like, “what’s the point of anything I’m doing.” Now that’s also just an emotional state that I was in a that moment you get out of that moment that goes away, you can feel good again. But I think for the people that are listening that are going through that don’t ever deny that’s happening or get in this point of pride where you don’t want to admit that’s the case, that is part of being a human being.
When you see other people that aren’t doing as well, your pride starts to feel good. And you’re like, “yes, that’s right, I’m doing better than them.” And then come across somebody else who’s doing better than you and you feel really small. It’s a practice, very proudly similar to meditation, like what you’re trying to do, Josh, where you have to divorce yourself away from looking at someone else and saying, am I doing good or not? When you need to be looking at your own self and the vision you have for your own life and asking yourself if you’re living the life that you want to be living.

Joshua Dorkin:
Agreed, have I ever talked about, the idea that a friend of mine back in high school told me about looking back at your life from the perspective of, on your own deathbed, have we ever talked about that? So if we have, I’m sorry, somewhere in the 260 shows that I did 283, whatever it was. But this was, I think, the best wisdom I’ve ever had, well, some of the best wisdom I’ve ever had and it was, imagine yourself on your own deathbed. You’re looking back at the life that you’ve lived and who’s going to be with you, your immediate family, your closest to friends and that’s it. Now obviously those are not the only people in your life that are important, but you want to have lived a life that was good for yourself, but being good to those people and taking care of those people as well.
And outside of that bubble of those people… Look, everyone else matters, we have to be good to other people, we can’t just be jerks to other people. But at the end of the day, all the other chatter, all the other feedback, all the other opinions about who we are and what we are, doesn’t matter. And so whether it’s envy and seeing somebody being successful that you look at and you’re like, “oh man, I wish I could be there too.” It’s not a race, that goes back to that 29 thing for me. What I was doing was I was comparing myself to everyone else and back then I felt really crappy and I felt like everyone was doing better than me. And then I have friends now who are looking at me and they’re like, “well, how’d you do it?”
I was like, “well, I quit my job, I took tons of risk, did a lot of really scary things and that’s how I got to where I am today.” And they’re like, “well, I don’t have the constitution to do that.” I was like, “well, what do you have the constitution to do?” Because we all have our own fears and strengths and things like that, so I think it’s, stop comparing yourself, stop looking at Brandon and saying how he’s doing and saying, I want to be like, Brandon, stop looking at Dave and saying, “he’s this amazing agent who’s crushing it, I got to be like, Dave.” You don’t have to be like Dave, you don’t want to be like Dave, Dave doesn’t want to be like, Dave, Brandon doesn’t want to be like, Brandon, Josh doesn’t want to be like Josh.
We got to find that happiness, we’ve got to find me back to my happiness thing. We got to figure out like, what is that sense of contentment, I think, with who we are and find a path that will get us to that deathbed where we can sit and look back and say, “I did all right.” Because in a 100 years, in 200 years, your great grandkids, your great, great, great grandkids won’t know who the hell you are. You won’t matter, none of us really will.

David Greene:
Well, there’s two points that I want to highlight from what you’re saying there, Josh. The first is, it is very easy to look at what someone else has and say, I want that, it just isn’t wise. What I hear all the time is if I said, “Hey, do you guys want to look like the rock?” Both of you would probably say yes, I would not be mad if I looked like the rock.

Joshua Dorkin:
I just know what the rock is cooking.

David Greene:
That is right, that’s about as far as we’re getting into his world, because if you wanted the Rock’s life, that means getting up at 5:00 AM, working out harder than you’ve ever worked in your life every single day, regardless of how sore you are, what injuries you have. Having to fly your weight sets with you when you go, he looks like he has freedom in a sense he doesn’t. In another sense, he’s a slave.
He’s a slave to the recording schedules and the scripts that he has to practice and the businesses he’s running. He’s a slave to the shareholders and the clients that he is making things for, I’m obviously not putting the rock down the man’s incredibly successful, but he has traded some of the freedom that Josh has is talking about for that. So a wiser perception is I don’t want the rocks body, I don’t want to pay the price, I would have to pay to have his body, and the same could go for a lot of other things. The second point I want to make is I think bigger pockets is the only platform at least that I’ve ever seen, that teaches.
We want you to invest in real estate so that you can live life on your own turn, not, we want you to invest in real estate so you can have a Ferrari and a yacht and a bunch of women in bikinis and this private jet, all of these shallow type goals are what most gurus are projecting and waving in front of your face saying, “yes, come pay for my program.” This frequently, if you attend our webinars, if you listen to Josh’s story or Brandon’s story or my story it’s so that you can do life how you want to do it. Real estate is a tool to get you to that point, not a tool to build wealth that you may not even want once you get it.

Joshua Dorkin:
Live life on your terms, right?

Brandon Turner:
I think that’s even what I told you, Dave, when we were talking in Dallas, I just said like, “we just have to remember that we have to run our own race.” Easier said than done, but two quick stories, first one…
They’re never quick.

Joshua Dorkin:
No, they’re they’re quick. All right, first one, there’s a guy back in, I don’t know, 17, 18 hundreds, I think 18 hundreds, who was a munitions guy, did bombs and invented some really cool stuff for blowing a lot of people up and stuff. And so this guy goes through his whole life that way. Well then his brother dies, but the newspaper gets it wrong and they think that this celebrity is the one who died. And so the, the article in the newspaper, whatever, full page newspaper says, the merchant of death is dead or something like that.
He reads his own obituary, this guy does, and at that moment he decides to change his entire life. And so this guy, Alfred Nobel, turns his whole life around and creates a Nobel prize. So it was looking at your life from, like you said, the obituary standpoint, which is a good practice to do is, is to write your obituary.

Brandon Turner:
Have you done that?

Joshua Dorkin:
I have and I had a bunch of friends out here in Maui, one of the classes we did a long time ago and we made everybody write there own obituaries, it was fascinating. Anyway, second thing I’ll say is this, there’s a book called The Gap and The Gain. Have you read that one yet?

Brandon Turner:
I have not.

Joshua Dorkin:
I need to get you that book, it’s probably the best book I read in 2021, The Gap and The Gain by Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan. And they do this great practice in there. Here’s The Gap and The Gain in a nutshell, you don’t have to read it then. Our life is made up of, there’s the place we want to get to the ideal version of anything, your body, your relationships, your wealth, whatever. And then there are where you started, so zero, and then you are in the middle somewhere. And all you focus on is what you lack between where you are and where you want to get to, that’s called the gap. And the thing is the gap always moves, right?

Brandon Turner:
Oh yeah.

Joshua Dorkin:
Remember when you were thinking you were younger…

Brandon Turner:
Moving target man.

Joshua Dorkin:
Moving targets yeah. When we were younger, how amazing with three grand a month in cash flow been, we would’ve being like, “oh my gosh, that’s all I need then it was five then it was… That target always moves…

Brandon Turner:
It’s lifestyle bloat, right?

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah definitely, is lifestyle. Yeah income creek goes up and it’s in every area of her life. Like the rock is unhappy with how he looks I’m sure and a lot of times like, “oh, look at that muscle twitch right there, I don’t like that thing.” So if you’re always making your happiness based on the gap, you’re always going to be unhappy. So the book makes the point of, on the game, where have you come from?
So in that they make you do a practice and I made a bunch of my friends last week when I was hanging out with them. Actually we all sat down and did this. I said, “where were you 10 years ago?” Define your 10 years ago and then you go, define your three years ago and define your one year ago, where were you? And when I went 10 years ago, it’s the question you asked about 29, but 10 years ago, I had not met you yet, I think I had just talked on the phone the first time to Josh and I remember being freaked out, the Josh Dorkin, wants to talk to me about writing on the website. Because I was going to guess…
It was very intimidating.

Brandon Turner:
You were very intimidating, it was even before the podcast, I never even heard you talk as you were the godfather of real estate. And I was doing all my own work in my properties, I was crawling under those houses. 10 years ago I didn’t have any kids, my net worth was probably negative. It was crazy what happened. So 10 years, when you look back on that and you stop comparing to other people and stop comparing to the gap and you start comparing to where you’ve been, it’s such a great… I would encourage everyone listening to this, go take some time in nature, sit down and take a piece of paper and just write down everything you’ve accomplished in the last 10 years. And you’ll walk away from that just fired up and realizing, “dang, I have run a long way in my race.”

Joshua Dorkin:
Can I add to that? I would say that’s amazing. But what I’ll add to it is, I know for a fact that you Brandon are still looking at the gap.

Brandon Turner:
No I’m always looking at.

Joshua Dorkin:
And what I would say is, you are in a position and you are at a place where that gap doesn’t matter. The gain is so far that, that ambition to close the gap with whatever it is, that number or whatever it is, is irrelevant. And in fact, I know there’s a lot of people listening to the show who are uber successful, friends with a lot of these people, right. And what’s fascinating to me, and we’re all still trying to understand humanity I think, that’s who we are. That’s what humans do, is ponder this stuff.
I know guys who are worth, how many figures is that? A hundred million dollar, nine figures. Eight, nine figures who still have to have more. Have to have more, “I got to get more because,” I got to get more… And I can’t judge them and I’m not sure what it is that drives that, but I also know some of those folks who have massive holes in other parts of their lives that they’re aware of and they’ll continue to leave those holes in lieu of going for the money or the power or the fame or whatever it is. And what I would say is, you get to this point, you’re like, “why are you doing that? Slow your role, man, you don’t need to do that.”

David Greene:
Well now we’re getting into the deep stuff and I think the simplest analogy to explain why…

Joshua Dorkin:
Here we go.

David Greene:
Why we, as the analogy came… I think specifically men, but women may do this too, I’ve just never been a woman so I don’t know what it’s like to be in their head. The reason guys skip leg day is because it’s harder and we all prefer to work out the thing that we’re already good at. So if you have a body meant for running, you’re always going to want to be like, “yeah, let’s go running.” If I say, “Hey, do you want to go lift weights?” “Yeah…” If Brandon says, “Hey David, do you want to go surfing?” I’m like, “oh, that sounds exhausting.” I don’t swim very much, I don’t want to go do that. So I think the reason you can get to a hundred billion in net worth and your marriage sucks, but you still want to go to a work every day is because marriage is leg day and it is so much easier to avoid the parts we don’t like.
But like you’re saying, Josh, it doesn’t make sense to continue working out your biceps when they’re freakishly big and all the rest of you is in terrible shape and you can’t climb the stairs unless you do it on your hands like a monkey or something, because all you have are these big biceps because you want to everyone to see like, “look at my muscle.” But it’s not giving you a good life. Just like a well-developed body is what’s going to give you a better experience in life and it’s hard to have to face those things.

Brandon Turner:
So there’s a really good practice for doing this. It it’s maybe a little cliche if you’ve ever hired a performance coach before, but I still really like doing it, in fact I did it last week. It’s called the wheel of life, so the idea of being, imagine a pie, we have all these slices and then each slice is an area of your life. So there’s your fitness, your significant other, your family or your friends, there’s your mental health, your growth. So there’s like nine areas of your life and there’s different wheels of life that have 9, 8, 7, whatever. And then what you do is you start in a center of the pie and you shade outward it on each piece as to where you feel your strength is in that, like one out of 10. So if you feel your fitness is at a three out of 10, you’d shave it a third of the way out on the pie.
So by the time you’re done with this whole wheel, you can see your entire life… The perfect life, that nobody can achieve, would be a perfect circle, right? So you can see where the ebbs and flows and so you can look at that and be like, “wow, I feel really good on this area, but dang, I suck at this area.” And it just is a really good awareness exercise, so I’ll actually put my wheel of life, not my filled out one, but a blank one. I’ll just throw up on the biggerpockets.com/wheel of life. W H E E L of life. And I’ll just throw it there if you guys want to just print it off, download it, whatever and do it on your own.
It’s a really good practice for knowing… Sometimes like when I did it last week, I went there thinking I was going to set some goals for business, I was going to set some goals for my finances and I did this wheel of life and I did a whole day like goal setting for myself and some friends. And we looked at it and I showed my buddies that were there, I’m like, “I can’t work on my business and my financial right now when my wheel looks like this.” And so anyway, that’s just what I would encourage people to do, download biggerpockets.com’s wheel of life, there’s no opt in or anything just go get it and I think it’ll help you.

Joshua Dorkin:
That’s great, I do something similar, it’s not with a wheel, but I do like it because it’s a great visual representation of it. But I’ve got a book that I go through and it’s got each of those sections, I wrote this book and it’s a journal and literally it’s like, this is health, this is wealth, this is relationships with spouse, this is relationships with kids, this is relationships with friends, this is fitness, adventure so on and so forth.
And then I rate each one in, where am I at a certain point and what do I need to do and I would encourage people to do that. I think we heard it on here or maybe it was somewhere else from somebody, but if you evaluate your life and let’s say, it’s your relationship with your kids or your relationship with your spouse or your relationship with your friends or your hobbies. I’d say five years ago, my hobby was a zero, six years ago it was a zero. Four years ago, it was a zero. I was a complete and utter failure in that, I’d say most of you probably aren’t a zero, but is it a five, is it a six, is it a seven? If it’s a seven, if it’s a six, you’re failing. Think about it, a six out of 10 is failing.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, that’s a deep…

Joshua Dorkin:
No, it’s an half. So how do you break down your own life into different parts? Everyone’s going to do it their own way, wealth, health, you name it, fitness, love, whatever it is, happiness. And be honest with yourself, if you’re getting sixes or below in anything, that’s probably the thing you should be focused on now.

Brandon Turner:
That’s really good, man. Here’s a question for both you. This is a question I posed to myself last week and talked about it with some of these same buddies that we just did a goal setting day. So answer this question, in 2022, I want to be a better blank, so I want to be a better, blank. So I started my goal thinking with that question, so I’ll let you think on that for a second so I won’t spring you at it live, but David you to, in 2022, I want to be a better blank. Then the second question was why and the third question is at the end of the year, you’re pulled in front of a jury and a judge and you have to prove using evidence that you accomplished that goal of being a better, blank.
What evidence can you point to that you accomplished that. And so for me, I said, “I want to be of all the things, I want to be a better friend to my wife.” I said that, I feel like we’ve had a great marriage, but with kids it’s hard to maintain the friendship to the same level. So I said, “this year, I’m going to focus on that.” And I said, “what evidence would I have?” Obviously there’s an obvious why there, but then the evidence I pointed to was, if I can say I did a night, every quarter at a hotel without the kids and we took a vacation without the kids this year and we did a date night, at least 50 times throughout the year. And we rated our happiness on a regular basis, like once a month. And we said, “where are we at? At the end of the year if I brought that in front of a jury, I could say that, this is the evidence I did it. So Josh 2022, you want to be a better what?

Joshua Dorkin:
Dancer.

Brandon Turner:
Right, moving on.

Joshua Dorkin:
I do want to be a better dancer because I’m terrible.

Brandon Turner:
I can help you with that.

Joshua Dorkin:
No, you can’t, I’m a zero, you’re a negative.

Brandon Turner:
I don’t know.

David Greene:
Josh, I swear you contribute more to the conspiracy theory that you are Adam Levine every single time. It’s like you just can’t help yourself but fuel that fire.

Brandon Turner:
Dancing bird.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, Maroon Five does good music, but our stage president, isn’t quite where I want it to be.

David Greene:
Go Google the lead singer of maroon five and tell me if it’s not Josh Dorkins.

Brandon Turner:
Birds are not real.

David Greene:
I love the birds are not real.

Brandon Turner:
Have you seen the birds are not real thing [crosstalk 00:42:40].

David Greene:
The New York times just did a giant right up on…

Brandon Turner:
I can’t figure out if it was a joke.

David Greene:
It was a joke.

Brandon Turner:
Oh, was it really?

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, so the New York Times just did a giant writeup on it. This guy started this conspiracy that birds not real. It was to laugh at the absurdity of all the conspiracy theories out there, including that I am Adam Levine. Although he was sexist man on earth at one point, I think I was at one point also, who knows.

Brandon Turner:
Your body can’t handle its own sexiness, it’s literally creating hernias, trying to deal with the torque that you’re putting on it.

Joshua Dorkin:
David in 2022, you want to be a better what

David Greene:
Jujitsu practitioner, friend and leader.

Joshua Dorkin:
Ooh, look at that he got three of them. Now why do you want to be better of those three?

David Greene:
In order to be better at jujitsu I have to… I’m trying to say this is a…

Joshua Dorkin:
Roll around with more guys with less clothes on.

David Greene:
Exactly right, get more male sweat on my body than what I can produce my self. No, the problem, one of the things I found in my life is that in real estate and the areas that I’m typically spending most of my time, I’m this quote, unquote, black belt. Everyone looks up to me, everybody wants my approval, everyone says, “well, David can handle anything.” And I needed to get around people that were way better than me, that I could learn from and I could be humbled. I find I am most happiest in life when I’m most humble. It is a constant battle with finding success and then getting, maybe not prideful all the time, but just you’re not dependent on anything and it’s very difficult to stay grounded. But when I’m humble, I recognize every little good thing that comes my way and it actually makes me feel good instead of just expecting it should happen.
So jujitsu, a prerequisite to getting better is humility and that journey will humble you, whether you like it or not. So if I can get that right, everything else in life should be better. I want to be a better friend, just for obvious reasons it forces me to put others before myself and it forces me to love every day, instead of just work every day. I’m okay working every day if it’s in a direction I want to go, but ultimately I want to be a human being that loves better, which means you got to fight yourself all the time. And then leader, because if I can lead the people that are around me, I can help them get on the same path that I’m on as well. So I can exemplify these traits of humility and love and putting other people for first and striving to be the best that I can be. And that will create a community of people who have those same values that are around me and then life’s just better when you’re living around people that you like.

Joshua Dorkin:
That was a good answer.

David Greene:
Let’s top that you want to top that?

Joshua Dorkin:
I mean, I’m just thinking about him, rolling around with you doing jujitsu. I’ve seen this before and it’s not a pretty picture.

David Greene:
It’s really good man.

Joshua Dorkin:
You guys wear those tight pants and I don’t know.

David Greene:
It looks like a water Buffalo and an Anaconda locked in mortal combat.

Joshua Dorkin:
It’s ugly. It is so un… Beautiful.

Brandon Turner:
Well, while we’re on the topic, let me pull us back in here on a topic it’s going to help people listening to this or watching right now.

Joshua Dorkin:
Let’s be serious.

Brandon Turner:
Here we are at the end of the year, which means this is goal setting time, [crosstalk 00:45:33] New year’s resolutions. What do you believe about resolutions and about goals? What’s your mindset currently around them and what advice do you have for people on that front?

Joshua Dorkin:
I think resolutions are bullshit. Be honest with yourself, how many of you who have come up with resolutions and followed through with them? Most people don’t.

Brandon Turner:
92% I heard the number of don’t.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, so, I instead do what I talked about, I’ve got this book and I’m always making goals. And this all for me, it all came from the man who sold his Ferrari [crosstalk 00:46:11] Monk who sold his Ferrari. That book kind of inspired me to make this little black book that I’ve got, that breaks down each phase of my life. And so it’s literally just constantly reviewing that book. The book is on my bedside table, I open it up, I look at it in the mornings most of the time. When I’m on, I look at it all the time, when I’m off maybe a couple weeks.

Brandon Turner:
Do you find your life better when you’re on?

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, of course.

Brandon Turner:
Me too.

Joshua Dorkin:
Because that book tells me like, Hey Josh, I set a fitness goal of, for example, one of the things in mine is, I want to run a triathlon. Before I run a triathlon, I need to get to a marathon before I get to a marathon. I want to do a 10 before I do a 10 K it’s a 5k and so on and so forth. And each of those is a sub goal of the triathlon and as I get through to each one, I exit out and so I’ll write micro goals within each one. And the reason I want to do that is just because it’s something I always thought would be cool and I always wanted to do, but if I were to go, December 31st and say, “oh, next year, I’m going to run a triathlon.”
It’s not going to happen, I know that in order to get to that triathlon I’ve got to knock out all these other things and I have to constantly remind myself because squirrel, right Dave?

David Greene:
Yeah.

Joshua Dorkin:
It’s just shiny object syndrome, we’re all distracted particularly with our stupid phones. And so if you’ve got a system, my system is to have a book, I look at the book. In it I’ve got all the things, again I have finances, I have health, I have dietary, I have food, well that’s dietary, I have health, I have love, I have friendship. All those things are on it, hobbies. And the system works for me, I go back to it, I look at it. Brandon, you’ve got this great system that you and Heather do every year.
It’s kind of similar, you guys will write down what it is that you want to accomplish in various areas for the next year. You look at it, you go back, you review it regularly. Dave, knowing you, I know you have your own system. So for me, I think it’s BS, I think resolutions… Why wait till December 31st, if you’re eating like crap and you’re not taking care of yourself and you’re fooling yourself to say, “Hey, on January 1st, I’m going to change my diet.” You’re never going to do it. Do it tomorrow, do it today, why wait?

Brandon Turner:
How many times do we just, like the end of the year, people just eat crap for the whole month because they’re going to start on… You already lost the battle. Because the thing with goals, I once heard this quote, I don’t know who said it, but it was basically, the point of a goal is not to achieve the goal, it’s to become the person who could achieve the goal. So if you are just looking for a diet or some hack or some thing and you’re going to start then later on, you’ve already put that in a box. This is not who you are, that’s someone who you’re going to pretend to be for a short time and then you’re going to go back to who you really are.
So I want to become, we’ve said this before David, right? We want to be the kind of person who wouldn’t even think about eating ice cream after dinner, that’s not even a problem. It’s not even a question, of course I wouldn’t eat that. Why would you eat ice cream after dinner? That’s weird. I want to be that guy, I want to change my identity around certain areas of my life, not just hit some goal. Because the goal itself is worthless. Now I do like the idea of starting, you said some vision, where do you want to be? And then working backwards to, if I want to be a triathlon runner, I work backwards, this year, I’m going to do this. But then yearly goals are generally terrible, so you break down quarterly. What am I going to focus on the this quarter? That can be broken down to weekly, that can be broken on daily. And that can be broken down to the individual habits that are going to get you there.

Joshua Dorkin:
There’s a great book, author’s name is BJ Fog, he actually lives here in Maui. It’s called Tiny Habits. Is it Tiny Habits.

Brandon Turner:
It’s Tiny Habits, which I’ve not read yet.

Joshua Dorkin:
And it’s all about habits stacking, so it’s literal things, let’s say you want to do 10 pushups in a day, every day I want to do 10 pushups just because I know that’s going to build up my arm strength. It’s me working towards some metric of success that I want. So you stack that 10 pushups, and I’m probably butchering it, but that’s okay, with what is one thing that you do ever every day? Well, I brush my teeth every day, so why don’t I stack it on top of brushing my teeth every day?
So put a little post-it next to your toothbrush that says do 10 pushups, or put it literally on the toothbrush, do 10 pushups before you brush. So drop it then and there, do your 10 pushups and then brush your teeth. And now you’re stacking, you’re associating brushing your teeth with the 10 pushups and little by little, if you do that regularly over the course of a few weeks that’ll become a habit. And then you can stack on top of that habit, the next thing. So hopefully I didn’t butcher it, but that’s kind of the idea of the habit stacking.

Brandon Turner:
Well it reminds me of that quote, I think they say Aristotle said it, but he didn’t, I looked it up once. But it’s like, “we are what we repeatedly do.” Excellence is therefore is a habit, and I always love that quote again, nobody really knows who actually said that quote.

Joshua Dorkin:
It was me.

Brandon Turner:
It might have been you originally, we’re going to go with that.

David Greene:
Well, Brandon will take credit for the quote, we know that would be the case, regardless of who said it and we go down… [crosstalk 00:51:11].

Brandon Turner:
I’ve got a great quote I came up with.
So I didn’t admit that one, but I’m such a big believer that… People set resolutions and they set goals but what I think they should really be thinking on is habits. Exactly that because the habits are what turned you into the person. And even more than that, one thing I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately, I’m calling that a lead habit because I don’t have a better name for it than that, but here’s an example.
Let’s say you look at your whole life on the wheel of life and you’re like, “Hey, here’s a three, four areas I want to focus on.” Then if you were to sit down and brainstorm 20 things for each that would actually help you accomplish that goal or that improvement in your life. There are certain things that apply across my multiple areas of your life. I’ll give you an example, staying up late on your phone scrolling, by doing that, it affects your fitness because you’re not going to get up early and go run. It affects your relationship because you’re not hanging out with your wife or your husband. It affects your sleep, number hours you get, which affects your grumpiness. The next thing, your happiness, it affects so many areas.
So what I’ve been thinking a lot lately is what are those three, four or five habits that apply across the board, lead habits that will lead to the life you want to lead. And I’m going to focus on those I’m going to attract them meticulously. I’ve been tracking my habits for a long time, but now I’m like, “what are those key habits that I really want to focus on?” And again, phone at night is a big one for me, everything in my life is better when I do that. When I journal in the morning, like I just said, the days that I’m on, when I do that morning reflection time when I do the miracle morning thing, everything in my life is better. So it reminds me a little like the one thing Gary Keller and the Jacob.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah I was going to say, it’s tackling those things that you tend to avoid, the things that are harder, the things that are more difficult. If you’re building your business, everybody wants to go and make their business card first but they’re not spending the time doing the difficult work that’s actually going to help them improve their business. And we all do it, we’re all inclined to go and jump on email because emails is the brainless mostly and you just respond to stuff. So what are the hard things in your life, in each phase of your life? And obviously this is a business show, but what are the hard things in your business that you’ve got to tackle that makes everything else irrelevant. For you the phone thing’s really easy by the way, don’t bring phone in your bedroom.
Don’t put a charger in your bedroom, charge it on the kitchen table or somewhere else and just don’t bring it in. I was doing that and then when I stopped, we go to bed now before 10 o’clock almost every night now. Which is game changing because now I’m getting more sleep I’m feeling better when I wake up everything all goes together. So is it getting fit? Well, if it’s getting fit, stop drinking soda, stop drinking juices, just move to complete water. That’s an easy, first step, may not be that easy for some people, but there’s just little things that you can do that are actually really big steps towards getting you towards that goal. T.

Brandon Turner:
That’s a great point, it reminds me of Tim Ferris’s question of, what if it was easy? After that question, what if it were easy? Makes you think, what are the easy things I can do? Like plug in the phone in the other room or I was sitting with Ryan Murdoch the other day, who was one of my partners at ODC. And we’re chatting about how both of us have that, we’ll just scroll for hours. I’m like, “well, there’s a timer on your phone, you can set a timer on how long you use social media.”
But what do I do? I just turn it off every time. And I was like, “I’ve even had my wife set the code so that after 20 minutes of social media goes off, but then what have happens is I’m like, “Hey, I need to post something, honey, can you unblock it for me?” And then it’s off and then I’m back into the right. So I was like, “well Ryan, what if we just traded, you set my password, I set yours and it’s a thousand bucks to buy your way out of a code. Thousand dollars, Ryan will put the code in. And all a sudden…

Joshua Dorkin:
You just get some self control.

Brandon Turner:
Like don’t I have any self control.

Joshua Dorkin:
I mean literally put the phone in the other room and…

Brandon Turner:
Then I’ve tried that but after a week I lose that motivation and it’s back in my room again.

Joshua Dorkin:
So when it’s back in your room, you get a accountability buddy.

Brandon Turner:
That’s what it is, yeah.

Joshua Dorkin:
It could be your wife. It could be me, I’ll call you and I’ll harass you.

Brandon Turner:
There it is.

Joshua Dorkin:
It’s like, “where’s your phone.” Yeah. “I’m holding it.” “Well, stop calling me.”

Brandon Turner:
That’s actually why I’m such a big believer in this idea of accountability groups. They did this study years ago, a Dominican university did a study on like what makes people actually achieve their goals? And I told this at like, two years ago, three years ago, at BPCON, but the different levels are basically, if you have a goal, your chance of accomplishing it is 30%. If you have a goal and you write it down, it’s like 40%, and if you have a goal, write it down and tell somebody it’s like 60%. Anyway, it ended up being almost to like 90%, was basically you have a goal, you write it down, you tell someone and you meet weekly with them. When you do those steps and you meet regularly with somebody who holds you to that goal, amazing things can be accomplished.
This is why we have the intention journal, this doesn’t have to be a sales pitch, but we have this intention journal in BiggerPockets and when you get the journals, it’s 40 bucks, it’s 80 days. It actually gives you instructions on the first page on how to join, BiggerPockets will help put you in a group of other people who are also doing the journal at the same time, so you can have those meetings, whether it’s weekly or every other week to join together. I found most areas of mass shifts in my life have been when I’m in some group like that, because all of a sudden I have people holding me accountable. So if you’re talking with self control, like I constantly do, I just don’t have willpower.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, that’s why Dave calls me every week.

David Greene:
And that’s why we finally reached your goal. Brandon’s stepping down, you’ve been working for as long as…

Brandon Turner:
This is four years now

Joshua Dorkin:
This has worked out and I can retire as your accountability partner, Dave.

Brandon Turner:
That’s funny, that actually kind of reminds me of the way we got David on the podcast. Have we ever told that story publicly, David.

David Greene:
Not that we need to.

Joshua Dorkin:
I don’t think we should.

David Greene:
I think we’re good, I think what’s important is that Josh left and I filled his seat and now you’re leaving and I’m filling your seat. That’s what really meant…

Brandon Turner:
When I wanted David on the show, we just made sure that people were vocal about liking David. We just asked everyone to, if they liked David, to let social media know. All sudden social media was full of really positive, responsible David.

David Greene:
It was all a lie.

Brandon Turner:
It was no, it was just a intentional.

David Greene:
Look there was a flood of water that was stopping at the Brandon gate.

Brandon Turner:
And opened the gate and we…

David Greene:
I just opened it up, let it go to where it could be seen.

Joshua Dorkin:
So let’s flip this, Dave. Brandon’s about to step down, this is it. What do you think? Are you ready to take charge fourth? And in the next phase here, and Brandon, what do you say to those people who are like, “oh man, this sucks, Brandon’s leaving, oh man.” What’s it going to be, what do you guys want to say to folks? Because what I would say really quick is, BP is really good at putting together fantastic people who have amazing knowledge and who are there to help inspire and guide you. And when I stepped down, Dave, you stepped in and Brandon, you took charge and together you guys were incredible and there wasn’t a blip, right? Yeah. And I’d say the same thing, whomever comes in and steps into to fill the void, it’s going to be amazing. And so I encourage people not to be sad that Brandon’s going not to be sad for Brandon, but to be excited for him on his journey and to look forward to the next phase here. What do you guys want to add?

David Greene:
Anything you want to say first, Brandon.

Brandon Turner:
I’ll just piggy back on what Josh said is that, like when Regis and Kathy Lee, were on the morning show, whatever show, today show, right, or not even today, I don’t even… Live right with reg and Kathy Lee and Lee, then Kathy Lee left Regis, then Regis left and it was Kelly and Michael and then Michael left and it was Kelly and now Ryan.

David Greene:
The fact that, you know, all these hosts in the order says something.

Brandon Turner:
I watch this show for a long time. Actually little known fact is when you and I built the BiggerPockets Podcast, 10 years ago now, I was watching that show every single morning. My wife had had around every single day. So while I was getting ready it was on. So we built a lot of what the podcast became, like the segments, were because I watched them have segments that people would respond to. And so the famous four and the quick tip and all that was because I saw what live… At the time it was, I think, it was Regis and Kelly were doing. Anyway that said, every time the transition happened on that show, people were like, “yeah, Michael sucks.” Or like, “Kelly sucks.” And it takes a little while to rebuild the relationship you have with the podcast host.
So I can just encourage you, take time, don’t give up. If you’re like, “ah, I don’t really like the…” We’re going to try out a bunch of different people, we’ll play with the idea. We’re going to have a lot of hosts come in, give it time, be patient, don’t give up on it, you will build a relationship, but it’ll be somebody who brings a lot more life into the podcast than I bring and it’ll be amazing. So be patient, David’s going to crush it and whoever ends up coming in, in the future will crush it.

Joshua Dorkin:
And before, Dave, you jump in, I just want to say, even just sitting here today, listening to the three of us talk, hearing myself, hearing Brandon, hearing you, Dave, it gives me great hope hearing you particularly, obviously, because I think you’ve got it. You are ready, man and to take lead, to take charge. And I don’t know, I get emotional, it makes me feel really good because I have a thousand percent confidence, that it’s going to do great.

Brandon Turner:
To use the analogy you earlier. It’s like you stepped away and you had a kid to graduate high school, you’re a grandparent now is what it is. It’s like your kid.

Joshua Dorkin:
My baby boy.

Brandon Turner:
All right, David, what do you want to say to people on the show?

David Greene:
That’s very nice of you guys to say, I was not expecting that, thank you for that. The first thing I would say is I think there’s a contingent of people that are going to miss Brandon for a specific reason. Because he played a specific role and frankly Brandon and I had very good chemistry. It’s one of the reasons this show went good, is we are real friends, we’re not just show friends and that comes across…

Brandon Turner:
Which is why it worked with Josh and I too. Same thing, people can…

David Greene:
That’s exactly right. And we think about that as we’re trying to figure out who the next co-host could be. It’s also like, do we bring supplemental strengths to each other? Brandon has a lot to do with my development, I take his advice very seriously. And Brandon has a big heart and will say, “Hey, you should do this more, you’re really good here.” Or, “why don’t you mold this or take the edge off of that.” So his influence will still be present even though Brandon isn’t present on the show. I’ll also say that with this format, it was largely, you know, Brandon’s influence that would dominate the majority of the show and then I would come in and provide color commentary. So sometimes I would have to force my way into the show or I would have to make a point a little longer than I wanted just to get on the microphone at all.
Which is not a problem, when you’re playing with Michael Jordan, you give the guy the damn ball. I was fine with that but people should expect as I’m moving into the host role, I won’t have to do that as much and so it will be like the criticism that we typically get is, “Hey, David’s talking over the guests.” But then at the same time, we’ll hear people say, “well, David never talks.” So I had to pick like, where are you going to up in? So that won’t be the case anymore. We won’t have to worry about that element. And so if you’re one of those people, that’s like, “oh it’s going to be David talking the whole time.” Definitely not, the solo shows I’m already doing without Brandon, the guest talks more. Brandon is very good when it comes to… He can see things from the eyes of the lay person at a very high level.
He’ll notice something in my background that doesn’t look right, man I could get so laser focused on what I’m doing that I don’t even notice that there is a background. So he helps me out a lot in those ways. And then the last piece I’ll say is when Brandon said, “Hey David, I’m going to be leaving.” We anticipated, this is going to suck, there’s going to be a lot of people that are not happy. So rather than getting defensive and just curling in a ball and saying, “I hope it goes okay.” We’ve actually taken the offensive, we’re putting together a lot of different show formats.
We’re going to be providing more content in different ways outside of just the tried and true, guest comes on, guest tells story. So if you’re a person who listens to those shows to get the nuggets of information that will help you on your journey, you won’t have to look for them anymore. We’re going to have show formats where we’re just pushing nuggets out there for everyone to see. So what they can expect is for BiggerPockets to take this opportunity, to make the show better, not just different. Although it will be different, it’s also going to be better.

Joshua Dorkin:
That’s awesome, that’s very exciting. I think people have a lot to look forward to, and 10 years later, man, look at what we did.

Brandon Turner:
I know our little baby’s all grown up, you should be proud.

Joshua Dorkin:
And our little babies all grown up, but it’s still bald and still a little chubby

Brandon Turner:
Still got baby fat.

David Greene:
Oh there we go, now we know what my 2020 goals need to be so that when Josh comes back in 2023, you can’t say that.

Brandon Turner:
I will say this. I went to the GoBundance event with David here in Dallas a couple weeks ago. And every single person, when they walk up with David goes, “dang, David, you’re looking good.” Everybody just kept saying this, I don’t know what you’ve been doing, David, if it’s just jujitsu, but man, you’re killing it.

David Greene:
I know what Josh is going to say, he is going to say, “well, he set the bar so low that it’s easy to exceed it every time someone sees him.”

Joshua Dorkin:
It hurts.

Brandon Turner:
Oh, all right, well we got to get out of here. So I thought maybe we close this up with one last

Joshua Dorkin:
Famous.

Brandon Turner:
That was really good, I hope they don’t put the sound in there the sound clip, that was a good end of an era. So the last section here is famous for… So why don’t we all just throw our answers on… And maybe not favorite book, but what’s a real estate book that made an impact on your life, Josh? It’s been a while you better say one of mine.

Joshua Dorkin:
Invest in real estate by Josh Dorkin…

Brandon Turner:
And Brandon Turner.

Joshua Dorkin:
Very good, it made a great impact on my life. No, I think for me real estate book, it would have to be Richest Man in Babylon.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah I thought you’d say that.

Joshua Dorkin:
It’s a great… I still revisit that from time to time just…

Brandon Turner:
I just reread it.

Joshua Dorkin:
Did you?

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, so good.

Joshua Dorkin:
It’s great.

Brandon Turner:
It’s amazing how you could read that book a hundred times and it never gets old.

Joshua Dorkin:
It gets confusing.

Brandon Turner:
It’s obviously still relevant.

Joshua Dorkin:
The language is hard, but the story is fantastic, yeah. David, about you,

Brandon Turner:
What’s a real estate book that made impact on you?

David Greene:
Well, Josh mentioned, the only book I would say, and when I was on the podcast the first time, that was the book that I mentioned. So here’s what I’m going to say. It’s going to be Long Distance Real Estate Investing, but not because I read it, it was because writing that book, forced me to develop the ability to take a thought or a concept and articulate it in a way that other people could under understand, which ultimately led to my career, going down this road of becoming a real estate educator. If BiggerPockets would never have given me the opportunity to write that book, I would’ve never been forced to figure out how do I get what’s in my head and make it digestible so other people can understand it. There’s a lot of brilliant people in the world, but they can’t communicate their brilliance and so they’re useless to the masses. So writing that book really helped get me into the position of where I am today and it changed my life in that way. So thank you, BP publishing.

Brandon Turner:
There you go.

Joshua Dorkin:
Woohoo.

Brandon Turner:
So I’m going to say a book, obviously Rich Dad Poor Dad was what I said when I was interviewed back on show 92 I think it was, I reach that port, I was huge. But there’s another book called A Million Bucks by 30 by Alan Corey was amazing, Invested in Duplexes, Triplexes and Quads from Larry Loftis was a huge impact on me. So those are a few real estate books that were… Crushing it in Apartments and Commercial Real Estate from Brian Murray was a huge influence in me getting into the bigger game. But let me ask the alternate question, so when we have our non real estate guests on Sundays now, we ask the question instead of the real estate book, we say, “what are a current habit or trait you’re trying to improve in your life right now.” Dave? Who wants to go first? Current habit trait, something you’re trying to improve on.

David Greene:
I have two that I’m wrestling with really hard. The first is getting out of a… I don’t know the word for it, but it’s like a hunting mindset where every day I’m showing up with this edge and put something in front of me, knock it over, get onto the next thing. I’m just in this conquer stage and I needed that to get to this point in my career, I don’t still need that. Now I’m trying to move more into a connecting stage where I can be patient, I can let things unfold and many times the problem will solve itself before I have to intervene and more importantly when I’m dealing with other people, helping them to let them solve their own problem. Instead of when I’m in hunter mode, I just want to get in solve the problem and move on to the next thing.
So that is a daily struggle as I’m trying to build that as a habit, if something comes to me instead of just bam, how do I smash through it? Let’s let the other person who’s struggling with this work their way through that problem so they can grow. And then the other one is really simple, it’s just making time to exercise every single day. It does a ton for my mood, it does a ton for a lot of other areas in my life. I will always not have a hard time working or solving problems, but creating exercise as a priority is another habit I’m trying to build. Which is why, like you said, I’m looking different because just the last probably four months or so I made that a priority.

Joshua Dorkin:
There you go, that’s awesome, what was the question? Dave just kept talking.

Brandon Turner:
That’s what he does, everyone says.

Joshua Dorkin:
It’s crazy.

Brandon Turner:
Habit or trait that you’re trying to work on. I’ll get mine and then you can have more time to think. Sleep, simple I’m trying to get more sleep. I just ordered the aura ring yesterday. So you have that right?

Joshua Dorkin:
I do.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, so that help, did that?

Joshua Dorkin:
It did not

Brandon Turner:
Well I’m going to return my notes.

Joshua Dorkin:
No, so let’s… Well you finish your thing and I’ll explain.

Brandon Turner:
I want to sleep more. I think I’m averaging about six and a half, seven hours a night on average, I would like to get that up to eight.

David Greene:
Give your kids away for adoption problem solve. It’s that easy.

Joshua Dorkin:
So if you put your phone away and don’t bring it into the bedroom.

Brandon Turner:
I know that would solve that problem. So see, it’s a trait habit that goes across all your areas.

Joshua Dorkin:
So the reason the aura ring did not work for me is because I’m so hyper focused on data and so if I see a blip where like, “oh, I only slept six hours.” I start getting in my head the next night I’m like, “oh, I better sleep more than six hours.” Now you create pressure and tension on yourself, at least that’s what I do. And so I realized when I got rid of my aura ring, when I stopped wearing it, I was much more relaxed. And I took some of the habits that I had because sleep probably one of my number one or number two answers right here.
And the way I get there is we get the kids to bed, we’ll bust out the iPad, we’ll watch a half hour show, it’s usually a cartoon, it’s usually something light. We don’t ever watch anything heavy in bed. Anything controversial or it’s usually Family Guy, American Dad or The Simpsons. And we’ll watch an episode and we’ll either fall asleep in the middle of the episode or we’ll shut the iPad after that’s over and then go to sleep by 9:30 on a typical day. I still may have some wake ups for whatever reason, the dogs, something else. But that has helped us sleep, would be my, I’d say it’s probably one of my top two answers.

Brandon Turner:
Have you read Breath by the way, James Nester’s book, Breath.

Joshua Dorkin:
Phenomenal book.

Brandon Turner:
This such a good book.

Joshua Dorkin:
I love it.

Brandon Turner:
Man I’m like three quarters done and I’m just like this book, I’m always thinking about it anyway…

Joshua Dorkin:
And on that, if you guys are looking for… This show was about transition, the show was about phase change, it’s about mindset. One of the things that I did because I was struggling to figure out what that next phase was, I started to dive into these health books, particularly, because I did have some health things that I and my family went through. And so I’ve read a lot of books on health. I am not an expert on health, however I’m becoming an expert on my own health. But I would definitely encourage people if you have not taken the time to go and read a book on health, wellness, on mindfulness exercise. Even if it’s not a how to, even if it’s a fictional story, like Born to Run, a book about… Yeah you read that.

Brandon Turner:
I love it.

Joshua Dorkin:
I think it gets your mind attuned to, I really need to make this part of my life.

Brandon Turner:
We read a hundred business in productivity books, but when’s the last time you read a book on improving your health or marriage or parenthood, I struggle with that, I just want to read books that make me rich versus…

Joshua Dorkin:
And I stop reading those books, I focus on the health books, the mindset books, and I’m onto fiction finally again, which is great.

Brandon Turner:
That’s cool, man. All right, next question. Business book, that’s made a big influence on your life. The biggest influence on your life.

Joshua Dorkin:
Why don’t you go first it’s time.

Brandon Turner:
Or I’m going to say a current favorite, this maybe isn’t like the best of all time, but I’m going to say a book called 4,000 Weeks Time Management for Mortals has made a dramatic impact on my life this year, along with another one very closely related on topic, which is called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. They’re both very much on slowing down and thinking differently about your days. So Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by a guy named John Mark Comer and then 4,000 weeks, I don’t remember who wrote that, but that one’s so cool. I got to get you to read that one, you’ll love it. It’s just a different way, it’s rather than thinking, here’s how to get to inbox zero. It’s more like a psychological, why do you feel the need to get to inbox zero? So it’s very much like let’s pull back and have a different look at time management than most books. So that one and The Gap and the Gain, were three impactful ones. All right, David, what about you?

David Greene:
I really like the Cal Newport book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You. To sum it up it’s all about, we all want the same things in life, we want financial freedom, we want wealth, we want health. Well, there is a current trend in the world that we feel entitled to this and so other people should be giving it to us. And he gives examples in that book of someone who started a blog and said, I want to travel the world and blog about my experiences and all my followers can then support me in my goal. And I can get my dreams off of the backs of the people that are following. And he realized, nobody cared about what I was doing, as opposed to, get so good at what you’re doing, that you become incredibly valuable and then you can name your price at whatever it is and you can have the life you want.
And what I love about it is, it’s empowering, but it forces me to become successful by providing value to the world. Whether that’s your employer or your business, the relationship you’re in with somebody else, it is a healthier way to look at life than feeling like I’m entitled to have a great marriage and so I shouldn’t have to work at it. And when I read that book, man, it just hit the perfect chord and I knew I’m giving myself full permission to go that way.

Joshua Dorkin:
I like that a lot. Does this book.

Brandon Turner:
Wow, look at those eyes [crosstalk 01:12:46] so blue. [crosstalk 01:12:48]
Alright business book’s [crosstalk 01:12:54] a name, The Monk…

Joshua Dorkin:
I’d say in the last two or three years, I don’t think I’ve picked up a business book. So I was on total burnout from reading nothing but business books for a long time. I’ll have to go to Monk, Monk was less business more life, but really was about, don’t grind a until you die, find balance. Figure out what it takes to become a balanced human being, money is nothing if you’re unhappy. And so we all think that money is going to solve all of our problems and this is a show about money and a business that’s designed to help people with money but at the end of… What we talked about earlier was, money is a means to an end, it’s not the end itself.

Brandon Turner:
It’s one of nine areas of your life.

Joshua Dorkin:
Yeah, so find that balance and that’s why I liked Monk.

Brandon Turner:
And that’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma.

Joshua Dorkin:
Sharma, yeah.

Brandon Turner:
Very cool. All right next question, hobbies, what have been into.

David Greene:
Jujitsu for me.

Brandon Turner:
Jujitsu for David. What about you Josh?

Joshua Dorkin:
Hobbies, watching contractors screw up, it’s a big hobby.

Brandon Turner:
You had a long project.

Joshua Dorkin:
I had a lot of screw up. Ah, man, surfing has definitely been a big pickup. Tennis was a big pickup and I know you’ve now picked up tennis.

Brandon Turner:
[crosstalk 01:14:15]just so I can beat Josh.

Joshua Dorkin:
It’ll be a while before you’re even allowed to play with me. I won’t be seen at this same court as you for a while.

Brandon Turner:
Hey, I can hit the ball like one out of five times, I’m getting good.

Joshua Dorkin:
Tennis has been big but outside of that, honestly, one of the things I’ve really enjoyed is going to the beach with kids and building sand sculptures. I’m really enjoying that, it’s so cathartic and just forces you to just sit and focus and just be creative, so I’ve really enjoyed the arts side of it.

David Greene:
Maybe that’s how Brandon can wean himself away from his phone to get him out there building sand castles.

Brandon Turner:
I did read a book on that, on how to build perfect big huge sand castles and how that whole thing is done.

Joshua Dorkin:
So let’s do it.

David Greene:
There really is a book about everything.

Joshua Dorkin:
There is book about everything.

Brandon Turner:
So I love books. All right, last question and we’ll keep it short because I got a dentist appointment in 28 minutes and it’s 30 minutes away. All right, what separates successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail or never get started. There’s obviously a million answers here, but let’s give a quick… What’s your thoughts? David, do you want to start this one?

David Greene:
Yeah there’s so many answers we’ve had over the years. Here’s what I’ve found from the agent business and this is probably going to surprise a couple people. It’s often having capital, if you just don’t have money or you have a tiny bit, you can invest in real estate with low or no money down, but you won’t. If that little $15,000 is all you have and that’s your baby, you just won’t go take action. So one of the things that we found is like, before you can get into investing, you got to get your own financial house in order. It is okay to go try to get a better job and work hard at your job and spend money eating out less or not have as nice of a car. If you can get to where you feel comfortable that you’re saving money every single month, the fear of losing what you have will be lessened so you can actually go deploy that capital. And then you realize how awesome real estate is and you get addicted.

Joshua Dorkin:
I love it.

David Greene:
What about you?

Joshua Dorkin:
I would say committing to the pain, there’s a learning curve, and nobody knows everything no matter what you think. And so we’re all going to start at some point, we’re all going to start new and don’t be afraid to take that first step. Fear is what gets in everybody’s way in changing their life for the better, whether it’s health, wealth, real estate, you name it. So overcome that fear, and the way to overcome that fear is to educate yourself, come up with a plan and take those baby steps towards that plan, be relentless in doing that and you’ll get there. But you got to get past that fear and stop being afraid. You’re going to screw up, it’s going to happen, don’t be afraid of it. Accept it and be a problem solver.

Brandon Turner:
That’s good, man. I’m going to rip off your answer there and be very similar, but I’m going to case it in a story about you or an example of you. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again now, that Josh here is the greatest entrepreneur I’ve ever known and I say that not because of your intelligence, which is high and not because of your skillset and all that. It’s because of one thing, is that you built BiggerPockets for a decade with no proof it was going to be successful. What I call that is the dip or the trench we’ve called it that. Remember the trench we talked about one time ago, you got through this crap.

Joshua Dorkin:
I think Melinda Gates wrote a book with… The lift.

Brandon Turner:
Yeah, you achieve lift after many years and 99.9% of entrepreneurs, real estate investors included in there, they give up in the trench in the wallow when they’re not making money. Because it’s exciting, any business, exciting and then reality sets in and everyone gives up and you didn’t give up on BiggerPockets for years until you scraped by just money to pay me to edit some blog posts. And then we started a podcast and we scraped by for a long time until you had enough, to hire Scott Trench. And then Scott’s now CEO. And you got through the trench and the secret to success in almost every person I’ve ever known who’s successful in business is they got through the trench. They got through the difficult part that comes after the excitement, but before the climb. So that’s what it takes and that’s what it takes. And I think that’s what I’ve seen you do, David. I think I’ve done it through my real estate. And I’ve seen you do it through bigger pockets and now your real estate and everything else. So yeah, you’re an example to millions man, appreciate you.

Joshua Dorkin:
Thanks man, we appreciate you Brandon. This is a big farewell. So you guys, Brandon is embarking on a new journey here, I encourage you to follow him on his social media channels. Brandon, what are those social media channels, how do people follow you?

Brandon Turner:
Beardie Brandon on social media and beardiebrandon.com.

Joshua Dorkin:
That’s awesome.

Brandon Turner:
What about Dave, where can people find out more about you

David Greene:
David Greene 24, pretty much everywhere, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all of it. Oh, and I have a new and revamped website, davidgreene24.com. Just add the e at the end of green.

Joshua Dorkin:
I want to go and check this.

David Greene:
24/7, 365.

Brandon Turner:
All right Josh, where do people find more about you?

Joshua Dorkin:
Joshdorkin.com is the website. It just talks about me and who I am, but if you want to interact and connect with me, Twitter is the place it’s @JrDorkin and whether you’ve got business ideas or you just want to shout me out, happy to chat with anybody, as long as I have time. It’s hard, we get hit up a lot, all of us, and so if we don’t respond to you, don’t despair. We still love you. There are other people out there that you might want to hit up as well. It really is hard because we all do get beat up on social media and email and elsewhere so often. So make yourself stand out if you want us or anyone else to really respond to.

Brandon Turner:
Awesome well, I’m going to hand the baton for the final time over to David Green here, David, welcome to the host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, man. You want to get us out here?

David Greene:
Thank you very much, I will do so. Thank you for staying late, Brandon I know that your tooth hurts real bad…

Brandon Turner:
It does not.

David Greene:
Josh, thank you for joining us. Josh is dealing with a amberoid and he’s got a head-rush.

Joshua Dorkin:
Oh my God.

David Greene:
Sorry, Josh, I didn’t mean for our personal conversation to leak into the podcast.

Joshua Dorkin:
By the way, Scott Trench, David Green who’s going to be replaced on the next show. [crosstalk 01:20:24].
Josh is still on the board, I don’t know if you knew that one, David. Some board of director.

David Greene:
All right, well thank you guys. This is David Green for BiggerPockets OG’s Brandon Turner and Josh the godfather Dorkin, signing off.