Create Your Dream Life in 3-5 Years Using Vivid Visions with Cameron Herold

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show 447.

Cameron:
Nobody wants to work for the company that we have today, they want to work for the one that we’re building. But if we’re the only one that sees what we’re building, then all they can see is today, there’s the disconnect.

Intro:
You’re listening to BiggerPockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you’re here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you’re in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.

Brandon:
What’s going on everyone? It’s Brandon Turner host of the BiggerPockets podcast here live in the sea shed with my good friend, my co-host in crime, Mr. David Greene. What’s up, David Greene?

David:
I believe you mean best friend.

Brandon:
Best friend in the entire universe, David Greene.

David:
Sounds better.

Brandon:
What’s going on, man?

David:
We had a great episode we just recorded with a fantastic speaker. Cameron shared some mind-blowing concepts with our audience that many people probably haven’t heard of before, and you tied it really well together when you mentioned how the concept of this vivid vision we’re going to get into, unites your emotions with your logic together creating a unified front to pursuing goals, and I thought that it was brilliant. And I’m so excited for people who haven’t been introduced to this concept to get to hear it.

Brandon:
Yeah. You guys have probably heard me talk about it before, [inaudible 00:01:21] Vivid Vision, or the phrase, Vivid Vision, it changed my life, this book, in a big way, it helped me get to where I am today with over 1100 units now, I think we’re going to actually be over 1500 here in the next couple of months with the properties we have in our contract. But it was largely driven, I mean, really majorly driven by this Vivid Vision concept, which I had read, and then it changed my life. So, we’re going to introduce that today. But before we get into that and the interview with Cameron Herold, let’s get to today’s quick tip.

David:
Quick tip.

Brandon:
Today’s quick tip is very simple, do this stuff. Don’t just listen to this interview and go, “Oh, that was really good advice,” and you go back, actually create a vivid vision for your life, you will not regret it. It’s going to change your life. It changed mine, it changed David, it’s going to change yours. David Greene, anything you want to add before we get in today’s show?

David:
No, I think nothing extra. This is when you’re going to want to listen to twice, and I would-

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:02:12].

David:
Here’s what I will add, I’m going to second your quick tip. This is so important. Don’t hear this and think, “Oh, this is cool stuff,” and then let it go. Sit down, find someone else to hold you accountable, do whatever it takes, but at least write a rough draft of your vivid vision after this, and then put it on Instagram and tag Brandon and I, we want to see how many people actually went and made a vivid vision.

Brandon:
That’s a great thing. Your Instagram, of course, is davidgreene24, mine’s beardybrandon. And the last point I’ll make before we get to the interview is, during the show, Cameron made a comment about how I should be sharing my vivid vision with the world, more people, it’s in my office, but nobody sees it. So, I am actually going to read my entire vivid vision after the end of the show, when David signs off the show at the very end an hour from now or whatever.

Brandon:
If you want to hang around and listen to what my vision was that I put together almost two years ago, now it’s like 18 months ago I wrote it… And I actually have to redo mine because we hit so many of the points on there, I need to update it now. But I’m going to read what I had there in case that helps inspire you. So, hang tight for that. And without further ado, let’s get to the interview with Cameron Herold, author of a bunch of books, including Vivid Vision. All right, Cameron, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast, man, it’s awesome to have you here.

Cameron:
Hey, Brandon, thanks, you as well. It’s nice to be here.

Brandon:
Yes. So, I want to dig in now, I’ve talked about you a lot on this podcast, numerous times, specifically because we talk about the vision a lot, and I’m a big vision guy and Vivid Vision changed my life in a lot of ways. In fact, let me just tell the story, in case people haven’t heard, I probably haven’t told you directly, just in one minute, kind of my story with a vivid vision. So, I went to this real estate conference and blown away by everybody who was doing way more than me. I mean, I was doing all right, I had 90-something rental units, and I was doing all right, then I got around people who were doing way bigger deals than I was doing, and I realized that I needed to step up my game, because I get a lot of happiness out of growth, and I wasn’t growing very much. So anyway.

Brandon:
So, I decide that I’m going to go bigger, and I’m like, “Well, what do I do for that?” And then, somebody said, “Well, you should check out Vivid Vision.” So, I read it on the airplane… It’s not a super long book, right? I read it, I think, in an hour and a half, I’m a quick reader though. But I read on the plane ride from Denver, where the conference was, to Salt Lake City. I read it then, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is so good.” So then, the flight from Salt Lake City to Maui was a seven hour flight, I spent the entire seven hours writing my vivid vision out, and we’ll, again, talk about what that is today, what that means.

Brandon:
But I landed and I had such a clear picture of where I wanted to go in life, and how I was going to get there even. I mean, this is what I wanted and I… I shouldn’t even say how I was going to get there, I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I said I wanted a thousand units in three years. Well, I just crossed 1000 units 18 months into that now-

Cameron:
Sweet.

Brandon:
… in half the time. It’s incredible, right? And it’s because I started with that end in mind of what I wanted. And so, thank you for writing that book because it changed my life. [crosstalk 00:05:05].

Cameron:
You’re so welcome. Well, another reason why we connected was… One of my former coaching clients, a guy from San Diego who’s doing real estate development, Adam [Daley 00:05:13] is obsessed with your show, loves your content-

Brandon:
Yes.

Cameron:
I think he’s your man crush.

Brandon:
That’s great.

Cameron:
Good dude, solid dad, he’s got five kids. He and his wife, Jessica, traveled around the world for 12 months with their five kids.

Brandon:
Wow.

Cameron:
Yeah, a really good dude. Anyway, he’s like, “No, you got to talk to Brandon because he’s been talking about your Vivid Vision…” And I’m like, “All right, I’ll check this guy out.” And then, I, same thing, love the show, love what you guys are doing.

Brandon:
[inaudible 00:05:38].

Cameron:
I think it’s the only area of investing I’ve never gotten good in, which is in real estate. Yeah, I’m disappointed, because it’s an area that I just didn’t grow up around, and I want to start learning that one next. So, happy to be here. Happy to be here.

Brandon:
Cool, man. Cool. What I love doing about these shows… We do these shows on the weekend now where… The show used to be all real estate, now on the weekend, we do shows where we bring in just really smart business minded entrepreneurs, people who get business and personal development, and motivation, and success, productivity, and we pick their brains on what made them successful. And so, I want to start in the beginning of your journey, I mean, who are you? How did you get into this world of business and entrepreneurship? Kind of walk us through the beginning of your story.

Cameron:
Okay. Yeah. The beginning of the story is, I was groomed as an entrepreneur, one of my grandfathers was a CEO of a big company, my other grandfather and grandmother ran a hunting and fishing resort, were very, very successful entrepreneurs. That grandfather retired at 55, he started day trading out of the newspaper and died at 96. Then my father was an entrepreneur as well, and then he groomed my brother and my sister and I to all be entrepreneurs, and we’ve all run our own companies for between 15 and 25 years. So, all I’ve ever known was being an entrepreneur. I did a talk that’s on the main ted.com website about raising kids as entrepreneurs. And I had my first real company at 21 years old, I had 12 employees, ran my own business for three years while I was in university. Graduated from university with no debt and actually bought my first house at 22 years old, and never lived in it, I bought a rental property.

Cameron:
And that wasn’t a big thing back, that was in 1987, ’88, it wasn’t a big thing, there wasn’t a lot of exposure about it. And it certainly wasn’t an era where being an entrepreneur was cool, that was an era where if you were an entrepreneur, you were vilified, you were evil, you were greedy, you were profit centric. Being an entrepreneur has only really been cool since around 1999 when the first rise of the dot.com era exploded. Yeah, being groomed as an entrepreneur, got involved in an organization called College Pro Painters where I was being groomed as a franchisee, I worked on the franchisor side. And by the time I was 28 years old, I had coached 120 franchisees that I recruited and trained and coached, one of which was Kimbal Musk, who is Elon’s brother, and then his cousin, Peter Rive, I also hired Peter Rive who built SolarCity.

Cameron:
So, I was a reference for Elon in his first round of funding in January of ’95 for Zip2. I then left College Pro Painters and I was a partner in an autobody collision repair chain, which in the US is now called Gerber Auto Collision, in Canada, it’s called Boyd Autobody. We built that up, took it public, it’s now about a 900 million publicly traded company. Left there and I was a president of a private currency company, similar to what Bitcoin is doing today, but we did it 20 years ago. We had Starwood Hotel, [inaudible 00:08:28], Budget Rent a Car, all using our digital currency instead of a US dollar. Sold that company, but we sold in January of 2000 for stock, sold for 64 million.

Cameron:
And as the transaction was closing in April when the stock market [inaudible 00:08:42] in March of 2000, we lost the 64 million, we were able to get out for three, so I became a garbage man, true story. I had joined my first mastermind group a couple of years before that, the entrepreneurs’ organization, it was called YEO at the time, the Young Entrepreneurs Organization, and I joined that. And one of the guys in my forum, Brian, had started the Rubbish Boys and he wanted to build that brand out, and I joined him as his 14th employee.

Cameron:
The name was then 1-800-GOT-JUNK, and we built that. I was the 14th employee, and when I left six and a half years later, we had 3,100 employees system-wide. We had no debt, we had given up no equity, we were profitable every year. Ranked as the number two company in Canada to work for, had landed 5,200 stories about us in the media, including being on Oprah, yada yada. And then, I started coaching entrepreneurs again.

Cameron:
So, I had started coaching entrepreneurs in 1989, so before coaching was really a thing. So, 13 and a half years ago, formally started coaching CEOs, typically 50 to 500 person companies is the group that I work with. I’ve coached the CEO of Sprint and the COO at Sprint, I coached [inaudible 00:09:50] in the Middle East, a lot of technology companies, and then started writing some books. I’ve written five books that are all on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes now, Double Double, Free PR, Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs, I coauthored with Hal Elrod, Vivid Vision, and Meetings Suck.

Cameron:
And then, I started an organization four years ago called the COO Alliance, which is the only network of its kind in the world for the second in command, because there’s a million groups for CEOs but there was nowhere for the COO. And then, lastly, I have a podcast called the Second in Command Podcast, because everyone interviews the entrepreneur, I wanted the rest of the story. So, that’s my [crosstalk 00:10:28].

Brandon:
Wow. All right. So, you’re just getting started, that’s good, brand new to business.

Cameron:
I feel like it at times, man, I feel like-

Brandon:
That’s crazy.

Cameron:
… business is changing fast.

Brandon:
It is. I think that’s the attitude that makes somebody successful, not just once, it’s like I just did one… Hey, I got lucky and I got a business that blew up. But when you can repeat that over and over and over it’s because you have this attitude of, I’m always going to learn, there’s always something to get to the next level.

Cameron:
You know what else? When I was young, my dad told me I would never be smart enough to figure it out on my own, and he said, “Your R&D should stand for rip off and duplicate.” And he said, “Millions of companies have spent millions of dollars figuring out almost everything, just take the best ideas and do that because momentum will create momentum.” So, I was never the smart guy, I’m still not the smart guy, I go to every mastermind group, I’m the dumb guy there, but I can see what the smart people are doing. And then, I don’t care about perfect, I just need it faster, out faster.

Brandon:
Yeah, that’s so good. That’s actually one thing I love about real estate investing, is that… Our audience are a lot of people that want to get into real estate, and again, this show isn’t specifically about real estate, but I’ll try to relate a few things back, is that real estate is so a rip off and duplicatable [inaudible 00:11:40].

Brandon:
It’s already been figured out by millions of people, you just do it the way that they did it, and maybe do it a little bit better than them, or faster, like you said, and you can build up a pretty sizable portfolio, retire early if you want to, save the whales if that’s what you’re into, whatever you’re thinking, because it’s been done, you’re not inventing anything, you’re not inventing the new wheel, you’re just like, “Oh, I can buy property and then pay them off over time, and over time the rents tend to go up, and 20 years later, I’m wealthy.

Cameron:
Can I ask you a question about that?

Brandon:
Please. Yeah, please.

Cameron:
I am really intrigued with investing right now in real estate, and I’m curious, do you look for the markets that are starting to get hot and try to ride that wave? Austin, [inaudible 00:12:24] you can see all these tech companies are going to Austin, and people are like, “Austin is overpriced.” Yeah, but it’s just starting. So, do you buy into the Austins and Nashvilles, or do you go after the markets that are still cheap and hope something happens? My gut is you go for where the wave is starting and try to jump on it and ride it.

Brandon:
I’m going to actually throw that on David here, because David wrote a book called Long Distance Real Estate Investing, and it’s on that very topic. So, David [inaudible 00:12:48].

David:
There’s certain different ways to make money in real estate. What’s unique about real estate investing is you make money in several different ways, as opposed to traditional forms of investment, which are mostly buy low, sell high. You’re buying a stock, you just wait for it to go up. You might make a little bit in dividends, but not many of them offer that. You’re buying a baseball card, you buy a Mickey Mantle rookie card, you wait for it to go up in value. And when you take that approach into real estate investing, the way you mentioned is exactly what you’d come up with. Well, let me go to where I think the prices are low because they’re going to go higher. That’s maybe 20% of the way that you’re going to make money with real estate.

David:
Real estate also pays you a ton of money through cash flow. So, you go buy in Austin, the prices are typically too high for the rent to support what you’re paying, at least to get a big return. So, even though you’re getting long-term appreciation, you’re not getting an immediate return on your money there. You make money in real estate through forced appreciation, it’s kind of like buying a stock, but you get to make the company better, if you could influence it. So, you could go to a market that isn’t going to appreciate much and buy a house that would be worth 150, but if you can buy it for 70 grand and be all in for 90, now you’ve added $60,000 of equity.

Cameron:
Right. So, is that the cap rate idea?

David:
Cap rate is a term we use in commercial real estate that refers to basically the return that you’d get on that investment if you didn’t take a loan on it, and then bigger deals, they’re not going to go up in value based on what the other houses around them are doing.

Cameron:
Right.

David:
So, you use cap rate because it’s mostly a cash flow investment that you’re going to be making, and they value them based on how well they cash flow, not what all the other houses around them are doing.

Cameron:
Yeah. It makes sense. It makes sense. So, in Austin, it might be an opportunity if you think you’re going to ride the wave, but other markets might be the opportunity because they cash flow themselves.

David:
[crosstalk 00:14:34].

Brandon:
And this really comes down to where you’re at in your investing. I mean, you could apply this to business as well. There’s cash flow business and you want-

Cameron:
Of course.

Brandon:
… money coming in every month.

Cameron:
[crosstalk 00:14:42].

Brandon:
And if you’re broke, and you hate your job, and you want to quit your job, you need cash flow coming, you need money coming in. But if you’re already wealthy, or you’re already financially independent… Right now, I’ve shifted a lot. I used to be all cash flow, I wanted money because I hated my job. I worked at a bank, I needed to get out of it. So, when I was 27, I had enough cash flow coming in to quit my job. I don’t really care about cash flow as much now… I mean, I do, I don’t want to lose money, but now-

Cameron:
To your point. Yeah.

Brandon:
Yeah. Now I buy property in Maui, Hawaii, why? Because I think 20 years from now, Maui is going to be crazy.

Cameron:
So, that makes sense. So, for me, it’s like, my coaching is my cash flow bread and butter business, but my COO Alliance would be my long-term appreciation [crosstalk 00:15:16].

Brandon:
Exactly. I love that.

Cameron:
Got it. Thanks.

David:
So, here’s why we wanted to talk to you, Cameron, because traditional real estate investors get in a RET, where they say, “I buy cash flow properties,” and they just buy 50 of them, and now they have 50 headaches and they don’t need that cash flow.

Cameron:
Right.

David:
We’re bringing the entrepreneurial perspective into the real estate investing world so people can understand how to maybe elevate from one asset class to the next, the synergy with how to make them work together, and how to be successful in this world, because that’s what entrepreneurs do, is they figure out how to solve problems, so [inaudible 00:15:44].

Cameron:
That’s beginning with the end in mind, right? Where are you going with the business? Not just… Yeah.

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s good. All right. So, before we get into… I do obviously want to hit Vivid Vision today, I want to spend a good amount of time there-

Cameron:
Of course.

Brandon:
But I want to talk real quick about the COO thing.

Cameron:
Sure.

Brandon:
That’s a phrase that we don’t hear very often in the real estate world, because most of us are solopreneurs, or at least like JV stuff, we work together, but it’s less company focused, but whether or not we use the title COO, I think it’s such a valuable player on a team. First of all, what is a COO? Why do you feel the need to support these people? What makes a good one? Talk a little bit about what a COO is.

Cameron:
Sure. So, Harvard actually wrote an article about 15 years ago called the Misunderstood Role of The COO, and they identified seven distinct types of… Call it a second in command, right? Let’s remove the title and call it a second in command to the CEO. So, let’s say the CEO is sick for six months, who would run the business? That’s really what the COO is. And you can have a very outward facing COO, or a very inward facing, someone who’s very engineering, or process focused, someone sales and marketing [inaudible 00:16:48]. You can have someone who’s the [inaudible 00:16:50], or the most valuable player, or your partner. So, there’s lots of roles the COO can play.

Cameron:
Really what it is, is the company is starting to get big enough that the entrepreneur can’t, or shouldn’t do all of the highly skilled roles, or oversee all of them, because they just don’t have the time, right? So, they’re starting to get stretched. So, they would love to have someone else to help oversee the whole company or the org chart, et cetera. Or, you get to a point where it’s like, God, I’m doing stuff that I hate, and I suck at it, and it drains me, and I can afford to buy my way out of that problem, right? There’s no problem that exists that a check can’t solve. So, you can buy your way out of the problem by hiring that person to help you do that stuff.

Cameron:
In a partnership, let’s say in a marriage or the dating world… My girlfriend hates cooking, she can’t stand the kitchen, she loves cleaning. So, I get to do all the shopping, and the prep, and the cooking, and then she just cleans it all up. It’s perfect relationship, right? Well, in the business world, I’m really bad at finance and IT, but I’m very good at operations, execution, culture, meetings, PR, building out the operational side of the business. So, that’s really what a second command is, is the partner to the entrepreneur to leverage up that person. In the early size companies, most entrepreneurs don’t need a COO, they need an executive assistant.

Brandon:
Yes.

Cameron:
If you don’t have an executive assistant, you are one. So, really, the first role that people need to hire is that EA first.

Brandon:
I love that. I love that.

Cameron:
It’s true. If you hire the executive assistant, you free up your time to work on your unique ability, and then when you’re just working… But then, when you’re so stressed at that level, you’ve probably got a team of 10 or 20 people, hire a VP of operations, don’t hire a COO, be careful with giving out titles that are too big too early.

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:18:38].

David:
Oh, this is so good. So, I’ve recently become a businessman, the last couple of years, I was a police officer. I moved into starting a real estate team and now a mortgage company, so I’m learning all this on the fly. And what it’s felt like to me, Cameron, is the process of mitosis that sales go through. You’re everything, then you split into two, there’s a assistant and you-

Cameron:
Yep.

David:
… then those two things split into the next thing, so-

Cameron:
Yep.

David:
Thank you [crosstalk 00:19:02].

Cameron:
You know when that happens, is the ones and the threes. So, when you’re one person, it’s you, you do everything. You’ve got three, you can kind of divide and conquer, and it’s fun, you can kind of make decisions really quickly. When there’s 10 employees, all of a sudden, you have to manage a couple of people through someone.

Brandon:
Yep.

David:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Cameron:
When you’re 30 people, you’ve probably got a good management team. When you’ve got 100 people, you’ve probably got a professionally solid leadership team. When you get 300 people, you’re dealing with politics, you’re dealing with board of governance, you’re dealing with a full solid C-suite, right? So, companies have to evolve as the company gets bigger. So, David, how old are you today?

David:
I just turned 38 a couple of days ago.

Cameron:
Okay. So, when you were eight years old, you were David, when you were 18, you were David, when you’re 28, you’re David, when you’re 38, you’re David, you’ve had to evolve as a human, you would have been a horrible leader at eight.

David:
Yes.

Cameron:
Even though you were you, right? You would have been a horrible leader at 18, even though you were you. Well, the same as a company, a company needs to evolve, and some of that evolution is bringing on the people to leverage up the skillset. And then, the second part of that is, as entrepreneurs, we start companies for only three reasons, to give us cash, to give us free time, and to say that we did something, it’s kind of like our stake in the ground, right? We did it. Well, when you’re building the company, if you don’t have the free time, buy your way out to that free time, right? And if you don’t have the cash, charge more and earn it. But so many entrepreneurs keep working harder and they don’t actually build the team around them to free up their time.

David:
So, Brandon and I talk about this frequently, thank you for saying that by the way, because you’re validating everything I say to him, that you need to pay someone else to do that, [crosstalk 00:20:40]. Our understanding from our baby understanding of business is, CEO is sort of the visionary, and the COO is the executioner. And I want you to correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s sort of how we look at this. He and I both know that we need executors in our businesses, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out who would be the right person. So, can you give me an idea if that way of looking at is correct, and then some advice on how we can go about hiring the operator?

Cameron:
Yeah, it is very correct. Someone actually did a really good job with popularizing this idea, Gino Wickman, who wrote the book, Traction, and organized the EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. It’s a really good system for when you’re kind of five to 25, or five to 30 employees, talked about the visionary and the integrator, right? The visionary has to drive vision, the integrator has to make it all happen. That’s very, very true. What’s very different is some CEOs have finance report to them. Some companies have finance report to the COO. Some companies have marketing report to the CEO. Some companies have marketing report to the COO. The key is to divide and conquer with a real partner, like a true yin and yang relationship.

Cameron:
So, a great example is… Harley Finkelstein is the COO for Shopify. Harley is a very outward facing, business development, sales, marketing, operation, culture COO, and Tobias is very inward facing, finance, engineering and IT. Very different from a company like a Lululemon, where you have Chip Wilson who’s very outward facing… Their former, very outward facing, business development. So, it just depends on what are you good at? What gives you energy? And then, hire the person who can leaver up that, who loves to do this stuff you don’t.

David:
[inaudible 00:22:20].

Cameron:
So, you could be a CEO who isn’t visionary, you could be a CEO who’s very technical, and very engineering, and very finance, and deals well with investment bankers, and levering the balance sheet, and all that cool stuff. And you could have a COO who’s very visionary, who sees what’s happening with the market and trends, and as long as that’s your partner, you win.

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s really good. Yeah. And so, you can’t just say a COO is this, these are the characteristic types, because the COO is dependent upon the characteristics of a CEO or the person in charge.

Cameron:
Correct. The CEO and the COO are the true two-in-a-box, yin and yang partnership.

Brandon:
Yeah, that’s really good.

Cameron:
And that’s why the trust… So, the biggest thing that Brian and I had going for us, other than I had already built a few companies coming 1-800-GOT-JUNK, and I’d been in the franchising world, was that our trust was so high day one because we knew each other for four and a half years, and he was my best man at my wedding three months before I joined him. So, Brian gave me his passcodes, his bank account information, complete an implicit trust, I knew his vulnerabilities, which really allowed us to just say, “Let’s do this.” Right? Whereas in some companies, it’s hard, you have to kind of gain that and work for it, and develop it, and work hard at it, man, we knew that stuff day one.

Brandon:
That’s really good. I mentioned earlier the vivid vision that I wrote down and I was going to go to 1000 units. And the first thing I did as I came back… And one of my best friends, his name’s Ryan [Murdoch 00:23:45] she lives at the same property I do out here in Hawaii, because I have two houses on the property, and I was like, “Ryan, check out this thing.” And Ryan, he was the perfect integrator to my visionary, where I had the idea, and I’m the CEO… Again, we don’t use the title CEO necessarily, but I was the very cliché visionary, I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I’m very excited about it, and he had every single piece that I was missing there. But the fact that we had such good trust for years, and we had worked together before on various projects, and so we had this incredible trust that guided that. And now-

Cameron:
Bingo.

Brandon:
Yeah, and I know, David, you have something similar with your guy, right? Kyle?

David:
It’s amazing you’re saying that Cameron, because I have a team of real estate agents and my top guy has only been doing it for about 18 months now. And he’s on pace in this 2021 to make a seven figure income, because I was the best man at his wedding, we’ve known each other since we were 18. If I say, “Hey, Kyle, this is the way you got to do it,” he says, “Okay,” and he does it.

Cameron:
Right.

David:
Whereas everyone else, “Hey, this is the way you got to do it-”

Cameron:
You got to sell them-

David:
Yes.

Cameron:
You got to convince-

Brandon:
Yep.

David:
They got to fail 100 times their way before they listen, that trust component when it comes to scaling quickly is so important. I’m glad you pointed that out.

Cameron:
And so, the key with that is, how do we then build an established trust? And not in the dorky stupid ways that government bureaucracies try to do it with their government teams, like with the stupid ropes course. How do you act-

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:25:04].

Cameron:
Right? Come on, really?

David:
[inaudible 00:25:07].

Cameron:
The way that you actually build trust is to smoke a joint with somebody and go for a hike, or go camping, or hang out, or open up about the stuff that you suck at, and doing the reference checks, and really grilling the person, and getting out of the office, and having date nights, you work at that stuff. And the companies that really do are the ones that win.

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s really good. So, how do you find that person? How do you find that ideal whatever, COO, or second in command, especially when you’re small, you only got a one or two person solopreneur kind of business?

Cameron:
Yeah. So, every job posting that anyone writes has to be rewritten by a copywriter. You have to treat your job posting like a sales letter. You would never write a sales letter by yourself, you get a copywriter to write that. Why the hell do we have a head of IT or a real estate guy writing a job posting?

Brandon:
That’s a great point.

Cameron:
Because we suck at copywriting.

Brandon:
Yep.

Cameron:
So, you take your job posting for whatever, you get it to 80% written, you pass it to a copywriter, pay them a couple hundred bucks, they make it pop off the page. And I want the job posting to turn 50% of the applicants away. I want it to read in a way that it scares the crap out of everyone who would hate working with you, because then the other ones are going to be attracted to you like a magnet, right? And then, I want your job posting to say, “Hey, thanks for your resume, I’m not going to read it yet, please read the vivid vision of what my company looks like, acts like, and feels like in three years, and send me a video two to three minutes of why you want to help make it come true. If I like your video, I’ll bring you in for a group interview.

Brandon:
Yep.

Cameron:
You’re automatically reversing the sales process and making them start to sell you on why they want to work there, and you’re really using your vivid vision and your job posting as a way to turn most of the people off.

David:
This is exactly what I started doing in my business maybe a month ago, it’s very recent, because I’ve been talking to Brandon about what he’s doing, and what you said is literally what it turned into. I have a vivid vision, they apply, I send it to them, I say, “Send us a video telling us why you think you’d be a good asset to the team.” And then, we do a group interview with the people that came through. It’s amazing you’re saying that. What I want to ask you, Cameron is why do you feel that so many people have a hard time evolving and trusting this will work? You don’t have to do it all yourself, it’s okay to get people selling you.

David:
One thing I’ve realized is, when you come to me like, “Well, David, what do you have to offer me?” Even if you get your way into the company, you come with this attitude that makes it hard for you to excel, because you’re constantly asking, “What’s in it for me.” Whereas when you had to work really hard to get in there, like the police academy I went through, they make you earn that patch, you identify with that group because you fought so hard to get in there. It makes it easier to learn, it makes it easier to do hard things. Would you mind with your experience riffing a little bit on human nature and why it’s tough.

Cameron:
Yeah. There’s two parts. One is, why is it so hard for entrepreneurs to let go? And the second part is, why do entrepreneurs forget how to say no to people that are coming in so entitled into our companies? So, the first part is on the so hard to let go, entrepreneurs by nature are tenacious, right? At least the ones who are successful are tenacious, right? The ones who give up too early are the ones who thought entrepreneurship was easy, and they should never be an entrepreneur in the first place. So, the ones who should be entrepreneurs, who have that entrepreneurial DNA, they’re probably ADD, they’re probably bipolar, and they’re goal oriented, those are the entrepreneurial DNA traits. The medical community and the school system screwed us all up, but that’s a whole other story.

Cameron:
So, the tenacity, that dog like work ethic is how we get it started, that becomes our pattern. And because that dog like work ethic becomes our pattern, it’s hard for us to give it up because we can just do it. I can just do that, I can do it, it’s faster. So, you have to become a little bit lazy or look for leverage really quickly to know that the only way I can really scale is to get more stuff off my plate, and a bunch of B, solid B pluses, or B minus results is better than me doing everything. So, you just have to learn that.

Cameron:
And once you start hiring people, all of a sudden you go, “Wow, that’s actually easier.” So, then it becomes like a drug then it’s like, “Wow, I kind of like that even more, I’ll hire more people.” That’s even better, then [inaudible 00:29:21], right? But you have to unlearn tenacity and start to learn leverage.

Brandon:
Ah, so good.

Cameron:
The second question is, is why do we let so many of these entitled people come into the company with this feeling like we’re going to give them a big title, we’re going to give them big pay, we’re going to give them equity? Well then, rewrite your job posting to tell people that ain’t up for grabs, but make your culture so strong that they get to be a part of this amazing company, and then just learn how to say no. 20 years ago, to get equity in a company, you had to buy it on the stock market. It’s only been 20 years that people got equity in lieu of compensation, but now they’re asking for equity as well as compensation. We just have to learn how to say no, but a lot of it is gen X… It’s the gen X gen Y entrepreneurs that have forgotten to say no, the baby boomers haven’t forgotten.

Brandon:
That’s really good. Yeah. I’m definitely guilty of probably handing out too much equity in all my stuff that I do, I’m always like, “Everybody wins, [inaudible 00:30:15] together,” versus… Which I find-

Cameron:
You can have everybody win, I coached a company recently that just sold, I coached them from 40 up to 300 employees, they’re now 750. They just made 25 of their employees millionaires, but none of them had equity, but the CEO decided to go out and reward people and say, “Thank you afterwards.”

Brandon:
That’s cool.

David:
I want to give you my perspective on that, Cameron, mostly because I’m selfish, and I want you to tell me where I’m wrong, and everybody can learn from us being guinea pigs. When I first started hiring people, I gave them very big splits out of the commission, and I gave them very big titles, and I gave them a ton of power, and I think in my mind, I thought, “Because I’ve given you this responsibility, you won’t let me down.” And all I did was ruin their work ethic, they’re six months in and they’re like, “Why do I have to work a weekend?” When they were so hungry.

Cameron:
Right. You just created spoiled children.

David:
I spoiled their dinner. I gave them all these snacks before they had to eat their vegetables.

Cameron:
So, the key is… So, I’m actually friends with Chip Wilson who started Lululemon, and I’m also friends with Marcelo Claure, who is the CEO of Sprint, now the CEO of WeWork, but he’d already sold his first company for over a billion dollars, Brightstar. And I know their children, and their children are strong core values, very good ethics, very respectful humans. They live in these massive, crazy, gorgeous homes, but I’ll tell you what? Chip and Marcelo would take that away from their kids in a New York minute, if they ever saw the core values and stuff crossing the line. And as entrepreneurs that try to give a lot to our employees, we forget to check them to the boards once in a while if they’re acting like spoiled brats.

Cameron:
And when all of a sudden you check… When my kid was like, “Well, I can’t turn it down, I know you’re on a podcast interview, but I’m watching a movie.” I’m like, “Dude.” It went down real fast because he knows, right? And I love him lots, but I think that’s what’s happened, is we think that by giving a lot, we’re going to get… No by giving a lot, it doesn’t necessarily change anything.

David:
Yes. But I found that when I make them work harder and they establish a baseline work ethic, now it’s a habit to do things the way I wanted, I can give them more leads, give them more responsibility, give them more power, and it doesn’t ruin it.

Cameron:
Correct.

David:
Yeah. So, that’s one of the things that I’ve had to struggle with, was my mind thought, “Oh, just give it away.” Because like you said, this is a common thing.

Cameron:
We also give away titles too early, and I’ll give you an example of this. If you have the head of finance in your company, it could be a controller, or a bookkeeper, or a director of finance, or a finance manager, or a VP of finance, or a CFO. If you’ve got the head of marketing, it could be a marketing manager, or a director of marketing, or a VP of marketing, or a CFO. Do you know that now my newest pet peeve title is CRO, the chief revenue officer? The only reason that title even exists was… The highest title in the sales department was VP of sales, and there was no C… And that person wanted to be a C-level too, so they gave him a title. So, what it does-

Brandon:
You get a C-level, you get a C-level, Dave. You get a C-level.

Cameron:
Yeah.

David:
Yeah.

Cameron:
But what it does-

David:
[crosstalk 00:33:07].

Cameron:
But title inflation causes people to think that they’re supposed to be doing bigger and more strategic things, they don’t want to roll up their sleeves, and then they go on Indeed and Glassdoor and they see what people are getting paid for a role that they’re not even doing, so they think they should get paid more, it’s a very, very expensive mistake.

Brandon:
That’s such a good point. Yeah. I’ve had businesses I’ve tried to start in the past with friends and we’re both co-founders, we’re both CEOs, or I’m a COO, you’re a CEO, or whatever that thing is, and then inside their first thing is like, “Okay, well, I think we’re going to go hire some people to do this.” I’m like, “I mean, that’s why we’re working together, is you’re supposed to do this.” “Well, I mean, I’m the COO, so I’m just going to hire a VP of whatever.” I’m like, “We don’t make any money yet, how can you go do that?” Yeah, it’s exactly that, the title.

Cameron:
I made that mistake years ago, I only gave the title of director of marketing, but he had been the VP of marketing for McDonald’s, Canada and Dairy Queen, Canada, great guy, so Richard, if you’re listening, I love you. But the first thing he said to me when he walked in as director of marketing [inaudible 00:34:05] was… On the first day, “Who fills out the FedEx slips?” I was like, “Are you kidding? You fill out your FedEx slips.” But I was like, “Oh my God, I’ve hired a big corporate guy into an entrepreneurial world, how is this going to work?” Right?

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s a good point.

Cameron:
Yeah.

Brandon:
All right, man, well, let’s talk about Vivid Vision a little bit, it’s the thing that changed my life, and I wanted to impact other people, what sparked that? In the book Double Double, which I read, was just phenomenal also, you started talking about… You teased it in there, and then you ended up it becoming an actual core book. So, where did that come from, the idea of the Vivid Vision?

Cameron:
And I also wrote about it in The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs that I coauthored with Hal Elrod, and then, as I mentioned earlier, I’m filming a course starting tomorrow with Mindvalley that they’re going to be launching worldwide on Vivid Vision. The idea wasn’t mine, again, like my dad said, rip off and duplicate. I went to a lunch in Vancouver in 1998 and it was for the entrepreneurs’ organization, and they invited 120 of us to this lunch with a sports psychologist and Olympic coach. And only 16 of us showed up at the lunch, and he started talking about looking into a crystal ball, and I’m like, “Oh my God, this is going to be the stupidest session, I’m never going to get these two hours back.”

Cameron:
But what he was talking about was how athletes visualize themselves performing the event, and how athletes will roll themselves through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times performing the event, whether it’s lifting a weight, or skiing a race course, or hitting a tennis serve, or doing a gymnastic routine, or jumping up over a high jump bar, they literally will use visualization so when they’re performing the event, they can do it completely on instinct. Now, something all of your listeners will understand is in construction, visualization is used every day. Whether you’re painting a house, and you have to visualize what it’ll look like when you paint it, or whether you’re doing a kitchen renovation, you have to look at what the finished project looks like when it’s done, or if you’re building a house from scratch.

Cameron:
The homeowner is the visualizing CEO, right? They have to have the vision for what it looks like. And the contractor has to understand the vision so they can do the blueprints or the plans to make it come true, because I can get the best contractor in Vancouver and say, “Build me a dream home, here’s 2 million bucks.” I’d come back in 12 months and it would look nothing like what I was expecting, even though it would be amazing. But if I said, “I want a craftsman style, I want to look 1926, here’s some pictures, it’s got to have four rooms, I need views. I want to have an open room for the kitchen.” [inaudible 00:36:35] “Ah, I get it.”

Cameron:
And then, we’d go back and forth a few times until I saw his plans, the elevation drawings and the blueprints, and I would sign off on his plans, and then he signs off on my vision, and we give the plans to the workers, and the workers can build my home, that’s when the power of vivid vision came to me. So, I learned it from this Olympic coach and then saw it being used in construction, and then realized that every single company on the world is doing it wrong because all we ever had was a one sentence mission statement.

Brandon:
Yeah.

Cameron:
Right? We got a bunch of our favorite words and we mash them up into a sentence, and we said, “Go team,” [crosstalk 00:37:10].

Brandon:
And usually, synergy was put in there somewhere. [crosstalk 00:37:13].

Cameron:
Right, right. Synergy, exactly, before the pivot.

Brandon:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:37:18].

Cameron:
Gino did an okay job with it with the Vision/Traction-izer, but really it’s only 10 goals. So, the idea of the Vivid Vision became a four or a five page written description of what your company looks like, acts like, and feels like three years in the future without saying how it happens. As the homeowner, I don’t tell you how to do the electrical, or how to do the plumbing, or how to pour the foundation, the how comes after the vision. The Vivid Vision is a description of what it looks like in the future, the team then figures out the plan to make that come true.

Brandon:
Yeah. I’ll give you an example of that, and I’ve told this on the podcast before, but I’ll say it again, it’s like, where I started when I was thinking about what I wanted… But first of all, for years I was like, “Well, what should I do? What’s the right thing? Where do I want to take my real estate? Where do I want my business?” And finally, I just realized like, it doesn’t matter, it all works. I can find an example of somebody who has become rich off every type of real estate in the entire world, it doesn’t matter. So, I just had to pick something that fired me up.

Brandon:
But what I started with was actually a feeling of what I saw my buddy who ran a music production company in Nashville, he has a Grammy Award winning music production company. And I hang out with him for a day, and what I saw was a feeling of love and respect among four or five team members who were the top of what they did and they loved what they did, and they worked… It was a feeling, and that’s where I started from, that was the like, I want the craftsmen, I wanted that.

Cameron:
What’s his name? Scott Scovill from Moo TV.

Brandon:
It wasn’t Scott. No, his name’s Seth Mosley from-

Cameron:
Okay.

Brandon:
Yeah, but Seth… But there’s probably a lot of examples like that where really good companies have this feel of like, man, these… I was like, “I want to…” I almost moved-

Cameron:
[crosstalk 00:39:00].

Brandon:
… to Nashville for them, just to be [crosstalk 00:39:02].

Cameron:
All of the best companies do it, and it’s what makes the other 98% of the companies so completely average, right? Again, I’ve known Elon for 25, 26 years now, when Elon bought Tesla, because he didn’t start it, he bought it from Ian Wright and Martin Eberhard, he was an investor, he took the company over. He then had a vision for what the first new car… Because they already had the Roadster, the kind of Lotus and kind of rip off, he described the model S, and it had to be big enough to fit his 6’5″ frame, so it had to have lots of leg room behind him.

Cameron:
The original model S had the seven seat option, in the trunk, you could have the two seat jump seat. The reason was, Elon had five boys, twins and triplets, so if he’s going to build a car, it has to fit his family. It has to be super fast, like his old McLaren F1, the $1.4 million car that he owned, and it had to be super sleek and sexy, like his jet. And then, he basically turned to the world and said, “And we have to price it for this, who wants to build it?” Because the engineers were so excited about his vision, they all said yes, and so did the investment community. Vision is what attracts employee’s engagement.

Brandon:
Yes.

Cameron:
And you know the other thing? There’s this old story about the three guys making bricks over in Spain 100 years ago, and they asked the first guy, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m making bricks.” And they asked the second guy in Barcelona, “What are you doing?” He goes, “Well, I’m making bricks to build a wall.” And they asked the third guy, “What are you doing?” He said, “We’re building La Sagrada Familia, this amazing cathedral to worship God, and I get to build the bricks to build the left wall of the cathedral.” Who do you think is more excited about making bricks? It’s the one who sees the vision for what’s being built. And they see that their role has some contribution to making some part of it come true.

Brandon:
It’s incredible what the vivid vision… Just having a vivid vision. I mean, I printed mine out… I made mine like a newspaper article and I wrote the whole thing. I even started with December 31st, 2021, Maui, Hawaii, Open Door Capital as a real estate firm unlike any you’ve ever seen. I wrote a New York Times article, right? And I hang it on my wall, it’s like a three foot by four foot poster. But everybody that comes to my office looks at it, first thing they look at. I mean, even when I wrote it and I did it on the airplane, and I landed, I showed it to Ryan who was my second-in-command, I showed him this thing, and the first words out of his mouth was, “Dude, I want to work for that company, that’s what I want.”

Cameron:
Right?

Brandon:
And everybody that comes in loves it.

Cameron:
Because nobody wants to work for the company that we have today, they want to work for the one that we’re building. But if we’re the only one that sees what we’re building, then all they can see is today, there’s the disconnect.

Brandon:
Yeah. And that’s the problem. Entrepreneurs have this… Some of us have the vision in our heads somewhere, I could explain… But nobody else knows it, Ryan didn’t know it.

Cameron:
Nobody can read our minds.

Brandon:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:41:44].

Cameron:
It was one of my old sayings from a lot of the CEOs I used to coach, they’d be like, “Why am I so intuitive?” Why aren’t my employees as intuitive as I am?” I was like, “Well, they’re just as intuitive, but if you’re the only one that sees the vision, their intuition can’t kick in.”

David:
As you’re talking, I’m thinking, A, no one expresses when we’re young the importance of painting a picture, which is another way of saying, expressing a vision, then I started thinking it. And everything I’ve done well, I had to learn how to paint that picture first. When I want to sell your house, I could say, “Well, here’s the commission, here’s what I’m going to do, here’s the price, just let me do it.” And it’s very hard to get buy-in. Versus when I paint a picture of exactly what that road’s going to look like, what you’re going to feel, how we’re going to handle every hurdle, at that point, they just turn it over and say, “Okay, here’s the keys, do your thing, I trust you.”

Cameron:
Well, it’s interesting that we used to call it a painted picture, but the reason we switched from calling it a painted picture to a Vivid Vision was people thought the painted picture had to be a diagram and drawings like a vision board, and the problem with a vision board is pictures say a thousand words. So, if you’ve got 12 pictures, then people completely misinterpret. If I showed you a picture of my living room, you might think that it’s about the chairs and the couch, really what I like is my carpet that I bought in India 25 years ago, but there’s too many things in the picture. So, that’s why I changed the terminology from a painted picture to a Vivid Vision.

David:
That’s beautiful. I want to emphasize to everybody, this skill is wildly freaking important, your ability to communicate to others so that they can see what you can see will massively inspire people, and that’s why I think your book is so powerful.

Cameron:
I’ve had customers that have landed bank financing because the banker said, “I finally understand what you’re building-”

David:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) there you go.

Cameron:
… the business plan and the models didn’t explain it.” I had clients who have landed multi-million dollar customers from it because the customers were excited about what they were going to be, so the customers said, “I want to be with you for the next three years,” but they wouldn’t have become a customer based on who they were today. Yeah, it’s so much easier to recruit. Anyway.

David:
Would you say this is how you got Heather to marry you?

Brandon:
I don’t know if I had a vision spelled out for her. She thought I was going to be a politician someday, that’s why she liked me. I had a vision of like… I thought I was going to go into politics, and I was going to be a lawyer, yeah, I think she was attracted to that.

Cameron:
Brandon, have you and Heather written a vivid vision for your family?

Brandon:
Not to the degree that we should. I included it in my first one, included some family stuff in there, but not to the degree that we should have. We did a vision board as a family, but yeah, keep going, I want to hear about this.

Cameron:
Yeah. So, here’s what I would have both of you do, both of you spend half a day without the kids, and go out and take the same rough areas that you have to describe. Talk about your friends, your family, how you’re going to co-raise the kids, your control of money, finances, spending, your hobbies, your spirituality, your sexuality, all of the things that you want to describe in a great relationship.

Cameron:
And you make all of the notes of what you want your marriage to be, ask Heather to make all the notes of what she wants your marriage to be, and then come back together on a date weekend and go through them point by point and discuss, and debate, and scratch some out in a [inaudible 00:44:51]. And then, take all of them and merge them together, and have one family vivid vision, you share that with your kids, and your friends, mind blowing.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Every year around the beginning of the new year, I always do a picture… Because my wife and I will do like a goal-setting date for the year every year, and we do this goal-setting date, and every year I post a picture of us doing this goal setting date. And it’s always the most popular picture I put on social media of all year. People love that concept yet so a few people do it. Even I’m the tutor that teaches this stuff, but I’ve never even gotten the full route that you’re talking about. It’s so powerful though when you align what you’re doing with your significant other, or your spouse, your partner, align together and then move in the same direction, it’s game changing.

Cameron:
Well, that’s how you don’t grow apart by starting to grow together. The only reason people grow apart is because they haven’t tried to grow together.

Brandon:
That’s so good. How is the vivid vision different than a business plan? For those people who are thinking, “Oh, I got a business plan, it’s right here, it’s laid out, mission statement, here’s my marketing plan.” How is that different?

Cameron:
The plan is blueprints for building a house. The plan is how you’re going to make it happen, the vision is what you’re going to do. So, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there, right? The Cheshire Cat. So, you need to have the vision for what you’re building. So, the plan is how you make every sentence of the vivid vision come true. So, if one of your sentences are, we attract companies to a magnet, or we attract clients to our brand like a magnet, so we sit down and go, “How can we do that?” Well, let’s turn some clients away. So, a lot of my marketing right now says, “No CEO allowed,” which is very polarizing, but the reality is CEOs can’t join the COO Alliance, it’s not for you. So, I’m trying to create this magnetic force.

Cameron:
So, then, you can talk what the next sentence is… We have funded our events, all right, so how do we have fund? What are some things we can do to have fund? So, you just think about every sentence as a finished date, and what are one or two projects to make that finished date come true? You end up with a whole bunch of projects which starts to become the plan. And then, you organize the projects… Like building a house, which projects are foundational? Which ones are the walls? Which ones are electrical and the plumbing? Which ones are the Wolf Stove with the red knobs?

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:47:05].

David:
Cameron, you’re getting into exactly what runs through my head all the time, and I haven’t been able to articulate what it is, but that’s what’s happening, is I’m thinking, okay, if we can get a roof like that, we could do this much volume, but, man, I would need this framing in place to get there. Well, I can’t get a framing because I don’t have this, that’s a foundation, but you’re describing what’s in the visionary’s head.

Cameron:
And so, most entrepreneurs get distracted, like a homeowner, “I really want these cabinets,” it’s like, wait, we got to put the foundation in first. “I want the Sub-Zero fridge.” We’ll get there, man, but we still have to put the electrical in, we’ve got to put in the plumbing. Why haven’t you done the cabinetry? Because we haven’t even got the walls up yet. I remember building my home I was so excited about what it was going to look like that I forgot about the months and months and months of agony of framing, right?

David:
Yeah. I see that a lot with revenue… Like Brandon was mentioning, they don’t understand how important revenue is before you start hiring out people and leveraging and trying to scale.

Cameron:
Yeah. There’s not a single problem that exists that a check can’t solve. Most people don’t charge enough. Even when I was starting out 1-800-GOT-JUNK, the first thing I did when I got there in the first two weeks was, I raised our prices by 40%. Brian thought I was crazy, but I said, “The only way we can be the FedEx of junk removal and not a Walmart of junk removal is to charge accordingly.” We don’t want to be the Walmart of junk, we wanted to be the FedEx of junk. So, you charge a premium, and then you deliver a premium.

Brandon:
That’s really good. So, if somebody wants to work on their vivid vision, they want to put this together, what should their first step be?

Cameron:
I mean, I’m not trying to sell a book, but the easiest way would be-

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:48:38].

Cameron:
… to either buy The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs, or buy the book, Vivid Vision and read it, and then it’s all outlined in there. But to give you the fast track, step one is get out of your office and go somewhere where you’re inspired, somewhere around nature. Step two would be do a mind map and start organizing all the rough ideas until you kind of flush them all out of your head without worrying about how they come true. Step three would be to take all your rough ideas and do a first rough draft, like a two or three pager that is written okay, but no one’s going to read it. And then, step four would be to take that rough draft and polish it, so that it’s written enough that maybe your team could read it, but you’re not going to roll it out yet.

Cameron:
Step five would be to give it to a copywriter and get the copywriter polish it, so it really pops off the page. And then, step six or whatever number I’m at, would be to give it to a designer to add your brand design elements to it, so it feels like your brand. And then, the last step is share it internally, and then share it externally.

Brandon:
That’s so good. There’s one thing I haven’t talked about, but I wrote my vivid vision and then I designed it, but I’m a copywriter and a designer, that’s what I do for a career and a living.

Cameron:
Sure.

Brandon:
So, I’m one of the very rare people I think that could maybe pull it off, and do on it a decent job, but most people, hire someone who’s good at that stuff. It’s not an easy skill.

Cameron:
I have a copywriting company that I’ve introduced, and they have now written 260, I think it is, vivid visions for companies.

Brandon:
Wow.

Cameron:
So, they’ve worked with the CEO to take… And they’ve done now 260 final ones that they’ve written, it’s unbelievable, their work. And they just did [crosstalk 00:50:09].

Brandon:
You can feel free to give a shout out? Who are they?

Cameron:
It’s called Conscious Copy, it’s Jennifer Hudye. If they sent me an email, I can introduce you.

Brandon:
Perfect.

Cameron:
But it’s Jennifer Hudye from Conscious Copy, San Diego, her work is mind blowing and her… Yeah. Brands that you know the name of, she’s done.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. Yeah. And what’s cool too is then, you put together this like, this is kind of what I want, I think it’s pretty good, and then you give it to somebody who’s really good at making it look good, and they give it back to you. Yeah. Now it makes you a believer even more, not just your team, but now you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is like a-”

Cameron:
Right.

Brandon:
That’s a thing that’s cool.

David:
I think that’s what I found is… Because mine’s about 80% done, once I had it, I felt the way that a general contractor has when you hand them the blueprints, oh, I know what to do, I can just go right out there and do that. You lose that analysis paralysis, that uncertainty of, I’m not sure exactly how this should look. The more clear it is, the easier the steps are, like you mentioned, Cameron, that you need to be taking… Well, first I need this, and then I need this, and then I need this, and it just starts to become beautifully simple [crosstalk 00:51:04].

Cameron:
And all you need is to get it to the stage you’ve got it at, when you’ve got it to 80%, when you now pass it to a copywriter, boom, because then it becomes like a magnetic force, and then you’re now excited about it, then your team’s excited about it, everything just starts to go. But you don’t need to get it past 80%, it needs to be good enough that a copywriter can really polish it.

Brandon:
That’s really good. I had mentioned mine’s like a newspaper article, which is just some-

Cameron:
I love that.

Brandon:
I had fun writing that. Yeah. It’s kind of cool. But what other formats? What are the common formats? Is it PowerPoint? Do people do it with a physical piece of paper?

Cameron:
No.

Brandon:
What do you recommend?

Cameron:
Yeah, the most important document first is a four to five page, six, if you need to have a cover, PDF. The problem with when you get more than that is people see it, oh, eight pages, and they file it to read later, right? So, keep it around four or five pages as a PDF document. The font has to be big enough, like 14 point or greater throughout so that people can read it. I’m okay with a slide deck as being a way that you might introduce it to a larger company, but the reality is, again, if you see a 27 slide deck, you’re not going to open it.

Cameron:
And then, I’ve seen it come to life when you tell an employee, “Okay, you read the vivid vision, and then you do a vision board for how you see the vivid vision coming true.” So, you’ll be the only one looking at your vision board, but put it at your home, or it at your desk, that becomes powerful. An audio recording of your vivid vision in your voice, so that you can listen to it once a week while you’re doing a workout, when you’re on a treadmill, when you’re elliptical, when you’re doing [crosstalk 00:52:36].

Brandon:
Ah, it’s a great idea.

Cameron:
Man, when you listen to it over and over again… And that’s the affirmations and the visualization that we talk about in The Miracle Morning.

Brandon:
Yup.

Cameron:
And then, I’ve seen some really cool ones that do some video where they take the key sound bites out of the vivid vision, and you take all those sound bites and you organize it to music with visuals, that can be very powerful as well. And then, [inaudible 00:52:58] videos, that kind of thing too. Yeah.

Brandon:
That’s really good. That’s neat. I’ve not done the video thing, that’s a cool idea. I love that.

Cameron:
It’s cool stuff.

Brandon:
Yeah. And what I love about this is how it… What the vivid vision did for me is it… I’ll backtrack a second and I’ll say that… There’s a book by Chip and Dan Heath, it’s called Switch, and it’s about how we make decisions. And they talk about in this book that there’s the… The logical part of our head, they say is like the rider, a person riding an elephant. The elephant is the emotional side. And so, if you want to get anywhere great in life, you have to get the rider and the elephant in the same direction. The elephant is like this giant beast, our emotions go wherever. That’s why we say we’re going to wake up early, and then we wake up and we’re like, “I’m going to hit the snooze alarm,” because the elephant is much greater than our logical mind.

Brandon:
So, that’s the whole point of this book. But what vivid vision did is it aligned my rider and my elephant together. It made me and my entire team emotionally invested and like, “This sounds amazing, this sounds so cool, I want to do this.” But at the same time, it’s like, this is tangibly what it looks like, and so now I can create a plan to get there.

Cameron:
[inaudible 00:53:58] do you link your vivid vision so that all of your listeners can read it? Do you have your vivid vision on your website so that everyone can read it? Do you share it with your banker, and your accountant?

Brandon:
I don’t.

Cameron:
I’ll tell you, you let your listeners of BiggerPockets read your vivid vision, and watch what happens, your business blows up. You share it with your banker, and your accountant, and your lawyers, your business blows up. You email it to your list, your business blows up-

Brandon:
That’s cool.

Cameron:
Because then, the whole world starts conspiring to make it come true, because everybody wants to help. As humans, we’re hardwired to help, so they’ll see one sentence, they’ll be like, “Ah,” or they’ll just be so excited for you that they’ll say something, and that juices you up for the afternoon. It’s just really powerful. And the reality is, it doesn’t matter if people can see where you’re going and they can’t execute. God, Elon, gave the blueprints to everything away.

Brandon:
I know.

Cameron:
Right? And he’s still kicking their ass.

Brandon:
That’s funny. Okay. Well, here’s what I’ll do. After we’re done recording today, this episode, I’ll actually read my vivid vision, and I’ll put it on the end of this episode.

Cameron:
Sweet.

Brandon:
So, people who want to listen when this is done, they can listen to the whole thing. I actually need to update it because we already hit most of the things on my vivid vision.

Cameron:
There you go.

Brandon:
So, I’m going to redo a new one. But speaking of that, when do you recommend updating the vision? Is this like an annual thing, or when you hit the numbers?

Cameron:
No. It’s every three years, or if you’ve blown it out of the water because of hyper-growth, then you have to rewrite. So, as an example, we became very good at 1-800-GOT-JUNK at leaning out into the future three years, even though we did six consecutive years of 100% revenue growth, right? We went from two million to 106 million in six years. So, we were very good at visualizing hyper-growth, and then I was very good at reverse engineering it and making it come true. So, we didn’t have to refresh ours because we leaned out.

Cameron:
So, if you didn’t lean out far enough and you’ve already read it, and you’re like, “Damn, it’s all coming true,” then lean out further and get your next one going. Otherwise, I suggest every three years. So, usually kind of in October or November, you’re going to be writing it to launch January 1st for the next three year period.

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s cool. Yeah. We’re doing the EOS thing with my company, Open Door Capital, so we have a consultant, we’re doing the whole EOS thing. And so, we did our VTO, which is kind of like the bones, the structure a little bit, but now I’m going to take that and I’m going to turn that into a vivid vision. Because again-

Cameron:
Bingo.

Brandon:
… it’s nice to be able to see we’re going a billion dollars in seven years. That’s a nice number to talk about.

Cameron:
Bingo.

Brandon:
But that’s not-

Cameron:
But what’s it look like?

Brandon:
Yeah, I need to make it look… And I get that elephant on board.

Cameron:
Yeah, you’re right. Those are the bones. Those 10 points from the VTO are the bones to now explode out your vivid vision. I’ve got a lot of… EOS Traction implementers are getting their clients to write vivid visions, because they see it as the missing piece for the rest of traction.

Brandon:
Yeah. I 100% percent agree. Yeah, I incorporate definitely both of them in. And what’s so great about that too is like, even a couple of years ago, I said, “Okay, if the vision is $50 million in real estate and a thousand units, now I could ask the question, how am I going to get there?” And I’m like, “Well, I’m going to need a full-time this person, I’m going to need this person, I’m going to need this. Okay, how do I afford that? Well, I’m going to need this much deal each year to be able to afford it.” I then built a plan and I just simply followed the plan. It’s almost like laughable [inaudible 00:57:02] easy it was-

Cameron:
It is, business is easy.

Brandon:
… but how simple it was. It is. [crosstalk 00:57:05] really.

Cameron:
Plan your work and work your plan.

Brandon:
It wasn’t a hard couple of years. [crosstalk 00:57:07].

Cameron:
Plan your work and work your plan. My two mantras that I’ve grown business off, plan your work and work your plan. And the second one is, plan, brief, execute, debrief. Because once you have your-

Brandon:
Say that again, I like that.

Cameron:
I learned that from the military. Once you have your plan, you brief everyone involved on the plan, you execute on that part of the plan, and then you debrief, and then you start again, plan, brief… So, it’s weekly plan-

Brandon:
Ah, so good.

Cameron:
So simple. Business, everybody is like these flies trying to get out of the window, and they’re all going to work hard, and I’m like, “Wait, there’s a door, just turn. Go out the door, it’s right there.” Right?

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s so good. That’s so good. All right, man. All right. So, let me relate this real quickly to real estate investing. So, if you’re listening to this show right now, and people are thinking, “Well, how does it apply to me?” I mean, how many units do you want to have in three years from now? How many properties? How much net worth? How many hours a week do you want to be working? What’s your home life look like?

Brandon:
Because this isn’t just business, at least it wasn’t for me, I incorporate a little bit of… I wrote, “I’m going to be a New York Times bestselling author.” I haven’t hit that yet, but I got still technically another year and a half to get there. But these things I had said, and so, yeah, look at your real estate life, and just say, “What do you want it to look like?” And then, again, get the book, obviously. I mean, it’s not an expensive book, and it explains everything detail by detail.

Cameron:
One of your fans, David Osborne, who’s big in the real estate space-

Brandon:
Yeah, I love David.

Cameron:
He and I were sitting together at a mastermind event one time, and he turned to me and he said, “Wait, is your name Cameron?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he goes like, “The Vivid Vision guy?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He goes, “Oh, I love your concept.” When really big solid people in the real estate industry are doing these things, this stuff works.

Brandon:
Uh-huh (affirmative) Yeah. And it does not mean you have a 100-person business or a 50-person-

Cameron:
[crosstalk 00:58:43].

Brandon:
… it literally works if you’re by yourself.

Cameron:
You just have to explain what you see in three years, and then other people can help you figure out the how. And I think that’s become the block for so many peoples, is I don’t know how to do it. You don’t have to know how, I don’t know how to build a home, I don’t know how to build a home, but I know what I want it to look like.

Brandon:
Yeah. There you go.

David:
Yeah. If you think about the questions that you and I get, Brandon, probably 80% of them, we can’t answer because we don’t know what they want.

Brandon:
Yeah, you’re right.

David:
Should I buy a short-term rental, or should I get into commercial real estate?

Brandon:
Yeah, I’m like, “I don’t know, what do you want?”

Cameron:
Yeah.

David:
Yeah, because they both have different strengths and weaknesses. If you love talking to people, and you want to maximize your cash flow, and it’s fun to make people happy, short-term rentals would be great. If you want to completely pass a business, you’re going to hate it, and you’re going to want to get out of it. So, it starts with, like you said, knowing what you want your life to look like, and working backwards from there.

Brandon:
And, Cameron, you made a comment a minute ago that I want to point out, is are there people helping you? So, yeah, I love the analogy [inaudible 00:59:34], maybe I even heard it from you originally, I’m not sure, but if you were to ask… Let’s say you had a buddy come up to you and say, “Hey man, I’m out of work right now, I’m looking for a job.” And you’re like, “All right, sure, what are you looking for?” “Anything, just a job.” The response that we would probably say is, “Okay, well, I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

Brandon:
But if they come to you and say, “Hey man, I’m looking for a job somewhere at a hospital, probably in the Denver area, and ideally, I’m a doctor, so I’m looking for a doctor job.” Now, all of a sudden my brain is working going, “Okay, who do I know in Denver? Who do I know that can help this person?”

Cameron:
Right.

Brandon:
So, the specific vision. When other people hear your vision and it’s specific, now their brain starts working versus like, “I want to be wealthy.” “Okay, good for you.” “I want to quit my job.” “Good for you.”

Cameron:
My biggest pet peeve in the last couple of years is people posting on social media, “I’m looking to hire a coach, who should I get?” I’m like, “Really?” That’s the athlete’s equivalent of saying, “Hey, you don’t know what my sport is, but I need a coach, who should I get?” Kind of gymnast, but nobody knew that. “Well, I just told you about a tennis coach.” Like, “What?” And that’s why you sharing your vivid vision for your business will help you blow this thing up. The New York Times Bestseller, by the way, will be [inaudible 01:00:42] complete, when you share this with your list. It will happen like that.

Brandon:
That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome. All right.

David:
Cameron, This has been really, really good stuff. I appreciate [crosstalk 01:00:50].

Cameron:
Yeah. I’m a little bit wired on espresso right now, so hopefully this wasn’t too much energy, because-

David:
Espresso and passion, that’s what our listeners want.

Brandon:
Do you know we literally… We sent out this email before every guest comes on the show and… At least we used to, I don’t even know if we still do, but we specifically told our guests like, “Try to drink a bunch of espresso before coming on, because we love the energy.” This is good. And when-

Cameron:
I’m Canadian, this is way more energy than normal for me.

Brandon:
All right, man. Well, we’re just about out of time here, I want to ask you the four follow-up questions, it’s part of our-

Speaker 5:
Famous Four.

Brandon:
Famous Four is part of the show where we ask every guest the same four questions. First question we ask the weekend guests here on the show, which would be you here is, is there a habit or a trait or a skill you’re currently trying to build in your life?

Cameron:
Yeah. So, the skill is related to a course that I’m launching that is a pure online course for leaders of companies to get all the soft skills around becoming better leaders, and this stuff doesn’t exist online, but it’s all of the skills that all managers and leaders need to get better in, so like coaching, delegation, time management, project management, problem solving, conflict management, et cetera, it’s 12 modules.

Brandon:
Oh, cool.

Cameron:
So, just really thinking and working a lot on getting ready too, because we launched that in about three weeks.

Brandon:
Oh, nice.

Cameron:
Yeah, that would be the one.

Brandon:
What’s that company called? Where can people find that one?

Cameron:
Called Invest in Your Leaders.

Brandon:
Okay. I think there’s a… We were just talking about this, David and I, there’s a lack of good leadership training material out there. I don’t know many great leadership books, some people asked me the other day, I was like, “I don’t know [crosstalk 01:02:23].”

Cameron:
Yeah. The One Minute Manager is the best on managing-

Brandon:
I do like that.

Cameron:
… but in terms of all the skills that you need to be [inaudible 01:02:29], like the project management, time management, delegation, coaching, effective meetings, classroom teaching, it doesn’t exist in a manual.

Brandon:
Yeah. There we go.

David:
Well, Cameron, you hit the nail on the head when you said that business is changing so fast. I think the reason there’s so many books out there that are written for managers is because for the last 100 years or so, that was what you had to be good at business, was managing people.

Cameron:
Right.

David:
And now with entrepreneurship taking off, and the internet making everything possible, leadership is so much more important, because people are looking for someone to follow.

Cameron:
Yeah. There’s a great saying that I heard recently, that if the rate of change outside your business is greater than the rate of change inside your business, you’re out of business.

Brandon:
That’s good.

David:
Yeah. It’s like having-

Cameron:
And business is changing very, very fast.

David:
Yeah, it is. More expenses than income coming in, you can’t last too long like that.

Cameron:
It’s a bad model.

David:
Do you have a favorite business book you can recommend for us?

Cameron:
Favorite business book, it depends on the size business that you’re at. So, for a larger company, let’s say, 200 or more employees, so medium size, Good to Great is spectacular, if you take one chapter at a time and dissect it, and make sure that you’re doing it, because it doesn’t talk about how to do it. If you’re a smaller organization, I really do like Traction. Other than my books, which I won’t promote, I think Traction by Gino Wickman has done a really good job. I think Verne’s Scaling Up is really good. The One Minute Manager is an amazing book on coaching, leading people.

Cameron:
My favorite two books in the last 10 years for business, one is Insanely Simple, and it’s all about all the principles on simplicity that they used inside of Apple, which it’s a spectacular read, and it’s easy to implement. And the second is, The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, and again is three page chapters, and it’s so good.

Brandon:
Cool, man. The Hard Thing About Hard Things, I have that on my Kindle, and I’ve had it for a couple of years, that’s why I never started but-

Cameron:
So good. So good.

Brandon:
… I’m going to start it now that you said that. It’s good. Sweet man. All right.

David:
Remind me that I got to get that book. I’ll read it before you do [crosstalk 01:04:23].

Brandon:
Okay.

Cameron:
I’ll give you my favorite book just to read-

Brandon:
Oh, please.

Cameron:
… is Endurance by Albert Lansing about Ernest Shackleton, and it’s about 100 years ago, the journey from Europe to the Antarctic, and they were going to go explore, and the ship crashed, and how they survived the two years living on ice floes, spectacular true story.

Brandon:
I’m adding that to my list too, I’ve had a couple of people recommend that recently, so I’ll-

Cameron:
So good.

Brandon:
Cool.

David:
All right, Cameron, what are some of your hobbies?

Cameron:
Golfing, skiing, tennis, hiking, cooking-

David:
All that Canadian stuff.

Cameron:
Spending a lot of time with my kids right now because my kids are at the end of their time at home 19 and 17, so just anything I can do with them.

Brandon:
Cool, man. All right. Last question of the day from me, if you had to narrow it down to one thing, which is going to be incredibly difficult but we’ll pose the question, what do you believe separates successful entrepreneurs from those who give up, or they fail, or they just never get started? What’s that one or two things that really sets them apart?

Cameron:
I think it’s a formula of what I call focus, faith and effort. And if you gave yourself a percentage rating on how focused are you? On your goal, on your plan, on your demographic, on execution, how focused are you and the team? You give yourself like a percentage score of somewhere between zero and 100% focused, and then how much faith do you have in yourself and your team? And are you protecting your confidence, and just hanging out with positive people, and masterminding to really grow your skills and confidence? Give yourself a percentage score there of somewhere between one 100%.

Cameron:
And then, the E, is effort, and how much effort are you really putting in? Are you working hard? Are you hardly working? And again, a percentage score. And if you multiply those percentages out, like 50% focused times 50% faith times 50% effort, it’s a 12 and half percent chance of success, it’s just horrible odds. Even at 80% focused times 80% faith times 80% effort is only 51% chance of success. So, truly, truly being successful is doing everything you can… The entrepreneur is doing everything they can to stay that 98% focused times 98% faith times 98% effort. That’s what I think it is.

Brandon:
That’s really good.

Cameron:
But the reality is… Can I give you my final point?

Brandon:
Please.

Cameron:
None of this matters.

Brandon:
How so?

Cameron:
The reality is, this is just what we do to make money. At the end of the day, it’s about hanging out with our loved ones, and our friends, and our family, and realizing that this is just… And I think so many entrepreneurs forget to enjoy this journey, because this is a really, really fun ride that we’re on if we just have fun and don’t miss sunsets, and get outdoors.

Brandon:
That’s a really good point. I live out here in Maui, Hawaii, and there’s a road that drives from Kahului, which is the main airport town, all the way to this little town called Hana, right? And they call it The Road to Hana. Hana is a nothing town, there’s nothing really there, it’s just like a little tiny town, it’s the drive that’s amazing. You can spend five, six, seven, 10 hours on the drive.

Brandon:
So, the other day I drove it, and I had some friends behind me that were following behind me on the drive, and at the very beginning, we got disconnected, there’s no cell phone reception for most of the drive. But anyway, so I said, “Well, we’ll meet up on the road, we’ll stop constantly.” You’re always looking at waterfalls and cliffs, and doing little hikes and stuff, and it should take five hours to get there. They call me, and I finally get reception at this one spot, we finally connect, and they called me an hour and a half into the drive, and they’re like, “[inaudible 01:07:38] we’re in Hana.” And I was like, “You’re where?” They’re like, “We’re in Hana.” And I’m like, “You missed the whole… You missed it.”

Cameron:
You missed the whole point.

Brandon:
“You missed the whole point. What are you doing?” They’re like, “Well, we just drove there.” I’m like, “Ah, you missed the point.”

Cameron:
No, you missed the point.

Brandon:
Yeah. I think a lot of people go through life… Especially entrepreneurs go through life, and they try to go 70 miles an hour on the way to Hana and miss the waterfalls.

Cameron:
You got to look in the review mirror and see how far you’ve just come along the way.

Brandon:
Yeah. Good stuff, man. All right, David, well, you want to get us out of here with the final question?

David:
Yes, Cameron, this has been excellent. Thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it.

Cameron:
No, it’s been great.

David:
Where can people find out more about you?

Cameron:
Yeah, sure. All of my books are available on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. Anyone who runs a company with at least 5 million or greater, they should definitely check out the COO Alliance, and get their second-in-command into that, and then the Cameron Herold website. But also check out the Second in Command Podcast, I think they’ll get a lot of value off that as well.

Brandon:
That’s fantastic. Yeah. I love that you’re doing that, because again, it was an underserved group of people, but it’s such a vital part of every business. So, very cool, man. Well, this has been awesome, you guys, thank you very much.

Cameron:
Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

Brandon:
Thank you. David, you want to get us out of here?

David:
This is David Greene for Cameron Herold and Brandon, the focus, faith, effort, Turner, signing off.

Brandon:
Hey, everyone, it’s Brandon. All right. I said I would read my entire vivid vision that I put together after reading Vivid Vision from Cameron Herold, this is what I wrote on the airplane after leaving the… I think it was the best ever conference out there in Denver a couple of years ago, and I left there and this is the vision that I wrote. So, obviously, if you want to actually read along, you can go to www.biggerpockets.com/brandonvision, just brandonvision. You can check it there. I’ll just have actually just a picture of the actual poster that’s hanging in my office right now.

Brandon:
So, without further ado, it’s going to take me a little while to read it, it’s pretty long, but I thought this might inspire some people, so here we go. Again, this is from two years ago, and a lot of stuff we’ve hit already, some of it we’re still working towards, and I’m working on my newer vision for the next few years right now, but here’s my last one. At the very top of the page, it is called… Again, this looks like a newspaper article that is written like a newspaper article, it’s got columns like a newspaper article, and it is written like one. So, here we go.

Brandon:
“The $50 Million Surfers: How a small team of adventure seekers built a real estate empire, helped millions achieve financial independence, and kept their humanity intact. December 31st, 2021, Maui, Hawaii, Open Door Capital, a Maui based real estate investment firm is an investment firm unlike anything you’ve seen. Instead of suits and ties, you’ll find the small team wearing board shorts and flip-flops, if you can find them at all. They’ve replaced the 40-hour work week with something they call the 30-ish hour work week without actually tracking anyone’s hours. And they take regular company paid trips to exotic locations like Australia, Mexico, and even Cuba. But don’t take their lack of a normal work practice as a sign of laziness.”

Brandon:
“This year, Open Door Capital crossed the $50 million mark for controlled real estate. They work with over 100 accredited investors to buy and manage nearly 1000 rental units across the country, made up mostly of mobile home parks and residential apartment complexes. With over a million dollar in revenue reported this year and zero employee turnover in three years, this small business clearly has something big figured out.”

Brandon:
“Founded by Brandon Turner, a tall tattooed surfer, with self-proclaimed obsession with family, in 2018…” I don’t have a lot of tattoos, but it’s in the vision. “Open Door Capital invests in American residential real estate by raising money from passive investors across America, focusing on improving the condition of those investments to provide safe, affordable, and clean homes to those renting from the firm, while also delivering…” As Turner describes it, “world-class customer service to our residents. While focusing primarily on mobile home parks, Open Door Capital has also residential multifamily real estate in the growing portfolio.” Which is true, we are adding that on this year.

Brandon:
“Since its inception, Open Door Capital has delivered above average passive returns, while giving its team members a company culture to brag about.” Our next header in the article here. “Surfs Up the Key to Growth. According to Turner, quote, ‘The fast growth and success of Open Door Capital over the past several years is a result of one powerful thing, our incredible team.’ End quote. And it’s easy to see why. While in with just six members, each of the team members were chosen because of their depth of knowledge and expertise, their effectiveness at accomplishing key tasks, and their desire to live as Turner puts it, ‘An intentionally rad life.'”

Brandon:
“This commitment to living a life of intention is made clear by the company mandate, yes, it’s actually required to get out on company paid time, at least twice a week, to surf, swim, snorkel, hike, play a sport, or do something else that gets each member of the team engaged with the outdoors, or exercise. Quote, ‘By wholly into a commitment toward living large, Turner states, ‘The team actually finds itself more productive, more passionate, and more profitable. Many companies say they want the best for their employees, we prove it with every wave ridden, every mile hiked, every turtle encountered under the sea. When we return to work after an experience like that, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. Fun, smart people doing fun, smart things, that’s what we’re about.'”

Brandon:
“Open Door Capital is looking to add three to four new hires soon, something that won’t be difficult given the company’s strong culture. In addition to regular breaks during the middle of the day to hit the waves, or spend time with loved ones, the team, half of who are based in Maui, the other half remote from various locations, gets together several times a year with their families, all expense paid to,” As Turner States, “work hard and play hard. Additionally, the team gathers together each quarter to make plans for the next three months in, you guessed it, find adventure. And if that culture didn’t sound exciting enough, every team member is given a minimum of three weeks of paid vacation each year.”

Brandon:
“In the end,” Turner States, “We believe that a well-rested, well-traveled team makes for the most effective team. In addition to perks like amazing health insurance, three months paid maternity or paternity benefits, and the emphasis on work-life balance, Open Door Capital also offers something else unique, a piece of every deal, quote, ‘We believe strongly in financial independence for everyone including our team members, that’s why every single deal we give each member of our team a piece of the profits made on the deal. We want to win together.'”

Brandon:
Next heading, “Giving Back. While Open Door Capital clearly invests a large portion of their profits into the lives of their team members, they also invest a large amount of profits on something not often seen in a financial business, trying to help save the world. Last year, the company donated over $50,000 to various charities, and spent another 25 grand taking its team to the third world to help care for orphans stuck in poverty.” That’s not something we’ve done yet, but something we’re working toward. “Turner told us, ‘We believe that when we give generously, not only does it help others in a powerful way, it actually makes us more profitable. It reminds us that money is just a tool and we have the resources to make more.’ And with over $50 million in real estate owned, maybe Turner has a point.”

Brandon:
“But giving to charity and creating a strong company culture isn’t the only thing Open Door Capital excels at.” Next header, “A Transparent Look at Real Estate. When starting Open Door Capital, Turner looked at the competition and wanted to find a way to stand out and be different. As someone who has invested in other real estate syndications in the past, Turner knew that one common frustration is the lack of transparency about the particular deal once the deal was funded. Quote, ‘I would put money into the investment, he says, ‘but never really knew how the deal was performing. Other than quarterly statements that were confusing and lacking in detail, I never knew what was going on, nor did I learn anything that would help me in the future.’ End quote.”

Brandon:
“So, Turner set out to change that. Every month now, Open Door Capital hosts a live online video webinar for any of their investors who want to join, learn, and ask questions.” We don’t actually do that yet, we are hoping to do that, but we send out monthly updates via email. “In this session, they break down everything that the firm was doing with the property, as well as lessons they were learning along the way, both positive and negative. He also sends out summaries monthly of the same for those not able to attend the webinars. Quote, ‘Solid deals attract investors,’ Turner often says, ‘but transparency keeps them investing with us for life.’ This focus on transparency seems to be working well. In fact, in the past year alone, Open Door Capital has raised over $8 million from investors, many of who have invested in prior deals. In fact, today, Open Door Capital typically funds a multimillion dollar deal in under 24 hours, something unheard of in the industry.”

Brandon:
Next header, “Masterminding in Maui. The Open Door Capital team members are not the only ones learning, growing, and finding adventure, in the past three years, Open Door Capital has hosted six live retreats in Hawaii, bringing in dozens of real estate investors and business owners, as well as some high level authors and speakers to the islands in Paradise to network, learn, and play. These retreats are often sold out in just minutes of being announced due to the reputation they’ve gained. One recent attendee described the events as quote, ‘The single greatest week of my life. I learned so much about real estate investing and received some incredible clarity on my life’s purpose, but what I really valued was the connections I made. Whether we were parasailing down a mountain, or diving with sharks, I was building lifelong relationships at every moment with some really incredible individuals.'”

Brandon:
“For Turner and the Open Door Capital team, these events serve several purposes. Quote, ‘Making over a 100 grand in profit last year on these events was great,’ says Turner, ‘and we were even able to donate 100% of the last event to charity, but even better was the ability to build relationships with potential investors, giving them a chance to get to know us and learn how we do business.'”

Brandon:
All right, final sub-section here, “The Secret to Making Millions. While Open Door Capital may seem to many to have come out of nowhere to become a dominant player in the real estate industry, Turner himself was anything but hidden. A long time believer in the concept of, if you want to make millions, help millions, that surfing CEO has done just that. As host of the popular real estate investing podcast for nearly eight years, the BiggerPockets Podcast, Turner used his audience of over 500,000 listeners per episode, and 150 million total downloads today, to dominate several other media niches, including YouTube, such that his videos have been viewed by over 100 million people, and published books where he has written several of the most popular real estate books ever published, including his recent New York Times Bestseller with over 100,000 copies sold its first month.”

Brandon:
That has not come true yet, hopefully we hit that this year. “His books can be found near the top of several Amazon categories, in addition to being found on the shelves of bookstores, libraries, and airports.” I’m not in airports yet, if anybody knows how to do that, let me know. “It is clear that Turner has capitalized on his unique ability to reach millions, helping to attract the best talent to his team, and ensuring a steady stream of potential investors. However, according to Turner, the real benefit is the lives changed of average people who discover there is more to life than living in a cubicle. Quote, ‘My life’s mission,’ says Turner, ‘is to help people move from pain to fulfillment. So, I show, speak and demonstrate to anyone I meet that life is beautiful and is meant to be lived abundantly.'”

Brandon:
I hope you guys enjoyed that, that was my vivid vision that I laid out, again, two years ago, and the ending date on that was December 31st, 2021. So, you can see a lot of that stuff we’ve hit at Open Door Capital, I mean, we’re over $50 million of real estate control now. We work with well over 100 accredited investors. I think we’re at almost 300 now. We’ve got another 5,000 on our list. If you want to know more about that, odcfund.com, O-D-Cfund.com, you can find out more there. It says we have nearly a thousand rental units, we’re actually well over that, I think we are 1500 right now.

Brandon:
We are adding apartments on this year, so by the end of the year, when this vivid vision ends, we will have had that as well. We’ve not yet really done… We’ve done a few of the Maui masterminds, we’ve done a couple of amazing ones, but due to COVID, we kind of slowed down on that, but this year we are really going to be ramping that up as COVID dissipates, we’re going to be increasing our Maui mastermind stuff. So, look for more on that on my Instagram, beardybrandon in the coming months, but I’m super excited about that.

Brandon:
And I have not yet done the actual travel with my team to the third world to go give back, which we’re looking to do more of that, as well as donating some more money this year. I think that’s a pretty important thing to me. So, that is what I got. I hope you all enjoyed this. Thank you so much for hanging out for the final 11 minutes of this podcast. You can follow me, again, beardybrandon, where I post a lot of Instagram stuff. Follow BiggerPockets everywhere @biggerpockets. Go follow David as well, he’s awesome, davidgreene24. He’s probably most active on Instagram as well. And that’s all I got.

Brandon:
If you found this helpful, again, make your own vision, sit down, spend a few days, or at least a few hours, speaking out what you want your life to be. If you want to just copy mine entirely, and just make your own newspaper article, that’s cool too, but the point is to do it. So, thanks everyone for biggerpockets.com, my name is Brandon, signing off.

Outro:
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