Why Do Investors Lie to Themselves? +More Audience Q&A (Pt. 2)

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show 469.

David:
I cannot tell you how many people say, “Yeah, I really want a house hack, but what if I don’t like it? What if I don’t like having roommates, or what if I get cramped up living in a small house and I want a big one?” And then move out, move back into where you were, go get another apartment. There’s not a law that forces you to live in a house that you don’t like. It’s such a small percentage of the time you’re not happy, but if you’re not happy, it’s such an easy solution. Go back to what you did before. Now, you have a house and rent out where you were going to be living. Thank you for just pointing out that so many of these things are easily reversible.

Intro:
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Brandon:
What’s going on, everyone? It’s Brandon Turner, host of The BiggerPockets Podcast here for a part two, a sequel episode with my co-host, my host, my fellow hosts, David not as beardy as beardy Brandon.

David:
Thank you. It’s trimmed up. I have to take a new headshot today. There’s appointment scheduled, because I’ve been using the same headshot from when I didn’t have a beard for a long time and I’ve taken some flak for that.

Brandon:
That’s why you’re wearing your handsome shirt also. I get it.

David:
That’s funny that you said handsome shirt. That was an inside joke with Brandon. He had one thing that wasn’t a T-shirt and he would wear it whenever we had dinner night.

Brandon:
Yeah, I went to a dinner. Yeah, I went to a [Kiave 00:01:29] Outdoor dinner. Kiave Outdoor’s like my buddy, Yeshua. He runs this big company called Kiave Outdoor, a small company, but they do this fancy dinners, fine dining on the side of a mountain. We call it fine dining in a field. Anyway, I went to a fancy dinner with Josh Dorkin and Ryan Murdock.

David:
So, you wore your handsome shirt to dinner with a bunch of dudes.

Brandon:
I wore my husband shirt to dinner. Yes. It was great. Anyway, it was a good time. So, on with today’s show, today’s episode is a follow-up from last Thursday’s episode, which is a Q&A episode. So, David and I just answer a bunch of questions. So, we’re going to jump into it pretty quickly here. Before we do, let’s get to today’s quick tip.

David:
Quick tip.

Brandon:
Quickest tip of all time, go listen to Thursday’s episode. You don’t have to do it first. It doesn’t matter which order you listen to these episodes, but there’s a lot of really good questions on there as well. All right. With that, time to get in the show. Anything you want to say before we jump into things, David Greene?

David:
Yeah, I noticed on your Instagram, you got a little new thing going on. You have a behind the beard text newsletter. Is that right?

Brandon:
I do have a text letter. I think I made that word up.

David:
I’d never heard it before. That’s why I’m asking you. I don’t know what that means.

Brandon:
I’m thinking I made it up. That means you haven’t signed up for it yet. So, it’s like a newsletter except for it’s via text message. So, people get a text message from me once a week. Anyway, I just wanted a place to connect with people outside of the normal podcast channel. So, that’s what it is.

David:
If I sign up for this, what information will I be getting?

Brandon:
Look at you, you’re letting me plug. This is amazing. You know you have a good friend when they let you plug in a podcast. You get a weekly email from me that says one thing that I’ve learned this week, one thing that I’ve read this week, a book that I’m reading, something that I photographed, something I’m excited about, and then a few other things in there. So, anyway, if you want to check that out, just beardybrandon.com, beard with a Y, beardybrandon.com.

David:
So, I get free access into what’s going on into one of my role models’ lives and we’re going to call that a plug. I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re charging for this, right?

Brandon:
I’m not charging. No, no.

David:
I’m going to sign up. Let’s see what you got.

Brandon:
All right, yeah. Go sign up. Check it out. I put random photos and books and stuff I bought. Yeah, well, stuff I bought. That’s always fun. With that said-

David:
This sounds like a Pinterest for Brandon Turner. Is that what this is?

Brandon:
This is basically a Pinterest. Now, this is me borrowing Tim Ferriss’ 5-Bullet Fridays and just making a text message version. It’s my own version now. So, that’s my evil plan. So, all right. Well, with that said, let’s get to today’s show. Hi, Brody. Welcome to the call, man. How you doing?

Brody:
I’m doing great. How are you?

Brandon:
In the words of Dave Ramsey, better than I deserve. I’m going to be doing that all day today. That’d be great. Tell us about yourself. What’s your story?

Brody:
I like to call myself a real estate investor. So, I’m 28 years old, 29 next week, but I have currently 16 units, probably 9 or so different properties. So, a lot of single family houses. And then I have another 26 that are being built/under contract right now. So, the one that I’m excited about it’s actually a tiny home resort in a snowboard resort town. So, I’m super pumped about that. It’ll be done this summer. Another one is an apartment complex with 16 units like student housing.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Brody:
So, looking to triple my portfolio in the next eight or nine months, so.

Brandon:
Why triple it? Why not 10X it?

Brody:
That’s a good point, Grant Cardone. For me, it’s been good because I feel like I started out slow and then it started to pick up pace, pick up pace, pick up pace probably for a lot of people out there. But on that note, I got two questions. But the first one is, if you guys could go back and do it all over again, what would you do differently? What ways would you scale faster and think bigger maybe?

Brandon:
Yeah. David, you want to start?

David:
Oh, that’s such a good question. It’s also painful, because I don’t like thinking about how much money I’ve lost doing things the wrong way. So, I didn’t listen to the podcast. I house hacked for five, six years in a row, but I was on the wrong side of it. I was renting a room from somebody else where I could have been buying houses. That’s one of the first things I would have done is I would have owned the property and rented rooms out to others. I think that for my entire investing life until maybe a couple years ago, my default was prepare for what could go wrong, defend, defend, defend, don’t lose what you have, which is not wrong, but I did at the expense of growing.

David:
What I should have said is I’m going to make moves. I’m going to take territory. I’m going to expand and I’m going to do it in a way with a plan to defend if I have to. I was so into defense that I just didn’t make moves. That’s the thing that I regret quite a bit. If I would have just bought one house every year, just one stinking single family home and then rented out the rooms or bought a house that I could house hack or whatever, over a 10-, 15-year period, we’re talking about millions of dollars that I didn’t do in the California market. I was buying out of state. I was buying in other areas. But what we’ve seen happen in California, one property could dwarf 10 properties somewhere else.

David:
So, basically, what I’m saying is I would have been aggressively safe. I would have aggressively expanded and done it in a way that was living within my means and just trusted what I know in my mind. Real estate appreciates. Real estate is a safe investment instead of the worst case scenario that was always popping up in my heart.

Brandon:
Wow. All right. I’m going to follow that one, I guess. All right. So, what I would do differently, a couple of thoughts. Similar to David, I would have grown faster. I lived a long time in my comfort zone, where I was buying a duplex, buying a triplex, buying a single family, flipping a house, buying a duplex, buying a single family home. For five, six years, I did that. Then had an apartment complex, which helped me scale. I stayed there for five years. What I would have probably done is tried to scale a little faster. Now, granted there’s the whole, “If I would have done that, maybe I wouldn’t be where I am today and I’m happy where I am.”

Brandon:
But having done it again or giving advice to other people, yeah, I’d say I’d probably would have scaled faster and not lived in so much fear. I’m a big believer in… I talked about this a lot here on the podcast and other places. My coach, Jason Drees, he’s always telling me about, “You have level 1 mindset, level 2, level 10, level 20, level 30,” right? The level mindset that we have dictates the actions we take. This is why some guys will come on the podcast and are like, “Yeah, the first house I did was last year, and now I own 100 houses.” You’re like, “How did you do that?” They just had a level 100 mindset or whatever that takes, right? Which obviously you have as well, because you’ve scaled up pretty fantastically yourself. So, I would have worked on that.

Brody:
Do you feel like you can scale too fast?

Brandon:
Yeah, I definitely do. Okay, we had a guy in this podcast years ago named Kevin Carroll. David, you know Kevin. Actually, Kevin’s the one I think that introduced me to David or not direct anyway. Somehow he was involved in that with the abundance organization. But anyway, Kevin, his first year, flipped 100 houses. When we asked him why, he was like, “Well, I didn’t know that wasn’t what would you do.” All his friends were flipping 100 houses a year, all his community, the people around him. So, he just thought that’s where you start was 100 houses. You just go flip them. Because he adopted the mindset from other people around him. So, I think that’s the way you skip. You level jump, right?

Brandon:
Like Super Mario Brothers, you jump from level one to level three, then from level three to level eight. And then you go through level eight and you win and defeat Bowser for the Princess, right? The way you jump levels, I think, is by getting around people who have that different mindset or by partnering with them. So, when I did Open Door Capital, I jumped from level 10 to level 50. That’s because I surrounded myself with guys like Brian Murray, who already had 2,000 units of his own. So, then it wasn’t like a weird thing for me to go and buy. In the last year, we bought 2,000 units. So, I could not have done that on myself. I should not have done that by myself, because I didn’t have the mindset. I didn’t have the network. I didn’t have those things. So, that’s my answer.

Brody:
I love that. I love that. That leaves my second question, which is how much of the success that you both see today like life, real estate, business, all of it comes down to mindset versus skill set? And then how do you build that?

David:
That’s actually cleverly worded. Brandon, did you note that, mindset versus skill set?

Brandon:
Yeah, that sounds like a book title to me by Brody eventually.

David:
Brody, make sure you trademark that because-

Brody:
Trademark done. Well, it’s funny. It led into it naturally.

Brandon:
Yeah, I didn’t even know that question was coming. So, yeah. So, the question was, again, how much was mindset versus skill set? I think 90% of it is mindset. I think that skill set follows mindset. I don’t think you can do without both, right? I think both are required. But I had that conversation with Drew. Drew’s my intern. Now he’s my assistant out here in Hawaii. He lives here, does a lot of stuff for me. He’s going back home. It was a six-month internship. He’s going back home, and he’s going to go start buying his first project. He’s buying a single family house, good for him. He’s getting in the game. And then I asked what he’s going to do after that. He’s like, “Well, I don’t know. I’ll probably do flip some houses or buy another house.”

Brandon:
I said, “Well, that’s cool. That’s great if that’s what you want to do, but why not buy a 40-unit right now?” He’s like, “Well, I mean, that’s just really big.” I was like, “What is it? Is it that much more complicated?” Especially when he has people like me or he could call David here, he could call up a lot of people, because he’s been my intern for six months.

Brandon:
Really, what it boils down to is, “Does he have the mindset?” I think he does. That’s why I was pushing him on a little bit. So, I think skill set follows mindset and not the other way around necessarily. David, what do you think?

David:
I think that I tend to focus on skill set. Skills are useless without the right mindset. If you have the right mindset, you will build the right skill set. I’m struggling to come up with an analogy on the spot for what I’m trying to say. I know a lot of very smart and talented people-

Brody:
That’s unusual.

David:
I know, with great skills that just do nothing with it, right? It’s like the athletic ability maybe, but you don’t have the desire to play the game. You don’t have the love of the game. It doesn’t matter if you’re amazing at that sport. If you don’t want to go play it, you’re not going to do well. Conversely, if you have the right mindset, you love the game, you’ll build the skill set just by sheer practice and repetition and being around other people to play the game. You’ll find yourself.

David:
That’s why Brandon and I have shifted to focusing more on mindset because we’ve been teaching skill set for years. We’ve been watching people learn a lot about real estate and not make any money with it, not build any wealth with it. So, we’re seeing that mindset is really that ingredient that’s missing. Skill set is important, though. I’m not trying to make it sound like it’s not. It’s just that it’s very easy to become the person who’s great with Excel and great with analyzing and a great networker but never actually makes a commitment to pulling the trigger.

Brandon:
Hey, question for both of you guys. I’m going to start with Brody. Because you’re the one asking the question. How would you define mindset? For the people listening going, “Well, what are they talking about? What do they mean mindset versus skill set?” I read a book. I go do the thing. So, how would you define mindset?

Brody:
I’ll give you example. Here’s an analogy, right? Are you ready? So, I ran a race on Saturday. It was a trail race and 15-mile race and ended up placing, I think, six overall, which I wasn’t expecting. So, because of that, my mindset going into it, I felt like my skills weren’t there to go and perform that well. I was actually four minutes away from second place. So, the first five miles of this race, I started out and it was more of, “Cool, I’m just taking this easy. I’ll take it as it comes, take it for what it is,” and ended up the half last 10 miles in the race. I started feeling good, really started picking it up, passing people and went really hard. Looking back on that experience, I was talking about it with my wife on our way home.

Brody:
I was like, “Man, I totally could have placed at least second place in that race had I had the right mindset going into it of, ‘Hey, I’m a top 10 guy. I can do this.'” So, I feel like that’s a good example maybe because having that mindset actually does take you further than what you thought originally was possible, just from having that mindset versus the skill. Obviously, your skill is going to take you there for sure, but almost the mindset is that little extra umph at the end, that’s really going to get you over the top. At least, that’s what came to mind.

David:
That’s cool. I like it. That’s a David Greene level analogy. You’re right. If you identified as, “I am a top five competitor in this race,” you would have competed as if you were trying to be in the top five. You found out that you were even before you tried. So, I think that’s a great point to highlight.

Brandon:
Yeah, we’ve been talking a lot about identity lately here on the podcast. It’s something that David and I are both fascinated by. Yeah, if you went into that race believing you were a top whatever, you likely would have done better. So, the identity that we bring to a situation. So, then how do we develop that identity? How do you go into that? Is it just something you say, just like, “Oh, I’m a top 10 person”? Is that identity, or is belief more than that? Because I think it is, but how do you get there? What do you guys think?

David:
I think the first thing I’d say is you get a property under your belt and now you identify as a real estate investor, which is why what Brandon and I find is once they get their first deal, it’s all of a sudden not hard. It’s the same thing. But before you had one, it seemed insurmountable. After you have a house, it seems easy. That’s why I’m always talking about house hacking, because it’s breaking that mental barrier with the least risk, the least capital, the least everything.

Brody:
It gets you that momentum. I live by these four principles. It’s on my wall. I’m looking at it right now in my office, but dream it, write it, build it, live it. I feel like to answer your question, it maybe starts in our mind, right? It’s this dream of, “What if?” What would my life look like with this amount of passive income or what would it be? That’s ultimately why we all invest in real estate. The next step is getting it down on paper and writing it down.

Brody:
Something I’ve done every day for probably the last five years, every single day before I do anything else aside from wake up and pray is I write down my top 10 goals that I want to accomplish in the next 12 months. I feel like that’s the first step from that dream in your mind to getting it on paper. And then there’s the build it phase. It’s like the action, right? Then you actually take the steps and do it. And then last but not least, you go live it. You go live your dream and actually reap the benefits of it. But I feel like it takes all four of those. You can’t just go build it without dreaming it out first. You can’t just dream it and never actually live it. So, I don’t know. That’s how I try to live my life.

Brandon:
That’s awesome, man. I think that’s great. I think it’s good way to close it out. Yeah, it’s a good mic drop moment right there. So, thank you for joining us today.

Brody:
Absolutely. Thank you.

Brandon:
All right. Joseph’s coming in. Joseph, what’s up, man?

Joseph:
What’s going on, you all?

Brandon:
It’s another day in paradise out here. It’s 75 degrees. It’s sunny. It’s a tough life, but where are you at?

Joseph:
It’s about the same. I’m here in Raleigh, North Carolina, but-

Brandon:
I love Raleigh.

Joseph:
… I don’t have the beach view. So, that’s the only thing I’m missing, I think.

Brandon:
That’s right. You got the southern accent. That makes up for it. So, it’s all good. All right. Well, tell us about yourself. What’s your story? And then we’ll get into your question.

Joseph:
Yeah. So, I graduated college in May, started my career job in July, and just bought my first house hack in November.

Brandon:
Nice.

Joseph:
A lot of that is thanks to you guys. Yeah.

Brandon:
Very cool.

Joseph:
Luckily, my parents, they invest in real estate. So, I grew up knowing that I wanted to do this, but didn’t take it very serious until probably about midway through college. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I was like, “Wow, there’s a lot more to this than I thought.” So, now I’m at a point though where my job is going to transition over to commission here pretty soon. So, I’m going to lose that opportunity of getting the traditional mortgages and stuff like that. So, I’m trying to explore just the different opportunities that I can use.

Joseph:
I travel around the area for my job. So, I’m able to see a lot of houses and a lot of opportunities. So, I’m exploring different routes. I guess my main question is just being that I’m new, is it okay to explore building different bridges as what you guys say? I know you’d say at one point, you want to focus in on one and just run with it until maybe something breaks and then you can look there. But at this point, is it okay to look around at different opportunities and explore all the options?

Brandon:
There’s the thing we talked about a lot about saying no, right? Saying no to things, being focused, having the one bridge, not building 10 bridges all over the fantasy island at the same time. But I consider that once you know what bridge you want to build, that’s when that becomes super important. Like in any career, I mean, forget real estate, just in general life, in the beginning of life, say yes to everything, because you don’t know what career you want. So, if someone’s like, “Hey, you want to go and backpack gear?”, sure, let’s go do it. You want to go and do the startup with me? Sure, let’s do it. Saying yes leads to so many opportunities.

Brandon:
But then at some point, you’re like, “Oh, this is my thing. This is my baby. This is what’s going to take me to success island, fantasy island, millionaire island. That’s the bridge I’m going to do.” And then if you want to be successful at that thing, I think that’s when you eliminate bridges. So, if you’re like, “I really just want to buy one house a year or two out of the year. Real estate’s my thing. I’m going to buy just single family, whatever,” then yeah, I would focus on one. But if you’re not exactly sure yet, I think explore all day long. David, what do you think?

David:
Brandon and I are in the exact same page with this. We’ve talked about it several times. So, yes, in the beginning of your life or your career, you say yes to everything. And then as you find your niche, you start saying no to more and more things. But here’s why we talk about don’t build more than one bridge. What you’re talking about, Joseph, isn’t necessarily building bridges. It’s doing the research on if you want to build a bridge. This is why this is such an important advice when it comes to bridge building. How much value do you get out of a bridge that’s 99% completed?

Joseph:
That’s a good question.

David:
So, you want to build a bridge from California to Hawaii. So, that trucks can drive back and forth and drop off, right? If you never start it, you get 10% of the way there or you get 99% of the way there. It’s all exactly the same result. If you’ve got an extra 10 feet that bridge can’t cross because it’ll go in the ocean, you have a worthless bridge. The only value in a bridge is if it’s been completed. That’s what Brandon and I are really emphasizing here is don’t commit to something unless you are going to see it through to the point that it becomes profitable. It’s the same thing with real estate sales.

David:
If we have a client that we go all the way up to the very last day and they don’t close it the last day because they never should have bought that house, we should have told them that on day one, rather than saying, “Yes, let’s get you into contract and see what happens.” That would have been better to not start building that bridge than to put all the work into it.

David:
What you should be doing, Joseph, is looking at every single bridge imaginable, study every single bridge, look at all the opportunities. Look at this way of building versus that. Say yes to everything. Be around architects and engineers and bridge builders and construction people. When you find out where you want to go, that’s where you don’t start your second bridge until your first one is done. Don’t have bridges that are partially complete. Does that make some sense?

Brandon:
I want to add one more piece to that as well. You mentioned that your job is shifting to commission. What line of work are you in?

Joseph:
Industrial sales, repair parts, manufacturing facilities.

Brandon:
Perfect. So, you’re in sales. You’re going to make commission off of the sales that you do, right?

Joseph:
Yes.

Brandon:
At least enjoy the work, if you can live a somewhat fulfilled life. I think so many people start building a real estate bridge when the obvious bridge they should build is the sales bridge that they can make stupid money doing. We’re in the best economy for selling things in human history. We’re in the worst economy for trying to find good deals. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do real estate. I think real estate is great. But I would love to see you making half a million dollars a year from your career in the next two years, because your bridge that you’re building is being the best salesman at your company, being the best guy that you could ever be.

Brandon:
You’re reading all sales books and marketing and How to Win Friends and Influence People and all that stuff. You’re just killing it, making half a million, a million a year. Now, real estate becomes a whole lot easier. The loans are easy. You got several years on your belt. So, a lot of people are like, “Well, I’m going to put in the minimal effort at my job and then go do real estate on the side.” Yeah, that’s great if you love the real estate and you hate your job. But if you like your job, I’ll look heavy into building that bridge as well.

Joseph:
Yeah, I think that’s a great point and actually, leads me into my next question, if you guys don’t mind, was-

Brandon:
Sure.

Joseph:
… I guess, I’m a very action oriented person. I’m very excited about just different real estate opportunities and stuff. So, sometimes I overwhelm myself between being the sales job, I do work 50, 55 hours, 60 hours a week sometimes. And then I’m trying to do the real estate stuff on the side. It just gets overwhelming sometimes. So, I guess, how do I know that I’m doing enough, that one or two things a day, but also taking time for myself to enjoy the life? I’m 23. So, I want to enjoy. I got a lot of time to build real estate, but at the same time, I’m just so passionate about it that even though I’m working so many hours, the next thing I want to do is just work on my real estate business.

Brandon:
Start or I can jump in?

David:
Well, that’s really good. So, is the question you’re trying to figure out, “How do I know if I’m giving my all versus how do I know if I’m split between too many different places?”

Joseph:
Yeah, yes. I mean, so just an example, David, I mean, you work so hard in your police job that you would sleep in your car to make the next shift, which is not always the healthiest decision. Now, I’m not sleeping in my car for the next shift or anything, but I guess it’s just how have you made that balance? We’re all doing this to make life better for ourselves, do the things we want to do. I’m sure you guys sometimes battle with this too, where you’re just so excited about all these different opportunities and the different businesses you’re building that sometimes you focus so much on that, that you forget about, “Oh, yeah. Hey, I got to sit back and actually enjoy life a little bit.” So, how are you guys reminding yourself to make that balance?

David:
Man, that is such a loaded question. I could talk about this for a whole podcast. That’s a great, great philosophical question. I think if more people asked this question, they would have richer lives. So, a few things that I’ll tell you that I’ve incorporated into my life so that I can do all the stuff I do and not feel like I’m either stressed and overwhelmed or not enjoying life. The first thing is you got to ask who not how. So, I’ve got a strategy of learn it, leverage it, and then lead others in how to do it. Those are to me the three dimensions of success.

David:
So, to sum that up, learn how to do something really, really well in your business, analyzing deals, finding deals, filling up a funnel, closing on deals, whatever, leverage that to somebody else. The second you’re like, “I got this down. I’m really good,” teach it to somebody else and leverage the work to them. Then lead that person to make them be the best they can be at learning it and doing it themselves. If you can get that down, you can do anything. You can have 100 companies. You could be like Richard Branson and have plenty of time. That’s the first thing I would say. When it comes to actual when do you sleep in your car versus not sleep in your car, I use a sports analogy to understand that.

David:
There are times in a sport where you’re on cruise control, feeling out your opponent, like you’re in a boxing match. You don’t want to walk out there and throw everything you have in the first five seconds of the fight and just wildly punch trying to knock them out. There’s getting in a rhythm, getting warmed up, feeling them out, picking your spots, maybe with Brandon with jujitsu.

David:
None of the guys that are great just walk out there and try to immediately submit somebody in the first five seconds. You’re trying to gain advantage in that struggle. But there are moments when you have the advantage, when you do go all out, when you know, “I’ve taken their back, I’m really close to a choke.” You’re not conserving energy at that point. You’re giving everything you have to knock out your opponent.

David:
When I was sleeping in my car, I knew I had a ridiculous opportunity to make so much money. Overtime was there when it’s not always there. We were able to get double time. Nobody wanted to work. There was tons of shifts. Real estate was priced really well. It’s very hard, Brandon said, to find deals. At the time I was doing it, deals were everywhere. So, I had the targets I wanted to take down. I had great financing. I had opportunities to build capital. It was the perfect thing, okay?

David:
So, I was sleeping in my car, because I was trying to sync that choke in. I might not get this person’s back again. I need to go for everything I’ve got. When you’re not in that situation, though, it makes no sense to be going with everything you have. I guess that’s the best advice I could give is there isn’t a script that you just follow. Just go work 20 hours a day for the next 20 years and you’ll get there, because you probably die before you get there. As you can see, I think that’s what you’re getting at.

Brandon:
I 100% agree with David on that. I would say a couple thoughts. One, when you’re in your young 20s, you do have a fair amount more… I don’t want to say free time, but you’d likely don’t have kids and that obligation that takes up the vast majority of your 30s. So, if you’re going to have kids someday, that takes up a lot. It’s like this. You can sacrifice now, or you can sacrifice later.

Brandon:
I would say sacrificing your 20s is more important than sacrificing time with your kids when you’re in your 30s. I’m not saying work 100-hour workweeks for the next 10 years to get somewhere. But just know that it’s not life, it’s not going to happen forever. If you put in a few solid good years now, you’ll have solid decades later, right? But if you don’t put in it now, you’re going to have decades of nothing later. So, it’s an… What’s the word?

David:
Asymmetric bet.

Brandon:
Yes, asymmetric bet. If I put in a lot of work now, I get way more down the road. That said, a couple things that I do just to make sure that I have that time is I calendar schedule my breaks. I deliberately schedule things and I find ways to obligate myself to those breaks. For example, I’ve talked about this before, but I get a massage every single week. The best masseuse in Maui comes to my house on my lanai, ocean view, and I get a massage for 90 minutes. Why? Because that’s me time that I get to just think. All my best ideas… In fact, I just launched this whole text message newsletter thing behind the beard, that all came from during a massage. I’ll raise money from it. I’ll build out relationships. That all came from that moment that I set as this is me time.

Brandon:
Now, I don’t get a lot of me time. I get jujitsu for a couple hours a week, and I get this massage once a week. But because I have it scheduled, I make sure it gets done. It makes all the rest of the week go by. So, in other words, if you just hope that naturally, you’re going to have those fun moments that you had in college and high school, it doesn’t happen as much. Those die out. So, as you get older, you got to intentionally plan those breaks and those adventures and that fun stuff. The great thing is it doesn’t have to be 40 hours a week of fun stuff or amazing stuff. It’s like, “Hey, I’m going to go play my Call of Duty for two hours on Tuesday night. That’s my time.” It’s scheduled and it gets done. So, there’s a couple ideas for you.

Joseph:
Yeah, no, I think that’s a great point. I mean, one thing is, like you said, the time now, what is my end goal? Do I want the time later or time now? So, I think, that was a huge, good point. I think also something I definitely am bad at is scheduling that time for myself. Maybe that’s something I really need to focus on to make sure that I’m still working towards my end goals with real estate, but also having some me time.

Brandon:
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a good tip for everyone listening to the show right now is go pull up your calendar right now on your phone and just put something in a two-hour block next week that’s just a you time. If you got a family, you got kids, fine, get a babysitter, because you’re intentionally planning those moments. And then take it, don’t let yourself go in the moment, “Oh, well, it’s a busy day.” You have to take those moments, because those recharging moments are what actually makes you way more productive the rest of the day. So, good stuff, man. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Appreciate you.

Joseph:
Yeah, thanks for having me guys. I always said I wanted to get on here and do this. It’s happened a lot sooner than I expected. So, I really appreciate it.

Brandon:
Here he comes. All right. Let me unmute you.

Wale:
Yeah, I’m here. Can you hear me?

Brandon:
I can. Is it Wale? Am I saying your name?

Wale:
Yeah, Wale, like the rapper, Wale.

Brandon:
There we go. All right. Well, welcome to the show. What can we do for you? What can we answer for you?

Wale:
All right. Firstly, I want to really thank, big shout out to Josh Dorkin for sticking out this BiggerPockets as very small several years ago. I can say BiggerPockets has changed my life and he has changed a lot of people’s lives as well. So, that being said, I am a very, very loyal follower of BiggerPockets. This is my man, David Greene, and this is yours here.

Brandon:
There we go.

Wale:
So, yeah. So, if you can see my back, I read a lot of books. So, I’ve been taking action. About me, originally from Nigeria, came in as [inaudible 00:30:30] students, get my master’s degree in engineering, start consuming content from BiggerPockets. Eventually, I see that “Hey, this is the part I want to go.” BiggerPockets has helped me a lot with mindsets, change is possible. We just have to go and figure out how to do it. So, yeah, that’s about me. I’m an investor agent. I call myself on FIRE agents.

Brandon:
There we go. We’re changing the terminology.

Wale:
On FIRE agents. That’s what I do. That’s what I encourage people to look for when they’re trying to work with an agent. Because like you said earlier, it helps them shorten the learning curve as an agent and buy rental property for myself. So, I can easily transfer that knowledge to help them achieve the same goal they’re trying to achieve.

Brandon:
Love it.

Wale:
Instead of paying the gurus $50,000, $40,000 for something that you might not even close a single deal. So, that is what I’ve been doing. So, now back to my question. I think one of my question is balancing family life with investing in real estate. I’m also a project engineer, by the way. I have a full time job as a project engineer. So, I’ve been juggling this thing, real estate, family and W-2. But I’m at the point where I’m closing, comfortably, I will say, two transactions every month now while still working full time as a project engineer.

Wale:
So, my question is this. What is the practical step of if I don’t want to let my W-2 go yet and I still want to be crushing it in real estate? What is the practical step to really take to balance everything out? I know, I’m not doing good family wise, because it’s just very hard. You guys know, for every entrepreneur, it’s very hard. So, what will be the practical steps? I know, [inaudible 00:32:20] Joseph, but just give me that one, two, three. I know you’re doing well with your wife, Heather.

Brandon:
I don’t do as well as I should, but yeah, balancing family is so hard. So, yeah. The main thing that I do is… Okay, first of all, I mentioned this a lot on the show, but I’ll say it again now because it’s a powerful analogy. So, Dr. Oz is the famous physician that’s on TV, right? He had a TV show. He was on Oprah. He had a bunch of magazines. He’s writing articles. He was everywhere in the media. He was also doing 200 open heart surgeries every year. The question is, how can a guy that’s that busy with media and TV… How can he do that many open heart surgeries?

Brandon:
The truth was he wasn’t cutting people open. He wasn’t delivering the anesthesia. He wasn’t walking them from their room to the… All he was doing is taking his knife and doing a cut and walking out of the room. The knife was all set up. It was washed. It was ready to go. Somebody probably helped put on his shirt. In other words, he was doing the thing that only he could do. It was the Dr. Oz cut. So, the first thing in balancing… You know this, we all know this, but it’s just hard. It’s like, “What is that Dr. Oz cut for you?” What is that one, two, three things that you should be doing that nobody else should be doing?

Brandon:
So, for me, I stopped attending almost all meetings for BiggerPockets. I don’t go to hardly any of that stuff. I don’t go to the board meetings. I don’t do anything with BiggerPockets. I show up to do this podcast and I do the webinar once a week because that is my Dr. Oz cut. I do very little of, because that’s the one thing I can do that affects everything in my world. Open Door Capital, I meet with Brian Murray and Walker, the executives, I guess, you could call them. We meet and then I have one meeting with my whole team of everybody else that’s running things. Those two hours is about all I do from a high level, because they’re my Dr. Oz cut. So, that’s huge is identifying, “What are those few things that matter more than anything else?”

Brandon:
Like David said earlier, who not how. So, if there’s anything else I got to do, I’m wondering, “Who’s going to do that for me? How can I bring in an internship? How can I hire another employee and be able to afford that? How can I do that?” So those are the few things that I do. Then I actually have to schedule dates with my wife. I put it on my calendar ahead of time, because if I’m not intentional about it, it won’t get done. I just know that family tends to be the last thing that most people, especially entrepreneurs, prioritize when it should be the first. So, I schedule vacations on my calendar. I schedule date nights with my wife. I schedule walks with my kids. I try to build some routines in there.

Brandon:
Here’s the thing that I got wrong for a long time. I know I’m throwing a lot here. But I thought that when my wife would not complain, but when she would bring up to me that I’m working too much, I thought that she wanted me to spend equal times working and equal time with the kids. And then finally, what she made clear was it’s not about equal time. I don’t need to spend four hours a day wrestling with my kid on the bed in order to be a good father and fulfill my role as a father, but I need to be regular about it.

Brandon:
When I’m in the moment, I need to be there doing that thing and not other things. It just needs to be done, at least every day for a little bit. So, if I spend 20 minutes giving her a 30-minute break or 20-minute break or an hour long break once a day, that changes everything for her, for the kids. So, anyway, those are a few thoughts. David, anything you want to add on there?

David:
Well, let me ask you this. When you’re asking doing real estate while doing a W-2 job, that was your original question, right, Wale?

Wale:
Yes, yes.

David:
Are we talking about being an agent, or are we talking about being an investor?

Wale:
Okay, I’m an agent. I’m an investor agent. I focus on working with investors. I try to help them to take action. So, also, buying rental property using the BRRRR for myself. So, I have three jobs, W-2, real estate agent, working with investors that like to crunch numbers and looking for deals, buying it for myself. I have to also manage contractor in between. So, you get what I’m saying?

David:
Let me ask you a couple questions. At your W-2 job, do you have downtime in the day, or are you completely focused on that work the whole time?

Wale:
Well, there is some downtime. That is why I’ve been able to be closing consistently, two, three transaction every month, because I squeeze in time, my lunchtime, work late after work, stay behind, schedule a phone call in between, all those kinds of stuff.

David:
Well, congratulations on closing two to three deals a month. That’s no joke. You’re very successful, Wale. That tells me several things about you. Not only are you a hard worker, people trust you. You’re a man of character. Even though you have a job, your clients still feel comfortable having you as their agent. So, you may be downplaying your own success already. I just want to highlight that.

Wale:
Well, that’s good. That’s why I’m here. So, you can give me the experience from you managing the team. What have you seen specifically? Do you have a team member that is in my shoe and they’re still crushing it?

David:
Yeah, that was me. I did it as a police officer. Now, I’m running seven different companies or so. So, we’re in the same boat. I totally feel your pain. I needed to get some background on where you are. Earlier in one of these shows, I gave an example of when you should sprint as hard as you can and when you need to hit cruise control and just jog. There’s an example of if you’re in a fight, there’s moments where you have an advantage that you can knock the person out and you need to give everything you have in that moment. There’s other moments where you’re half engaged or you’re feeling them out. You’re getting to know them. You’re not giving it everything you have. You got to understand business works the same way.

David:
There are moments where somebody says, “Hey, I have a question about this house.” If you don’t get back to them immediately, that’s okay. A couple hours go by, they’re all right. There’s other situations where we want to see this house right now. If you’re on the clock and can’t go show them the house, you’re going to lose the deal. So, what I did was I took a list of, say, a buyer, because sellers are a lot easier to work around. I literally numbered every single step 1 through 50 that has to go into closing on a buyer. It was as specific as schedule a call to find out what they want, conduct a call to find out what they want, put them on an email drip, give them a presentation that I have delivered. All right.

David:
Once I had that whole list put, like schedule a call with the listing agent so that I can go show them the house, make sure it’s on my calendar, those are different steps. That’s how detailed this was. I went and I highlighted it in different colors the steps that had to be done urgently right away. There was only a few things on there. I also put a different color for something that David had to do, okay? Much of what was on that list did not have to be David doing it. I needed to be involved in negotiating directly with the listing agent, because that was too important and I didn’t want them to end up overpaying. I needed to be involved in reviewing the numbers if this was an investment property to make sure they got good advice.

David:
I did not need to be involved in opening the door to let the home inspector in the house to do the inspection. I did not even have to be the person showing the house. I didn’t have to be the person scheduling the phone calls that I told you had to happen. I did need to be the person making the calls. So, here’s my advice to you. Systemize what you’re doing that specifically and then find another agent in the office that can do the things that don’t have to be you. Now, if you have them scheduling your calls, you time block in your calendar when you’re working and when you’re not free. They schedule it around that.

David:
When you talk to the client and they want to go see that house on Main Street, you have somebody else from your office go show it to them and then you call them when you get off work and talk about how it went down. I promise you, Wale, this is so much simpler than people think it is when they’re in the mode of, “Do I do this, or do I do that?” You can do both. You just have to be smart about how you arrange it. Your clients will never even know. They don’t know that you’re at work. They’re not going to know that they’re not important. They have this other person communicating with them, setting up showings, taking them to see houses, answering questions, doing some research, and then giving you all the information that you need to actually make the decision.

David:
You use that system while you’re working your W-2. Here’s the beauty. When you get out of your W-2 and you become a full time agent, that doesn’t mean you go show homes. You spend that time lead generating, looking for deals, putting stuff under contract for yourself, finding new clients, really high dollar productive stuff. You keep using other people to do the stuff that doesn’t make you money. Now, you have a business. Now, you have a system. Now, you have a way to scale much faster. I think the people that had to work the W-2 job and work a second job are at an advantage.

David:
My long distance real estate investing system forced me to systemize what I was doing. Whereas someone like Brandon, who invested in his hometown, could get lured into, “Hey, I’ll just go change the door lock.” That’ll be okay. So, look at this like a blessing. Not only can you make good money while you’re learning a new business, but you can learn how to be a business owner and not just an employee in your own business.

Wale:
Thank you so much. Yes, I’m leveraging on a local assistant. I also have a VA that’s doing some of my stuff for me.

David:
Beautiful.

Wale:
Definitely, I am being very wise using my time, but a quick follow up question is I’m a full time agent as well. I work in real estate about 80 hours a week, and I have a 40 hours commitment to my W-2. So, I’m working 120 hours a week. So, that was where my question comes in. Hey, of course, the family will suffer, right? Because you’re just married to your job, according to my wife. So, it’s going there. But I would really like if you can help with that cheat sheets, if I can look at it and see how I can internalize it to suit my own style. So, is that something you can do?

David:
So, that book that you held up, SOLD, that’s the first in a three-part series. The second book… Yes, that one. … is going to be how to be a top producer. So, how to dominate your market. The third book is going to be how to build a team, which is going to focus on what we’re talking about here, systemizing what is done and delegating it to different people. So, hang tight, it’s on the way.

Brandon:
Can I also push you on one thing and not push you on it, but ask? I mean, you’re good agent. I can tell you’re closing deals, you know what you’re doing. It may not be this way, but is it fear that’s causing you not to quit your job and jump into real estate full time or is it a love for your job, you just love your job?

Wale:
Yeah, that was my follow-up question. I hope my employer is not listening to this. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. I went to school, bachelor’s, master’s degree in chemical engineering. So, of course, engineering is not easy, right? So, I can say I’m smart. But the thing is the corporate America, I fairly realized it about two years ago.

Wale:
So, the goal is, “Hey, you know what? I hope this is not a fluke. Let me have a lot of time. Let me get a lot of data to be able to really analyze and make sure, yes, this actually works.” If you close in two to three transaction every month, that’s about… I mean, Houston, Texas, that’s about $15,000 on the average in commission. So, that’s not bad. So, I would say it is fear to keep it very simple. It is fear, hey, fear of the unknown. I’m currently putting in contingencies to accommodate those fears that may not even happen, but hey, as human, we do have that fear. So, that’s the answer to that.

Brandon:
Yeah, David said earlier about the more reserves you have, it can protect you. One thing Tim Ferriss says in The 4-Hour Workweek, he mentions, “Almost all decisions are reversible.” I mean, he’s not talking about quitting your job to travel the world. I am not saying you have to quit your job, but I’m just saying this for everyone listening too.

Brandon:
If you saved up a bunch of money and wouldn’t quit your job for a year to go try your hardest at real estate, you’re putting in more hours on the real estate agent side, I believe most people would probably make more than what they’re making at their job because it’s scalable and jobs aren’t. But if it didn’t, almost every job, with a few months of looking, you’d probably be able to get back into another job again. If you don’t absolutely love your job, then who cares? It’s another asymmetric bet. There’s not a lot to lose, but there’s a lot to gain from taking those risks. So, don’t be afraid. But anyway, you had a follow-up question?

Wale:
Yeah, I have another question. The question is, like I said, I’m on FIRE agents. I work with a lot of investor. As a matter of fact, my specialty is working with investors. David understand, investors are very analytical. They’re not as easy. You can’t easily close a deal like a traditional buying. So, some of them reach out to me. They will do the buyer consultation. They will just disappear. My goal is to help them close the transaction. I usually have 90 days, taking from your 90-days [inaudible 00:45:11].

Wale:
So, automatically setting up a goal for them that hey, in the next 90 days, I want you to have the keys to your first rental or next rental property. I’m going to be putting in the knowledge that I have, because I’m doing it for myself. I’m not just a regular agent. I am buying for myself, right? I’m also taking the risk. Whatever issues they’re going to be facing or potential issues, I’ve also been there and I’m still there. I’m still facing challenges. But you just see that some of them never take action. So, what are the common mistakes you see that new investor’s making, that you think as an investor agent, this is how I can help them?

David:
One thing I want to highlight that we just talked about before is they’re easily reversible. I just wish every single person listening to the podcast could grab that point. I cannot tell you how many people say, “Yeah, I really want a house hack, but what if I don’t like it? What if I don’t like having roommates, or what if I get cramped up living in a small house and I want a big one?” And then move out, move back into where you were, go get another apartment. There’s not a law that forces you to live in a house that you don’t like. I don’t know why that doesn’t occur to people.

David:
It’s such a small percentage of the time you’re not happy, but if you’re not happy, it’s such an easy solution. Go back to what you did before. Now, you have a house and rent out where you were going to be living. That’s totally fine as long as you intended to occupy it when you bought it. So, thank you for just pointing out that so many of these things are easily reversible. Wale, your question when it comes to working with investor clients, where you’re saying, “How do you put the time aside to actually make sure you can close them?”

Wale:
My question is some of them, they take the information and they never follow up. You call them. They don’t pick up the call. I just see that they’re not motivated enough.

David:
That’s the problem of you not qualifying that lead when you first got it. So, I have a sales funnel that I talked about in SOLD. I’ve also just created a lead funnel that are just the steps that you take when you qualify a lead. The first step is contact. You contact the lead with speed. You talk to them right away. The next step is qualify. You find out, “Am I the right fit for what you want to do? Do you have the capability to even buy this house?” If you contact a lead and they’ve got no money and no investing experience and they’re like, “Hey, I want you to find me an off market deal that you’re not going to get paid a commission on,” that’s not a lead for you to work. They’re not qualified. We skip that step a lot of the time.

David:
The third step is pursue. This is very similar, Brandon, to your labs funnel. If they look good, you pursue that person. You could even say that my qualify step is the same as analyzing the deal because you’re qualifying the deal when you analyze it. And then the last step would be close them, move them into being a client. Too many agents are not direct enough with the investors that approach them. In fact, I just had a case where I referred somebody to my Hawaii team. My agent in Hawaii didn’t do a good enough job qualifying that person.

David:
The investor wasn’t very happy. They didn’t like the qualifications that the agent had. You could tell they were a little salty when they said, “I don’t want to work with you guys.” Had my agent done a better job of telling that person up front, “What you want is not something that I can do, I can find someone to do it,” or “If you can do that component, I can help you with here,” the relationship would have been solved. So, those of you that are listening to the podcast, we tell you all the time, find a good agent. Also, make sure, you’re a good investor.

David:
If you know you’re not going to pull the trigger, just tell the agent ahead of time, “Look, I’m not going to buy anything with you, but I want to learn. Can you help me with that? I’ll send you referrals. Can you help me with that? When I’m ready, I’ll use you.” Just be upfront about what’s going on. I think what Wale is talking about here are the buyers who aren’t ready to be a buyer. They think if they tell the agent that ahead of time, that the agent won’t work with them. So, it turns into this somewhat deceitful situation where the client is not being upfront with Wale about what they really want to do.

David:
And then the agents end up doing the same thing back. They just beat around the bush and they don’t communicate directly. They stop responding emails, and the whole thing just falls into a bad place. So, the cure for that, the cowbell is direction. You got to be way more direct with them. You have to encourage them to be direct with you. Brandon, from your experience, because you’re not an agent, what do you think?

Brandon:
I think there’s three types of people in the world. There’s people who will never invest in real estate. There’s not many people who are like, “We’re going to work with you, Wale.” There’s people who will say they want to invest in real estate, but just will not no matter what. Then on the other side, there are people who say they want to and then they actually will. Guaranteed, they’re going to crush it. I feel like David here was going to invest in real estate no matter what. Once he got into it, he was just going to do it. He has that personality.

Brandon:
And then there’s a third type, it’s in the middle. They say they want to, but without the right hand holding and encouragement and pushing them, they’re not going to. They’re not going to just naturally do it. But they can be walked through the journey if they’re helped. So, three types of people again, people who will never do it despite saying they will, people who will do it because they want to, and then the people that need to be journeyed. So, doing what David said, you need to qualify them. Which of the three groups are they in? Sometimes it’s impossible to know. Are they the type on the far side who are just going to waste your time and they will never take the action needed, or are they the type that are just going to do it no matter what?

Brandon:
So yeah, grab those people all day long. And then the middle people is what I want to talk about here for a second. Those people who without your guidance they will not do it. Life is too busy. They got too many obligations. Investing in real estate is hard. You’re trying to help them, but they’re not going to get there. I have such a heart for those people, because they really want it that is all ready. So, how do you get them there? I love your 90-day thing. I love sprints. I love challenges. I love things like that, right? Because they get people down the path. So, the mistakes that I see a lot of investors make is they don’t take daily consistent action. I talk a lot about MINS, most important next step. Identify what your most important next step is. It’s usually a five-minute or less task.

Brandon:
So, if you as an agent can help them identify what is that next task that you need to do and it’s usually a five-minute phone call or less, get them to do that thing. The next day, get them to do another little action and then another little action. Because people, they’ll get overwhelmed, then they won’t do it. They’ll get busy. They won’t do it. But if you’re like, “Hey, man, I just need you to have a five-minute conversation with this lender that I love. He’s amazing. He just needs to take a little bit of information from you. Can you do that today at 4:00?”

Brandon:
Oh, yeah, yeah, I can do that at 4:00. Okay, great. I’m going to put that on your calendar. I’m going to send you a calendar invite right now. I’m going to be on that call with you as well just make sure that your hand is held. I don’t know if you can legally do that. But be on a call with a lender. But the idea, you now took an overwhelming thing. You gave them a one-minute little task, a five-minute little task to do. It’s like the whole, “How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time?” Buying an investment property is an elephant. So, just don’t show them the elephant. Just show them one bite at a time. So, that’d be my thought.

Wale:
All right, thank you. My last question is… I know you guys have business or performance coach. Which one will you recommend? I think I believe Jason Drees or Jason Drees?

Brandon:
Jason Drees, yeah. Yeah, Jason’s mine.

Wale:
So as an agent, because my mindset is divided, right? I want to be very good at performing as an individual. I want to even 10X my real estates, eventually have a team and all those things. So, those mindset shifts and think big, those things. Also, it has to be affordable. It has to be affordable. I know, some coaches are way up there.

Brandon:
Yeah, let’s talk about coaches for a quick second. So, there are different types of coaches out there that can help you. There’s a real estate guru coach, right? They have agents and investors. There’s gurus that you pay them $50,000. They’re going to coach you, right? That’s not what we’re talking about. What David and I are big into is performance coaches. I’m just making sure everyone’s on the same page in what we’re talking about. My guy, his name’s Jason Drees. I hire him. It cost me thousands of dollars a year. I meet with him every couple of weeks. We just have a conversation about what I’m dealing with.

Brandon:
Now, he is a mindset coach. I like that. I treat it like therapy. I’m like, “Oh, this is going wrong. This is going wrong.” He’ll be like, “What’s another way of thinking about that problem?” or “Why do you feel that way, Brandon?” I’m like, “Well, because of this.” He’s like, “Well, why do you feel that way?” I’m like, “Because of this.” So that’s a performance coach. Then there are business coaches. What’s the who not how guy? Dan Sullivan.

David:
Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy.

Brandon:
Yeah. So, Benjamin Hardy is part of Strategic Coach, which Dan Sullivan started. That’s more of a business coaching thing, which I would love to have a business coach at some point as well. I don’t have any good recommendations there. I guess the question is, do you need somebody that helps with the mindset, like I use Jason for, which helps me a lot? Then look for somebody that does that, the mindset, the performance coaching side. If you need the other side, the business coaches, you need to set up LLC. What are you going to do? Write down your three goals that we’re going to do this weekend. I’m going to check back next week with you. That’s more of the business side. So, I guess which coach you go with is what you need.

Brandon:
And then secondly, you got to find a coach who gets you. You guys vibe together, but at the same time, will hold you accountable to stuff. Because a lot of people who call themselves coaches and aren’t. And then the third point is no matter how much a performance coach is, if they’re good, they’re worth it. Obviously, you’re not going to pay somebody millions of dollars. But at this level, Wale, you’re making good money to career, you’re struggling with the family, how to balance that stuff. You’re closing two deals a month real estate wise, let’s say.

Brandon:
If you’re meeting with somebody every other week and they were helping you get your mind in the right place, they’re helping you set your goals, they’re helping you get more time with your wife, your family, that stuff and it costs you $20,000 a year, it costs you $50,000 a year, but it freed up more time with your family and it helps you close four deals a month, instead of two deals a month, that helps you buy one more BRRRR every year, isn’t that worth the investment? You’re never going to pay $50,000. So, yes, it needs to be affordable. I agree with that. But I would shift the thinking from how much they cost to, “What am I going to get out of it? What investment? What return?”

Brandon:
I mean, me paying thousands of dollars to Jason has made me millions of dollars. I would not be where I am today physically or business wise without having a performance coach.

Wale:
Yeah, before David respond, is there any way to marry both together like business and performance both as one person?

Brandon:
I definitely think there is. I mean, a lot of what we talk about is business when I talk with my coach. A lot of what business coaches talk about is life. So, they’re very married already, but it’s more of, “What’s their focus?” When they approach a problem, let’s say the problem is I need more time with my family. One coach is going to be like, “Let’s go through time management processes to make sure you’re maximizing your time.” The other one’s going to ask you the question, “What’s the most important in your life? Why do you feel like you need more time with your family?”

Brandon:
It’s not saying you shouldn’t, but they’re going to ask the questions that make you think deeper versus let’s just fix the problem. So, it’s just different approaches. Different people have different approaches. Sometimes you need one, sometimes the other. I’m sure it’s possible to find both. I feel like Jason’s both, but he definitely leans towards the mindset side of things. Wale, thank you so much for coming on today. You’ve been awesome, man. You’re crushing it. Can’t wait to see where you’re headed. Yeah, keep doing it, man.

Wale:
All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Brandon:
What’s up, Mike Webb? Welcome to the podcast, man. How you doing?

Mike:
Good, man. How are you doing?

Brandon:
It’s fantastic. It’s a good day.

Mike:
You guys have been going at it.

Brandon:
We’ve been doing this for a little while.

Mike:
No break or anything.

Brandon:
We like answering questions. It’s fun. So, what can we answer for you?

Mike:
Well, I will try and be succinct, because you guys have been answering a lot of good stuff today. So, not going real estate maybe. Is there ever a question with all the great minds you talk to that you’re just surprised or for general folks like us, that you’re surprised people don’t ask you or you wish that they would ask you to maybe get inside those minds you guys have?

Brandon:
That’s a really good question. David, you want to start that one?

David:
Oh, man, that’s so good. Mike, you might have asked the best question we’ve had for the whole day. That’s what a good coach does, right? They ask the right questions. I think I wish more people would ask me how I developed the ability to adapt faster and better than everyone else. Mike, you’re a fire captain, I believe. Is that right?

Mike:
Yes, sir.

David:
So, you get it, right? You go to a call of somebody with abdominal pain and you quickly realize this is a stab wound. Okay, how fast can you say, “I thought I was going to say, ‘Are you pregnant?’ into, ‘How do I start? There’s someone inside and you got to run in and get them’ or make the call as them”? And then you leave that call. It’s a structure fire. There’s someone inside. You got to run in and get them or make the call. Is it too late to run in and get out of a terrible situation like that? How quickly can you adapt to that environment? It was the same thing for me as a police officer. I did not know when I went from call to call what I was going to get.

David:
When my partners had a hard time adapting to the new thing that we were in, they were way less effective, okay? The suspect runs and gets away, because they were too slow recognizing what they were getting thrown at them. I think the reason I’m doing well as a real estate agent is because I had to learn how to be a salesman when I didn’t like sales.

David:
And then I am doing well as a team leader because I’ve had to learn how to be a leader to salespeople when I got good at sales, learn how to be a CEO that can converge all the strengths of each of those businesses together while limiting their weaknesses. I never knew when I was a kid running around playing basketball that I would ever do this stuff, but I have had to adapt to be in that scenario. It’s honestly becoming something that I love doing.

David:
Becoming a podcast host, I had to learn how to be a podcast host. I started listening to certain people like Heather Gracie and Ben Shapiro and Chael Sonnen, just because they taught good. I don’t even care what they say. They just speak. If more people had that desire, that passion to be good at what they’re doing, they would find success comes really easy.

David:
What I look at when I see people struggling in the world is they’re all subconsciously trying to make the world bend to them. They’re bouncing from job to job finding the job that doesn’t require them to grow or change. With who I am right now, how can I just already be good or have it been easy? Real estate investing is one thing they come to you, because they think that they’re going to find easy cash flow. They’re going to be able to retire in two years and the ability to adapt. What mindset do you need? What skills do you have to develop? How do you stay motivated to do it? Because it to me is the secret sauce. If you can do that, you can do anything?

Brandon:
Wow.

Mike:
That’s so good.

Brandon:
I would say this. It’s not a question that I actually expect anybody to ask me, because it’d be a weird question to ask, but it’s more of a question I would pose to everybody to think about internally is, “Why do we lie to ourselves so much?” I think that lying to ourselves is probably the number one biggest reason people don’t succeed in life. What I mean by that is things like I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM and then they sleep until 8:00, or I’m going to go to the gym tomorrow. And then they get there, they decide they’d rather go and watch TV, or they’re going to go and buy that real estate deal, or they’re going to go start that business, or they’re going to go take their wife on a date, or they’re going to ask that girl out at the bar. And then they don’t do it.

Brandon:
So, that question of why don’t we do the things we say we’re going to do? I think if you can become somebody with the integrity to be a man or woman of your word, you can accomplish anything in life, anything in life. But most people spend their entire lives promising things and then breaking those promises to themselves. If you can overcome that, you can overcome anything.

Brandon:
So, yeah, I wish more people looked at themselves and said, “How can I start keeping the promises to myself?” To answer your question directly, what I wish they would ask is, “Brandon, how have you been successful and how have you failed at keeping promises and lying to yourself?” So, I’m going to fire that one back at you actually. Mike, how have you been successful at keeping promises to yourself and failing to keep promises to yourself?

Mike:
So that’s why you’re the master.

Brandon:
Because I’m a podcaster, I ask the question here.

Mike:
That’s like verbal jujitsu-

Brandon:
There we go.

Mike:
… right there.

Brandon:
Flip the back.

Mike:
So, when I started in real estate, I told myself, “I’m going to stick this out for five years no matter what.” Because I knew if I only said, “I’m going to try it for a year,” something’s going to go wrong, right? It’s just when and you’re going to have to figure that out. Like what David said, be resourceful and persevere through it. So, I’ve kept that promise to myself. It’s not always been easy. I’m sure, David can relate from the police world, whenever you start making moves that are maybe a little bit different than what some of that tight knit group is maybe used to, you can take on some extra criticism, we’ll call it. But I’ve stuck to the course and I’ve kept that promise with myself. It’s been almost 10 years at this point.

Brandon:
That’s awesome.

Mike:
I would say how I’ve failed to keep that promise with myself is this again goes back to the police officer thing, I think. I still maintain, I think, sometimes the identity as a firefighter and sometimes not maintaining the identity as millionaire real estate investor. Even though I make small changes or big changes to be the real estate investor that I want to be at time, sometimes, mentally, I don’t uphold that thought process in my head. Sometimes I refer back to, “I’m just a fireman. I can’t go buy 2,000 homes, because I’m just a fireman.”

Mike:
Where I know if I really stuck to the course and set the goal, I could probably get there and I’m going to have problems along the way. But sometimes I revert back to that, “I can’t do that. That’s for those guys.” No matter what sphere you are in, I think as you get a little bit bigger, your promises change. I think you constantly have to sharpen that axe to get outside your own head and keep those promises with yourself, whether you have 10 units, 25 units, 2,000 units. You develop new problems, and you have to go back to that believing in yourself. It’s easier said than done at times. At times, I feel like I could probably keep that promise to uphold that thought or identity with myself a little bit better.

David:
The thing I want to pull out of that that’s super important is what you mentioned about your identity as a firefighter versus an investor. I don’t know why it works that way, but that’s just how the brain works. I honestly think God had me get out of being a police officer, because I was not going to learn to see myself as a businessman as long as I could put on that uniform. That identity meant too much. It was powerful. I saw myself as a police officer who invest in real estate, okay? I would never would have been the leader that they would need to come work in if that was my identity. So, that’s what I focused on. I was so focused on being the best cop that I could be.

David:
So, there’s another component to this. It isn’t just about time. When should I leave my job? I like that you’re bringing that up. When is your identity holding you back from what matters to you? Is there something getting in the way of you being a family man? Real estate investing could be the thing that needs to shift in your identity. It could be consuming certain people. They’re not becoming the husband or the wife that they should be. You got to look at, “Where is your identity working for you and where is it working against you?” Because it’s such a powerful tool and I don’t know that that’s ever come up before. So, Mike, you’re over here like Yoda, dropping these nuggets of wisdom.

Brandon:
All right. That was the end of our two-part series. I think that we’re calling it a series. I think we decided that we are, two-part series of Q&A questions for David and I. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, let us know. Leave a rating and review in iTunes, Amazon, I mean, not Amazon, iTunes. I don’t know wherever people listen to… People listen to podcasts anywhere else, Spotify maybe?

David:
Spotify, Stitcher.

Brandon:
Stitcher, all that stuff. Yeah, I’m an Apple guy. So, I just listen in my Podcast app, but leave a rating and reviews. Also, on the show notes page of today’s show at biggerpockets.com/show469, you can ask questions of the guests that we had on. They’ll be checking that and give us your answers to the questions. I would love to hear what you guys think. So, in the YouTube comments below the video or on that page itself on BiggerPockets, leave your answers to these questions. We’d love to know what you guys think. So, that’s all I got. David Greene?

David:
I had a great time. Thank you to all of our guests today. I appreciate your guys’ questions. Brandon, you did a great job answering them in the hot seat. You’re not too shabby.

Brandon:
It’s like you’ve done this before.

David:
Well, this is where you tell who actually knows their stuff and who doesn’t. That’s why I like these shows, because anyone can sit and do a pre-recorded interview where they let the guest talk the whole time and they pretend they know a lot about real estate. But when someone’s throwing questions at you that you don’t know what’s coming, that’s what I like to look at when I’m looking for a mentor. So, thank you for that.

Brandon:
Good, man.

David:
This is David Greene for Brandon “Behind the Beard” Turner signing off.

Outro:
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