3 Ways to Simplify Your Real Estate Investing with Brandon Turner

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 484.

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, I’m Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, here with my co-host Mr. David Greene. David Greene, what’s up, man?

David:
What is up, man? We are talking some real estate today.

Brandon:
We are talking some real estate today, or specifically, I’m talking some real estate today because today’s show is really all about me. No, today’s show is about you and about how to make your real estate business more simple. Here’s the deal. Here’s the gist, last year or two years ago now, whoa, two years ago already?

David:
Yeah. It’s been a long time.

Brandon:
Yeah. BP Con 2019, because we didn’t have a 2020 because of the whole COVID mess. BP Con 2019, I gave a keynote speech on how to simplify your business and how to make it more simple so it’s more fun and more profitable and you have to work less and make a lot more money. That’s the summary of the keynote speech. And we decided, we’ve never actually played it for the entire audience before, only the people that were there live in Nashville got to hear it. So today’s episode is actually my keynote speech from BP Con 2019, and I think you’re going to it. So that’s what’s coming up here in just a moment. But since David, you’re not joining me for the whole show today, let me just ask you, do you know what you’re speaking on yet at BP Con 2021?

David:
I believe I’m slated to talk about the BRRRR Method.

Brandon:
Of course, you are.

David:
Yes.

Brandon:
Because you are the BRRRRminator.

David:
That’s about it.

Brandon:
Yeah. You do, that’s somebody else [crosstalk 00:01:43].

David:
To be fair though, you and I will be talking to everybody the entire time about everything related to real estate at all.

Brandon:
Pretty much.

David:
I may set something up where we have a private meeting or rent out a room or something to have people come and mastermind or do that kind of thing.

Brandon:
Something fun that, it can be fun. I this idea. I’m doing one of those with my investors in Open Door Capital, we had a little private to dinner. That’ll be fine if on her drinks or something. I don’t, we got to plan out still. But that leads actually to today’s quick tip.

David:
Quick tip.

Brandon:
Quick tip is BiggerPockets conference 2021 is happening. So you probably guessed because we just talked about it. It is happening, it is a New Orleans and it is on October 4th through the sixth. So October four, five and six of 2021. So the quick tip is, if it’s not sold out yet, it is going to sell out. 250,000 people listen to the show and we are only having 1500 spots.
So it’s going to sell out, but if it hasn’t sold out yet, go get your ticket right now, biggerpockets.com/conference, easy to get there, biggerpockets.com/conference, get your ticket, it’s going to be amazing, it’s going to be tons of speakers, inspirational keynotes.I think Hal Elrod is going to be there, author of Miracle Morning and a bunch of other people. And it’s in New Orleans, one of my favorite cities in the entire world, right off Bourbon Street, which, if you’ve been there, you know what you know. It’s going to be amazing.
So we’ll see you there. We’re also going to do a live podcast. I think recording a Q&A thing, and David and I are going to do there as well. So it’s going to be great. I’m excited. I’m excited to meet all of you who are going to be there. So get your ticket, biggerpockets.com/conference. And that leads us to today’s show sponsors. All right. I guess that’s all we got before I jump into the keynote. Anything you want to say, David, about life, real estate, love or whatever you want?

David:
No, I actually want to hear your keynote again because I remember being there and I was in and out of the room. I didn’t get to hear the whole thing.

Brandon:
All right. Well you just didn’t care enough about me. Were you there for the surf lesson?

David:
Part of it.

Brandon:
I gave a surf lesson in the middle of the speech.

David:
Yes, I missed that. I heard.

Brandon:
Okay. All right. Well, everyone be prepared. You’re going to learn how to surf today. And without further ado, let’s get to the keynote from the BiggerPockets 2019 conference by me, Brandon Turner.

Speaker 4:
Okay. Before I leave you, I want to tell a little story because people enjoy the story. A few months ago, I went to a business networking event. Wasn’t a real estate event, had nothing to do with real estate, business related. And I these events because when I go to real estate event, everybody comes up to me and wants to chat about real estate. When I go to these other events, nobody knows who I am. I’m at this event, and this woman beelines towards me and says, oh my God, you’re Jay Scott. And I’ll be honest. I’m introverted, I don’t talking to people that. I don’t know. It’s hard for me. I enjoy it, but it’s difficult.
But I was really excited because I was at this event where normally nobody knows who I am. And she said, oh my God, you’re Jay Scott. And I was really excited. And she said, can I ask you a favor? And I’m sitting here thinking, wow, somebody has a favor for me at a business event. So maybe she’s going to want me to sign a book or maybe she’s going to want me to be godfather to her child or something really awesome. And she looks at me and she said, can I ask you a favor? And I said, absolutely. And she said, will you introduce me to Brandon Turner? That really happened.
I’m not going to lie, I was a little upset. But then I realized that there are a whole lot worse things in this world than introducing Brandon Turner. So I have the honor, the privilege today to introduce Brandon Turner. Somebody that everybody in this room likely knows. He’s the VP of growth for BiggerPockets. He’s taught many of us in this room out various strategies that, I don’t want to say they didn’t exist before Brandon, but they weren’t well conceived before Brandon. He’s created some of the greatest three-letter acronyms and four-letter acronyms in real estate. And he’s had a profound impact on all of our lives. So it is my profound pleasure to introduce our first keynote speaker, Brandon Turner.

Brandon:
Thank you guys. What’s up everybody? All right. So I looked for a couple of things to get my way around the stage here, looking for a PowerPoint clicker, that should be here somewhere. If not, I’m going to have to clap. Speaking of clapping, actually, while I’m looking for this, do you guys… This is true story. At south by Southwest last year, there was, you know those little, what do they call them, scooters you ride around? The bird or whatever, they have those.
Anyway, some joker went out there and took these stickers that said clap activated and stuck them on everyone. That’s the greatest prank, I think of all time. It’s so simple, but so genius. So anyway, I love that. Love that. Speaking of simplicity, that’s actually what we’re going to be talking about today is, this idea of how to make your real estate business a lot more simple and how to make things work better because they just… They’re simple. Because a lot of things are very complex and we make them very complex.
But in reality, real estate at its core is a very simple thing. So, hey, we have a clicker. Oh, is this the clicker? Oh my gosh. You guys, round of applause for the staff here, wow. That’s it, right? Hey, it works, man. Way to look like a moron in front of a thousand people. All right. So hello everybody. All right. So a lot of you guys know me from the podcast, which means you hear my voice pretty often. Maybe you watch me on YouTube in my current state. Anybody seen any of my old YouTube videos? They’re really bad.
I’ve changed a lot, quite a bit. My old ones, Scott Trench, Scott isn’t here. He makes fun of me all the time because one of my first videos, I’m sitting in this little yellow chair and I got this crappy blurry camera and I’m holding my cat, and I’m just stroking my cat. I don’t know what was going on. Anyway, so a lot of people know me from the podcast and my voice and what it looks now, but I’ve actually gone through several phases in my life.
And I wanted to show you a little bit insight into who I am. So phases. So phase number one, this handsome fella right here, that is high school prom. Now ladies calm down, he had a date and she was cute. And that’s me, and more specific, I want you to take notes of the hair. So the greasy oily gel, the cheap 99-cent jelly at Kmart, beautiful hair. Later, I’d had to grow it out a little longer. This is college. This is just getting into college and I let that hair go a little bit longer. Power up was my favorite t-shirt at the time, got the glasses. This was blink 182 phase, anybody go through a blink 182 phase? Yeah.
I got real handsome and decided to have some business out front and party in the back. I died at jet black and rock that… True story., actually, the only time in my life, I’m a tall guy, right? And some would say, awkward tall. I would say awkward tall. I always liked to basketball one time in my life, and that was when I had a mullet. So coincidence. I did not date in high school. I actually never dated in high school, can we go back? I never dated in high school other than going to prom.
But the first time I ever kissed a girl, guess what I had on my head? That’s right. I had that mullet. When I first kissed the girl, more on that later. Then I decided to take that down one more notch and went to the Mohawk for a little while. And finally, evicted, as they say and shaved it and I had a lumpy head, so that didn’t work out very well. So here’s why I bring this up.
Hair takes up less than 1% of your body mass. It completely defines who you are as a person in a lot of ways, like how people perceive you, what they think about you. And it’s such a small, simple thing, because simple things have an amazing ability to transform everything. I’ll tell you one more story. A few years back, my wife and I had for years tried to have a kid. This is long before my current child. So we tried to have a kid for a number of years and just didn’t happen.
Well finally, after years and years and years, we were able to conceive. But it’s like when you try that hard for something, it’s almost like you don’t believe it can, you know what I’m talking about? You don’t quite believe it. Any parents in here? How about that? Any parents? Okay. Lots of parents in here. So it’s like I knew in my head that there was a baby in there, but I didn’t know it in my heart yet until that very first time when you go to the doctor and they take that machine, it doesn’t look this, it’s a stock photo.
But they put it on Heather, on my wife’s stomach. And you hear that heartbeat. It’s really fast, like dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And it became so real. I have a child. I have a child on the way, and I’d tried for so long. It was such a huge moment for me. Again, such a simple little thing as a heartbeat completely changed everything for me. To continue that story, a little bit longer months later, we’re nearing the end of what would be near the end of the pregnancy and my wife and I went to the doctor that day, showed up at Dr. Pullman, everything was just fine.
They said, yeah, you got a couple more weeks to go, everything’s fine. And then she stopped feeling the baby kick and we got a little oooh, happens. And sometimes you just don’t feel baby right away. And then all of a sudden she got this real bad pain, real bad pain. And it wasn’t like a contraction, which they say starts at 60 minutes and works its way down, and it happens every 60, then 55, 40, 30, and when you go to the doctor, when it’s down to whatever, 12 minutes, that’s how we were explained it.
But it didn’t happen that way. It was just immense pain, a minute later, two minutes later, immense pain, and it just was continual. And we didn’t know what it was. We rushed to the hospital. I drove a hundred miles an hour all the way there, got checked in and my wife, I’m not sure I can get through this. This is a tough story to tell. But we laid down and she laid down, they put the stethoscope on the stomach and there was nothing. And they moved it around and moved it around and moved it around and they heard nothing.
And it was the longest minute of my entire life. I just prayed to God that God, don’t take my little girl. And I died in that moment. And then duck dunk, dunk, dunk, and there it was, right? They just couldn’t find it. And then they found it. And again, such a simple little thing as a heartbeat completely changed my life. That is the greatest sound I’ve ever heard, was that heartbeat, right? It’s such a simple thing. As an hour later, Rosie Lou was born, and again, best moment of my entire life.
And today, Rosie, you got the pricing pictures, but she’s the cutest little thing in the world. I totally love this little girl. In fact, two quick stories about her. First, Rosie, the other day she says to me, daddy, I said, yeah, and she says, do you want to play a game? I said, okay. And she says, okay, it’s called, who’s the best. I said, okay. She goes, I am, I win. So I love, that’s my favorite game. Alright. Second story.
Few weeks ago, she has this little Peppa Pig toy. And if you have your kids have Peppa Pig toys, or little plastic things, there’s little plastic figurines, Peppa Pig, big head, little body. And she has a crib, a little baby crib. And she’s sitting in the living room trying to put in this Peppa Pig toy into the side of the crib. I don’t know why, kids are weird. And she’s shoving it in there and she’s getting so frustrated because it won’t fit. And she’s, ah, and then she takes the whole thing and goes duuuh, and throws the whole thing across the room. Anybody ever been there?
Yeah. We’ve all been there. And I watch her and I don’t intervene yet. I’m just watching her and she’s like, aaah, dumps over, picks up the toy. She takes it and she goes, and then she takes it and she takes the Peppa Pig toys. She turns it just a quarter turn and it slides right in. Let’s go back to playing. It’s amazing how little, just a quarter turn of that thing just made it to go right in, right? Simple. It’s such a simple little thing. I love Confucius quotes, Confucius is the one who said, life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
In my real estate investing life, man, I have always tended to overcomplicate things. And because of that, I think it’s held me back a lot. And when I talked to new investors, it’s so complicated sometimes, yet when I talked to really experienced investors, the guys that are really experienced, it’s not only easy for them to invest, it’s actually simple for them to invest. We didn’t have a very simple business. Oh yeah, just do this and this and this and this and this is what it does.
And so today we’re talking about how to simplify your business in a lot more ways. In fact, it’s not even just about business, I like to say, how do I simplify everything? I was thinking about three ways to do it. You can work less, have more joy, improve your relationships, travel more, look sexier and really just make a hell of a lot more money. That sound good to everybody? Good. All right. So that’s what we’re talking about today. I’ll go through three different ways.
Now, of course, when I say simple, I don’t necessarily mean easy, right? Simple is flossing. Everybody here know how to floss? How many flossed this morning? Okay. A few of you. Good. I didn’t. Working out would be the same thing. How many guys can work out? We all can, right? How many worked out this morning? A few, good. I didn’t. You know what I did this morning? I woke up, I got out of bed this morning and I groggily get out of bed and I’m walking to the bathroom, something felt weird and I wasn’t really sure what it was, but I just knew something was off.
And I walk into the bathroom and I almost slipped. And again, something feels weird. And then I get in the bathroom and I realized it’s weird because there’s water everywhere. And of course I’m a landlord. So I go to the back of the toilet and I’m looking under there, trying to figure out where the leak is, I look in the bathroom and then I get the drip on my head and I’m on the top floor, and so there’s water. It’s good to see that even a billion-dollar place has leak, roof issues. So I was like, yes, I’m not alone in this.
So that’s what I did this morning. That has nothing to do with what I’m talking about, it’s a lot of… Oh, actually it does have something to do with it. My pants. So you may have seen me walking around earlier carrying a pair of pants because my pants were on the floor, sopping wet, just soaking wet, and now I’m going to find a not clever way to incorporate into my speech. Water, such a simple thing, right? But it can make you wet and soggy.
So anyway, hotel took care of my pants and they cleaned them and dried them and everything. It’s great. How about one more example of simple, not always easy. It’s pretty simple to ask out a girl or if you’re a girl to ask out a guy, but anybody in here, some people are really good at this and it is very easy for them, but for me, it was not easy. Who here would say it was easy for them to ask a girl for a phone number, or ask a guy for a number on a date. How many of you guys thought it was easy, not many, right? A few people.
But for most of us, it terrifies us. So I’ll tell you a quick story about when I met my wife, we were at college. Actually, head over heels fell in love with her the minute I saw her. This doesn’t happen very often, but I saw her from 50 feet away, out on the lawn, the grass, I left my dorm room and I saw this girl and I said to myself out loud that day, if I don’t marry her, I’m not marrying anybody. And there was just something about… She was talking to a friend of mine who was mentally challenged.
And I thought, literally, actually he was a developmentally disabled. And I was like, she’s talking to him and having a conversation and she’s beautiful and she’s perfect. And that day I knew. So I went down there and found a way to get into that conversation and we became friends. And the first time I tried to ask her out, I went to her and I said, we’re really good friends but I really like you, really like you. And she said, that’s nice. I’m like, okay. All right.
So then a few weeks later, I tried again, and I’m like, I really like you a lot. And I’d love to do… I’d love to hang out with you more. And she goes, oh, that’s cute. I bet it is. The third time I did it again and she did the same thing. And finally, I went home for Christmas. And by the way, I had the long hair at that point, the long black hair, wasn’t yet mullet. Mullet was when I went home for Christmas break and I asked my mom to cut my hair into a mullet. So my mom cut it in the mullet.
And then when I went back to school, I had the mullet and that’s when we had our, define the relationship with DTR, with our final DTR. And I said, listen, I really you a lot. And I can’t do this. I can’t be in the friend zone. So I have to just stop being friends with you. And you know what she said? Well then, why don’t you just freaking ask me out moron? So the lesson learned there is, know what you want. Had I just simply asked her out, she probably would’ve said yes, but she had nothing to lose by just saying, well, oh, that’s good.
She didn’t want to ruin a friendship. I didn’t directly ask her. So tip number one in simplifying your businesses, know exactly what you want. Don’t be afraid to go after it. I was super timid because it was so scary to actually put myself out there and ask her. So I’m really big today on knowing exactly what you want. If you listen to my episode of the podcast recently where I was a guest on the BiggerPockets Business Podcast, and then we put it on the real estate podcast. Well, anybody listened to that episode? Few of you. Okay, good.
So I tell the story a little bit in there about what I’ve been doing in my real estate business lately, which is focusing hardcore on mobile home parks. Now, are mobile home parks, the best in the world? No, I just happened to them. And so I pick them. Really, the most important thing is I pick them and so I went after it. And this is a huge mistake I see people making and complicating their business is that they don’t a hundred percent go after, they don’t go in there. They’re doing things like, hey, I really like you. I really like you a lot. And so the world is saying to them, that’s nice.
But had people go more directly at what they want, it’s a lot more simple, right? This is what I want, this is what I’m going to get. And when you tell other people, this is what I want, then they’re going to help you get there. But the problem that people do is, when they’re doing so many different things and they really rentals and they like flipping and wholesaling, they like all this. The problem with that is, I use this analogy of a bridge.
Imagine on one side, there’s the land, it’s just the land you live on, we’ll call it reality land. And on the other side over here, there is, we call it goal island or dream island or financial freedom island. And to get across there, if you just get one bridge across there, you can travel back and forth all the time, you have a great life. So what people do is they start building this bridge and they’re on the reality island. And they start building this bridge and they call it wholesaling. And then they get really excited about something else.
And they go back to reality land and they start building their next bridge. And I started building this one and they call that flipping or rentals or whatever. And they’re building bridges across this path, but they never get across it because they got so many bridges going. And I’d have 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 bridges going and none of them ever made it. But if they would’ve just stuck with one thing, they would build that bridge and get all the way across there. And once they achieve that, then everything else can go play bridges all day long.
Once you have that financial independence, I like to say there’s level one and level two, and maybe a level three. Level one is you can pay your bills. That’s great. It’s a great moment to be able to pay your bills with your passive income. I love that. Level two is I can buy a jet. And so I want level one, level one is a great, once you have level one, you can build other bridges to get to level two and maybe even level three, where you buy small countries, which sounds pretty good.
But you’re never going to get there if you keep building bridges. So I would encourage you to simplify your business by knowing exactly what you want and sticking with that. So, like I said earlier, we’re doing this with mobile home parks right now. We built a fund. We have a 560 fund and we’re buying a bunch of parks. In fact, just last week, we’re closing this week, maybe even today or tomorrow or next day on a park in Ohio or two parks in Ohio.
Last Monday, a week ago, we got a $7 million offer accepted on a park in Atlanta or near Atlanta. And then we should hear back any minute now, I’m waiting. I don’t know. Whoever Ryan is, you can tell me if it comes through, we’re writing a huge offer that we just submitted on one. So we are all in on this thing right now. And I’m doing a few other things, but 90% of my time is spent on this one thing, because if I can just get this right, everything else becomes easier.
And have you ever seen idea before of training a lion with a chair? That’s a common image from back in the day when we used to do weird things with lions, but they would always take chairs and hold them up. The reason they did this is because a lion can only focus on one chair leg at a time. And so by holding the chair up and rotating the chair, the lion jumps from thing to thing, to thing, to thing, and doesn’t eat the person holding the chair. That’s the whole reason behind why they would do the chair trick.
The same thing is true for humans and us today is that when we have 2, 3, 4 things going, we have a hard time focusing on everyone. That’s why Warren Buffett once said, the difference between successful people and really successful people, is that the really successful people say no to almost everything. A great example of this, my buddy, Josh Dworkin. Where’s Josh at? He is here somewhere. Have you seen him? He’s about this tall. Oh, there he is back there. All right. Good. Yeah. Can somebody get me a booster seat? There is one back there.
So no, Josh is actually the same height as me. He’s going to come up here and take this mic from me. so Josh and I, we posted a picture because it was going to be for the back of the, How to Invest in Real Estate book. And a lot of people wonder like, wow, Josh is really tall or Brandon’s really short. Nope. That’s how we make movie magic right there. Sorry Josh. All right. Now of course, just knowing where you’re going isn’t always enough. Just knowing where you’re going isn’t always enough.
Few years ago, my wife and I took a road trip all around the United States. We spent six weeks in our car, our Prius, camping in our Prius, this is before Rozie. Camping in our Prius driving around, it was amazing trip. I think we left Houston, Texas, any Texans in here? All right. Texas, well, we left Houston, Texas, and we’re driving towards Denver, Colorado. So we’re going to make our way up to Denver, I want to go visit Josh. We’re going to stay with Josh. And we leave Houston and we’re traveling west.
We know where we want to go exactly, and we just kept driving and driving and I follow this road. And I figured if I just head Northwest, we’d get there. And it wasn’t until I saw the sign for the Mexican border crossing that I realized I was going the wrong direction, four hours in the wrong direction. Luckily, my wife was sleeping, she didn’t even know. So I just turned around and zipped back up. Yeah. Pass Texas, it is a big state. Yeah. You never know. Therefore, it’s not only important to know what you want exactly, but define exactly how you’re going to get there specifically.
Now, this surfing picture behind the picture that… I took this picture of myself just a couple weeks ago. Totally kidding. No, that’s not me. But I live in Maui, Hawaii now, I moved there because I want to surf and I like surfing. And so I’m going to actually teach everybody here today how to surf, that sound good? All right. So I want you to do, it’s going to be weird. I want you all to stand up real quick. I want everyone to come up here, I’m just kidding, no. But stand up, we’re going to do a quick surfing lesson.
So here’s how you surf. This is how you serve. Step number one, you paddle out, I’m not going to make you lay down because that’d be really weird, but you pretend you’re laid down and you’re on your board and you’re paddling out, left arm, right arm, left arm, right arm, all the way out. You don’t want your feet to touch in the water, you want your feet on the board because otherwise it drags you. Now, you get out to where you want to go and you turn around so you’re facing the right direction.
And a lot of times I sit on my board, but I’ll lay down, so I’m laying on the board, and then a wave starts coming. You look off and you can be watching because you don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s about three seconds before it happens. And you see the water goes through and it starts going up and you’re like, no, this is it. And so what you do is you want to paddle. It’s like getting on a freeway. You want to match the speed of the cars on the freeway. So you start paddling, paddling, paddling and paddling. And then as soon as you feel it catching you a little bit, you got to peddle super fast.
The last thing you do is you do three big 1, 2, 3. All right. So everybody paddle, paddle, paddle. All right, waves coming. We’re catching up 1, 2, 3, go 1, 2, 3. Alright. Now, very important. What everyone does is they grab their board, terrible idea because then your board goes like this, your fingers are in the water. So it’s messing with your dynamics. You flap the deck of the surfboard. You slap it. So I need to say PSA, a purchase and sale agreement, but it’s, you paddle, you slap and you arch your back up.
So everyone let’s do that, let’s paddle. All right. Slap and then arch your back. All right. So at that point, everything’s good if you’re far enough forward on your board or far enough back. Yeah. There’s a spot, about a one in spot, you have a variance. And if you’re too far forward, your board goes in the water, if you’re too far back, your board tips. So you got to make sure you’re the right exact spot on surfboard. If all that is right, now, you arch your back. You get that jet engine, it starts driving you forward.
It’s the best feeling on the earth. Then you take, I’m going to actually show you this, it’s going to be weird. You’re going to go like this, so paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, slap, arch your back, and then you’re going to basically jump up like this guy. That was a bad example, and now you’re going this. So everybody down in the… I’m just kidding. So now you’re up and now you’re riding. You just can’t tip too far forward, back left to right now. Sit down. That’s good for audience participation. Good job. Give yourself a hand. All right.
Did that sound easy? No, there’s a lot of steps in there, right? But here’s the thing. It actually is pretty easy. I don’t even think about it. In the beginning though, everything is manual. When I learned to surf, everything was manual. I got to do this, now I got to do this. Now I got to do this. Now I got to do it. There’s 50 steps. So there’s probably like 12. But is it hard or is it just a lot of steps? It’s just a lot of steps, right? Actually, everything’s pretty easy. Everybody here can do this, right? Everybody here can stand. There’s a lot of steps.
So here’s the truth. Great accomplishments are seldom difficult, they’re just steps undiscovered or actions unrehearsed. And I say that again, great accomplishments are seldom difficult. They’re just steps undiscovered or actions unrehearsed. So in the beginning, everything is manual. But over time, it becomes more and more automatic. And how does it happen? You know what the steps are and then you rehearse them over and over and over. Now, when you have a simple thing in your life, this is what I do. I’m doing mobile home parks, I’m doing flipping of this price range, I am doing rentals in this zip code.
You can get those reps in, you get that rehearsal over and over and over and you get better and better and better and better. I love this quote from Steve Jobs, simple can be harder than complex, you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple, but it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. Great illustration, that’s my buddy Elliot Smith. Anybody know Elliot Smith? Yeah. Elliot Smith is from Seattle area. Well, the Washington area.
Elliot Smith was at my house two weeks ago. I took this picture of him while we were doing a video. And Elliot has the coolest story. I love his story because maybe many of you heard him on the podcast. I can’t remember what episode it was, but he was the guy working for a bakery. He was a manager working 60, 70 hours a week, didn’t really love it. And he ended up deciding to get into wholesaling and flipping. And he only had a few minutes every week to work on it, a few hours every week to work on it. So he was working no more than 10 hours a week on his wholesaling business. And then he made a hundred grand in one month and he was like, why am I still in my job?
So he quit his job. And now what do most people do? They go work 40, 50, 60 hours a week of the real estate. He was like, no, I’m going to golf. So today, he only works five, 10 hours a week on his real estate business while his business still generates massive profits for him, why? And I asked him about this, how does he do this? And he said, it’s very simple. He just keeps it simple. He’s like, I really just keep it simple. I get my car. I drive around, I pull out one of the Driving for Dollars apps, I think he’s Driving for Dollars, what he uses.
He’s like, I just drove around and I just add properties to it, and then we mail them letters and then they call us and I talk to them and then we… It’s just these steps, right? He’s got eight or 10 steps, but almost everything in life is, again, not complicated or hard, it’s just steps that we haven’t learned or we haven’t rehearsed enough. So he keeps it very simple. This is what he does. He does flipping now, primarily just flips houses and keeps it very simple and just follows the same steps.
Just like surfing, same steps over and over and over that one more aspect about knowing how you’re going to get there. It’s not just about how you’re going to get there, but who’s going to get there with you, who do you get with you? And this is a huge lesson I learned over the past year, is that hire before you’re ready to hire. Hire before you’re ready to hire. It’s a scary thing to hire, it really is a scary thing to go and hire that first person because they might not work out. But guess what? Is it hard? No, it’s just the steps you haven’t rehearsed yet.
So I’ve hired a number of people now over the years and I keep learning lessons about it, but the more I do it, the better I get. And so the reason I put this picture up there, there’s this great analogy about fleas. They pick these fleas and they can train fleas to do little funny things. They took these fleas and they put them in a jar, and they put a lid on the jar. And fleas like to jump. So the fleas would jump, boom, hit their head. It’s a common problem for tall people, they jump, hit your head, jump, hit your head, jump, hit your head. And these fleas eventually would just stop jumping.
Well, then the researchers would take the lid off the jar and the fleas would just stay not jumping. They would never jump higher than the lid. And we all understand that you are the average of the five people you associate with, but here’s the fascinating thing about this study they did and training these fleas, is they took one of the fleas out and they put them in a big bucket, and within a few hours that flea that wasn’t jumping is now jumping super, super high. Why? Because we adapt to the people around us. They give us wings, they give us power, they give us jump.
It’s the surrounding yourself with people, has been a huge part of my life and making my real estate more simple because I bring more people in to do what they’re good at. One of these guys that brought in. So he has a friend named Ryan Murdock. He’s right over there. Can we get Ryan Murdock a round of applause. Ryan is amazing. This is Ryan at Little Beach. How many of you, when I say Little Beach giggled a little bit, anybody? Okay. Anybody been to Little Beach? Okay. Anybody have been there and not admitting they’ve been there.
As you can see, Little Beach is a clothing optional beach in Maui. And it’s where a lot of the hippies hanging out in Maui, and it also happens to be the most beautiful beach in Maui. It’s unbelievable. It’s just this gorgeous beach that overlooks Molokini and it’s really hard to get to. It’s also the best surfing beach in our area. So we go there quite a bit and Ryan goes there, he’s a boogie boarder, I’m a surfer. We go there, we try to stay on the safe side of the beach and away from the people. There’s so many stories I would love to tell, but I’m already over time. So I won’t tell them, but remind me later to tell you, ask Ryan or me about the naked surfer or the naked weightlifter, or the naked yoga guy. Those are great, really good stories there.
Anyway, so the point is, having Ryan on my team has been huge. He’s been running a lot of things. He made my life much more simple and I’m trying to make it… It’s not as simple yet on him because he doesn’t have the steps rehearsed enough. But it’s becoming simpler with every deal that we do. And we’re bringing in more people. We have a few people like Walker’s over there, we got Mike over there, we’ve got people that were building this team. I think Trent’s here somewhere. We’re building these team of people because now we can simplify our business to a greater degree.
Now, going back to Ryan real quick, Ryan is a hero, I’ll tell you why. Maybe you saw it on his Facebook page recently. Ryan, not just once, but I think twice now, you have saved three times, four times saved naked, drowning people. So Ryan’s out there. Now, Ryan and I were at Little Beach. Again, we stay on the safe side, we wear our swimsuit, but a lot of old retired people to go out and they swim too far and they get a little bit dangerous. And so Ryan was out there on his boogie board and somebody is yelling for help, about to get sucked out by the current. So Ryan goes out and he saves them. He brings them in. He’s an American hero.
I’m explaining more about why I’m telling you this story a second, but tip number three, become the hero in your life, become the hero in your life. And here’s why I come up with this idea of hero. See, most people, this is important, most people, I don’t think you guys are this way, but most people in the world play the victim in their life because they don’t want admit that they’re actually the villain in their life, right? Most people play the victim because they don’t want to admit they’re the villains. Always somebody else’s fault, but they’re the villain in their life. They’re one causing them the pain that they’re going through. It’s their own lack of action, but instead, what’s the opposite of that? It’s the hero. The hero is the one that steps up.
First of all, the hero takes action, Ryan. He didn’t question, should I go out there? He jumps, he’s compelled to take action. Consistent action. No matter what, because there’s things that need to be saving, especially naked things that need to be saved. So Ryan goes out there, even if he doesn’t want to, even if the hero doesn’t always want to go and work and take the action that needed. Ever wake up and just not want to do anything, like I don’t want to go to the gym. Well, it’s a good thing we don’t live our lives by desire, but by intention. Amy does not want to go and check out that property or make that phone call.
It’s a good thing we don’t liberalize by wants, but we love by intention. A hero lives by intention. A hero lives by the greater good, knowing what’s down the road is better than what’s [inaudible 00:36:35] out. So step number one is the hero takes action. Secondly, the hero uses their superpowers. Now, Ryan at a boogie board, that is a super power. He can’t drown with a boogie board. He’s out there. He can do that. So I want you to ask yourself, what is your superpower? Use that and outsource everything else that you possibly can.
Now, we’ve all heard that advice before, but are we doing it? I’ve said it, I’ve taught it for years, but it wasn’t until this year that I really started putting that into practice that I need to do what I do best. There’s a few things that I can do that nobody else can do. I’m going to do those things and everything else other people are going to do. And I’m going to find ways to do that. And if you do think you can’t afford that yet, find ways to incentivize it. Find ways to bring people in at a lower price, maybe for free and give them a piece of the deal.
We have a team of, I think I said Trent was here somewhere in there, probably other than my team that are here and they’re working for equity in the deals that we’re doing. And so find a way to work with people that they can do what they’re really good at. Some people love spreadsheets. I hate them. I just hate them. Some people love working through numbers and some people love phone calls. I’m a millennial, I don’t phone calls. So I just don’t do it. I let other people do that thing because I’m going to work on my super power. And third, a superhero never gives up. Even when it’s hard, they persist, they go through.
Ryan could have gave up and let the naked people drown. He didn’t, right? He worked through. Heroes always work through, think of Frodo Baggins, and what’s his friend’s name? Sam. Samwise. Yeah, right? They didn’t want to go and throw the ring in the volcano, which by the way, side note, remember after Frodo rang as they throw that ring at the volcano, spoiler alert, sorry. And then they passed out and this big bird comes and picks them up and takes them all the way back to safety, why didn’t they just ride the bird to the volcano?
Well, then it has been way easier and the whole movie would have been much quicker. Anyway, sorry. We’re way over time now. So the idea is become the hero by, again, number one, taking action even if you don’t want to, number two, using your superpower, number three, continue on, persist no matter what. A lot of people ask the question, when do you grit, and when do you quit? When should you quit? If you’re trying something, if you’re trying to get into flipping and just not working, when should you say, okay, it’s just not going to work out.
Never, never, never quit. I know that sounds like… Yeah, but if you just kept working at it, you would get the reps needed. Now maybe you have to change some things but the problem I see with, especially with new investors is they’re jumping from thing, to thing, to thing. But even as experienced investors, we do it too. We do it too all the time. And so again, focus on committing to that thing that you said you’re going to commit to. Final story of the day. Back in the 1920s, there was a lot of interest in climbing Mount Everest, that had not been [inaudible 00:39:35]. Some people really wanted to conquer this mountain.
And there was this expedition went up there, failed. They went back again, failed, went back again and the fearless leader, and I wish I remembered his name, but I don’t remember now. The leader up there died on the mountain. Actually, they found his body in 1999, actually like this, climbing towards his goal, but he actually died. The leader of that group. The group goes back down, they go back down to the whatever, Blunden I think is where they’re from. And they didn’t make it, and again in 1920, they didn’t make it.
But one of his friends that was on expedition gave a eulogy and I don’t have the guy’s name, but he said this great quote. He said, I speak to you Mount Everest in the name of all brave men living and those yet unborn. Mount Everest, you defeated us once, you defeated us twice, you defeated us three times. But Mount Everest, we shall someday defeat you because you can’t get any bigger, but we can, you can’t get any bigger, but we can.
And I love that picture, that real estate, no matter what it is you’re trying to go for, real estate is this mountain that we’re trying to conquer. But if we stick with it, if we get those reps in, if we keep our business simple and stop making it so complex, if we understand the basic steps that we need to follow to get anywhere, if we stick with those simple reps, we’re going to get the results we want because that real estate deal, because that new venture, that business idea you have, it’s not going to get any bigger, but you will. All right. That was the keynote from the conference, David, what do you think? You’ve heard it once before, but was it better the second time?

David:
I think I forget what a good speaker you are because I get caught up with your face, right?

Brandon:
Thank you.

David:
And then every once in a while when I don’t see your face and I just hear the words, I’m impressed by how well you articulate things.

Brandon:
Thank you. Sometimes you get caught in my triangle as well.

David:
Ooh. Yes. That’s true. Your triangle is a triangle. It’s like the Bermuda Triangle. Once you go there, you never come back out. We don’t know what happened to you.

Brandon:
Hashtag jiu-jitsu jokes. That’s great. They’re like dad jokes, but better. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Hope you enjoyed this. And remember BP Con is happening in October 4th through the 6th of 2021. We want you there. If it’s not filled out yet and it will sell out very shortly, please get your ticket at biggerpockets.com/conference because David and I want to hang out with you live in person and chat some real estate, life, business, love and whatever else you want to talk about. So David, I’ll let you get us out of here.

David:
All right. This is David Greene for Brandon, the keynote speaker, Turner, signing off.

Speaker 1:
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. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.