The Passive Income Attorney Podcast

Title: I've Read 236 Business Books – Here Are the 12 That Will Make You Rich  Summary:  In this video, Seth Bradley, a successful real estate investor and former attorney, shares a curated list of the 12 most impactful business books that significantly changed his approach to wealth generation, investing, and entrepreneurship. He expresses his frustration with the majority of business literature but firmly believes in the transformative power of these selected titles. Seth emphasizes that achieving financial freedom involves moving away from traditional employment and cultivating a mindset geared toward asset building and strategic operation. Each book he mentions has played a critical role in shaping his journey, providing strategic thoughts on productivity, relationship management, and scaling businesses. The emphasis is not merely on the content of the books but on applying their principles to realize tangible success. Furthermore, he wraps up the discussion by encouraging viewers to take action by reading these books and applying their teachings to improve their financial status and life in general. Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QXX37vgJPE&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=4 Bullet Point Highlights: Transformative Reading: Seth Bradley highlights 12 business books that transformed his financial mindset. From Employees to Investors: Books teach the importance of shifting from earning through employment to making money through investments. The Power of Mornings: The “Miracle Morning” book stresses the significance of a structured morning routine for success. Execution Over Perfection: “The Lean Startup” emphasizes launching quickly and improving based on feedback. Relationship Building: “How to Win Friends and Influence People” underscores the importance of communication and building relationships in business. Mindset Shift with 10x Rule: Grant Cardone's “The 10x Rule” encourages ambitious thinking and significant effort to achieve exceptional results. Love Languages in Business: “The Five Love Languages” reveals how understanding different communication styles can enhance business relationships. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) [Music] I've read 236 business books and let me tell you honestly most of them are a complete waste of time but these 12 these are the ones that actually made me Rich these books change the way I make money I invest and I run my businesses and before you ask no I'm not including Rich Dad Poor Dad why because it's the purple Bible and if you don't know that one you're already behind so real quick if you don't know me I'm Seth Bradley really estate investor Capital Riser and former big law attorney I left a   multiple sixf figureure corporate career because I realized I'd never get rich working for someone else at least not wealthy I don't mess with stocks I don't waste time on 401ks I build businesses and I buy assets so if you want to break free from the 9 to-5 start raising capital and actually control your financial future this is the list you need this is the real playbook for Financial Freedom the books that shaped How I build wealth just stick around and at the end I've got a book you'll never   expect but it might be the most important one on the list all right let's get into it book number one it is Robert kosaki cash flow quadrant kosaki breaks down the four ways people make money employee self-employed business owner and investor most people spend their whole lives on the left side trading time for money the rich they're on the right side where businesses Investments make them money while they sleep you know I was making six figures as a lawyer but I was still on the wrong side that's when I knew I had to start   buying assets the second I understood this what my man was saying in this book I stopped thinking like an employee and starting moving towards Financial Freedom book number two Miracle morning by how El Rod now it's a solid morning routine is a cheat code for Success when I'm consistent with mine I dominate when I slack off my entire day suffers this book gives you a proven structure to start your day like a high performer if you don't control your mornings you don't control your life one of the   biggest takeaways for me was how much intentionality matters if you wake up and immediately start reacting to your world rather than you dictating how you perceive the world emails notifications demands you're already behind but if you take time to focus on yourself set goals and visualize success you'll operate at a much higher level this book will give you the tools to craft a morning routine that sets you up for Success now I do have to say that my morning routine is changed over time I read that book I had   a very structured morning I started out I needed that discipline but now I don't necessarily need it as much because I can really get into that flow get into that zone a lot easier I get up I make coffee I take my supplements I sit down and I start doing the hard work first so that morning routine whatever works best for you sometimes you need that structure and discipline to get going then once you kind of harness how you can do that you no longer need to take all those steps number three the 4our   work week by Tim Ferris now this one gets a lot of attention and also a lot of criticism but this book it taught me that time is the most valuable asset it's really not about working less and working 4 hours a week I mean for some people maybe but really it's about working smarter before reading this I was deep in the weeds of every task emails admin busy work this book just showed me how to automate how to Outsource how to focus on only high value moves and if you're always busy but not really making real progress this   book will change your mindset completely jump into that one for sure here we go book number four traction by Gino Wickman I still use this book every single day most businesses fail because they're a disorganized mess no systems no accountability that was me when I started out and that's how a lot of businesses start out traction fixes that I remember when I first started to grow my real estate business and my legal business at the same time along with the gyms and some other things I had no clear structure no direction and frankly   I was working my ass off but wasn't actually growing this book showed me how to implement the entrepreneurial operating system EOS and you can adopt a name for yourself like rais law operating system for me which is just a fancy way of saying here's how to actually run a business that doesn't depend on you doing everything yourself if you're stuck in the weeds this book is absolutely mandatory book number five The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven cubby success isn't luck it's built on habits and this book   lays them all out the biggest game changer for me be proactive and focus on what you can control not what you can't most people react to life and they wait for things to happen to them and to complain about them but wealthy people we make things happen this book helped me move from being reactive to strategic if you feel like life is happening to you instead of for you this book will completely change your mindset be sure to pick that one up read it every single year book number six the e- myth   Revisited by Michael Gerber if you're doing everything in your business then you don't own a business you own a job and that was me before this book I used to think that being an entrepreneur meant grinding 24/7 and sometimes we still do I still do but all I was doing back in the day was creating a high-paying high stress job for myself and that's not the point this book showed me why systematizing your business is the only way to truly scale once I implemented these systems I was able to step back work on the a big   picture and finally grow instead of just survive book number seven The Lean Startup by Eric rise most people wait way too long to launch they overthink they over plan they never execute this book teaches you the exact opposite launch first improve later I wasted so much time like many of us early on just trying to perfect things before putting them out there this book changed how I approach every every single business now I focus on launching fast testing and adapting if I read this earlier I would   have saved years maybe decades the best businesses don't come from perfect planning they come from Quick execution and constant learning book number eight How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale to Carnegie business is all about relationships and if you don't know how to communicate you're screwed this book taught me how to build connections negotiate better and influence people without being manipulative of course but if you're going to raise Capital you're going to close deals this book is an absolute   must read I apply these principles every single day they're simple in concept but they're harder to execute consistently whether it's working with investors Partners employees team members this book is the foundation for strong relationships in business and also in everyday life book number nine the 10x rule Grant Cardone you know he says a lot of controversial things some people give him Flack but this dude knows how to make money most people think too small not Grand this book forced me to build bigger execute at a higher level   because everything worth doing takes 10x more effort than you expect if you apply this mindset you're going to stop making excuses and you're going to start making big moves the most powerful lesson here to me average actions they lead to average results if you want to dominate in business and in life you have to push way far beyond what's reasonable that's what separates High performers like us from everyone else if you want success this book will force you to raise your standards always do 10x more and 10x   higher all right book number 10 who not how Dan Sullivan this one's incredible successful people don't ask how do I do this they ask who can do this for me who can help me with this this mindset shift completely changed how I run my businesses instead of wasting time learning everything myself I hire experts I ask for help and I let them execute at a higher level before this book I was stuck in the mindset of trying to figure out everything myself once I embrac the who not how principle I stopped being the bottleneck in my own   businesses but now I focus on finding the right help finding the best people to execute finding experts in their fields rather than trying to do everything myself so if you struggle with delegation this book is an absolute GameChanger book number 11 how Elrod Strikes Again The Miracle equation so this book it's simple right unwavering Faith plus extraordinary effort and I know that sounds a little kind of flu fluey and that's not really me and it might not be you either but look I mean I say that Mantra to myself every single   day it gets hard sometimes so if you don't believe success is inevitable and you're not willing to put in the work an insane amount of effort then you're never going to make it one of the biggest lessons from the book is that mindset alone it's not enough you have to back it up with absolute Relentless action you can't just hope for Success you have to put in the work consistently every single day no matter what no matter how you feel no matter what's going on no matter what obstacles arise this book will shift your perspective on   commitment and perseverance remember that saying preach it to yourself every day when gets hard all right book number 12 I told you it would be a surprise on the list I don't think this makes anyone's list for a business book but number 12 the five love languages by Gary Chapman you've all heard of it but let me explain a relationship book sure but business is all about relationships if you don't know how to connect with people you're never going to succeed at a high level this book taught me that   people communicate and they receive value in different ways whether it's clients it's Partners its employees knowing how someone feels appreciated will change how you do in your business and how successful you ultimately are for example some people value words about affirmation While others need tangible recognition once I started applying these principles in business and you keep it in your head for all conversations I became a better leader a better negotiator and a better connector if you want to improve your ability to   work with people which you will this book will give you an edge a relationship book yes but business is all about relationships remember that if you don't know how to connect with people you'll never succeed at a high level all right there there you go folks the 12 business books you need to Succeed in Business and honestly in life generally read those 12 put them on repeat read them every single year which book hit you the hardest drop a comment below I want to know which one resonated with you the most if you found this   valuable hit that like button or subscribe whatever you're watching this on and share it with someone who needs it these books absolutely change my life and they can do the same for you now go take action read those books apply those principles and let's get this money let's go [Music] Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QXX37vgJPE&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=4 https://www.instagram.com/p/DHZAmMtTXDA/ https://x.com/sethbradleyesq/status/1902426622608994373 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sethbradleyesq_wealthbuilding-moneymoves-businessbooks-acthttps://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

Title: How to Stay Compliant While Raising Millions with Bronson Hill Summary: In this episode of the Mailbox Money Show, host Bronson Hill interviews Seth Bradley, an accomplished attorney and entrepreneur known for his efforts in passive and active investing. The discussion revolves around the significant shifts in the real estate market post-COVID-19, including rising interest rates and the challenges passive investors face with underperforming deals. Seth shares his experiences with multifamily investments and the importance of selecting the right financial structures, highlighting how his focus on fixed-rate loans has insulated his deals from the volatility that adjustable-rate loans often endure.   As they explore other investment avenues, Seth discusses their ventures into various businesses, including gyms, e-commerce, and oil and gas projects. Both entrepreneurs illustrate how innovation and technology, particularly artificial intelligence, can significantly improve investment decision-making and operational efficiency. Their combined expertise offers valuable insights into the world of multifamily syndications, risk management, and leveraging technology for investment insights. The episode concludes with Seth's perspectives on effective communication between investors and sponsors and the importance of due diligence documents in passive investing. Links to listen and subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-bradley-what-can-i-do-if-a-deal-goes-bad/id1580397502?i=1000698697087 https://open.spotify.com/episode/4pogVHik6rHwh0k5yFLs1U Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xrvBhGtS5w&t=396s Bullet Point Highlights: Diverse Entrepreneurial Background: Seth Bradley is not only an attorney but also a successful entrepreneur with experience in gyms and startups, adding depth to the authenticity of his investment strategies. Impact of Rising Interest Rates: The podcast discusses how increasing interest rates have shifted the landscape of real estate investments, influencing cash flow and project viability. Importance of Fixed-Rate Loans: Seth emphasizes the protective benefits of using fixed-rate loans in investments to buffer against economic shifts and rising rates. Shifting Investment Focus: As traditional multifamily deals become tough, both Bronson and Seth explore alternative assets, including oil and gas, debt funds, and smaller multifamily properties. Gym Ventures: Seth shares insights from operating gyms, illustrating how franchise businesses can provide a structured path to entrepreneurship with community support. Navigating Passive Investing Challenges: The episode highlights the key steps passive investors should take when deals aren't performing as expected, including reviewing existing legal agreements. Leveraging Technology and AI: The discussion underscores the growing role of AI in analyzing investments and legal documents, showcasing how technology can enhance investment efficiency and accuracy. Transcript: hey guys this is Ken mroy and you are listening to the mailbox money show with Bronson Hill hello hello and thank you for joining the mailbox money show my name is Bronson Hill I'm very excited for this episode with Seth Bradley you're gonna really like him he's done a lot of things he's like the renaissance man like he has done uh passive investing he's done active investing he owns a couple gyms he's starting another one he's got a couple startups he does he's got all kinds of things speaking   very intelligently to a lot of different topics he also has a show called The passive income attorney actually also an attorney as well and puts together syndication paperwork so he does a lot of different things and so I always love talking to people that are doing many things because first of all inspires me that I'm not doing enough and then secondly um you know they'll speak very intelligently on kind of trends that are happening so he's talks about what what we're going to talk in this interview   about what happened over the last few years he's doing less real estate looking at some other things and just what do you do if a deal does not go well what are the steps you can take as an investor so I think you're really going to enjoy this we also get into Ai and some awesome other topics so let's jump in Seth welcome to the mailbox money show Bronson what's going on buddy good to see you again hey man we're both in Southern California I know we're not that far apart but you're in like the better part especially lately with all   the fires up in La recently uh you're in San Diego man I don't know anybody that says they don't love San Diego yeah man I mean there's no better place in the United States that's for sure I mean I've seen some some beautiful places around the world and I don't know San Diego still might beat it um I get a little bit used to it because I've been here for quite some time now but San Diego is really tough to beat yeah awesome man well I'm excited to have you here today I know you're an attorney you have your podcast called   the passive income attorney podcast and you also work with tri vest which helps investors and you have a lot you to say around uh diligence around deals going bad we've seen deals uh We've we've had a couple deals that have really struggled uh I've been an investor passively in deals some deals that have struggled people don't really talk about this as much and I think it's really important to talk about um but let's let's talk about kind of what's changed the last couple years interest rates have risen um obviously if you're a   multif family investor the deals maybe aren't as juicy as they were the projections are a little lower a a little little far between as far as you know deals that actually cash flow or deals that make as much sense but uh what have you seen the last couple years and how have you kind of shifted a little bit of your business and your investing for sure I mean it's been um it's been an experience right I think a lot of the past investors out there that are listening or if you're an operator or lead sponsor out there the same thing   I mean we've we've gone through a period of time starting I think back when Co hit in 2020 that was kind of the first dip in the market that we've we've seen in this kind of generation right like the jobs act well I I should say the previous dip was in you know 2008 2009 that was one cycle but that was before the jobs Act of 2012 so the jobs Act of 2012 is where some of these private Investments started being opened up to more people and more people like ourselves were able to get involved and start raising capital and and do deals   and you've just seen that market kind of exponentially grow since 2012 um so we haven't seen a downturn until Co hit in 20120 and that one was kind of weird right because it was just kind of a blip it wasn't because of the economy it was because of something that just you know nobody's going to be able to predict um but that's the first uh crack in the armor that we saw and then after that then we saw the interest rates go up in in 2020 towards the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 and that's what really   started um you know giving us this experience that I'll say that we're we're still kind of going through because the interest rates are still a little bit higher than what we've we've seen over the past years and we're we're seeing more deals go go bad right or or at least you know there maybe a capital call or or two or perhaps um you know some of your distributions if you're a passive investor might be on pause and these are things that we're just not used to seeing because we're just used to seeing over the past you know 10   years up till 2022 all the deals have just gone really really well so it's a surprise to us and it shouldn't be because you know it's it's cyclic but we we'll figure it out and you know you're just seeing these things that we've all been warned about and they're now coming to fruition yeah yeah it's interesting you know I think if you between 2010 and 2020 you know 2021 even if you just owned a multif family apartment you were a genius right because things were just only going up and to the right and and   then sudden like there's that quote by Warren Buffett says you can only tell who's been swimming naked when the tide goes out kind of thing the tide interest Rising the tide goes out it's like oh my gosh this isn't work in the way we planned it um and now you in your portfolio you guys have done very well you've had some some great you haven't done as many deals more recently but um your deals have done well is that because you did kind of fix interest rate or is just the markets you chose or I'd love to hear a little more about   that that's right I mean fixed interest rates to be honest were a huge thing um that that's one thing that we really pushed for in our deals and that's and that saved us a little bit when these interest rates started to r that protected us um you know you saw that those were the deals that got in trouble those those adjustable rates got people in trouble and you know there towards the end like let say 2021 22 it was really hard to make the deals start to like continue to work and get those returns that we promised those passive   investors without taking those adjustable rate loans so you know those folks that got in in 2021 2022 maybe the beginning of 2023 those deals had adjustable rate loans and that's where they got into some trouble yeah yeah it's interesting kind of how things have changed now it's interesting too there was um a time not even that you know just a few years ago that that real estate was Cash flowing pretty well especially multif family real estate and now it's pretty tough because you know you got rates are   higher uh cost you know the price maybe have come down a little bit but you got higher Insurance you got higher other costs other inflation things you know there's not a lot of cash flow so a lot of you know syndicators or multif family investors have kind of just stepped out or maybe they got pitched on a deal here and there so we we've shifted a little bit to do we still do some multif family in in specific situations but um we' switched to go really focus on oil and gas we're doing uh other types of   businesses like I mentioned we're buying this business that's a e-commerce business High cash flow and then there's also debt funds you know debt these days there are debt funds paying like Equity was paying with less risk than it was a few years ago right so if you can get not debt funds are the same there's some that are first position that are low leverage and things like that uh what are are there anything else that you're finding for cashow or that you're finding attractive right now as an   investor yeah I mean I think you got to just look a little bit deeper I mean there's still some decent multif family deals out there too and that's always going to be to me kind of like bread and butter right like that's something that we're always going to need it's always going to be um it's always going to be something that people are interested in um because we've all lived in apartments at some point in our lives and I think it's an easy thing to grasp mentally okay like I'm going to invest in a   multif family or apartment building because I've lived in one I know what it's like I know how they work people pay rent you collect you you know expenses that sort of thing um but it's it's a lot tougher to find those deals um so people have looked at other things so I've seen a lot of um you know debt funds like you said a lot of people pivoting to um you know even smaller multif Family Properties um you know before we were looking at like 100 200 250 unit properties um now I've seen a lot of people kind of Ratchet that down   a little bit and look for some better deals in in some smaller properties maybe in the 25 to 75 unit range range that sort of thing um I've seen people like get into mobile home parks and RV parks after cuz we saw that go quite up quite a bit during CO as well and then came rocketing back down um but now you can kind of see like where where it really sits like now you can see like what the value of that asset is so you can see that the you know what those what they really are without like that big spike for covid and those are   turning out to be some pretty good Investments to get involved in too yeah and I know um you know we talked about this before we started recording um you and your wife you guys also operate a business or you guys have a a gym a couple gyms that you operate tell us about that and it's that um I know you're sounds like you're spanning so it sounds like it's going well I need to pop into a gym I'm probably get my butt kicked if I pop in there and you g through the Seth Bradley workout there right so yeah man we have a we have a   couple of gyms right now we have one open in Oceanside this is in San Diego uh San Diego County one in Oceanside one in Poway getting ready to open up a third one in anas it's under the burn boot camp franchise fly FL so it's a franchise um and I got uh really interested in franchises for that and then I ended up buying into another franchise I ended up buying into a water restoration franchise called Al dry so we've got a few businesses going um but those gyms are great right like once we battled through again I hate to keep   bringing up Co but it keeps coming up um but we battled through Co we opened up right before that hit uh actually one week before it hit so then we had to shut it down and work out outside workout inside we had to do um on online workouts those sorts of things um had our lead trainer in our apartment recording videos and me and my wife were in the background doing the exercises um pretty insane what we had to go through but they're they're doing really well now and luckily my wife has taking over that business and she runs   the whole thing so I don't do anything she doesn't even want me involved anymore so it's fantastic it it's actually turned into passive income for me for you it's passive income right for her it's right it's it's Fitness income right but that's you know really a lot of people like um lifestyle businesses you know where you're like it's just I think it's just a cool thing to say I own a gym or own a restaurant or I own this thing I mean a lot of like really wealthy people be like oh yeah I own a   Vineyard or I own a I own a horse racing thing or something like that but is it is it I mean you don't have to get into specific numbers but is it pretty it's you're opening another one so it's pretty lucrative to do it it sounds like it's working out well the it's a boutique gy that does kind of boot camp type stuff and you have certain classes you go in and those have become super popular all over the us but especially in big metros like Southern California for sure and look I don't want to say   that it's easy because it's it's definitely not you have to have the right mindset you've got to be an entrepreneur you've got to be able to fight through the hard times but you know these these types of businesses they're they're kind of done for you to a certain extent they give you the marketing plan they give you the business plan they give you kind of the proforma that you should be aiming for um especially with a franchise there's there's dozens if not hundreds of other franchisees that are doing the exact   same thing you are so you any qu any question or any problem that you're going through they have already went through it or they're going through it so you can bounce ideas off of you know kind of similar to like a mastermind right something like that where you get involved with a few people and it's like oh how can I get around people that have the same problems as me in a franchise there's that's already built in and it's even more it's even more dialed in because these are very specific like   brand specific industry specific questions and problems that you can balance those ideas and have those questions answered by your your fellow franchisees um but as far as like profitability again it's great because you can you can predict it like the idea behind it you buy one you figure it out then you buy more and then you keep going you stack and stack and stack and that's how you really make a lot of money in franchises you hear people that own dozens or you know hundreds of Papa John and things like that like you need   to be able to stack them um but they're definitely profitable um and they're fun they're it's a fun business like you said it's fun to be able to say that you own a gym it's fun to like walk into your own place if it's a gym or a restaurant or whatever it is and you're the owner it just feels good right it's a little bit more um you know rewarding I should say than some of the other businesses that that we're involved in for me it's you know a law firm and um buying real estate and it's this is just   a little bit more rewarding just like being there just the presence and having a um you know having a a brick and mortar space it's pretty cool yeah know I love that it's really interesting you guys I didn't realize you guys are are really Ser serial entrepreneurs I you guys are really both as a couple um is that like tell me a little bit about that dynamic as a couple that you and your wife do that like how is that something you've more LED is it something she's done is it kind of like you just kind of stay in your lanes and   like because a lot of times one one spouse or partner will be really risk you know averse or one would be much more risk tolerant and so has that been just like a really you guys are both kind of willing to take risk and kind of move forward in that yeah I think we we both have a really good temperament for it as far as risk tolerance and for me personally that's that's interesting because I'm an attorney so typically attorneys are not risk tolerant um but I I am I have that trait and and she does too um we have certain   trust in each other to be able to handle and stay in our lanes um she especially for the gyms you know she's operations right now I handle finance and and Prof formas and those sorts of things and obviously the legal stuff that comes up and I'm the maintenance guy too of course but um but everything else like operations she does that and then when she knows that she needs me for these certain things she'll bring me in um we've explored trying to figure out some other businesses uh that we might be   able to get involved in together and I think you know having that experience in the gyms gives us a good idea of how it would work out with some others yeah as she ever teaching the class like if you're in the dogh house you got to take a boot camp with her and she'll be extra tough on you or something ah she's she's not a trainer luckily I would I would I would avoid those camps for sure I think that'd be pretty funny no I think it's great man I love how you've created that you know for yourself that you guys and of course   you know I think I've noticed this too a lot of uh there's a lot of people they'll have they'll be really excited about real estate they'll be really excited about investing and then you get one that's one spouse is very risk averse what what do you say to someone who guess their spouse is pretty risk averse and you know maybe they're concerned whether they're a passive investor or they're interested in doing business things are like this like how do how do they kind of get that person on board or what have you seen is kind   of work to kind of help them to kind of work forward with that move forward yeah I mean it's tough it's tough right like you have to you have to choose your significant other wisely and it's probably the biggest decision that you'll make in your life not only for personally but also in business because if you have someone that just can't get on board with what you're doing or doesn't understand what you're trying to do um and you don't mesh very well on that side of things it it makes things a lot more a lot more difficult right and   you see that all the time you see couples fighting about business and somebody's working too much and the other person's not working enough or those sorts of Dynamics um but I think a lot of it can be solved with education you know a lot of it is just kind of this other person doesn't know enough about the business or the investment or whatever it might be and they just need some education so they're not the person they're not like us every single day just immersed in this and getting on podcasts and you know   listening to podcasts and reading books and all this stuff about these Assets in these businesses so you have to keep that in mind like they need to they need to understand to a certain extent so they can get comfortable with it I mean that's you know when people are scared to make moves it's usually because they're just not educated enough to be able to to assess the risk and move forward or not now if they are educated enough and they do know enough about the asset and they still say look this is a   bad deal well then maybe maybe you should look at it again and make sure that it's not a not a bad deal but there there's definitely some you know give take there with personality types and how much risk that each person's comfortable with or not comfortable with yeah absolutely I think that's definitely I just I love when I see couples that are like really on the same page and are like yeah we're in this and you're you know you're doing it which is great and be both be active which is awesome um so let's talk a little bit   about um I guess you know kind of circle back to you know investing in deals you know as a passive investor um you know if if someone invests in a deal that doesn't go well um how to you know how should a passive investor respond to that or what are the things that you know someone can do if they're not getting the communication that they need I mean I know there's some legal things you can do but then it starts expensive and like what I guess what are some options as a passive investor let's say   your sponsor is having struggles or they're just not communicating is there some like what are the what are the what what can you do to try to get that to change yeah I mean this is why paperwork is so important like people don't want to deal with that and you know I'm an attorney so I'm on the front end all the time like telling you telling everybody hey like make sure we hash this out now like let's be have a a really transparent conversation let's figure out exactly what each part is getting   into and let's not like hold back at all you know a lot and some of this applies to passive investing some of it doesn't because you you know you have certain things that you can ask for certain things that you can't but be as transparent as possible upfront and with the paperwork and pay attention to what you sign and what you sign up for because at the end of the day when things start to go wrong that's what the fallback is the fallback is okay this person isn't communicating any longer or they're not doing the things that they   said vocally they're going to do what can I do and at that point that's when you have to look at the paperwork so if you have a contract and in this case it would be an operating agreement or a limited partnership agreement that you've signed or subscription agreement to you have to go back to that paperwork and look and sometimes they may have put in that paperwork for instance that they do agree to give you a quarterly report or maybe they agree to give you a an annual financial statement or maybe they   didn't I don't know it depends on what the paperwork says but that's the first step see what your rights are contractually and that's a good place to start because if you do have a contractual right that they have to give you a quarterly report or they have to give you annual financial statements or if you request it they have to give you certain Financial reports then that's the place to start and you say look I know things aren't going as well as they should be going I really want to get this thing back on track let's let's   start communicating but you know pursuing to the operating agreement I I need to see a quarterly report or I need to see this financial report um and put that in writing and writing can be just as simple as an email or text but get it in writing make sure that that communication is documented um not just verbally because if something does go wrong if if there is some sort of and this is unlikely but if there is some sort of fraud or gross negligence or anything like that going on at least you have that uh that written communication   between the parties that down the line you can be like look I asked for this five times I still haven't received it they said they would do this and then you can start saying okay at this point maybe we're not just talking about somebody not doing a great job or maybe we're not talking about the investment not going well as well as anticipated maybe now we're talking about some sort of negligence maybe now we're talking about somebody misrepresenting what they said they were going to do versus what   they do um but you need to have that in writing so that at the end of the day you can put that together um and and show it to whoever it might be your lawyer their lawyer or maybe a court yeah yeah it's interesting you know there's some new tools out there as well a lot of times these documents sometimes are 80 to 200 pages and there's a lot lot of you know legal Le and boilerplate stuff and just a lot of fine print and I found that one and I'd actually love to know your opinion on this but i' I've done this occasionally   where I'll take uh I'll take some some documents or ppms or marketing whatever I'll put them in chat GPT I'll just be like hey you know I'll start asking questions Hey what how does this work how does that work whatever and it'll kind of like go through and pull that out of there which is just kind of like a timesaver I just find for a lot of investors it's like I don't want to spend two hours reading this really you know thick language and I know you're an attorney so that's what you do and um   but I mean is that something that you've uh seen some people do or is it I know obviously things can be missed but it's it can kind of help you get to give you the gist of in this situation this happens or in this situation is that something that you kind of seen a little bit 100% and maybe not all attorneys would agree with this but I I encourage that I think it's perfectly fine like you've got to leverage technology and that technology is unbelievable it's unbelievable and it gets better every   single day like you just see a new iteration every couple of weeks now it's absolutely insane what it can do and you can certainly upload your PPM your operating agreement your subscription agreement into it and ask it questions now if it's something very nuanced it it won't it won't get to it if there's kind of like a lot of times there's like different Provisions that layer on top of each other it doesn't understand that yet it will at some point it'll be there and probably very very soon but a lot of   the questions you ask if they're nuanced um it won't understand it um so what I recommend is do that get a good high level overview you can also ask questions and then I would verify so like once it once it gives you an answer and it's something that's very important like you're like this is the answer that I was looking for ask it be like well what section did you pull this from and then get the section and then look it up yourself that particular section and verify that what it told you is actually   the answer yeah it's amazing the uh the tools we have I mean we really are in an an age where there's so much information everywhere but it's being able to access it quickly and it's like AI and some of these things can help with it and I don't think you know just a side note on AI I don't think it's that AI is going to be robots that's going to take over and kill us all or we're going to lose our jobs just to an AI bot or something but it's people using AI right that are are able to become a super employee or a   super business owner or super investor and really be able to get more information so I think it can be really powerful um what are uh what are some trends that you're kind of watching um I know actually I want you to talk about this too you're involved with a group called tribe vest which helps uh basically syndicators they have a portal and they can kind of have ways to be able to access uh certain deals and and and pass that information but what are what are also some Trends in relation what are some trends that you're seeing   as far as investing uh for Passive investors that are just things that can are good to watch or things that are helpful yeah I mean I think one really good thing is is what you you talked about already it's it's using Ai and and using software to make you a better investor so you can you like before you get this 200 Page PPM and you're like what what in the world do with this and maybe one out of a 100 investors will read that line for line if that and even if they could read it they probably don't understand it unless they they   happen to be a Securities attorney or some sort of transactional attorney they're not even going to get it um fun fact a PPM is actually supposed to be in non-legal ease it's supposed to be in in layman's terms that's the whole point of it is so that you can understand your investment in layman's terms but ppms have turned into you know a legal document so yeah even longer um but yeah I mean I think you can start leveraging Ai and software to just be a better investor and not just from you know   reading legal documents like we had mentioned earlier that's a good example of of you know when you're looking into an investment maybe put that PPM into chat gbt ask questions about the investment ask if there's any inconsistencies between the PPM and the operating agreement things like that um but you can also use it for underwriting and due diligence and things like that um I'm actually an adviser for a startup called brixley and we are working on kind of a due diligence type of process process where we're aggregating all the   due diligence documents we're putting them into a software and then you're able to evaluate the deal so you can evaluate that deal based on your buy box and those sorts of things and it's just it and things like that just change the game quickly right like before it just takes a lot of Manpower um a lot of hours and now it just takes minutes but you still have to have somebody skilled enough to prompt and skilled enough to ask the right questions and skilled enough to make sure that you're not believing the AI and it's not   hallucinating um that sort of thing because you've got to make sure that the information gives you is right because right now it does spit out some things that that don't make a lot of sense so you just gota gota be be very careful but people if you aren't leveraging AI in just your everyday life then you're you're getting left behind yeah yeah know you got a fact check on other stories of attorneys like I guess there was an attorney in New York that like just took his whole thing and put it into AI a chat jbt and it wasn't even   right it was like totally wrong and they got disbarred or something for doing that so it's obviously an investor the the risk is not going to be disbarred typically it's more you might lose your shorts or something so it's makeing sure you're doing it the right way yeah for sure yeah you gotta be careful you got to be careful but like I said it's getting better every single day like I I think in you know two years it's going to be unrecognizable in in five years we're going to have a humanoid robot in every home that we   have like yeah yeah it it really is changing so fast and that's where I think it is really important important to pay attention to technology to try new things if people are not like as a listener if you're if you haven't used chat GPT there's an app you can use for free there's the website get familiar with prompting which is just going in and just being commands I literally use it I'm going to Columbia we're recording this I'm going this week to Columbia and I want here's my nine days I'm going to   be here create an itinerary for me like literally created an itinerary based on my values what I want to do and and I can always like go off of that but it's like it's so helpful right it's amazing yeah it's such a time saer it's insane it's insane yeah it is it is uh well Seth I really appreciate you you being here today I just feel like you add so much value both as an investor a business owner an attorney um just love what you're creating with your content and uh can you just share how people can   follow your show and how they can hear about you and and some of the things that you're doing absolutely man best place to go would be Seth paaul bradley.com and that's where I have kind of all my social media links you'll have a link to raay law my Securities Law Firm as well as try best fun of funds in a box and the podcast as well awesome brother thanks for being here man all right thanks Bronson appreciate it all right I hope you enjoyed this interview with Seth I just I love the stuff at the   end there about AI if you you know you want to go back and Rel listen to that just using chat GPT in your life in your business to look at ppms and even as an attorney said yeah some attorneys don't like that because it will miss things but it's really a timesaver we use it all the time we use it all the time in our business I use it all the time in my personal life and it's just so helpful I literally it's kind of replace my Google search now because it's so much better and instead of we used to go spending   time on Google you spend 30 minutes researching something now it just kind of spit out the answer for you which is really great so I use it for health stuff for travel or business topics all kinds of different ideas just find it really really helpful so hopefully you got something out of this interview you enjoyed it if you have not en joined our investment Club you're not hearing about our amazing deals that we're doing right now and that we're really excited about so um if you want to check that out you   can check out the link in the uh show notes or the link below or you can go to Bronson equity.com and hit the join button we'll start a relationship with you set up a call with you and you can start hearing about our awesome upcoming deals so thank thank you for taking the time to educate yourself seriously it humbles me it excites me it gets me fired up because the best investment you make is in your own education we look forward to seeing you on the next episode you've been listening to the mailbox money podcast for more free   resources articles and videos go to Bronson equity.com there you can download your copy of the Special Report the single best investment strategy during and after a pandemic none of the information shared here is an offer to buy a specific investment and this is for education ational purposes only consult your financial legal and tax professionals and use your own Common Sense before making any investment decisions thanks for joining us and be sure to tune next time for more mailbox money [Music] Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xrvBhGtS5w&t=396s https://www.facebook.com/reel/1762572444669041 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bronsonhill_when-deals-go-wrong-the-fallback-is-the-activity-7321649659108581377-87lt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAFY-6nMBbbX5J6KeuEtIMcA9tcRG4F_1ItE Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Bronson Hill's Links: https://bronsonequity.com/ https://www.instagram.com/bronsondavidhill/ https://www.instagram.com/bronsonequity/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bronsonhill/ https://www.facebook.com/bronson.hill.37/ https://www.tiktok.com/@bronsonequity2020 https://open.spotify.com/show/7AQcShxvRMoD1U2zclQQVU

Title: How to Make Millions with Vending Machines with Mike Hoffman Summary: In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike Hoffman delve into the world of vending machines as a business opportunity. Mike shares his journey from a Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur in the vending industry, highlighting the evolution of vending technology and the potential for passive income. They discuss the importance of location, understanding demographics, and the scalability of vending routes. Mike emphasizes the need for upfront work and learning before delegating tasks, while also addressing the misconceptions surrounding passive income in the vending business. In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike discuss various aspects of entrepreneurship, particularly in the vending machine business. They explore the importance of capital raising, the journey of self-discovery, influences that shape business decisions, and the definition of success. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of flexibility, discipline, and focus in achieving entrepreneurial goals, while also touching on financial milestones and the attributes that distinguish successful entrepreneurs. Links to Watch and Subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Mike's journey from a classic Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur. The evolution of vending machines from traditional to smart technology. Understanding the importance of location in the vending business. The analogy of baseball levels to describe starting in vending. Scaling up from single A to big leagues in vending routes. The significance of demographics in product selection for vending machines. The potential for passive income with proper systems in place. The need for upfront work before achieving passivity in business. Vending is not a get-rich-quick scheme; it requires dedication. The future opportunities in the vending industry are expanding rapidly. Raising capital can dilute ownership but may be necessary for rapid growth. Self-discovery often leads to unexpected career paths. Influences in business can come from personal experiences rather than just mentors. Success is often defined by the ability to prioritize family and flexibility. Entrepreneurs work harder than in traditional jobs but gain flexibility. Discipline is crucial for saying no to distractions. Successful entrepreneurs often focus on niche markets. High foot traffic locations are ideal for vending machines. AI is transforming business operations and efficiency. Networking and connections can lead to valuable opportunities. Transcript: Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:04.898) Mike, what's going on buddy? Doing great brother, doing great. How about you?   Mike (00:06.748) Don't worry,   Mike (00:11.664) Good, I'm a little flustered. I usually have my mic set up over here, but I guess we just moved and it's not here today. I guess, yeah, new office and it's been a whole hot mess.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:19.822) New office or what?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:27.862) Nice man, nice. I see you got the whiteboard cranking back there. Love to see that.   Mike (00:33.114) Always. I love your background. That's sweet.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:38.03) Thanks man, yeah, I'm on camera all the time so I like I need to just build this out instead of using like a green screen so Made the investment made it happen   Mike (00:44.86) Totally.   Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:49.442) Have we met in person or not? I don't know if we've met at a Wealth Without Wall Street event or I couldn't tell. Okay. No, I did not go to Nashville last year.   Mike (00:58.478) I don't think so. don't think you're... Were you in Nashville last year?   Mike (01:04.634) No, okay. No, I don't think we've met in person. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:08.256) Okay, all good, man. All good. Well, cool. I'll just go over the format real quick. We'll do kind of a shorter recording. We're do like 30 minutes, something like in that range. And then we'll just kind of like break. And then I'll, want to record a couple of other quick segments where I call it Million Dollar Monday. I'm kind of asking you about how you made your first, last and next million. And then 1 % closer, which would just be kind of what separates you, what makes you the   top 1 % in your particular vertical. So we'll just kind of record those separately. Those will be real short, like five minutes or so.   Mike (01:44.924) Okay, yeah, I'll follow your lead. All good.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:47.15) Cool. Cool. Let's see. I think I already have this auto recording. So we're already recording. So I'll just jump right in.   Mike (01:55.377) Okay.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:57.782) Welcome to Raise the Bar Radio, hosted by yours truly Seth Bradley. We today we've got Mr. Passive, Mike Hoffman. Mike, welcome to the show.   Mike (02:08.189) Thank you for having me fired up to be here.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:10.855) Absolutely man, really happy to have you on. I know it's been a little bit of a trek here to get our schedules lined up, but really stoked to have you on today, man. I see you said you moved into a new office. You've got the whiteboard cranking, so love to see it.   Mike (02:25.372) yeah, whiteboards are the only place I can get my thoughts down.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:29.399) Yeah, man, it makes a difference when you actually write something rather than type it or even on a mirror board where you're doing it online. just there's something about physically writing something down.   Mike (02:41.328) You know, I'm glad you said that because yesterday I flipped to Seattle for a quick work trip and I didn't have wifi and I literally had three pages of just, I, was so like the clarity of some of these kinds of bigger visions I have now from just being able to write for an hour on a flight was, I was like, man, I gotta do this more often.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:00.363) Yeah, for sure. The key though is once you write it down, it just doesn't go into the trash or into a black hole somewhere where you never see it again. So that's kind of the disadvantage there. If you have it on your computer and you're taking notes or you have it on a mirror board, at least it's there to reference all the time. If you write it down on paper, sometimes, I've got my Raze Masters book right here for notes, but it's like, it might go into the abyss and I'll never look at it again. So you gotta be careful about that.   Mike (03:27.184) Yeah, yeah, I need to check out the Miro boards. I've heard a lot of good things about them.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:31.467) Yeah, yeah. Awesome, Mike. Well, listen, for our audience who doesn't know anything about you, maybe just tell them, you know, tell them a little bit about your background. Tell them about your your main business and we can take it from there.   Mike (03:43.354) Yeah. So I think for those that don't know about me, I'm a classic Midwest farm boy started with a classic, you know, showing cattle at the county fair and all of that and had a lemonade stand growing up. And then my first job was actually at McDonald's, you know, thinking about the whole success of that business model. But when I was coaching and, out of college, I got my first rental and I was like, wow, this is crazy. making money without.   really much time involved. and then with my work in Silicon Valley, know, Seth, was classic Silicon Valley, you know, cutthroat job that, startup life and traveling three weeks out of the month. And I was on, I was in airports all the time. And was like, these vending machines I would run into at airports were just so archaic. And so I went down this path of like unattended retail and kind of the future of, of that. And that's really where I just see a huge opportunity right now.   And so it's kind of what led me into all these different income streams that I'm passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:49.431) That's awesome, man. Well, let's dive into that a little bit deeper. me about these income streams. It centers around vending machines, right? But I'm sure there's a lot more to it. I'm sure there's a lot of different entry points for people. Maybe just kind of give us a general synopsis to start out.   Mike (05:06.78) Yeah, so I think the big thing with, you know, if we're talking vending specifically as an income stream, you know, most people think of vending as the traditional machines where you enter in a code, you put your card on the machine and then a motor spirals down a Snickers bar or a soda and you go into the chute and grab it.   Nowadays, there's these smart machines that literally you just unlock the door, or even if you go into, land in the Vegas airport right at the bottom of the escalator where it says, welcome to Las Vegas, there's a 7-Eleven with gates and AI cameras, and there's no employees in the 7-Eleven. And it just tracks whatever you grab and to exit the gate, you have to pay for it. So like, there's just this huge market now where we just installed it in urgent care.   less than two months ago and we can do over the counter meds in that machine because it doesn't have to fit into a motor. It's just shelf space. You identify with the planogram with the AI cameras like, okay, Dayquil in this slot or Salad in this slot and then whatever they grab, gets charged to the person that pulls it from it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (06:15.469) That's interesting, man. Yeah, I mean, my initial thought too, was just like the traditional old vending machine where you're getting a candy bar or a cola out of there. But yeah, nowadays, now that you mentioned that, you see this more and more every single day where you've got these scanners, you've got kind of self-checkout, that sort of thing. So that's kind of, that expands that world and really opens it up to the future, right? Like it just really, that's what we're trying to get to, or at least we think we wanna get there, where we're kind of removing humans and...   kind of working with technologies and things like that.   Mike (06:49.488) Yeah, and I think, you know, removing the whole human thing. mean, those machines still got to get stocked and you know, there's not robots running around doing that. But I just come back to, I was a Marriott guy when I was on the road all the time and I'd go to these grab and goes at a Marriott and grab a, the end of the night, I'd grab like a little wine or an ice cream sandwich. And I literally had to go wait in line at the check-in desk behind three people checking in just to tell them, Hey, put these on.   room charge and I was like if I had a checkout kiosk in that grab-and-go I could have just removed all the friction for this customer experience.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:27.772) Right, 100%. Yeah, I mean, there's a place and time for it and there's more and more applications for it that just pop up every single day and you can kind of spot that in your life as you're just kind of moving through, whether you're checking into your hotel or whatever you're doing.   Mike (07:41.456) Yeah, yeah. So that's just kind of what excites me today.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:45.973) Yeah, yeah, so when a stranger asks you what you do just in the street, what do you tell them? Because I have a hard time answering that question sometimes too, but I'd love to hear what your answer is.   Mike (07:56.804) Yeah, I would just say it depends on the day. You know, what do you do or what's your, you know, it's like at the golf course when you get paired up with a stranger and they're like, tell me about what you do for your career. And I just say, I'm a classic entrepreneur. And then I'm like, well, what do you do? And it's like, well, tell me about the day. You know, what fire are you putting out? Like today we just got the go ahead for five more urgent cares for our local route. But then, you know, we have a community of operators across the country that we help really build.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:57.933) haha   Ha ha ha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:09.879) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (08:25.616) Vending empires and so we had a group call this morning. So literally, there's a lot of just, you know, it's classic entrepreneurial life. You never know what the day's script is gonna be.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:36.161) Yeah, for sure. And you focus a lot on not only on your own business, but also teaching others, right? Teaching others how to kind of break into this business.   Mike (08:45.402) Yeah, that's my passion, Seth. When I got into my first investment out of college was a $70,000 rental, you know, putting 20 % down or 14K and using an emergency fund. like my background in going to college was as a coach. like I knew I wanted to kind of take that mindset of like coaching people, you know, teach them how to fish. I don't want to catch all the fish myself. It's just not fulfilling that way. So that's really where my passion is.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (09:15.373) Gotcha, gotcha. tell me about like, tell me about step one. I mean, how does somebody break into this business? Obviously your own personal business is probably very advanced. There's probably a lot more sophisticated investing strategies at this point and you've got different layers to it. But somebody just kind of starting out that said, hey, this sounds pretty interesting. This vending machine business sounds like it can be passive. How do you recommend that they get started?   Mike (09:40.57) Yeah, so I'm always, I view like the whole vending scale as similar to Major League Baseball. You got your single A all the way up to the big leagues. And if you're just starting out, I always recommend like find a location where you can put a machine and just learn the process. Like to me, that's single A analogy. you know, that always starts with, people want to jump right to like, well, what type of machines do you recommend?   products, how do you price products? And the first question I'll always ask Seth is, well, what location is this machine going in? And they're like, well, I don't know yet. I was just going to buy one and put it in my garage to start. And it's like, no, you need to have the location first. So understanding that, is it a pet hospital? Is it an apartment? Is it a gym? Where is the foot traffic? And then you can cater to what's the best machine for that type of location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:36.887) Got it, got it. Now is this a kind of a rent, you rent the space to place the machine with that particular business or wherever you're gonna place it or how does that all come together?   Mike (10:47.644) not typically, some people are kind of more advanced, like apartment complexes are used to the revenue share model. So they're going to ask for a piece of the pie for sure, for you to put the machine in their lobby. but like, you know, when we're talking urgent carers or even pet hospitals are viewing it as an amenity. And so we probably have, I don't even know how many machines now 75 now, and we, you know, less than half of those actually,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:50.423) Okay.   Mike (11:15.1) us rent or ask for a revenue share to have them in there. So I never leave lead with that, but we'll do it if we need to get the location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:23.989) Interesting gotcha. So it's really a value add for wherever you're gonna place it and that's how most people or I guess most businesses would look at that and then you're able to capture that that space   Mike (11:27.366) Mm-hmm.   Mike (11:34.236) Yeah, absolutely. So, um, a great case study is we have a 25 employee roughing business here in Oregon. And you might think like, only 25 employees. It's not going to make that much money. Well, we do $1,200 a month. And the cool thing about this, Seth, is the CEO of this roughing company literally did napkin math on how much it costs for his employees to drive to the gas station during their 20 minute break. And then   How much they're paying for an energy drink at the gas station and then how much gas they're using with the roofing like the work trucks to get to and from the gas station So he's like I want to bring a smart machine into our warehouse Set the prices as half off so that four dollar monster only costs his rofers two dollars and then we invoice him the the business owner every month for the other 50 % and so he actually   Calculated as a cost savings not asking for money to rent the space   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:35.597) Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. I love the baseball analogy with the single A, double A, triple A, even into the big leagues here. know, a lot of the folks that listen to this are already kind of, you know, in the big leagues or maybe think about some capital behind them. Like how would they be able to jump right in, maybe skip single or double A or would they, or do you even suggest that? Do you suggest that they start, you know, small just to learn and then maybe invest some more capital into it to expand or can they jump right to the big leagues?   Mike (12:48.891) Yeah.   Yeah.   Mike (13:03.966) I think they can jump right to the big leagues. this is, I'm glad you brought this up because just listening to some of your episodes from the past, there's no doubt that you have people that could buy a route like a off biz buy sell today. And I think this is a prime opportunity. it's very similar to flipping a house. you, you know, there's a route in Chicago, I think it was for $1.1 million, you know, whatever negotiating terms or seller financing or, or what have you, got a lot of, your, your   audience that is experts in that. But the cool thing about these routes is they have the old school machines that have the motors and that are limited to, this type of machine, you can only fit a 12 ounce cannon. Well, guess what? The minute you buy that route, you swap out that machine with one of these micro markets or smart machines. Now you just went from selling a 12 ounce soda for $1.25 to now a 16 ounce monster for $4.50.   Well, you just bought that location based on its current revenue numbers and by swapping out that machine, you're going to two or three acts your revenue just at that location. And so it's truly just like a value play, a value upgrade, like flipping the house of, okay, there's a lot of deals right now of these routes being sold by baby boomers where it's like, they got the old school Pepsi machine. Doesn't have a credit card reader on it. They can't track inventory remotely via their cell phones. So   They're not keeping it stocked. Like all those types of things can really play in your favor as a buyer that just wants to get to the big leagues right away.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:37.651) I love that. When you say buy a route, what are you really buying? Tell me about the contractual agreement behind that. What are you really buying there?   Mike (14:47.184) You're just buying the locations and the equipment associated with it. So like this Chicago route, it's like, we have machines in 75 properties all across the Chicago suburbs. And they could be medical clinics. could be apartments. could be employee break rooms at businesses, but that's when you start diving into those locations. It's like, I have a snack machine and a soda machine here. Well, you swap that out with a micro market that now instead of.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:49.279) Okay. Okay.   Mike (15:13.626) that machine that'll only hold a small bag of Doritos that you charge two bucks, well now you get the movie size theater bags that you can really put in there in a micro market. Like naturally just that valuation of that route based on those 75 machines current revenue, I mean you're gonna be able to two or three X your revenue right by just swapping out those machines.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (15:35.959) Wow, yeah, I love that analogy with real estate, right? It's just like a value add. It's like, how can I bring in more income from what already exists? Well, I need to upgrade or I need to put in some capital improvements, whatever you want to call it. Here's the vending machine upgrades or a different kind of system in there. And you get more income. And obviously that business in itself is going to be worth more in a higher multiple.   Mike (15:58.396) Absolutely. mean, a great example of this is we had a machine in an apartment complex and it was your traditional machine with the motors and you have to enter in the code. Well, we could only put in four 12 ounce drinks and then chips. Well, we swapped that out with a micro market. Well, now that micro market, we literally put in bags of Tide Pods for laundry, like these big bags of Tide Pods. We'll sell those like hotcakes for 15 bucks. And our old machine,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:25.281) Yeah, let's say those aren't cheap.   Mike (16:27.246) Yeah, our old machine Seth, it would take us to get to 15 bucks, we'd have to sell eight Snickers. That's one transaction.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:33.547) Right, right. Yeah, yeah. How do you do an analysis kind of based on like what you think is gonna sell there, right? Like you're replacing, let's say a Dorito machine with Tide Pods, you know? So you have to individually go to each location and figure out what will work, what will sell.   Mike (16:47.738) Yeah.   Mike (16:51.834) It's all about demographic. Absolutely. So, you know, we have, we have, we have a micro market and a manufacturing plant that's, it's a pumpkin farm and there's a ton of Hispanic workers. So we do a lot of like spicy foods, a lot of spicy chips. do, we do a ton of, mean, the sugar or sorry, the glass bottle cokes. They do, they love their pastries.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:53.431) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:06.349) Yeah.   Mike (17:15.868) So we just doubled down on the demographics. So yesterday I was filming at one of our micro markets that's in a gym and they crushed the Fairlife protein shakes, like the more modern protein shakes, but they won't touch muscle milk. So we're literally taking out one row of muscle milk just to add an extra row of Fairlife shakes. So you're constantly just catering to the demographics and what's selling.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:40.632) Yeah, yeah, this is awesome. I mean, this is literally just like real estate, right? Like you go and you find a good market. You're talking about demographics, right? Find the market, see what they want, see how much you can upgrade, how you can upgrade. If it's an apartment, it's a unit. If it's here, it's the product that you're selling and the type of machine, or maybe it's a mini market. A lot of things to kind of tie your understanding to here.   Mike (17:45.926) Yeah.   Mike (18:05.904) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (18:07.615) Yeah, awesome, man. Awesome, Where are you at in your business? Like what, you know, what are the big leagues looking like right now? You know, what are you doing to expand your business, raising the bar in your business?   Mike (18:18.692) Yeah, I'm going after that's a really good question. I'm going after kind of these newer markets and we're kind of past that point of like, okay, let's pilot in this location. For example, that urgent care, we didn't know if it was going to be a good location two months ago when we installed. Well now it's already crushing it. Well, there's six other urgent cares in town and we just got to go ahead on five of those six. So like for me, it's doubling down on our current proof points of where.   okay, we know that manufacturing plant, the pumpkin farm does really well. So let's start getting intros to all their, manufacturers of the products they need to grow pumpkin. know, like we're just doubling down on scaling because now we have the operational blueprint to really just kind of to go after it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:03.917) Gotcha, gotcha. Tell me about how passive this can really be, right? So I used to have, before we switched over to the new brand, Raise the Bar podcast, it was the Passive Income Attorney podcast, right? I was really focused on passive investments, focused on bringing in passive investors into my real estate deals, things like that. And I think that word passive gets thrown around quite a bit, right? And sometimes it's abused because people get into things that are not truly passive.   Mike (19:18.427) Yeah.   Mike (19:28.784) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:33.517) What's your take on that as it relates to the vending business?   Mike (19:38.49) Yeah, so I think as far as with the vending business, there's clearly upfront leg work that needs to be done, whether that's finding locations or any of those things. So I have a route that is here in Oregon, and then we bought a route last year in Illinois and have scaled that route. I spend 30 minutes a week on each route now. that these urgent cares and stuff, like we have an operator that's running the whole route.   Here's the problem, Seth. It's like people are so scared to build systems to ultimately systemize things or they're too cheap to hire help. And I'm the opposite. like, you know, kind of like Dan Martell's buy back your time. Like I have like a leverage calculator and like I constantly think about is this worth my time? Cause as you know, you're busier than me. Like it's so limited.   for me, my routes, I would consider them passive, like one hour a week is, is nothing in my mind. But as far as like, you know, I'm, I'm also a passive investor on, we're building a, an oil loop station in Florida and I sent my money a year ago to, to my, active investor and I haven't talked to him since. Like that's actually truly probably passive now, you know, I'm not doing anything, but there's, there's different levels to that. And I'm a huge believer like.   don't delegate something until you know what you're delegating. So people that want to start with the vending routes, sure, if you want to buy a route that already has an operator, that's one thing. but these, if you're starting a vending route for your kid or for your stay at home wife or whatever, as a side hustle, like get in the weeds and install that first machine. So when you hire help to take over the route, you know what you're delegating.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:09.773) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:27.021) Yeah, that's key. That's key. And you you described just like any other business, right? I think that's kind of where people get themselves into trouble. That sometimes they get sold the dream that is truly passive. And eventually it can be. I mean, you're talking about an hour a week. To me, that's pretty damn passive, right? But you know, upfront, you you've got to learn the business. You've got to know what you're getting yourself into. Like you said, you've got to learn before you delegate so that you know what you're delegating.   There is going to be some upfront work and then as you're able to kind of delegate and learn Then you can make it more and more passive as you go   Mike (22:00.88) Yeah, I mean, it's no different than what's the same when people tell you that they're busy. I mean, you're just not a priority. Like that's a fact. you're not. People say it's the same thing when people come to me and they're like, I'm so busy. It's like, okay, well let me, let me see your schedule. Where are you spending your time? You know, it's like when people are like, I can't lose weight. Okay, well let me see your food log. What did you eat yesterday? Did you have ice cream? Like this is like the same kind of thing. That's where passive I think has been really abused.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:16.097) Yeah. Yep.   Mike (22:29.638) To me, the bigger issue is like, vending is not get rich quick. And so like, if you're expecting to leave your nine to five tomorrow and vending is going to make up for that in one day, like that's not going to   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:41.089) Right, Makes sense. Speaking of passive, do you raise capital or do you have any kind of a fund or have you put together a fund for something like this?   Mike (22:51.48) We haven't put together a fun, we're definitely buying routes is definitely becoming more and more intriguing. And I know there's some PE players starting to get into the vending game, but it's something we've been definitely considering and on our radar of do we want to.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:58.541) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:10.231) Gotcha. Cool. I mean, you brought in money partners for some of those routes yet, or is that still something you're exploring too?   Mike (23:18.168) No, I think it's just something we're thinking about. mean, what do you recommend?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:21.089) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd recommend I mean, it depends, right? Like I'm I'm scared to turn you by trade, but I don't like to say you should always raise capital no matter what. Right. Like you've been able to scale your business as you have and grown it to where it is without bringing outside capital. It sounds which is great because you own 100 percent or with whatever business partners you might have. You know, when you start raising capital, you're giving a large chunk of that piece away, not necessarily your whole company. But if you're buying   you know, a set of routes or that sort of thing. You you're gonna give a big piece away to those past investors if you're starting a fund or even if it's up. Even a single asset syndication here for one of these, you know, these routes, you could put it together that way. You know, it's just something to consider. But a lot of times when people are looking to scale fast, right, if they wanna grow exponentially, you've gotta use other people's money to get there or hit the lottery.   Mike (24:08.294) Mm.   Mike (24:15.856) Absolutely, no, agree. That's spot-on and I actually before you know the Silicon Valley company That I was part of we had a we went through probably series a B C D C ground   Let's just say we weren't very fiscally responsible. So I come from the, you know, it's like the ex-girlfriend example. I don't want to just start taking everyone's money.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:42.413) Yeah, yeah, that tends to happen with some startups, right? Like before you get funding, you're super frugal because it's your money and every single dollar counts. And you're like, I don't want to pay, you if it's software, you don't want to pay the software engineers. I'm going to out, you know, put it, you know, hire Indian engineers, that sort of thing. And then once you get a few million bucks that you raised in that seed round, then it just goes and you're like, whoa, wait a minute, let's hire 20 people. You know, it's you got to be careful about that.   Mike (25:05.606) Yeah   Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great take on it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:11.245) Yeah, it's, yeah. It's a question I love to ask and I think it's about time for that. So, in a parallel universe, tell me about a different version of you. So a different but likely version, right? Like, for example, for me, I went to med school for a year and a half and then I dropped out and I ended up becoming an attorney. So that was like a big turning point, right? So I could have easily at some point just said screw it and became a doctor and that would have been a totally different route than I'm going down right now.   What's an example of something like that for you?   Mike (25:42.524) Wait, are you being serious about that? I took the MCAT too. I got into med school and then I, yeah, I was pretty mad in school. And then the more I learned about exercise science, I was like, organic chemistry is not fun.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:44.321) Yeah, totally.   yeah? There you go.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:57.39) It is not fun. I did not love that. I majored in exercise physiology and then I ended up switching to biology because it was just a little bit of an easier route to get my degree and go into med school and I went for a year and a half and then I dropped out because I absolutely hated it. I knew I didn't want to do it. I was just more attracted to business and that sort of thing.   Mike (26:16.346) Yeah, that's crazy. That's awesome. parallel universe. I, that's a really good question. I don't know. I, kinda, I have two kids under three and the other side of me wishes I would have traveled more.   you know, I mean, we'll get there hopefully when they get out of high school and someday. But right now I just think there's so many different cultural things and ways to skin the cat. And it's just fascinating to learn some of those things.   Mike (26:55.352) yourself in those cultures.   go to different cultures and really like understand how they did things for a time, a period of time to really just learn their thinking.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:07.777) Yeah, I love that man. I had a similar experience of what you're describing. I didn't travel abroad really other than like, you know, Canada and Mexico until I studied abroad in Barcelona during law school and I got to stay there for a couple of months. So you actually had some time. It wasn't like you're just visiting for a week or a weekend or anything like that. You got to kind of live there right for a couple of months and it just totally changed my, you know, my outlook on life and just the way that you see things like I feel like we're in the US and we just think   Mike (27:19.627) Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:37.76) US is number one and there's only one way to do things the way that we do things that kind of attitude. And then when you go to Western Europe and you see that culture and you drive or get on a train, it's like an hour away and you're in a totally different culture and they're doing it a certain way as well and it's working. You just see that other people are doing things differently and still being successful at it, still having a thriving culture and it's just awesome to see.   Mike (28:03.312) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (28:06.251) Yeah. Tell me about some major influences in your life. What turned you or got you into that, the vending business? It's not one of those typical things. mean, I know you're in the education business, so you're kind of really spreading the word about this type of business. But I would say when you started, there might not have been a mastermind or educational courses around this. mean, how did you kind of get drawn into that? Were there any particular people or influences that brought you in?   Mike (28:29.308) you   Mike (28:36.188) Yeah. So the, biggest influence for me to get into vending, uh, wasn't actually a person. It was actually, was, um, I had landed, I was coming back from the Pentagon from a trip back to the Bay for the startup we were talking about. And I was in the Denver airport and 11 PM, you know, our flight was delayed. And then they're like, Hey, you have to stay in the airport tonight. The pilot went over their hours for the day, blah, blah, blah. So I went to a vending machine and I remember buying a bottle of water.   I think it costs like at the time three bucks or something. I knew that bottle of water cost 20 cents at Costco. And I was like, there is someone that's at home with their kids right now making money off me and they're not even at this mission. Like the machine is doing the work. So I had like an aha moment of like, what are my true priorities in life? And like, why am I chasing this cutthroat startup from.   Palo Alto and trying to make it when reality was my priorities are freedom to spend more time with my family. So that's really kind of what led me into this path of starting a vending machine side hustle to keep our lifestyle as we had kids. We wanted to have a nanny and we wanted to be able to still go on dates and things like that as a couple with my wife. So that's really kind of my family and just like...   having the freedom to do things. Like that's what I'm really passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (29:59.084) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, building on that, and you may have already answered that, but what does success look like for you?   Mike (30:01.766) next   Mike (30:06.268) an empty calendar.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:08.621) Good luck with that. Good luck with that.   Mike (30:11.516) Oh man, I was gonna say, how do we crack that code? No, yeah. No, but I think success to me is doing things like picking up my daughter at three and even being able to say no to the things that aren't gonna get you to where you need, like the discipline piece of this too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:15.708) man.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:33.995) Yeah, yeah, mean, you know, for me, it's kind of similar, right? It's not going to be able to empty that calendar. Not yet, at least maybe here in the future. But for now, it's pretty filled. But it is it's flexible, right? Like us as entrepreneurs, you know, we probably work more than we ever worked when we were in our W-2s. But at the same time, it's you know, we're working in our own business for ourselves, for our families. And we have the   Flexibility, a lot of people will say the freedom, right? But we have the flexibility to move things around. And if you want to pick your kids up at school at three, or you do want to take a weekend off, or something comes up in your schedule, you have the flexibility to do that. Whereas if you're kind of slaving away at the nine to five, you can't really do it.   Mike (31:04.486) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (31:20.198) Yeah, that's spot on. mean, I just wrote that down, but flexibility is, cause you're right. When you started becoming an entrepreneur, this is what I tell people all the time when they want to get a venting around is like running your own business. You are going to work harder than you do for your boss currently at your W-2. Like you have to do payroll. You have to do, like you gotta like make sure there's money to actually do pay, you know, like all those things that you just don't even think about when you have a W-2. It's like, today's   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:39.543) Yeah   Mike (31:48.89) You know, this Friday I get paid. Well, when you run a business, mean, that money's got to come from somewhere.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:51.905) Yeah   Right, yeah, 100%, man, 100%. All right, Mike, we're gonna wrap it up. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Tell the listeners where they can find out more about you.   Mike (32:05.286) Yeah, so thanks for having me. This has been great. I have free content all over the place. can find me on the classic Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, but I also have vendingpreneurs.com is where we help people that are more interested in actually the vending stuff. But I've been really trying to double down on YouTube lately because there's just a lot of content and you can't get it off a one minute reel.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:32.417) Love it, man. All right, Mike, appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show.   Mike (32:35.91) Thanks for having me.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:37.227) Hi brother. Alright man, got a couple more questions for you. We do like a quick, kind of do the full podcast episode and then I'll just do kind of a quick episode that'll follow up on a Monday and then another one on a Friday. Cool.   Mike (32:55.814) See you.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:59.693) We out here.   Welcome to Million Dollar Mondays, how to make, keep, and scale a million dollars. Mike is a super successful entrepreneur in the vending machine business and beyond. Tell us, how did you make your first million dollars?   Mike (33:20.922) Yeah, Seth. It was probably actually through real estate and just getting a little bit kind of lucky with timing with COVID and short-term rentals and some of that. But yeah, that's probably how I got the first million.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:25.229) Mm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:37.079) Gotcha, cool. Yeah, real estate usually plays a role in the everybody's strategy down the line, whether they're in that primary business or not, whether they start out there or they end up there, real estate usually plays a part. How'd you make your last million?   Mike (33:53.956) Yeah, that's a good question because it's completely different than real estate, but it's actually been vending machines. So that's been kind of fun. just, you you talk about product market fit whenever you're an entrepreneur with a business. And that was just kind of the perfect storm right now of traditional vending really kind of being outdated. And we found a product market fit with it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:57.57) Right. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:16.215) Gotcha. Cool. that was from, was this maybe mostly attributed to kind of buying those routes, those larger routes?   Mike (34:23.32) Exactly. Yeah. Buying old school routes and really kind of flipping them like a house with modern micro markets charging, with different products and what would fit in a vending machine, like more of the unorthodox, you know, toilet paper and tide pods and things that wouldn't fit in a traditional vending machine. I mean, we'll sell $35 bottles of shampoo in these micro markets. So just kind of, go and add it in a different way.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:49.857) Yeah, and then with the aging population, there's gotta be more and more of these things popping up. So there should be more opportunity for people to get involved or for people like yourself to just snag everything, right?   Mike (35:01.102) Yeah, I think there's no chance I could snag everything, not even just in this town alone that I'm currently in. I mean, machines are getting cheaper, the technology is getting way better with AI. And nowadays, it's not what fits in a vending machine motor. It's okay, what's shelf space? if it's a bottle of shampoo or a glass Coke, it doesn't matter because it's not just getting thrown down the chute of a traditional machine.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:05.387) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:27.521) Makes sense, makes sense. Last, how are you planning on making your next million dollars?   Mike (35:34.3) I think probably with AI, we're doing a lot of interesting stuff with helping people scale their, their vending routes. that is applicable to any, small business. And so I'm really intrigued. Just every time I go down a rabbit hole with some new AI tool, I feel like there's another better one that just came right behind it. So I just think it's kind of that time where you can really get ahead by just learning.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:06.209) Yeah, totally makes sense. mean people that are not paying attention to AI whether it's simply using chat GPT instead of Google search are getting left behind quickly because it's just advancing so fast. I can't even imagine what this world's gonna look like five years from now the way that things are moving.   Mike (36:23.132) It's crazy. Three years ago when I was working for a tech company selling software into the government, I would have to work with three secretaries to schedule a meeting with the general to sell their software. Now my EA is literally an AI bot and everyone that's scheduling time on my calendar, they don't even know they're talking to a non-human, which is pretty   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:43.479) Yeah, 100%. We're gonna, I predicted within five years, everybody's gonna have a humanoid robot in their home with AI instilled and they're gonna be doing physical things for us at our homes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. 100%. Awesome, All right, moving on to the next one.   Mike (36:50.181) Yeah!   Mike (36:57.917) I hope so. I hope they can go to Costco get all our groceries do our do our laundry The dishes   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:11.501) You're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do, Mike. What is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   Mike (37:19.056) Ooh, that's a good question, Seth. I think it's just discipline, know, discipline and focus. One of the hardest things is being able to say no with the things that don't align. And when I was growing up, I had a quote that has really stuck with me. That's like, it's better to be respected than liked. And I think that really resonates. Like naturally as a human, you want to be liked and help people, but the 1 % are really good at saying no.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:47.649) Yeah, I love that man. That's a great answer. Kind of building on that, what do you think the number one attribute is that makes a successful entrepreneur?   Mike (37:57.468) probably focus. Yeah. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:59.212) Yeah, focus. Yep. The one thing, right? The one thing.   Mike (38:04.186) Yep. That's why you come back to like the most successful entrepreneurs. They always niche down and they niche down because they just, got hyper-focused. Like this is kind of why for me, you know, I started this passive Mr. Passive on social media before I even got into Vendi. Well, now everyone's like, well, how passive is Vendi? And well, it's like, what's really interesting is I was posting all these different, what I thought passive income streams in the time, but everyone, 95 % of the questions I got about   Airbnbs are all my different investments was about bending. So I just niche down on, on bending and I just looked back on that and I was like, it really forced me to focus.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:43.263) Awesome, awesome. What's one thing someone could do today to get 1 % closer to success in the vending machine business if they are really interested in learning more?   Mike (38:53.892) tap into your connections and find a location that has high foot traffic, whether that's a friend that works at an urgent care, a sister that lives at an apartment. You know, you take your kid to that gymnastics studio that has a ton of foot traffic between 4 PM and 8 PM. Like all those locations are prime locations to put one of these modern smart machines in. so, tapping into your connections, well, you know,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:24.567) Love that man. Awesome. All right, Mike, I appreciate it, brother. We'll to meet in person sometime,   Mike (39:30.574) I would love to. Where are you based, Seth?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:31.789) I'm in San Diego, where you at?   Mike (39:34.78) I am in Eugene. Yeah, Oregon. I'll come down your way though.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:37.39) Cool We're planning on doing yeah, we're planning on doing so me and my wife we have a Sprinter van and Last May we did we did going back to the flexibility piece, right? We did 32 days in the van up through Wyoming Montana and then into like Into Canada and they're like Banff and Jasper and all the way up to Jasper and then we circled back on the west coast Through Vancouver and then down back to San Diego Yeah   Mike (40:05.52) What?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:06.829) Pretty wild, pretty awesome. And the reason I brought that up is this year we're gonna do shorter trip. We're probably gonna do two, maybe three weeks at the most, but we're gonna do kind of the Pacific Northwest. So Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver and all those parks and stuff up there.   Mike (40:17.254) Yeah.   Mike (40:21.744) Yeah, you definitely have a, have you been to Bend before? Bend is like my, that whole area, Central Oregon is, and even Idaho, like all those kind of, yeah. That's awesome. Please let me know when you're up this way. I mean, I'll come meet you wherever. That'd be amazing. Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:24.641) Yeah, yeah I have.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:38.861) Sure man grab a coffee or beer. I appreciate it. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah all right brother great to meet you and I will send the information on when this is gonna get released and give you you materials and all that stuff so we can collaborate on social media   Mike (40:51.964) Okay. Okay. Yeah. Is a lot of your audience, like passive investors?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:58.593) So most of that, so now I'm rebranding. I rebranded because I'm gonna be speaking more towards like active entrepreneurs, Active entrepreneurs, people raising capital, that sort of thing. Whereas before it was based on passive investors and people really focused on attorneys. So I'm an attorney and I was raising capital from attorneys for my real estate deals. Now I'm really more into selling shovels. I'm scaling my law firm. I'm chief legal officer for Tribest, which is, we've got a fund to fund.   Mike (41:20.262) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:28.085) legal product there as well. So we're really trying to bring in active, active entrepreneurs and people raising capital.   Mike (41:29.777) Yeah.   Mike (41:36.572) Okay, because I got that, I was just thinking through when we talking about that oil development project, that could be a good, the guy that runs that fund could be a good interview for you. Just thinking through your audience, because he's always looking for investors into his fund and like these oil lubs are just crushing it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:49.901) Cool. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:58.464) Yeah, cool. Who is it? Just, I don't know if I know him or not.   Mike (42:02.183) Um, Robert Durkey, he's out of Florida. has, his problem is he's sitting on a gold mine that has no, like he's old school, doesn't know social media, any of that. So that's why I think he'd be perfect for you. Cause I think you could help him and he could definitely help you with some kickback. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully we meet soon. Okay. See you Seth. Bye.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:05.645) I don't think I know. I don't think I know.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:13.889) Yeah. Gotcha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:20.705) Cool, okay, sounds good man. Yeah, I appreciate the introduction.   Yeah, all right brother. Talk soon. See ya. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Mike Hoffman's Links: https://www.instagram.com/mikehoffmannofficial/ https://x.com/mrpassive_?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedhoffmann/ https://www.tiktok.com/@mr.passive

Title: The Hidden Cost of "Family & Friends" Capital and How to Avoid It with Chris Salerno Summary: The video features a compelling discussion between host Chris CNO and Seth, an experienced SEC attorney with a diverse background that includes starting as a nightclub promoter and ultimately becoming a successful attorney specializing in securities law. The conversation dives into Seth's personal journey, detailing how his upbringing in West Virginia shaped his perspective on success, risk-taking, and accountability. He describes the importance of working hard and not making excuses, emphasizing that anyone can succeed regardless of the challenges they face in life. The two also touch on the realities of the current economic climate in the U.S., specifically in California, the significant changes in real estate investing due to securities regulations, and how entrepreneurs should approach risk in their business endeavors. The dialogue seamlessly transitions to discussing their shared experiences in fitness, a matter that Seth and his wife have prioritized through their ownership of Burn Boot Camp franchises while navigating the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As they conclude their conversation, they reflect on the shifting dynamics of real estate and the importance of investor communication and education during economically unpredictable times. Links to listen and subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fund-it-scale-it-close-it-unlocking-real-estate-success/id1760606484?i=1000680833837 Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR8RiGLlZMA&t=2732s Bullet Point Highlights: Seth's Early Journey: Seth was adopted from South Korea and raised in rural West Virginia, leading to his realization of hard work and accountability. Nightlife Promotions: Before becoming an attorney, Seth thrived as a nightclub promoter in Los Angeles, reinforcing his skills in sales and networking. Law School Transition: After dropping out of medical school, Seth shifted focus from medicine to business and law, finding success in both fields. Importance of SEC Compliance: The conversation highlights common mistakes investors make regarding securities regulations and emphasizes how crucial proper legal guidance is in real estate. Pandemic Pivot: Seth and his wife managed to keep their fitness business afloat during COVID-19 by pivoting to online workouts, showcasing resilience and adaptability. Investor Communication: Both host and guest stress the significance of maintaining clear and consistent communication with investors, particularly in a volatile economic climate. Future of Real Estate: Discussion around California's real estate laws, particularly the push for accessory dwelling units (ADUs), presents new opportunities for investment. Transcript: it's something there you can make an excuse about and that's the issue about today's society is that everyone wants excuses we mentally uh wired to have negativity in our life I actually started promoting for nightclubs you were a promoter I was a promoter for nightclub life is The Hunger Games business is The Hunger Games the space that you and I are in private Equity it's the Hunger Games my knowledge number one thing SEC really gets you on as misrepresentation welcome to the crystalo show your goto for real estate   business health Health and Family Insight I'm Chris CNO CEO of QC Capital each episode we explore the latest trends and expert advice from industry leaders whether you're an investor entrepreneur or seeking balance this show provides an inspiration you need join us in elevate your game on the Chris alno show welcome to the chriso show I'm your host Chris alno very excited to have a friend of mine we've known each other for what five six years now think so man time flies uh when you're having fun uh Seth on here SEC   attorney doing a bunch of things excited to have him on here a wealth of knowledge Seth thanks so much for joining us dude appreciate you having me on appreciate you reaching out and uh inviting me over for the show most definitely and I'm glad it happened when it did because you're in town you're you're you live out in the beautiful I would say you guys have great weather and great In-N-Out Burger your tax and politics suck but California which is beautiful weather out there you happen to be in Charlotte for Fitness which   we'll touch on here in a second um but I'm glad we were able to make this work absolutely man yeah good timing really good so let's let's give everyone a little background about yourself all the way from you know childhood you know talk to us about that sure man yeah and I think it helps build the story U I'm adopted so I was born in South Korea and adopted a 3 months old and then by two wonderful people in West Virginia rural West Virginia that's different so you know I'm the only Asian in inal West   Virginia yeah so I went to high school with like 18800 kids country country Moon shiners yes for sure for sure good people I love West Virginia love it I love Snowshoe Snowshoe is really good great underrated best best on the East Co or best close to North Carolina I would say unless you get way up North but yeah North Carolina you know anything close snow Sho is where it's at yeah yeah I love it but uh yeah man grew up in Royal West Virginia so wasn't really exposed to entrepreneurship or owning real estate or anything like that   my parents are both Blue Collar uh my dad was a is a coal miner was a Miner is retired now my mom is a grade school teacher so you know I didn't come from are they still in West Virginia yes they are okay they're frequent trips back there you go there you go yeah so wasn't exposed to that stuff so it was all about kind of getting the best job that you could possibly get right talk talk to us about that mentality you were young what age did you come over to us three months three oh three months month   so you didn't even spend time in in South Korea you don't even know of not at all are you curious now you know with you being adopted anything anything about you know where you came from anything like that actually not man you know I I I think a lot of uh adoptees struggle with that yeah um I actually joined a Facebook group one time like with Korean adops and there's like thousands of them in there and I was thinking I'm going to gain some insight from this and but it was like No And it was a lot of uh you know to be blunt a   lot of whining in my mind a lot of crying right I'm about accountability and just going out there and getting it done and you know it's just about you know a lot of I say this all the time you are you can't control the cards you are dealt you can only control how you deal them sure you know you unfor you know unfortunately you it's a great thing it's not unfortunate it's fortunately you were adopted at three months you couldn't control that you couldn't control being born in South Korea and being adopted but you have to   control the cards you were dealt and you've done a phenomenal job you're a badass attorney you know phenomenal job with the cards you were dealt um but I can definitely see being in those type of groups you're going to get a lot of whining and moaning yeah I mean I I think it's you know it's a couple it's it's a couple things right I mean some people have a reason to to quote unquote whine and mo right you know they're they're dealt a bad hand but again like you said you've got to you've got to   play the cards you're dealt right and do the best you can with it and I think that if you are adopted it's easy to go and blame it on that it's it's an easy crutch to lean it's an excuse it's it's something there you can make an excuse about and and and that's the issue about today's society is that everyone wants excuses where mentally uh wired to have negativity in our life and so they're going to make an excuse oh I'm not successful because of this because of this that's a lie you are highly   successful and attorney a beautiful wife doing great things in business and in the real estate industry so you are proof that you can get it done you just have to work hard yeah you just have to work hard you can't blame shift I like to call it you can't blame it on you know the cards you were dealt or you know the things that uh may have happened to you or the situations you're in you've got to just move forward and do the best that you can so dad was a coal miner y mom was a a school teacher what made you want to say hey I'm G to   go into law school and be an attorney yeah it it was a little bit uh a little bit more of a story behind that first of all I went into uh medicine so I wanted to be a doctor all right um well I wouldn't say I wanted to be a doctor it was more like what's the best job that I can get with the mindset that I had my mindset was you know W2 worker type of mindset right like not entrepreneurial not don't take risk and it was and I you know academically it was pretty easy for me so it was just okay what's the best   job you can get is probably being a doctor right like that's kind of the highest calling um and I actually went to med school for a year and a half really yeah and then I dropped out halfway through my second year I literally just got up in the middle of class walked out and said I've I've had it I oh my goodness so I went Premed biology yeah I went Premed biology chemistry and biology whoop my butt so I said okay I'm going to business entrepreneurship switch business entrepreneurship and I said maybe it   wasn't chemistry and biology it was just College in general so I dropped out of college um but you so you got to med school and you're like okay I'm done with this Y and then what yep um honestly that was a turning point in my life I didn't know what I wanted to do right like I committed a a large portion of my life to you know schooling schooling taking the MCAT getting into med school finishing that's not easy either Med school's hard very hard very hard but I've always had an interest in business and real estate just kind of in   the background like I just always had an interest in it um didn't really know how to act on it at the time um so I actually just started enrolling in business classes like immediately just and ended up getting a minor in business for the rest of that year so I I in undergrad classes um and then I started up my MBA actually the following year so got my MBA and then I decided to take it the next step and go ahead and get my law degree because I was still in that same mindset it was like you know this   isn't enough I didn't really know anything about starting a business or anything like that and I just felt like I hadn't done enough so I went ahead and went to went to law school and at that point I did decide I was like look I'm going to I'm going to finish this whether it's the right thing or not um and I was very successful at it I finished towards the top of my class dedicated you know the time and effort it needed um and did really well so love that love that and so getting in what made you want to move out to California   number one on a win man so dropped out of med school kind of took those business classes just trying to figure out what I wanted to to do next on the other side of the world I'm in West Virginia still at this point yeah in West Virginia trying to figure it out and I just knew I needed to get out of there I needed to see more I needed to get out of West Virginia you know it was it was a tough conversation to have right like all my family and friends are there um you know I just dropped out of medical school so now they're like what   the hell is this kid doing you know what I mean like dropping out of med school but they've always been supportive always been supportive always been supportive they never like pushed me into medicine or anything like that and then when I dropped out you know they're still staying supportive but I'm sure in the background they're thinking what the hell are you doing uhoh yeah and then I just decided to up and leave and move to Los Angeles out of nowhere unbelievable unbelievable so you moved out to Los   Angeles yep how was that well I partied for a little bit yeah for a little bit they they know how to party out yeah for a little bit I didn't know what I was going to do I was enrolled um getting my NBA at the time uh mostly online um at Arizona State um so I kept the education going but at the same time I'm in La I'm in a new city I actually started promoting for nightclubs you were a promoter I was a promoter for nightclub for a little over a year in Los Angeles um before I decided hey I got to get my   [ __ ] together well I mean you'll definitely meet a lot of women doing that for sure you get paid basically per head on how many women you bring in the club oh yeah you've got a bottle or two waiting for you every single night y it's actually a pretty nice little lifestyle for somebody in their 20s oh yeah most I I believe it if you want you know if you want to get some experience get out there it's best you can meet a lot of women too yeah and it's a good like uh it's kind of a sales experience   be honest with you you're just for you're like hey I'm getting paid $10 ahead to bring beautiful women to this club I got to go out there and just talk to everybody literally just going out there talking hey you got this come to this club tonight we've got bottles all this kind of stuff and you know wow unbelievable unbelievable so from there you were like okay I got to get my [ __ ] together yeah had to get my [ __ ] together obviously you know I'm still getting educated in back getting my NBA   still kind of keeping the education going oh yeah um but I decided hey I'm going to go to law school so started applying to law schools um ended up getting accepted to a number of ones and I I narrowed it down to USD in San Diego because I wanted to stay in Southern California because I loved it um but I knew I didn't want to be in La so got out of La went down to San Diego because I had visited there a couple times and I just loved it it's just more of a laid-back attitude people were a lot more genuine just a place that I could   see s down at compared to La it's just you know it it it's kind of doggy dog there most oh it is it's a hunger life is The Hunger Games business is The Hunger Games the space that you are you and I are in private Equity it's the Hunger Games yeah you know and and you have to have that mentality you have to be able to survive yeah at the end of the day so from there you're like okay law school it is yep and then you get into law school well in law school or but even prior to that there's so many   different levels of law you can practice yeah what made you you know pick SEC and prior to that did you have any other interest in different type of law yeah I mean generally speaking I want I knew I wanted to get into transactional law I didn't want to be a litigator that's for sure um I was interested in business interested in doing deals those sorts of things so I started out actually at a at a pretty big Law Firm step tone Johnson and ended up doing both real estate and corporate I think that's when we first   met it might have been yeah yeah when when you were cuz they were out what in San Diego or no actually I moved back to West Virginia for that job oh did you okay maybe maybe you maybe you were just finishing there when we met yeah well actually I think we met when I was in probably when I was in Charlotte because I moved to Charlotte for another big Law Firm I think so but anyways yeah so I started kind of more general transactional practice with real estate and corporate and then as I kind of got   more mature and more experienced I started focusing more on the security side nice nice do you you enjoy security side for sure for sure the security side is it it feels a lot more sophisticated um I like the people that I work with in that field a little bit more um but I still have a passion for Real Estate like I still love real estate so even though I'm a Securities attorney it's largely focused on real estate yeah so let's talk about that you know for those individuals that may not know what a   security is most will know what a security is let's talk about that and let's talk about you know the the day-to-day what does a Security attorneys really look like sure sure I mean the easy way to put it for a security because because people kind of miss understand it but if you have passive investors involved at all anywhere anywhere any even if it's one you probably even if it's an LLC yeah you're probably dealing with a security and you're dealing with the SEC regulations and you need a Securities   attorney to advise you because there are lots of things to navigate that you're probably not aware of and that your real estate attorney probably doesn't have the knowledge or know how to to deal with mostely and I see that mistake being made quite a bit oh yeah no I I see that on social media all the time for sure all the time on social media and it comes down to even with words you say like you have to be very very careful you're not misleading whatsoever what do you find uh the most common maybe mistake syndicators or fund   managers do in the syndication world yeah I mean I think the most common mistake is just not even realizing that they're under the Securities regime right like they're just like oh well I'm just raising some you know I'm getting some investors from family friends and they think because it's family and friends maybe that it's okay but it's not it doesn't it doesn't matter who they are it doesn't matter if it's your your family or friends or you know stranger off the streets you're dealing with Securities yeah and that and you   have to deal with those Securities regulations to come along with it so I I think just not knowing yeah that or maybe kind of turning a blind cheek to it is is more like it I think people nowadays have a pretty good idea of because it is kind of out there now right everyone's on social media they're all talking about it the biggest thing too is is you don't want to not know and you don't want to turn that cheek because um something to know is that SEC has unlimited money and they will milk you dry so you might as well spend the   money ahead of time find you a good SEC attorney like Seth you know to make sure that they don't milk you dry because they will milk you dry and they'll throw you in a little white little 4x6 cell and it's not going to be fun if you didn't know they can print money yeah so so if you're you're going up against someone who can print money and you necessarily can't print like they can print exactly you know so you got to be careful and that's not to mention the state Commissioners too so you've got the SEC to deal with as   well as the state Securities commissioner which people don't people don't realize that there's a federal and a state level too and and it's super important to understand what state you're doing business in and what state your investors are coming from and and super important to understand at a state and federal level yeah yeah and it's a you know and if something happens it's a full-blown investigation I mean it's just like a subpoena or you maybe you will get subpoenaed uh but they're asking for everything you they're asking   for texts they're asking for emails asking for phone logs they're asking and give it give it to them like don't even because if you don't they're going to get it they're going to find it yeah I mean they're just going to subpoena you on it and the judge is going to make you do it or they'll throw you in jail so no matter what give it to them and then address every single situation you know or issue that they bring up that I I think it's it's super important we just talked about this on the other podcast   is be transparent yeah you know be transparent because if not they're again they have unlimited Capital absolutely you know they're going to come and get you no matter what and and if and if being transparent makes you nervous then maybe think about the way you're doing business right oh yeah I mean you should be able to be transparent and and just like I said on the other podcast big investor that we had or a big investor that we interviewed on the other podcast and I said you know during 2023 as you   know uh interest rates spiked you know little bit yeah just a little bit and a lot of syndicators were not transparent a lot of them went ghost a lot of them were let like screw this I'm done and we double down we went from monthly communication to bi-weekly communication which is a lot more on our team but we did it to overc communicate we didn't have to cuz our SEC doc said just once a month we could have just stick it once a month but we decided to double down yeah and and that right there overc   communicating saying hey this is what's going on it's out of our control but this is what we're doing to make sure we can control this you know I think is super important when you're a syndicator fund manager you name it when you're dealing and having investors involved 100% man 100% And you you are able to control the narrative that way too right like if the the past investors is sitting there and they're reading the headlines and they're seeing the interest rate Spike and they're hearing about multifam going down the tubes and   all this stuff and that's not necessarily true not all those things are true it could be Market specific deal specific those things but if you're not in constant communication with them letting them know hey this is what's going on with this deal maybe this deal is going great maybe this one's not going as well well here's what we're doing to fix it it it goes a long ways 100% their trust you're going to have an upset investor you know you are if you have you know 20 50 100 investors one's going to be upset and if you ever got   audited you can all you can go back and say look at all of our communication right like read through all of our communication we were transparent about everything they're going to look back and be like okay it's this a pissed off investor yeah you for sure for sure and it's super like communication is the biggest uh I think thing that is lost in% capital and also you know being being transparent with the communication because number one from my knowledge number one thing SEC really gets you on is misrepresentation absolutely you know   and if you're not being transparent on it with everything on there boom it it will be a very ugly day for you for sure be transparent you know obviously the things that you leave out as well like if there are key material things that you're leaving out and then you've you've disclosed all these things let's say down the line to the SEC or State commissioner like what in the world this doesn't sound like you're representing this deal like it really was at this time and maybe they're going back and   looking at your records looking your financial statements and seeing how that deal was going it wasn't going great it was going terrible Y and you're saying that everything is great well um that's not being transparent right you know you're not communicating that with the investors right yeah no I think that's super important H you know what have you seen you know over 2023 dealing with you know Securities talking with other fund managers things like that what have you seen you know during last year with   interest rate hikes man it it there was a little bit of blood in streets right you know a lot of these deals um that had shortterm loans that had um you know the the variable loan rates um struggled yeah a lot of people that caps they didn't get rate Caps or the or the cap expired yeah or their cap expired and they didn't have enough money in reserves to buy an extension on the cap you know and and that was huge that was huge thinkk one of our deals uh had 202 for or excuse me uh 2024 expiration and   we bought uh end or beginning of 2023 end of 2022 rate cap to Extended 2025 and I'm so glad we did it yeah you know it was perfect timing because that same rate cap would have been a million and we only spent like 400,000 yeah yeah for sure yeah so you're seeing a little bit of blood in the streets um you know I think right now what's happening banks are allowing for some uh leniency with their loans they don't they don't want to have the property absolutely and it looks it looks terrible if they do have   the property on their balance sheet plus I think they the this go around cuz oh0 wait the first thing they said is we're going to foreclose on everyone we're taking everyone's property then they realize well [ __ ] I got a ton of property and no one wants to buy it yeah you know so I think they've learned their lesson and now they are like okay we don't want to forclosed because no one's going to buy it and if they do buy it we're still going to take a huge loss so let's go ahead and see what we can do   to work things out you know if the property's really really not bad let's see what we can do to work things out because it will rebound it's coming back back around yeah but I do think you know we're kicking the can down the road they're giving extensions those sorts of things and we're all banking that the interest rates are going to go down at some point right so we're hoping for that um I think that they will I think we're going to see one before the election yeah it I think we're going to see a quarter point before the election   I think I think some politics have gotten into drone Pal's head no way yeah I know right no way couldn't I I think they I think they had a nice little cigar dinner or something and and I think they got in his head so I think you'll see one before the election of this year I agree I agree yeah you know it's it's going to be a wild election too not wanting to dive deep into politics but it's definitely going to be a wild one uh talk to us about you know the the California lifestyle what are you what are you doing right now you you   also your wife beautiful wife has a great business you guys are running that's why you're here in Charlotte talk to us a little bit about that and why you guys got into that too yeah so we uh started uh we bought two burn boot camp franchises so uh my wife luckily runs those helped her get them off the ground and now she's crushing it so letting her run with those and uh they're going really really well um lifestyle in California you can't beat it man I mean San Diego is unbelievable oh it's beautiful down there the weather   everything kind of like how you said earlier in the show I mean if you if you can afford to live there one because it is really expensive oh I know and if you can deal with the politics then there's no better place in the United States for sure really there's not you know I just wish they had better politics over there um but yeah the weather out there is so beautiful you really can't beat it you can't beat it you know let's talk about health because you guys own those burn boot camps they're huge in Charlotte um   their headquarters here in Charlotte that's where it was founded um and tell us a little bit about what burn boot camp is and then also I'm going to want you to touch on like how are you optimizing your health to to be the phenomenal husband that you are to operate you know businesses and getting involved in real estate talk to us about that sure man yeah burn boot camp it's a boutique Fitness franchise um you know it's it's Boot Camp style workouts workouts the same um it's incredible and and it's focused on women it's focused   on empowering inspiring so if you're a single man you should go absolutely absolutely I will say I've been taking up hot yoga lately Hot Yoga is good and for those single men out there go to hot yoga just saying there we go yeah Gym's not a bad place to pick up women yeah plus the great thing too is that there's no filters you can't have filters at the gym and more than likely they're not going there with makeup on so it's it's a good place to filter out women you want there you go a little different than the apps right yeah I   know so so it's geared more towards women it is geared towards more towards women um but it I work out there every day I mean that's where I work out now like that's that's what I do I love the total body workouts I love the total body workouts you go in like an orange theory you go in one hour boom you're done you're going about your day exactly hour in and out of there and for guys like us that have a million things to do like it's unbeatable and I want somebody telling me what to do I was just going   to say that I don't want and I I work out by myself now and it's so much easier showing up tell me to shut up go do this do that get it done boom okay I'm all about my day you know tell me what to do right just tell me what to do I I will I will tell you I've been to the gym and there's been times I've had business on my mind that I'm like wait okay so I'm at the gym what do I need to do like you're sitting like a 24-hour fitness or or yeah something like I work out at lifetime I live right behind it   and I walk in there sometimes because of my long days and I'm like [ __ ] what do I want to do today like I because my mind is business business business it's so much easier showing up having someone said hey we got all these set workouts you're going to knock these out and be done they make they make you focus on the workout at that point instead of you know business or whatever listen to a podcast or something what got you guys interested in opening up one of those I hope you're enjoying today's episode   just a quick reminder to make sure you never miss an episode stay connected with us by following us on social media platforms Instagram Twitter threads Tik Tok at Chris saloor and don't forget to subscribe to YouTube to catch the video versions of our episode you'll get exclusive content behindth scenes footage and much more head over to YouTube chrisoro now and hit the Subscribe button stay tuned because we've got more great content coming right after this actually cuz my wife worked out at one   here in Charlotte really so she was working out at one she was working out at one here in Charlotte and then we moved back to the West Coast cuz I took a job here in Charlotte for a little bit then we moved back to the West Coast and I was look looking to start a business I was looking for something recession resistant outside of real estates I was already investing in real estate but looking for a business outside of real estate I looked at liquor stores I looked at laundromats um and then she   turned me on to burn boot camp which is not recession resistance let's put it that way but at the same time they're really good salesman look like a great business model turned out to be awesome although oh most definitely yeah circumstances weren't great we opened two weeks before Co hit oo but talk to us about that you know opening a and we all know California they they lock down like oh yeah they lock down you can't even go get your mail out of your house um talk to us about that opening up a   business right before covid and being in California where you know they were basically Nazis out there yeah for sure I mean we opened up two weeks in um and we didn't have any paying members because we were all on uh they were all on like a free membership TR one yeah so then we had to shut it down we had to move inside we had to move outside we did online workouts every single day uh pivoted yeah we pivoted we did whatever we had to do to keep the lights on wow um so literally our lead trainer and   business partner was in our apartment leading online workouts and me and my wife Alison are in the background like like a yeah like a music workout video Yeah in the backgound but it did keep us in shape during Co cuz we worked out every single day because we had to make those videos you had to yeah but it was I mean it was ridiculous out in California man they shut down the beaches they shut down the water you weren't allowed to be in in the ocean what you weren't allowed to be in the ocean cuz they said it got transmitted   through the water at one point so are you serious so they kicked the Surfers out of the water and you kick the Surfers out of the water in San Diego you're you got some pissed off people you got a big problem but there are like all these you know Instagram videos the cops chasing Surfers down the beach and the guy just dropping his surfboard and running it was it transmitted through the water yeah insane but that's new heard that inside outside online inside outside eventually we we blacked out our   windows so you couldn't see in it because we got we got actually attacked by U an Instagram person that ended up going viral because he said hey you're the reason that we're the the disease is spreading because of businesses like yours and they filmed us from the outside into the windows and it went viral no way and it went viral and then finally we we ended up blacking out the windows and just stayed open cuz there's at that point it was like either Do Your Own Thing yeah and stay open oh yeah or   we're going out of business yeah you got to shut shop and this is a venture you just opened up no one knew Co is coming and all a sudden Co boom co comes and wow so you bled out the windows and you said hey we're just going to do it it's like a Speak Easy now yeah you guys want to work out we called it that at one point really speak easy easy workout like underground workouts underground haircuts there all kinds of that stuff going on it was insane that's W if you just have to think about that that's   just wild yeah like you know just for your basic necessities to stay in shape and things like that turns out if you got sunshine and you worked out you were a little bit more immune to the disease oh really yeah interesting interesting wow and you weren't locked in doors and you weren't allowed to work out yeah well problems wow I think we can go on a rabbit hole about that damn I'm not a big fan of I will say I do think there's another one going to be coming you know I think there's another pandemic that   will be coming um because of what happened with the first one so let's see uh let's just see what happens let's see if we handle it better this time uh we shall see it depends on whose's President I I think that's that's true yeah um definitely depends on them so you guys now you know past covid everyone's now out and about in California everything's been lifted and now those are up and running are those are the only ones really on the west coast right or um I think there are let's see two four five I think there's   six in California right now six now yeah cuz like you said it was based in Charlotte mainly east coast yeah yeah I think there's about 400 locations open now very cool um actually I think they're approaching 500 locations now yeah um so it's expanding pretty quickly at this point you know Fitness franchises have have rebounded completely from Co at this point oh my God yeah I think I think the fitness industry and I'm seeing it more and more people are taking it a lot more serious yeah they're they're watching what they   eat and I I said this multiple times with my son he's four and a half uh he watches what um or I make sure whatever I give him I watch very closely goldfish now and if you look and I swear this is brand new if you look at any ingredients now it says bio oh what is what's it say bio biograde or bio bio bioengineered food so it says it's been bioengineered the food that's been in there yeah so if you look go next time you go to the grocery store look at the ingredients and now it says it in bold you can pick up some gold Vision it says   bioengineered chemicals hm in the food interesting it's wild even her Pedialite had it said bioengineered chemicals now I swear that just popped up you know in one of these crazy bills cuz I've never ever seen it say bioengineered food on there uh and I steer very far away from it I'm big on those factors Factor meals now okay I have you heard of those I have y so I get those now once a week it's like 141 bucks uh lunch and dinner CU I don't eat breakfast so lunch and dinner 141 bucks and I'm thinking in my   head well if you and I went out to dinner it'd be about a 100 bucks right now so I get uh 14 meals per week lunch and dinner for 141 bucks I'm like I can't beat that yeah like that's good I throw them in the microwave 2 minutes boom done yeah we do pre-made meals all the time but we switch like we've done Factor before bur boot Camp's actually coming out with some in the fall we we got the test drive and they're actually pretty delicious cuz yeah we're pretty picky about these types of meals you   have to be but they're actually really good are they so they're coming out they're coming out with their own branding yep oo that'll be exciting and that is that's not just for boot camp people that's for everyone yeah you can just get on the app and order them this fall I believe really oh I'm going to have to switch it up and try man they're good but especially with pring these days it makes sense plus how busy you and I are yeah I mean so are you meal prepping or are you using these type of things my wife does some meal prepping   on Sunday got to love her yeah that's basically it every once in a while I volunteer to grill out but man it's it's it's a Time suck right like it to feed yourself at home like it sounds even going out you know for a lunch meeting it's like two hours like I have to block two hours off on my day for a lunch meeting yeah yeah I mean trying to cook an individual meal every single night let alone like lunch as well and even and then you got to clean all that Tak in just takes so much time we we don't   have time for it no I I I don't either that's why I start a factor where I throw it in 2 minutes boom I eat it and I'm done and I'm like well I threw it away boom no cleaning done I love it I love it so you guys are doing great things with the bur boot camp out there what do you what are you seeing uh let's go back to the real estate market what are you seeing in the near future I know we talk about interest rates lowering you know what are you seeing what are you doing right now in the real estate   market as well yeah um currently a fund manager for $20 million fund it's an Adu Fund in California so we're doing basically in California just like everything else difficult to do anything right like the government's got their handed and everything oh my God so very difficult to get any kind of construction done off the ground it's mind bogling we're buying a car wash and Cape car right now and it's finished yeah well they came out for the co they don't like the garage doors and so now we have to order new or the the seller   we're buying it from the seller seller has to now order new garage doors it won't be here till end of October and I'm like like seriously the garage doors will only be down between 9:00 at night and and 7 in the morning like it's middle the night no one's going to even look at them yeah like and you want these fancy garage like come on really yeah you know so and I can't imagine out in California yeah and if you get the coastal commission involved it takes literally years and years to do any so   anyways the reason I brought that up is because the adus accessory dwelling units they actually have a bill in California that they past and they basically just FastTrack those types of developments so if you want to add they they view it as a a solution to housing so the lack of housing yeah um so they let you build on uh turn your single family property into a duplex or even build duplex on the on the property if you have a big enough lot um so you can turn one units into four and rent the back out or rent them all out yep   exactly so it's a it's a quick way to get the construction approved get it done I don't know how long this wind is going to be open so you guys taking advantage so we're taking advantage of it right now love that love that and is your main focus down there in that San Diego Market um it's actually Riverside County okay yeah where and where I'm Riverside county is is East just East adjacent of Los Angeles County okay right so a little cheaper housing so it makes a little bit more sense when you get closer to the coast it stops making   a lot of sense you got to go for some more creative Place cheaper like 5 million probably yeah yeah yeah just a little $5 million 5 million um but but cheaper housing there so you guys are finding opportunity now is that bill all for California where you can for all California and then the local um you know counties and municipalities can kind of change that and you they can't make it any more restrictive but they can make it even less restrictive okay good and so are you uh are you guys doing long-term rentals there are you   doing short-term like airbnbs um semi longterm right so we're putting in a 10-year fund so you know we're getting we're buying the property we're renovating it putting ad used on the properties and then renting them for a few years and then unloading them towards the back end of the the fund I love love that and with these you're all buying them in the same area yeah yeah Riverside County generally I mean it's you know spread across how are you guys finding good deals in this market you know it's so hard multif family no you   name it any any type of real estate there's always a huge disc connect between a seller and a buyer how are you guys finding good deals right now uh my business partners man like I you know I'm handling legal I'm working with some Capital I'm I'm advising on on raising Capital those sorts of things um but my business partners are real estate brokers and they' been doing uh this type of thing identifying properties that are perfect for adus um for a number of years at this point so they're they're the main source they they get   first look I love I love that how how is it finding you know great business partners you know it's just like a marriage you you got to test it out you got to see how it is because a Business Partnership is like a marriage how is it you know and how did you guys link up yeah um networking event so I met I met these bus business partners actually at a wealth without Wall Street event that I was speaking at nice yeah yeah so I met them hit it off with them I think the first I've been in Good and Bad   Business Partnership relationships yeah I I think you you have to go through bad ones you do because if if you don't go through bad ones you don't know what what can happen to you and I would rather go through bad ones early on to make sure that when if we went into business we have the right contract the right verbage all of that in place because at the end of the day again just like if you would get married you're signing a contract to your wife you know in most circumstances I highly recommend   sign a prup I'm not a big fan I don't believe in marriage uh but a Business Partnership is a marriage yeah you know it is it is and building off of that like you have to like the person I think that you're going into oh 100% you have to hang out with them like you you have to be very cold cordial you know talk you guys have to like the same things if you just like a relationship if you guys don't like the same things if you don't like if one party likes working out the other one doesn't other one doesn't eat   healthy the other one eats healthy like it's just not going to work out it's not not not a long-term Business Partnership right like it can't just be transaction maybe shortterm really quick turnaround time but if it's going to be a long-term Business Partnership you got to like that person you generally like him you're like hey I I like this dude I'll go have a beer with him this is great this is I'll travel with him my business partner we travel around the world together we hang out together we go to   the same events together we like the same things you know it's it's amazing that's super important part because I think communication back to communication is huge right like and if you don't like that person it's going to feel forced and awkward and kind of going over a hump to try to communicate with them and that's the key you got to stay transparent you got to communicate because again if you have that separation you're not communicating you're not transparent who knows what the other person is doing at that point   oh agreed agreed most definitely I mean my business partner we talk about 20 20 25 times a day yeah and it's and most of it's business but other thing is personal hey how's the family doing how the kids doing you know anything going on blah blah blah but it's super important to also let your business partner know what's going on with you personally I think that's I think that's important as well because if if you're going through you know knock on wood you know something with your marriage I need   to know that I feel you know even if it's getting a little rough I need you to say hey you know my marriage is getting a little rough because I need to know okay if you're not here at business 100% I'm going to step up 120% to make sure that we're still good you know I think that's important AB for sure for sure and we do that even with like our team so with bur boot camp with some other businesses that we have we have leadership meetings and we make sure that everyone sh kind of personal things   what's going on keeping that transparent relationship up because it's it's important it affects um your personal life affects your business life as much as you don't wanted to most definitely no you're spot on there so I always say not all not all chefs not all chefs should own the restaurant not all attorneys should own their own practice you know what has really helped you to really own your own business and and you know go through the trial and errors and things like that to you know survive Co   to to run a successful you know Law Firm things like that yeah I mean I think one of the key things for entrepreneurs and people starting businesses you got to be a little bit crazy right you got to be a little bit crazy you got to be willing to take risks right you got to assess risks and and take them you can't be afraid to to just go out there and take action and do it um I think that attorneys on the other hand are trained not to take risks right they are trained to assess the risks but they're really   leaning to risk averse risers really leaning towards no whereas an entrepreneur is leaning towards yes yes so I think that I strike a really good balance between those two that's good um and I think that's what allows me to be an attorney at heart but then you know also be an entrepreneur and take risks and I think that's what my business partners appreciate as well I love that um I figure out how can we do it rather than can we do it right like that most attorneys will be like well we can't do it because of this or I advise   you not to do it because of that I will say look we can do it here's how yep right and here are the risks oh most definitely now you as the business partner if you're my partner we need to decide is it worth it or not yeah right cuz there's there's always risk involved so do you want to take no matter what you do there is risk you just have to make sure you take the calculated risk that's right you know and sometimes you may think it's calculated at that point in the moment and it turns out to not be   right so you have to have the ability to Pivot very quickly like you guys did with Co you have to have that ability to handle that stress and handle that pressure so you can power through for sure absolutely yeah no I love that where do you see you you think you know where do you see yourself uh you know growing uh triest you know where where do you see yourself with that and on to the Future yeah so I joined tribe vest of July of last year nice so it's been about um been about one year and we have   really developed um you know this this fund of Fund in a box right like you've probably heard about how the market is really shifting from the cgp model right to fun of funds because the is kind of you know they kind of started investigating people and you know these folks that had these cgps that were just raising capital and not doing anything else which everyone knows you're not supposed to do but everybody does it anyways yep um started looking for another solution and the fund the funds model has always been it is the solution   it's always been the solution it's not a new thing it's just a more you just people didn't know of it at the time at a high level yeah and and honestly it it's more complicated it's more expensive it's more expensive and there's just you know a lot more things to go into it so people just took the easy route did theot quote CP rout and and it you know I guess I'll say that it worked up until this point right like I guess you could say you got away with it or what have you um but the market is is   is Shifting or has shifted to the co or to the fun everything is fun to funs now that's all I'm seeing is fund to funds models training programs you know and fund to funds things like that you know it's definitely questionable I think as an investor I would ask if if I'm talking to a sponsor hey are you the lead sponsor or you a fun of funds because in in my eyes you're paying double fees you know to get into those opportunities don't get me wrong people need to make money people are giving you   great opportunities to invest and build your Capital um but there's definitely questions I feel like definitely needs to be involved yeah I mean there's always questions right I mean even when everyone was using the CP model it's like well who's actually the operating partner who's the lead sponsor who's actually going to execute the business plan after we closing this property and I think a lot of cgps were kind of masquerading as the operating partner like hey this is my deal I found the property I'm going to be doing this   executing this business plan in reality there's a lead sponsor who found the deal who's signing the loan documents who's going to execute the business plan and sometimes there passive investors don't even know they don't even know and and fund manager like you said kind of same it's the same thing right the fund manager should not be representing that they're the operating partner Som or anything like that um I know at tribe vest we we really emphasize that because the the vehicle that we use is an SPV   fund of fund where the the fund of fund is designed only to invest in one specific deal so we're not it's not a discretionary fund where you can do whatever we can do whereever whatever you want invest you know multiple deals or anything it is one deal so you're really just serving as a conduit uh to invest in a Target deal so it's very clear to the pive investors very spe specific if you invest in this fund of fund all your capital is going into this deal and we disclose those deal documents as well so those offering   documents are an exhibit to the fund of fund offering documents most definitely no I think that's super important and we have a fund that we've put together for car washes and before we really truly launch the fund we have we have those deals locked under and we're like look these are the deals we may add some more deals but these are the specific deals that we are buying and that the capital is going into yeah yep yeah for I think that's super important so you guys are really taking advantage of this   opportunity out in California um you see it definitely growing you know with your guys's portfolio out there oh for sure for sure I mean the fun to funds model we we've made it affordable right so the the problems with it were that it's complicated it's expensive those are the two B two biggest things you've got to get your if you're a fund manager who used to be a cgp depending on the lead sponsor to do everything for you now you've got to do all those things yeah accounting you know all bookkeeping all   of that you got to open a business banking account you got to form your LLC you've got to find a Securities attorney you've got to find a CPA you've got to manage your investors you got to find a platform all those things that the lead sponsor usually does yeah and then you're going to have to pay depending on the attorney you know anywhere from 15 to 30,000 absolutely uh you know on average some are even 50,000 from what I hear but normally the head attorney who's running the whole syndication will   have a deal where you can do a fund of funds at a cheaper amount but it's going to cost maybe 15 20,000 for you as a fund manager to open up your own fund right and you know that some CPS former CPS can't really raise Capital right like they own a deal and they say hey I can raise a million bucks easy and then they come up with 100,000 bucks or zero yeah right so if you do that with a fund of funds well now you an attorney 15,000 bucks or 25,000 bucks and you didn't raise any Capital you're screwed that's   a lot of money out of your pocket when you weren't able to get paid on that deal yep um but what we've done at triest is combined all all those things together love that we you with triest it's a fun to fun in a box it's basically done for you kind of a done for you program you know you you get your k1s we open your business banking account we form your LLC we do your offering documents we on board your investors so we send out electronic signatures of the offering documents quote unquote hurting the cats right   getting getting them to wire their funds basically taking the place of an investor relation which I will tell you I love our investors that will sign and wire right then and there but we do have those sum that will sign and then the wire is like pulling teeth and it comes to a point where I'm like look like I feel like I'm stepping my boundaries by keep asking you hey why are your Capital we need you know it's very difficult sometimes yeah it is it is and I can feel for him a little bit especially the first time   around ,000 bucks you're like whoa this is crazy wiring to a stranger or somebody you might have just had a couple of contacts you know we we advertise heavily on social media we only accept accredited investors as a 506c so we can advertise we advertise heavily on social media um I don't actually to be honest with you I don't think I've ever done a 506b that's awesome that's a great that's place to play I always6 coun people to do five sixc and only accept credit investors that's going to keep you safe yeah 100% you know and   it's it's a lot easier um but yeah you know I think it's it's super important to go that route and even with those new investors I definitely understand you know 50 200 300 you know 500,000 is a lot of capital from someone you you met on social media that's why you ask the right questions that's why you get references you understand the business model business strategy and at the end of the day though you have to take a risk you have to take a risk and a leite got the trigger and just do it yep got   to take action I love that you guys are doing that all inone I think that's huge yeah yeah and going back to to pricing man you the last Law Firm that I worked at huge Law Firm top three law firm in the world we charged $75,000 you bullsh out of the gate for a set of s now this was at the lead sponsor level but a lead sponsor documents and that's just for the initial drafts and then it's charged per hour no way yeah get started just to get started people don't realize how expensive creting a fund is it's   expensive yeah yeah and then some people you know there are you know these Boutique firms I mean even my Boutique firm we do it at a much lower cost and people are like whoa that's so expensive because they just haven't seen it I'm like you have no idea how expensive it actually can be oh I know do you do you see yourself uh going into any other practice of law oh I don't think so secur is where it's at man I mean I've I'm a fund manager I've syndicated deals myself as a lead sponsor you know I've   worked as a Securities attorney now for a number of years so it's it's kind of where my interest and my legal practice have kind of combined how do how do you keep up with your energy and your mindset your your your high energy your great mindset how do you keep up with that and cultivate that man I think you know we kind of touched on it before but we didn't quite get around to it it a lot of it is just trying to take care of yourself staying healthy man getting sleep that's super important right I   think a lot of entrepreneurs run themselves into the ground and they don't sleep man I don't care what time I get to bed I'm sleeping 7 hours so I I set my alarm clock for 7 hours after I really you do that after I lay down interesting I'm complete opposite oh yeah uh no matter what time I go to bed I wake up at 6:00 a.m. no matter what time uh Stephanie can tell you I'll send her emails at 3:00 4 a.m. in the morning you might get 2 hours might get 10 hours yep no never 10 no never o never over   seven okay I can't get over seven hours yeah I if I get over seven hours I feel joggy I feel like I've slept I've wasted my day um even on Saturdays and Sundays I will wake up boom and you know if whoever's in the my girl who's in the bed I'm in in my office at the home working you know at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday that's how I'm wired if we get home at 1:00 from an evening you know out with friends which I rarely do 6:00 a.m. I'm up ready to go that's awesome man that's awesome and I think what helps you know I don't drink yeah don't   drink alcohol I don't care to um you know I drink water I drink too much lattes yeah uh but uh but yeah don't drank alcohol and I think that's helped tremendously sure not being in my system yeah that there's a huge movement now right towards not drinking my what's this new there's this new uh drink everyone's getting it's uh it's not it's we all know a virgin drink meaning no alcohol but a mocktail oh yeah every I'm hearing this everywhere everyone's just saying they're getting mocktails cuz they don't want to drink it there's like   mocktail bars there are I think there's some in Charlotte that are mocktail bars and they don't serve any alcohol at all um and I think a lot of people again I don't know if it was Co or whatever but a lot of people are very conscious with their health they're watching what they eat even you know with go again going to these grocery stores next time you go to the grocery store look at that this is bio-engineered chemicals you know a lot of people are watching that in what they're putting into their system for   sure for sure people are much more aware of it I mean I I'm a drinker I do drink which is fine yeah but I do I you know I did dry January and honestly you can just you can tell I mean you're poisoning your body with alcohol I think at this point everybody understands that they realize that and they choose either to do it or not but is poison to your body I mean that's what at the end of the day it is and for me personally I don't I don't care to wake up feeling you know joggy or anything like that I   care to wake up feeling great you know thriving and ready to go but alcohol does do that alcohol will do that to you and you'll definitely see the the weight I mean my lattes I see my lattes at my lower stomach and I'm like I got to do more ABS got to eat healthier got to drink the black coffee man I do so I drink the black coffee but when I'm out and about I'll stop and get a latte I I don't know I love I just love these lattes yeah I drink a ton of coffee so but mostly black coffee at home I I'll   make black coffee 100% at home black coffee but if I'm out and about traveling or something like that I'm like got to give me a latte yeah for sure but yeah man I mean it's it's staying healthy you got to keep yourself healthy to be able to perform mentally yeah you have to you have to these days especially with all this bioengineered you know chemicals all this type of food out there that is just unhealthy for you you have to really watch what you eat for sure for sure you got to get that work out in I mean if I'm not working if   I don't work out for like 2 days in a row I'm going I'm going like stir crazy oh I am too I am too I work out every single day and even if I can't get a full like hard workout in I'm like okay I'm going to walk around the block like I'm going to and I and I now have a tread meal under my desk where I'm like I'm going to at least walk one mile because I know I can't get a full workout in at the gym today so I'm at least going to walk one mile because I I have to keep my body doing something for sure there's something about it it just   clears your mind out right like it just it gives you Clarity by working out when when you don't work out for a couple of days man it's just like fog just I just feel foggy it no 100% you don't feel sharp I'm a big I'm a big fan of the sauna and the steam room yeah I love a nice sauna in the steam room I I do it before I work out and after I work out and I can stay in there for 30 minutes each like I love it in there um but I I think you know adopting that I'm looking into that red light therapy I don't know   if you've looked into it I've heard of it I've seen it but I haven't done a ton of research on it yet I've done some research on it I'm doing more on it though I don't know enough to be dangerous but I'm it's definitely everything I'm reading is very highly beneficial you get that like built into the sauna right I've SE if you get the home Sona too see I'm I'm bougie I work on a lifetime uh they don't have it there um but uh hopefully they do soon um but yeah you can get one of those home saas that also have the red light   therapy in it yeah yeah yeah I think I think that's huge um from what I've done with research is very beneficial for your body there you go let me know let me know what you what you find out I will I'll definitely let you know on that so I love what you guys are doing out in La you know really maximizing what that current law is out there do you see yourself you know you guys possibly getting into the multif family space of large multif family because I know that's what when you and I first met we   we were doing that all that you see yourself going back into that route sure man I mean when the market makes sense and I'm not saying it doesn't make sense but I I don't have a fully build out team right that that's able to find and identify great deals and that takes that takes a lot takes time effort all that exactly so I don't have that fully built out team but when it makes sense to partner with somebody that does have that team and I like the deal certainly certainly no I I don't I don't blame you   I think right now there's still a huge disconnect um I will have to agree with Grant cordone on this is that um I watched a video and he said um right now it's going to be very difficult to put push rents which I've said before and I agree with uh he's given a timeline about 2026 and then uh from there he feels that rents are going to Skyrocket substanti I you know right now it's going be very difficult push R you're not going to be able to for a good couple years so how are you undering you know back in the   day right after covid with the c rate compression everyone's underwriting four five 7% rent growth you know every single year and it's like you can't do that now and that's when I I saw the really the writing on the wall um and then from there you know if if that it's going to be like that for the next couple years till 2026 you know after that is it going to spike or is it not you know there's going to be a lot of Supply coming on the market how how what's it going to look like you know it's unpredictable man it's tough   anybody that tells you that they know the answer they they don't know they might be taking a good guess but they don't know they don't know I think you're going to see a lot of people switch asset classes like we did you know we're in the car War sector we're going to stay in the car War sector um you know will we get into Hospitality or retail here in Charlotte I mean I'd be dumb not to get into retail here in Charlotte or Hospitality we all know Charlotte's booming um it's a wild City so you getting our hands on great   property great real estate it may make sense yeah you you got to stay Nimble you got to stay Nimble you you can't just uh you can't just stay in one vertical one industry one asset type just because that's you know what you've done in the past corre that might not make sense right now today's market I think we saw a lot of sponsors in 2023 get into that

Title: Million Dollar Monday - Joe Fairless Summary: In this short conversation between Seth Bradley and Joe Fairless, Joe shares that he made both his first and last million dollars through apartment deal exits. Although he lost his first million on his very first deal, his net worth surpassed $1M after exiting his 7th or 8th apartment investment. Joe emphasizes a singular focus on multifamily investing as the key to his continued success, echoing the mantra: “Riches are in the niches.” Links to Watch and Subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: First and last million came from apartment deal exits Lost his first million on his very first deal Reached $1 million net worth after the seventh or eighth deal Focused entirely on multifamily apartment investing Believes in the philosophy: "Riches are in the niches" Plans to continue scaling by sticking with apartment deals Transcript: Joe Fairless (00:00.11) So how did you make your first million dollars?   Same way I made my last one. So spoiler alert, it's selling when a deal exited. was probably like the seventh or eighth deal. One million dollars on one transaction, right? Is that true?   It's a million dollars in your net worth.   So...   What puts you over the edge there? How did you grow that first million?   Seth Bradley (00:29.962) I lost my first million before I ever came across it. That was on the very first deal. It would probably be through an exit of a deal.   Sure, yeah and I'll bet it's probably similar. mean how are you gonna, how are you planning on making your next million dollars? Same thing, the apartments. All about apartments man, I love it. Singular focus, that's where it's at. mean, riches are in the niches.   same thing.   Seth Bradley (00:57.775) Yep. Yup. Yup. Awesome Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Joe Fairless's Links: https://www.facebook.com/imjoefairless https://x.com/joefairless https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefairless/ https://ashcroftcapital.com/our-team/joe-fairless/ https://www.instagram.com/besteverpodcast/?hl=en

Title: Build a Bigger Life, Not a Bigger Lifestyle: The Real Path to Freedom with Adam Caroll Summary: In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, guest (Adam Carroll) shares his journey from a traveling professional speaker to building sustainable wealth through passive income strategies. After realizing the limitations of trading time for money, Adam developed The Shred Method, a cashflow reorientation system that minimizes debt interest and frees up capital to build liquidity and invest. By leveraging lines of credit and algorithm-driven cash deployment, individuals can rapidly pay down debts and reallocate savings into passive income streams like real estate syndications, intellectual property, and other alternative investments. Adam stresses that most high-income earners don't have an income problem - they have a liquidity problem tied up in low-access retirement plans and excessive spending. Finally, he expands on his philosophy of "building a bigger life, not a bigger lifestyle," urging professionals to align spending and time with their values to achieve fulfillment and financial freedom within 10 years. Links to Watch and Subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Trading time for money is limiting. Adam shifted from paid speaking gigs to building passive income streams for true freedom. The Shred Method minimizes interest expenses. By using cashflow more efficiently through lines of credit and optimized algorithms, debt is paid down faster, freeing liquidity for investing. Passive income is key to wealth. Adam focuses on real estate syndications, ATM tranches, intellectual property, and digital products to generate consistent, diversified passive cash flow. Most people have a liquidity problem, not an income problem. Money is often locked in 401(k)s or spent wastefully — instead, creating accessible liquidity allows for opportunity-based investing. Building a bigger life requires intentionality. Aligning spending and actions with core values (like family, freedom, growth) leads to fulfillment — not just more stuff. The game becomes fun. Once passive income starts flowing, investing becomes strategic, diversified, and compounding — eventually replacing active income and creating financial independence. Anyone can implement this. While you can DIY, Adam recommends coaching to fast-track understanding and execution of the Shred Method. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) (00:02.094) What's up, Builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm (Seth Bradley), securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.   If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Adam, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.   Hey Seth, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited about our conversation today.   Yeah, dude, super stoked to have you on today. It's going to be an awesome show, man. Let's dive right in. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your background. Take it back as far as you want to. Yeah.   Well, for the last 15 years or so, almost 20 now, guess, I've been making my living, opening my mouth and just speaking on stages all across the country. Had the opportunity to do a couple of international gigs, which was a blast. And in the midst of all that, making my living as a professional speaker, I realized that if I was very similar to your audience, if I wasn't doing the deal, doing the gig, doing the engagement, I wasn't getting paid.   (Adam Carroll) (01:26.184) And so a mentor of mine said, the goal is not to go to work and get paid. The goal is to go to work and get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid. And so I started figuring out that what I really wanted to do with the messaging that I was delivering was turn it into sort of a mediapreneurship where I was a mediapreneur creating content, but then I'd get paid for the content over and over and over again. And that today looks like I've written a bunch of books.   I've got a documentary that I produced that aired on CNBC. And now we're starting to get into more of a SaaS business, which I'm sure we'll talk about. That's the shred method. But I, you what I do when people ask me, I tell them, I love to educate people about new and different ways of building a bigger life, not a bigger lifestyle. And I would say you and I have that in common, because I know you're doing that on the show.   Yeah, absolutely, man. I gotta ask, how do you become a professional speaker? I bet a lot of people are thinking about that.   The origin story is kind of interesting because I was a clothier at the time in Denver, Colorado. And I was literally going out and meeting with high level executives in their offices, selling them custom made suits and shirts and sport coats and pants and whatnot. And it occurred to me in the middle of a meeting at one point, an appointment with one of my clients that I didn't want to measure in seams for the rest of my life. And I'll keep it PG but   This guy was one of my favorite clients. He was irreverent and funny and wasn't afraid to spend money on clothes. But this particular day, he confided in me that he wasn't wearing any underwear. And I was just like, dude, JP, what? You knew I was coming here today. He's like, I know, I just forgot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I walked out and I went, I don't want to do this anymore. I just don't want to do this. And the company that I worked for is a fairly well known clothier. But   (Adam Carroll) (03:22.55) Every day I would drive around in my car listening to motivational messages. You know, they were on CDs at the time. I'm going to date myself, but I would listen to like Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield and Les Brown and Zig Ziglar. I would listen to all these CDs in my car. And Mark Victor Hansen said on one of the CDs that public speaking is one of the most noble professions because you get to travel the world. You get to change people's lives and you make a lot of money doing it. And I remember thinking.   That's what I want to do. All three of those things rolled into one. And so I reached out to a buddy of mine and said, dude, I don't think I'm in the right job. I need to be doing something else. He said, what do you want to do? And I told him, and you know how the universe kind of works in mysterious ways. He goes, well, Anne, who used to work with us, she works for a company that that's all they do is hire speakers. And so I sent in a tape, I auditioned, I got the gig.   And I was a W2 employee of theirs for about two years and then realized that I was being underpaid for the work I was doing, that I was actually probably one of the top 10 % of speakers on the roster. And then I realized that when you can make anywhere from a thousand to $5,000 an hour doing that, it was a pretty good paying gig if you were out on your own. I took the jump and have been doing it ever since.   Interesting man. I didn't realize that you could have a W-2 as a speaker I thought everybody that was speaking was getting the speakers that were getting paid, you know They were kind of doing it on their own. I don't realize there was kind of a there was a way to do it where there's a company that pays W-2 wages to speakers to speak it events. Yeah, it's interesting   It is interesting because there are companies that will hire you as a speaker to go and it may be sell their product or service. Or in this case, I was working for a company that was a division of monster.com, the job search company. And I was, I was speaking to high school and college students all across the country. And I probably presented to like 200,000 people in, two years time. So it was just a great practice run and a great way to cut my teeth on a very difficult audience. Because.   (Adam Carroll) (05:36.814) I don't know if you've ever been around a freshman in high school or a sophomore in high school, but they're like the most apathetic human beings on the face of earth. They don't want to be there. I could have lit myself on fire and they'd been like, cool, what else you got? And then when I realized that there were speakers like me that were out who basically just said, this is my topic. This is my specialty, if you will. And here's the rate. And the more they spoke and the...   we have a theory that the more you speak, the more you speak. So once you get out, you hang your own shingle and say, I'm a speaker in this topic, people begin to know you as that person. And then word gets around and obviously you have to not suck on stage. That's part of it. But if you're great at keeping audiences attention, and I really studied NLP, neuro-linguistic programming to use the right words, I studied comedians to figure out what was funny and what wasn't, and it just worked.   Over time, I had more more bookings and at the peak of my career, I was doing like 70 or 75 gigs a year.   Wow, wow, that's incredible. Definitely didn't realize that was your background. I remember those folks coming to like the office and selling suits and doing that sort of thing. So that's pretty interesting. I'm sure a lot of listeners out there are familiar with that process as well.   Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was a great, it was a great gig. mean, I met all sorts of really phenomenal business people. And I think for me, it was, it was like confirmation that I had this desire to, to impact people. And my boss at one point, he was like, Hey, these people love you. They want you to come around. They love the discussion and the conversation. They need to buy stuff from you. And, and there was a.   (Seth Bradley) (07:01.639) sorry, go ahead.   (Adam Carroll) (07:26.574) It's kind of a realization for me that I didn't necessarily want to have to sell. wanted people to buy. And speaking makes it real easy to do that.   Hmm. Yeah, makes sense. Let's jump right into it, man. Let's talk about the shred method. A lot of folks will find this very interesting. I know that I do. What is it? And let's just start there. What is it? Tell us a little bit about it.   Yeah, the shred method, first of all, thank you for asking. it's, it's, for me, I don't say this lightly, but nothing has built more wealth for me and my family than following this model. And the reason for it is there are two great expenses that everyone has in life. And I'm sure all of your listeners, be they attorneys, doctors, other professionally degreed folks.   If you're in a W-2 job, you know this to be true. The two greatest expenses we have in life are taxes and the interest expense on debt. Those are the two greatest expenses. And a gentleman that I had met years ago who helped me with tax situations, just a brilliant, brilliant strategist, he said, Adam, if you focus on minimizing your tax liability, that will get you halfway there. And it's very easy to do, buy real estate, have depreciable assets.   you know, make personal expenses, business expenses, etc, etc. But he said, if you can focus on minimizing the interest expense on debt, this is like a video game that you can't lose. And so when I learned about the shred method, and this is known by a variety of different terms, some people call it an Australian mortgage, it's called velocity banking, we've taken those concepts and turbocharged them.   (Adam Carroll) (09:09.474) almost like putting nitrous oxide in a gas tank, you know, in terms of making it go faster. But the shred method is a unique tool and a way of reorienting your cash flow through your household so that it is being used to the most efficient use possible. And to kind of qualify that, Seth, if you were to leave your home in the morning to go to the grocery store, as an example, and you came back home, emptied the car out,   knowing you had to go to post office at like 4 p.m., would you leave your car idling in the driveway all day?   (Adam Carroll) (09:46.284) Nope. No, and why wouldn't you?   Wasteful.   Yeah, wasteful, you'd burn gas, it'd be hard on the engine. It's just inefficient, right? And yet what most people do is they get their income, their income gets deposited into a checking account, and it sits there for days, weeks, months, sometimes years on end. And we never really use it to its highest efficiency. Meanwhile, we might have debts, commercial debts, primary mortgages, might have student loans yet. And all of those are accruing amortized interest.   right? And you might say it's compound interest working against you to a certain extent. But at the very least amortized interest means that the majority of the interest you're paying on that debt is upfront, it's in the first one to five years. And so the shred method teaches people how to take that income that is being super inefficient in an account, and instead begin to apply it through a process that allows you to blast away   the highest interest or highest payment debts that you have, freeing up cash flow, building equity, and ultimately, and this is the key, creating liquidity to go buy passive income properties, if you will, or other passive income plays.   (Seth Bradley) (11:02.058) Interesting. Yeah, and we actually haven't had anyone on the show to speak about this method, whatever nomenclature you might use. So let's go in a little bit more detail. mean, what is the vehicle? What is this flow of money that you're talking about?   So, know, logistically, here's how it works. Money typically would just get deposited into checking. You pay everything out of checking your mortgage, your car loan, your credit cards, living expenses. And the gurus would tell you that anything extra should really go towards savings and investments, right? And for most people, it goes to Costco, Target and Dining Out. That's where it goes. You know, it doesn't stay in the account, doesn't go into savings. If it does, it goes there for a small period of time. I think that most people   don't really have a savings account, they have a put and take account, because they put a little bit in, take a little bit out, put a little bit in, take a lot out. So the way this works is the money instead of being deposited straight to a checking account gets deposited into what we call a shred account. And the shred account could either be a line of credit, or it could be just a side account of money that you have sitting there that has not been accessed in some time. And what we tell our users is that   you really want to have either a line of credit or a shred account that is one and a half to two times what your monthly net take home is. So if you're bringing home 10 grand a month net, then ideally you want either a line of credit or a shred account of 15 to 20 grand. And the magic of this is the money is going to flow into that account. But the shred method is powered by a piece of software that is based on an algorithm that's tracking your income.   your expenses, the interest that you're paying on all your debts, and how much discretionary money you have available at any given point in time. And essentially, we're leveraging that in really short bursts of time against your largest debts, which could be, again, student loans, could be your mortgage, could be commercial properties. And in doing that, what we're doing is we're saving copious amounts of interest, like literally tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.   (Adam Carroll) (13:11.122) And in the process, we're freeing up a ton of equity. So people that are saying, hey, I'm paycheck to paycheck. It's hard for me to figure out how am I going to invest more money? We're telling them the money is going to come from the equity that you're creating in your properties by paying them down rapidly.   I love that because I can see where this is going to potentially free up some extra cash to invest. A lot of folks out there, including myself back in the day, we got caught up in this thing we call the golden handcuffs where we're just spending everything. Like you said, we're spending it on Target, on eating out, on things that we really don't need. mean, there's a time and place for spending money on having a good time and enjoying your life for sure.   But we just we tend to overdo it as our income grows our expenses grow right along with it And a lot of people that I talked to about investing they're like, you know I don't have fifty thousand dollars to invest in this real estate deal or a hundred thousand dollars in this real estate deal and it's like well Well, why don't you you know make three hundred thousand dollars you why don't you have fifty thousand dollars to invest in this awesome deal? Right or to you know, put aside for your emergency fund. Like why don't you have these things set up?   So, you know, we always have to walk them through, you know, the expenses is the issue. Really, it's what are you spending all this money on? we try to find how they can save on those expenses so that they can invest in these assets that are really going to set them financially free.   No doubt. And I think you hit the nail on the head. If somebody's making, and honestly, I tell people if you're making six figures plus $100,000 plus, and you don't have 10, 20, $50,000 ready to go, there's something fundamentally wrong. And here it is, we're sending too much money to our banker, and it just goes up in smoke. Right? We like to refer to it as the interest to income ratio, which is if you take how much income you make,   (Adam Carroll) (15:11.694) and you back out how much of that income is actually going to pay interest expense, it'll probably blow your mind. If someone's got a multi-six figure home or mortgage that they're paying on, and they've got student loans, and maybe they're driving a $50,000 to $100,000 vehicle with a payment attached to it, you're probably burning 50 to 60 grand a year in interest and not really thinking twice about it. So what this does is it starts to claw back some of the money that you're sending to your banker.   Which by the way, they make plenty of money. They don't need your money. That is the most profitable business out there is banking and lending. mean, literally, Seth, if you drive two miles around your property there, how many banks would you be able to stop at, do you think? Ballpark best guess.   Right, half a dozen.   Easily, right? And they're probably $10 million buildings minimum. Out there, they're even more, right? So, so this is the deal. They're profitable business ventures. And what we have to remember sometimes is we are their compound interest vehicle, right? Us making our payment every single month is what makes the banks all the money. And if we can game that system, if even for 12 to 18 months at the very beginning of our debt,   we can strip away a huge chunk of the interest that we would normally be paying them over the course of a decade or more. To your audience, that's how I'd say this is how you find the extra 50 or 100 grand because you do have it and it should be in the equity of your property and easily accessible as a liquidity tool. It just isn't because you haven't challenged the banking system.   (Seth Bradley) (16:57.073) Yeah. Now, is this something you can set up yourself or is this something that you need an expert to kind of walk you through? I'm sure if you could probably do it either way. It's just like anything else. You want to take the shortcut or not. But yeah, I just like to know your thoughts on that.   You're exactly right. I I could build a deck on my house if I wanted to and had three months to learn how to do it. Anybody can learn how to do this. My question to most people when they say, I do this myself? I'll say, yes, why haven't you? And for that, the investment with us is very minimal, mainly what it is is coaching and being able to help people get the logistics right. Because once they get it, it's very simple.   but there requires a little bit of retraining the brain in terms of how to handle your money and where the cash flow goes, because it's so, it's like so ingrained in us to live in the banker's business model, put money in checking, pay your bills, anything leftover goes over here. And if you look at it critically, the two groups that are really making money using the existing platform are bankers,   and any advisors that are accepting your money and then turning around and doing something with it. A friend of mine used to call it the helper class. So when the helper class has your money, they're making a ton of money, probably more than you are. And that's our goal is to begin to start to pull back some of the money from the helper class to keep it for ourselves to build those massive passive permanent streams of income.   Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. We tend to bash a few of those helper class folks. I mean, they're not all created equal, including some financial advisors and folks like that that, you know, they're okay people, but their interests aren't necessarily aligned with yours.   (Adam Carroll) (18:51.576) That's right. I would agree with that. I don't want to villainize them, but I think that personal finance is personal. The challenge that I have with anyone out there who espouses a certain way, mine included, is it has to be for the right kind of audience, the right avatar. From our perspective, the people that we help out are the ones who do want to break free from the W-2. They want to create massive passive permanent streams of income.   Over time, they'd like to build a bigger life, not a bigger lifestyle. So if someone's chronically overspending, got to have the newest of the new every single time, they may not be a perfect fit with our strategy because the goal is to continually increase your income while either keeping your expenses similar or even trending down over time, which is not to say that you can't expand where you're spending. Your income is increasing exponentially relative to your expenses.   we do that through the model that we're teaching people. So, you if you're a new car every six months or 12 months kind of person may not be a perfect fit. But if you're somebody who's like, hey, the debt's kind of oppressive, I want to get rid of it. And I want to build, you know, massive wealth for future generations, then generally speaking, we're a pretty good fit for for those folks.   Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I feel like there's, there's probably, it's probably a math equation, right? Like we can't necessarily do it on this show because it's, everybody's taking it in by audio for the most part. there's gotta be an algorithm and you could probably, you know, set those expense numbers and interest numbers that you're paying on your mortgage and other debts and what you're going to pay on that through the shred method and kind of see the savings and how you can grow that wealth year over year.   You're exactly right. It is super fluid. So if your income changes, your expenses change, we plug all that data in and hit recalculate and the thing automatically adjusts to whatever your expenses are. So one of the things that I would never fault anyone for is taking awesome vacations or buying a new car, whatever your choice is. Again, we're not going to villainize anyone for living their life.   (Adam Carroll) (21:06.67) But what we can do through shred is to say, hey, if you're going to drop 10 grand on a vacation, it's going to change your payoff by a month or two months or six months, depending on your income and discretionary income. And if someone knows that and they're planning on it, at least they're armed with that information as opposed to, gosh, we shouldn't do this, but we did or should we buy this $50,000 card? Does it make sense? Or 80 or 150 or whatever your number is.   We can show you exactly do it, just know this is what it changes in the process.   Yeah, yeah, I like that because you can just show them this is the impact it's going to have on paper before they do it and then you can make a better decision on whether or not you want to do that or not.   Absolutely. And furthermore, and you'll appreciate this, I know you're of this mindset, you'll get to a point where it's like, if you want the new car, then invest the money in a syndication or another property that puts enough money in your pocket, you can go pay for the car. But let your assets pay for your liabilities. And I think that's the main thing that many people, I'm sure your listeners, certainly folks that we engage with.   They don't have a lot of assets. They work hard, they make good money, but that is the sum total of their income, is active income. And our goal is to increase passive income over time where it supersedes your expenses because at that point you're financially free.   (Seth Bradley) (22:36.758) Right, right. What are some of the passive investments that you're involved in or that you recommend to people once they've implemented this system and they're trying to build those passive income streams?   Yeah, there are a number of them and I keep getting introduced to more and more all the time, Seth. I mentioned that, you know, that I was a mediapreneur and that the goal was to work, do the work and then get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid. So I started looking for other passive income streams. I really do love real estate. I've been invested in real estate for a long time. We divested of personally held real estate about four or five years ago. And   You know, I think I was too early to the party, but I thought the market was peaking and I thought I could get the max amount out of my properties. And I think I did at the time. And then we were introduced to syndications and we started really appreciating the fact that you could own a piece of a 350 unit apartment complex in South Carolina or Houston, Texas, or some other growing city and get a couple things, either monthly or quarterly income. You could get bonus depreciation.   And you basically got a K1 at the end of the year, which allows you to claim some of those expenses. And so we love syndications. We try and stack syndications on top of each other. they're coming due. They're selling every three or four or five years. So we'll put an amount of capital in knowing that it's going to turn over in short order. And we'll have another amount of capital to put in. And generally speaking, that capital amount just keeps going up.   So we love syndications. I've been introduced and we haven't pulled the trigger yet, but on ATM tranches where you can buy, have you heard this investment? Yep. So you can buy, you know, an amount of ATM machines where you're basically compensated on whatever the fee revenue on those are. There are many advantages to those. There are some drawbacks to it, but it's again, a passive income stream and one that's fairly consistent.   (Seth Bradley) (24:25.798) yeah, for sure.   (Adam Carroll) (24:44.59) Then I really like intellectual property plays. I will tend to invest in a business that has some IP and it may not cashflow right away, but I know that in two or three years, the IP is probably going to be worth something. It's more of a long-term play for me. I'm not going to put as much in it, but we have a couple of 25 to $50,000 investments in those kinds of deals as well. That, in addition to books and   documentary is still selling and things like that I'll keep doing. For me, the process of creating passive income is kind of a game. And so whatever the next thing is, I'm digging in, I want to learn it. total sidebar, but I'm trying to teach my sons and my daughter, this is the way of the future. It's not about working a nine to five and getting W2 and staying with the company for 30 years, it just doesn't happen anymore. It's about setting up   just perpetual income streams that allow you to live the way you want to live. And that, you know, I think that answers your question, hopefully.   (Seth Bradley) (25:52.174) Pardon the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.   Yeah, yeah, that's right. You're preaching to the choir here, man. That's awesome. And you're kind of pretty deep into it. A lot of people will invest in a syndication and it is expensive to get involved, right? I mean, it's 50 grand or so or more to get into one of these things. And they're like, okay, I'm done. But you can't be done. You have to keep saving, keep investing. And you're in it to the point where past investors start really start accumulating wealth because they start stacking.   They start coming due every two, three, four, five years. You put it back in another one and they just compound on each other. And you're really accumulating this tax free if you stack them correctly. So it is an incredible vehicle once you get going. And it does turn into a game. I mean, you can look at your bank account or look at your personal P &L and just see how it's growing over five, 10 years. It's incredible. And you're not doing any work. You're vetting the sponsor, the market and the deal and really just the sponsor once you get really good at it.   and you keep reinvesting with the same sponsors that you like and there's no work involved, no tenants, toilets and trash, none of that.   Yes. Yes. And I think you hit the nail on the head when you find a sponsor you really like and you jive with, it's easy to roll the money over to them because they're constantly looking for the next deal. their reputation, their personality, everything is based on their success. they have a very, very vested interest to make you money. And so I don't think I fully realized when I was younger   (Adam Carroll) (27:50.35) the power of having the ability to write a 50 or $100,000 check. And once you get there and you can do 50 or 100 or get to a point where you can write a $500,000 or a million dollar check, things change drastically because there are syndicators out there that will take a million bucks. They'll pay you $90,000 a year guaranteed on the investment. You'll get bonus depreciation and write-offs and all of that. And you'll have like a...   200 % return on it within four or five years, three, four or five years. That's where you can buy a new car every year or two or three, because you need like a $75,000 or $80,000 write-off to your business. So you need a truck or you need a heavy vehicle,   Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, that's a good point. mean, people that have $500,000, a million dollars or more liquid, I mean, you can just look at a simple math and you get an 8 to 10 % return on that in cash flow, just in cash flow. You know, if you're living reasonably, you can live off of that. So, yeah, so you can be, you you don't need $10 million, $20 million to retire off of this if you invest in the right deals.   Totally. Totally.   (Seth Bradley) (29:03.926) and kind of spread it across, diversify in different deals, different sponsors, different geographies, different asset types. You can be retired if you want to. It's closer than people think.   I would agree. We have a theory that nearly everyone and certainly your audience could be free, done, done completely in 10 years or less. Absolutely. We call it a 10-year freedom plan. the challenge, think, Seth, and I would be curious your take on this, but I think the challenge for most people is not necessarily an income problem. It's a liquidity problem. So you make good income, right? And we talked about it. It's the expenses that factors in.   But where the majority of your investments go are probably in qualified funds. They're sitting in 401ks and Roth IRAs. Unless it's self-directed, you can't really access it till you're 59 and a half. And even then it's 59 and a half to 70 and a half, you have free rein access. Otherwise the government's regulating how much you take out without fees or penalties. That's a liquidity problem. And so the shred method takes that into account and starts to build   pockets or buckets of liquidity that you can draw from. The first is your home equity, or it could be equity in a commercial property. And then the next would be building a bank of money that you're borrowing from at some point in time, just another bucket. And the more buckets of money that we create, the more liquidity you have and the more investments you can get into, thereby increasing your passive income. So to your point, you do this well, it's like a video game you can't lose over time.   Yeah, yeah, that's right. And we've been programmed to think if we have a high paying job, we just put as much as we can into a 401k and we're doing the right thing and we're doing everything that we need to do and we're not and then everything that doesn't go into that 401k we're spending. So we're not saving anything else. We're not keeping anything else liquid. And we're just assuming that we're going to be okay because we put this money in the 401k. Well, like you said, you can't access it until you're 60 years old. That's right. Unless you take it out with a major penalty. So   (Seth Bradley) (31:10.062) You know, one way to do that obviously is to roll it over in an SDIRA or self-directed, I'm sorry, 401k, the self-directed, something that you have some control over. And then it does become liquid in the sense that you can at least invest it in things that you want to invest in rather than a financial advisor or just stocks, bonds and mutual funds. And then as you said, there's different ways that you can free up liquidity, a HELOC.   something like that borrow against a life insurance policy we've talked about infinite banking policies things like that there's there's creative ways to do it you just need to be aware of it most people just aren't aware of how to how to do that   Yeah, I think that's what's so valuable about your show too, man, is that we only know what we know. And there's an enormous amount that we don't know we don't know. So when I got introduced to syndications, and I got introduced to the ATM tranches, and I'm looking at these going, you know, there is risk, there's risk in everything. But the risk is so mitigated. And you don't realize that if you're writing $100,000 check, and they're saying, yeah, we're going to pay you 9 % guaranteed.   And these are some syndicators will promise an interest rate based on what class of investor you are, A, B, C, D, whatever it may be. But when I looked at that and I go, if I'm striving to get eight to 10 % in the S &P 500, and I have zero control over that, where would I rather be placing my money? That was something I didn't know I didn't know. And it's always fascinating to me to begin sharing this with people because   When I share the shred method, a lot of folks go, not too good to be true. If it's so good, why isn't everybody doing it? And what I'll tell them is because of human behavior and because the bank's lobbies and their marketing engine is so powerful. But it's not magic, it's math. We're taking mathematical principles, risk-based principles and applying it to real estate or finance and figuring out how to make an amount of money that will supersede what you're.   (Adam Carroll) (33:13.782) your W2 job is pretty simple. That's right. Yeah.   Yeah, pretty simple. It's math. Just got to get it down on paper, right? Yeah. All right. Let's switch gears a little bit. I want to quickly get into, you know, this concept that you preach about building a bigger life at work because I think that's, you know, inspiring and that sort of thing and really life in general, right? Tell us about that concept and kind of dive in a little bit.   Yeah.   (Adam Carroll) (33:37.964) Yeah, you know, this started, it would actually started from a conversation I had with a recent college graduate, and they had gotten an advanced degree, they were going into a high paying job. And I think they'd been at it for maybe nine months or so. And we were having coffee and this person said to me, I'm just not satisfied. And I said, Well, what what is it you're not satisfied with? And they said, Well, the issue is that I thought at this point in time after graduating, he'd be traveling the globe.   You know, that was what he had always romanticized was just tons of travel and do whatever he wanted to do. And I said, well, what's keeping you from that? And he goes, well, you know, I just got into this long-term lease apartment. go, okay. And he said, and I bought a bunch of furniture that I financed. And, and then it's like, okay. He goes, I have a couple of gym memberships, not one, two gym memberships, you know, each probably 80 to 120 bucks a piece a month had a car payment because he needed a fancy car. And I said,   Dude, it sounds to me like you're building a bigger lifestyle, not a bigger life. And what you're asking for is a bigger life. And that became almost a deep dive search for me on what would building a bigger life mean for me and my family. And what I did, Seth, was I started digging into what are my core values? How can I live according to those core values, not according to my neighbor's core values, you who may be drastically different than mine? And...   I ended up writing a book called The Build a Bigger Life Manifesto, which breaks down how do you do this step by step. And there are 10 core tenets. And the first one is you got to build on a strong values foundation, like understanding what is it truly you value in life. And if you're doing more of that, then your life should be fulfilling. And mine are family, freedom, love, growth, and connection. And if I'm fulfilling those five buckets on a weekly basis, generally speaking, I'm really fulfilled.   And so the second is have a bigger vision and a bigger vision for your life might mean I'm not going to stay in this job for the next 20 years and hopefully make partner. then hopefully, because we all know that as you get promoted in a W-2 job, it doesn't mean you work less. It means you work more. And so my bigger vision was I want to make my vocation, my vacation. I'm going to speak, but I'm going to speak in cool places that I can take my family to. People are going to pay me really well to do it.   (Adam Carroll) (36:03.368) and I'm going to do it X number of times a year. And then I started asking, and this is the third step, asking bigger questions. And bigger questions look like, okay, so if I wanted to do that, how would I get better at speaking? How would I get so good that people will pay me 10 or 15 or 20 grand to go do what I do for an hour? What would that look like? I started asking not how would I pay my house off early? How would I pay my house off by the end of this year?   And when I asked that question, answers started coming and we were able to do it. So this is kind of the layout of how we walk people through this process. And for me, a bigger life today is just that, you know, I live for my family. I want to travel with them. I want to have tons of fun with them while they're still in the house. I have two teenagers and one in college. And soon, you know, eventually they'll be gone and it'll be my wife and I going and living the life that we most want.   Our lifestyle right now is pretty locked in. We have a beautiful home, we drive nice cars, but everything's paid for. And at this point, the goal is just to continually create massive passive permanent streams of income that afford us the ability to be generous, to live the life we want. And ultimately for me to be able to go share that message with other people.   And something so simple that you did there, it's just, you know, ask yourself what's important. A lot of us don't take the time to think about why we're upset, why are we not happy. And a lot of it comes down to not filling those buckets that are important to us on a regular basis. to be able to figure that out, you've got to take a few moments to think deeply about what it is that's important to you.   100%. And I'll give you a great example, Seth. One guy that we worked with, he realized that one of his core values that was not being fulfilled was adventure. So he loved his job and he goes, I don't know what it is, I'm just dissatisfied. And we went through the values assessment and adventure was on there. I go, well, where are you getting adventure? And he said, you know, that's the problem. I'm not, I haven't had an adventure in two years. I said, so maybe in building your life,   (Adam Carroll) (38:21.538) we need to figure out where are you carving out adventure for yourself or your family to make sure that you're doing it. For him, community was a big part of it. And he was getting some of that in his day-to-day client interactions. But what he really wanted was to build a community of friends that would go do stuff together. And I said, that's on you, man. If you really want that as part of your life, you got to build whatever that looks like.   And what if you combine that and adventure? So you get a whole group of adventure seekers that get together three times a year to go skiing in Aspen or, you know, go skydiving on a weekend or whatever it is. What would that look like to do that? And he lit up and you know, I could do this right now. So to your point, I think we're all very, very close to having a fulfilled life and building a bigger life. But you do have to take time to figure out what does that look like for you.   For sure, for sure. And a lot of the folks listening are attorneys and doctors and they tend to have high suicide rates, all these crazy things, substance abuse. people from the outside looking in think, why? Because you're making all this money. You have this high profession that everybody looks up to and you're not unhappy. And that's why, because those folks...   folks like us, we're just really focused on just that occupation. And that's it. And we don't focus on some of the other things that would fulfill us and make us happy. tons of attorneys I talk to try to get, they're like, how do I start investing as quickly as possible? Make as much money as quickly as possible so I can get out of this job because I hate being an attorney or I hate being a dentist or whatever it is. But really, that might not be the issue. The issue is that you're not filling up those buckets outside of your   career. And if you were to start filling those buckets, start paying more attention to those things, you might not be as unhappy in your career. And you might actually find that you enjoy what you're doing because you're good at it. You worked really hard to get there and you're making a good bit of money doing it.   (Adam Carroll) (40:22.06) No doubt, no doubt. I would add to that, that I think the majority of professions that you just listed, dentists, doctors, lawyers, et cetera, what they really want is they want to maintain professional status, do what they do, they've gone to school, they've learned how to do it. But over time, they want to work less and less, not more and more. And if you're doing what you recommend on the show, and if you're leveraging something like the shred method to create it, you can get to a point where   half or more of your income, ideally all of it, is replaced by passive income. But it requires that you get really focused on working for the right reasons and not filling in the lack of fulfillment or unhappiness with a new car or the next do-dad or spending a fortune on something. Instead, decide, I'm going to go get into an investment this year that will begin the process of creating passive income for me to start building the life that I truly want.   And it is, it's pretty transformational once you figure out how to do it and what the next steps are.   Yeah, it's like the matrix. mean, you start kind of, as soon as you start, it becomes a game, how you said it earlier in the show, and you just start seeing things that you didn't see before. You start being presented with new types of investments and businesses that you can invest in that you never saw before, but they were right under your nose. It does turn into a fun game, a money game.   Yeah, no question. I was at a conference not too long ago and they were calling me Morpheus because I made a reference to the red pill or the blue pill. And they were like, dude, you're Morpheus. I just took the red pill. Now I'm going down the rabbit hole. So beware. Are you ready to take the red pill?   (Seth Bradley) (42:08.374) Love that, love that. All right Adam, before we jump into the freedom four, what's one last golden nugget for our listeners?   A golden nugget for your listeners is that money today is abstract. It's not a concrete thing. Several decades ago, you would be given cash or you'd pay for things in cash. And today, virtually everything is a cashless transaction. And when we're not using cash, it doesn't feel real. If we're using Apple Pay or we're swiping our card or tapping our card,   It doesn't feel real. In fact, there's no pain sensor that triggers when you do that. The opposite is true on Amazon. When you hit one click ship for $47, a pleasure sensor actually is activated because you're in anticipation of that thing coming to you. So we also have to realize that the more money you make, it feels like, well, the more you have to spend. But because money doesn't feel real, you're spending way more than you think you are.   because of the abstract nature of it. So some of that is like reigning back in and understanding these are real dollars that you're putting on a card or swiping on your phone or whatever it may be and deciding is this the best intentional use of this money or could I be using it to build the life that I truly want? And I will add to that Seth that it's very short. There's a short amount of time that it requires you to function just a little bit differently.   order to get there where all the passive income covers your wants. So just like intentionality for the next 12 to 24 months will make a massive difference in your life.   (Seth Bradley) (43:48.502) Yeah, that's all it takes. All right, let's jump into the freedom four. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?   I am part of an exercise group called F3 and it stands for fitness fellowship and faith. There's like 75,000 guys all over the world that do this every morning. And we get up, you know, rain, sun, sleet or hail. I mean, we were working out in like eight degree Fahrenheit weather this winter outside. It's always outside. And I love it. I do it four or five, sometimes six mornings a week. But for me, just getting up the first hour of my day will   will dictate what the rest of my day does. And so my F3 brothers and I, that's the right way for me to get started.   awesome. With all your success what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?   you know, this is, this is going to sound a bit like an oxymoron statement, but a limiting belief is that, man, there's so much opportunity. And for me, I'm a bright, shiny object guy. for years, my wife was like, just pick one opportunity, please just pick one. And so for me, it's, you know, it's the fact that there is so much I can do limits me because you can really get very, very good at one thing.   (Adam Carroll) (45:08.078) But I'm a big fan of James Clear and the book Atomic Habits. And he'll say that it's hard to get traction when your focus is divided. And so I've been really intentional about zeroing in on my focus and knowing that this is what I'm setting out to do. And it may be for 12 months or 24 months or five years. And I'll reevaluate along the way. But I've got one thing and I'm really focused on that. So that's been a limiting belief I've had to get over.   Awesome. Awesome. What's one actionable step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom?   Well, go to the shredmethod.com not to do a self plug, it is. Go watch the masterclass, see what we do and how we do it. If you are already intrigued by this and are wondering like, what should I do with a HELOC or should I have a HELOC? My answer to everyone is everyone should have a HELOC, everyone. If you have equity in your home, why do you not have a line of credit? If for nothing else to have that is an emergency.   of some kind. So point blank, the first thing you ought to do is go access a line of credit, be it a home equity line, a personal line of credit, a P lock, or a B lock, a business line of credit. can also do a cash value line of credit. But I think you got to have one of those because when you understand this method, this process, that's a linchpin to making this work.   Great. How is passive income made your life better?   (Adam Carroll) (46:42.698) you know, I like to call it mailbox money and, man, love mailbox money. When it shows up, I celebrate and I've, I've had a mantra for years that I'm a money magnet, that money comes easily and frequently, that I get more checks in the mail than I do bills. And I just repeat those mantras over and over again. So every time I set up another form of passive income, man, it's just like a win.   that you feel deep down inside. And it doesn't matter, Seth, if it's 50 bucks or 15 bucks or five bucks or 5,000, right? Total sidebar, real quick story, but I was sitting with a buddy of mine at a conference and he kept showing me his phone and he was clearly showing off. But every time he'd pop up his phone, was like another sale was made. And it'd be like $27, $170, $300. And I go...   Dude, how are you doing this?" And he said, I set up these funnels and it's just a little digital product I created and we're doing ads and we're putting all the people towards these ads. And I said, so how many of those do get a month? He goes, I don't somewhere between $9,000 and $10,000 a month is coming in. And I remember feeling giddy for him and giddy about the idea that this could be possible, that you could just do whatever you want to do every day. Go fishing, go surfing, be on a sailboat somewhere and pull up your phone and be like, well, this is cool. just made...   $800. So for me, we have started to build that into what we're doing. I now get alerts on my Apple Watch. It's a Slackbot. So every time a sale is made, it pops up. we went to Mexico over spring break and the vendors on the Mexican beaches, they bless themselves every time they make a sale. And so now when a sale pops up on my Slackbot,   I'm like, all right, I made a sale. This is awesome. So how has it changed my life? I'm more grateful. I sleep well at night. I have peace of mind. And I know that, you know, future generations are going to be taken care of by the wealth that my wife and I are creating.   (Seth Bradley) (48:45.29) I love it, All right, Adam, this has been incredible. We're going to let listeners find out more about you.   Well, you can find out more about me personally at adamcarroll.info. It's two R's, two L's, adamcarroll.info. And again, if you want to check out the Shred Method, we have lots of free resources. So you can go and do a ton of research. We have a savings analysis there that you can plug in your numbers and see how much you could save and how quickly you could be out of debt. All of that is available at theshredmethod.com.   All right, brother. Appreciate your time. Thanks again for coming on the show and we'll to have you on again soon.   Love it, Seth. Keep doing what you do, man. This is super important stuff.   Alright brother, talk soon.   (Seth Bradley) (49:28.578) Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Adam Carroll's Links: https://www.threads.com/@adam.carroll/ https://www.instagram.com/adam.carroll/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcarrollspeaks/ https://www.facebook.com/AdamSpeaks/ https://x.com/adamcarroll https://open.spotify.com/show/1fPEUnWdnbcOcbYdksY1Yi https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJREGkPP6UwMucJMPvDS8xg

Title: The 1% Closer - Joe Fairless Summary: They emphasize that what separates them from others is consistently doing what they say they'll do,  to others and themselves. They focus on character over reputation, believing that who you are when no one is watching matters more than public perception. The real measure of discipline and integrity is in keeping promises to yourself, whether it's finishing a solo run or getting up with your alarm when you said you would. Links to Watch and Subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Stands out by consistently doing what they say they'll do Focuses on character, not reputation — character is who you are when no one's watching Values self-discipline and holding personal promises Examples include finishing personal challenges and getting up with the alarm Belief: integrity is shown in how you act when no one else is holding you accountable Transcript: Alright, you're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do. What is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   I do what I say I'm gonna do and sadly that separates me from a lot of people, not all people. That's a big focus of mine. And it's not about my... I recently read something that resonated and that was don't focus on your reputation, focus on your character. A reputation is such a vanity metric but the character is who you are when no one's looking and being proud of who you are and that's vital to me.   Yeah, and it's not just saying what you're going to do to other people, but also with yourself, right? To yourself.   Good point. Yeah, I'm on those runs and I can just stop whenever I want, but I'll know. I'll know I didn't go through this made up finish line that I had predetermined in my head. And there's something to be said there. I'm glad you brought that up.   For sure. Yeah, that's the key, right? It's not just when somebody, when it's dependent on somebody else or somebody else is watching. It's, you know, what do you do when nobody's watching and what do you do when it's just a promise to yourself? Do you follow through? Do you keep those promises? Things as easy as, when you set your alarm in the morning and you wake up, do you get up or do hit the snooze button? Like you made a promise to yourself the night before to wake up and get up when that alarm goes off. Do you keep that promise? Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Joe Fairless's Links: https://www.facebook.com/imjoefairless https://x.com/joefairless https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefairless/ https://ashcroftcapital.com/our-team/joe-fairless/ https://www.instagram.com/besteverpodcast/?hl=en

Title: Why the W-2 Grind Will Never Make You Wealthy with Jamie Bateman Summary In this engaging podcast episode, Jamie shares his journey from being a competitive athlete and military officer to becoming a successful entrepreneur in the field of real estate and mortgage note investing. He emphasizes the importance of discipline, teamwork, and taking ownership of one's financial situation in achieving success. Jamie discusses his transition from a W2 job to entrepreneurship, highlighting how he leveraged his experiences and strengths to build multiple streams of income. He shares insights about his current business model centered around mortgage note investing, explaining the differences between performing and non-performing notes, and elucidates the challenges and opportunities present in this field. The discussion also emphasizes the importance of long-term planning and learning continuously, making the case that discipline ultimately leads to freedom and flexibility in life. Links to Listen and Subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-military-officer-to-mortgage-note-master-one-mans/id1618672867?i=1000643495099 Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6nU0TtMAFc Bullet Point Highlights: Athlete to Entrepreneur: Jamie shares how his background in competitive sports instilled a sense of discipline and teamwork. Financial Ownership: Jamie discusses the importance of taking ownership of your financial situation and actively seeking improvement. W2 Quitter: The transition from a stable government job to entrepreneurship reflects Jamie's journey of self-discovery and ambition. Mortgage Note Investing: Jamie provides insights into both performing and non-performing notes, illustrating how to generate passive income through debt investing. Value of Networking: He emphasizes the necessity of building a strong network for finding investment opportunities in mortgage notes. Continuous Learning: Jamie advocates for lifelong learning, suggesting that successful people always seek new knowledge and skills. Long-Term Vision: He stresses the importance of setting long-term goals and reverse planning to maintain focus on achieving one's aspirations. Transcript: Jamie what's going on brother welcome to the show thanks Seth this is this is awesome um I'm excited to be here and I'm hoping to add some value absolutely man third time's a charm we've been trying to get this scheduled after I was on your show which was fantastic had a really good time uh on that show and I think it turned out pretty good so I know we're gonna absolutely we're gonna deliver on this one as well yeah we're GNA try to try to I'll try to do as good a job as you did so yeah that was that   was uh yeah no I that was a very very good episode from adversity to abundance I would highly recommend your your listeners check that one out to your episode on that show so thanks for thanks for doing that absolutely man you're an incredible interviewer I've I've that's the only uh I've been on dozens of podcasts and you know you pulled out a lot of things for me that I've I've never talked about on the air so it's pretty pretty awesome pretty awesome show man appreciate that cool man well let's just jump right into your   background man what's your story um take it back as far as you'd like to brother yeah um man uh I'd like to think that life has phases so I've had a few different phases in in my life um you I come from a a large uh family I'm I'm the oldest of seven kids and we always had a competitive uh background as far as team sports and things like that so um I played lacrosse in college that was always a foundational piece of of uh my life and just kind of I think from there learned how to be a part of something   bigger than myself and how to work toward a common goal with a with a team so that's been something that's been a a kind of a thread through my life and then um got married and uh joined the military and um actually joined the military technically before I got married but seemed like I got married and then ran off and and uh ran away from my wife but it's not exactly what happened but uh joined the military was an officer in the in the US Army did I did miss my first three wedding anniversaries through deployment and   things like that um and again it was a matter of trying to be plugged into something you know to serve and be a part of something bigger than myself and trying to trying to add value like I think we all we all want to do um I've obviously glossed over a lot of lot of details but those were uh a couple of inflection points I guess if you will um like you like to talk about I know um and so my military career transitioned into uh a a career with the Department of Defense as a civilian and um did 14   years as a civilian with DOD at Fort me and the first half so the first seven for all you math whizzes out there uh was full-time and then the second half the second seven years was part-time and that seven years is when I was really building my businesses which are largely um real estate investing and mortgage node investing Focus so we can get into the details there and then in 2022 I ended up quitting my job and and um now I have a few different small businesses that I run and like you Seth I've got a got a   lot of different things that I'm juggling and uh you know so but yeah I love talking about taking ownership of of your financial situation and taking ownership of your your life really and um I know that you and I have that comment so yeah that's a that's a high level overview of my background awesome man I appreciate that that there's a lot to unpack there you know going back to you know playing sports all the way up to the Collegiate level that's incredible I always like to to think even playing like poporn or football   back in the day you need a way to instill discipline in yourself and I I that's kind of the the oldest memory I can think of where it was hard right like it was like you've got a coach screaming at you like back in the day it's like you know they wouldn't give you water unless you like you know for like an hour which I don't think they do that anymore now but you know you had to earn that drink of water and and all those sorts of things but you you really learned what it's like to to work hard and you really learned what discipline   was all about and I would say that and you can you can expand on this but yeah I would say that you know being in the military yourself that takes it to a whole new level right it's like you you you got that from Sports you got that from the military yeah definitely I mean obviously they're very different in a lot of ways but that is certainly a common theme is is being disciplined and um and people people shy away from that word um because it just sounds like work or or no fun and no flexibility but I found that having   discipline in your life ends up adding more freedom in a sense um because you kind of have your foundational pieces set in stone you don't have to think about those and so um yeah regarding team sports it's it's really a matter of um you know everyone doing their part right and so there's a level of individual discipline and um and then just and then also just kind of putting the putting the group ahead of yourself um obviously the you know you want individual there's nothing wrong with individual accolades and I I was   certainly uh chasing you know those individual accolades it's not something I shied away from I was you know I definitely was wrapped up in trying to be an All-American and um that kind of thing and and did get that a couple of times you know but it at the end of the day nobody really cares about that and um the way I viewed it was if I was doing my part and I got those you know if I was scoring goals in Lacrosse as an example that means I'm contributing to you know to the team right and so there's obviously a fine   line there but of going too far either way um but yeah that discipline is critical you know even C I played at a high level in college and and there was year round you're training you're you're uh you're into it it was a division three school but it but the reality was we worked just as hard as any any D1 program and um yeah it's it's a these are skills that have paid off and are absolutely transferable to the rest of of life for sure yeah I think you've got to get those those intangible things you've got to develop   them somewhere along the way whatever whatever that is if that's Sports the military or you know from your parents I mean you can get it from different places but you definitely need it I mean you know we're in different stages of our life at this point we're talking about a lot we like talk about freedom and flexibility and fun um to try to get away from kind of the W2 uh mindset but in order to achieve Freedom flexibility and fun in a successful way you had you have to be disciplined to be able to get   there you you had to have done something successfully to be able to get there or maybe what separates you from you know the guy living in a van down by the river right like that guy that guy has Freedom flexibility um I don't know about fun maybe fun but yeah but you know it's it's a different obviously it's a it's a different outcome yeah and I I I still I think I still need you know I still use a lot of discipline today it's still still required but it's I guess I guess it's self-imposed and um you know I just love   love having that flexibility and that freedom um that comes along with being an entrepreneur so yeah it's been a central piece to my success for sure um but I I I still I don't think it ever you know goes away I just get to pick and choose what you know what discipline I want to kind of enforce on myself I guess um so yeah absolutely and and and as you said I the military was a huge part of that for me as well I mean that's a different kind of different kind of discipline and different kind of teamwork and different you know if you   lose a lacrosse game okay you lost the lacrosse game but military the stakes are a little higher um so maybe certain things are more important attention to detail are crit is critical and um but at the end of the day it's yeah it's that the same principles apply across both I I guess sectors if you will for sure for sure so let's dive into that that transition you started working kind of part-time there for seven years so that seems like a transitional period how are you able to progress from you   know that W2 and what what I've heard you say is call yourself a W2 quitter and I love that um you know how were you able to progress from a W2 person to a W2 quitter what enabled you to do that and what that transition looked like I mean you know I do remember in 2015 probably a little bit maybe maybe say 2014 but I just you get you know I had a wife and two kids and I had the commute the long commute that I I know a lot of people can identify with so um it it just was Groundhog Day it was the same   thing over and over and over and that's not me sitting here complaining about my family or having a having the opportunity to work um but after a while it gets old let's just be real right so it's like you're sitting in traffic and I just you start looking at you know I was I worked for the government and you look around you say who okay who's sort of ahead of me on this like you like I I think you probably mentioned on our on your your show on my my show your episode um you look around to the people   who are more kind of Al further along the path than you you say do you want to be that person is that the life you want and man I did not want that and um it just just having that just super long-term just you know the pot at the end of the rainbow I guess uh nothing driving me in the in the interum man it was it was just it was brutal so I probably did a little woes me for a little bit there a little victim mentality for a bit but then you start to realize like okay if you don't take ownership of your own life no one's   going to right so no one's going to come in and do this for you so I'm not sure what truly you know created the change in my mindset but my mindset absolutely started to change and I just made a shift and I and I stopped watching cable news I stopped uh just you know stopped paying attention to all the things that I can't control and I couldn't control back then and and started saying no what do I have what are my strengths who is in my who's back to the team thing who's on my team who's you know who's in my   network that I can add value to and who can add value to me so I started looking around and um you know my father was a realtor for many years my brother was a loan officer I we had uh one rental property at the time and so and IID worked at a I didn't mention I worked at a title company and I worked for a mortgage broker before as well briefly so I had this experience that a lot of people don't have and that's you know that that doesn't mean I'm better than anyone it just means these are my strengths so let's point to that and   let's use that so I started really being intentional about focusing on my strengths and my assets that I had in my life right and then another asset that I used to see as a liability was the time in the car so I started listening to podcasts oh you know and and then it turned into wait I don't even want to go into work yet because this this podcast episode is amazing and I'm learning so much you know Bigger Pockets and all the other real estate podcasts and different investing podcasts and um started using   that mental bandwidth instead of focusing on National media stories that I have zero influence over uh here's something that I can actually take action on and so um in mid 2015 uh I I I went part-time and and just so happens that at uh DOD it's one of the few agencies in the in the federal government where you can go part-time and still keep your benefits so I still had health insurance for my family you know most people don't have that option necessarily but oh oh well I did so that's what I did and and um you   know that's uh again decided decided to start building my my other streams of income outside of my W2 um had my circumstances been different if I was single I probably would have just quit the whole thing right but I was able to have that kind of laded approach I guess or tiered approach to kind of ripping off the Band-Aid yeah yeah no that that that's awesome I love just the idea of of taking ownership of your your life right like everybody has those moments where they're feeling sorry fors um but but the successful people they   don't sit there and stay in that that mindset they they move on they you're going to be there sometimes but you've got to get out of and you got to say okay what what can I control what can I change and you don't say you don't give other people the power to control you and your mindset and how you feel about your life right like that's that's that's the thing like if if you if you're constantly blaming someone else or saying this happened to me rather what can I do to get myself out of it then you're going to be stuck there   forever you're you're going to be you're going to be spinning your wheels forever um and a lot of that I think helps because you said you don't listen you don't watch the news I don't either it's a waste of time what control what does that do for us it's if I do watch it I literally do it for entertainment and you look at it as an entertain I look at it like I'm watching sports almost absolutely I I look at it like this is funny like I can you know what I mean you kind of analyze like this is funny   this guyy saying this in a debate this guy's saying that it's not taking it as fact and news and this is how I should live my life because of what they're saying absolutely and it's not to say that none of these topics are you know important right I mean right Glo Global you know war or I mean politics poverty global warming whatever that's all very important but I have zero control over it almost zero right and then um you know the other thing is fear sells and that's that's what they're selling and so doesn't mean that every   story is invented and it's all fake fake news but it it just doesn't serve me and so I'd rather focus on you know go ground up and kind of uh you just I see it in people maybe older people in my own life now who maybe are retired and and they watch the news all day and it's like they won't travel because they saw a news story that the airports are packed or something and you know it's I'm sure that story was was accurate right but it but the but the news can filter out and and you end up only focusing on the negative really and   it just didn't serve me so yeah um during that La the second seven years I was able to build out my wife and I were doing single family real estate investing and doing a lot of the Burr method that maybe some of your your audience is familiar with uh um and so kind of putting that Capital back into the the rental property um machine and expanding our portfolio um and then eventually last year Well in in 2018 I made the pivot I kept the rental properties but made a pivot to also add on mortgage not   investing and that's been my primary focus as of late um and uh if you want I can tell the story quickly about how I actually quit my job in 2022 I I think it's kind of kind of a funny one absolutely let's do it all right so um I uh so two years ago uh I was playing bad mitton and um I'd been doing now mind you I used to be like tough you know athlete and like I did you know did Jiu-Jitsu for three years right up before this and you know used to lift Waits a lot and still do it here and there but you know I think I'm tough   right and uh ruptured my achilles playing bad mitton so that's an ego blow uh to add on to the physical pain that you know especially with the recovery so I ruptured my achilles a little over two years ago today and um I was out of work it was my right right foot and the reason I bring this up is not for sympathy but um to say you know I couldn't drive for three months so I actually yeah and I had tons of leave from from work and by this time I was tired really tired of my I was pretty much checked out like I think you you   might have been at your uh your big law uh job but um that's right I was I was checked out I mean I I wasn't the best employee at this point and so I took as much leave as I as I could you know reasonably right and so but couldn't drive and so I was out for three months and I come back so come back into work and I'd had discussions with my wife about about leaving it was just a matter of of when not if um I can tell you truthfully had no idea that I was going to quit this day but I came back in from   having been out for three months mind you no one gave me a call no one from work no one from my management gave me a call the entire three months I was out other than to say to ask me are you vaccinated because you have to be vaccinated to be to get inside the building now I don't want this to turn into some controversial vaccine discussion or get your your podcast banned from something but um yes I'd been vaccinated to to answer the question but no one asked me how's your how's your recovery going like how what   do you you know how's your life you know what's it's just are you vaccinated you need to get that shot before you come in okay great thanks I really feel welcome here so I'm already just you know you know what screw this place right um come back in and just go to my desk and this is this is an office space kind of thing where I go to my desk and there's some there's an a force kid at my desk and long story short they' kind of move me somewhere else without telling me I can't find my desk I finally find it   it's got a box with my name on it with you know monitors sideways and all and clearly not a functioning uh desk and um you know office space so I literally quit that day and I just say that it's just like I knew 100% I was done I my wife didn't know I was I quit but I I quit that day still worked for another month or two but I I was there was no question zero question in my mind I'm done with this place so uh that was March of 2022 and ever since then I've just focused on building out my businesses and having   looked back that's awesome sometimes you just know right like sometimes it's time you just knew I I love that story man for me it was a little bit you already know the story but you know for me it was a little bit more of someone else's decision I got fired I mean and men that you know you you weren't the best employee at that point correct you know I knew the same thing and it's great to have awareness and perspective and kind of looking back now you're like I would have done the same thing like this guy   doesn't want to be here his output isn't what it should be like nope he's got he's got to go I mean he's not he's not the best employee and and as a you know as a business owner now I can you know I have really good perspective of that and and seeing that and they did they were doing me a favor by being like hey like your heart's not in it is it and I'm like no it's not it's not yeah yeah the reality is for me it's really hard to work you know when once you go part-time I mean I knew I was casting a vote   against my career progression there so as soon as I went part-time in 2015 I wasn't saying I'm in this for the Long Haul guys this is this is my focus you know it's the writing's somewhat on the wall looking back it's almost surprising I lasted as long as I did um but so yeah uh haven't looked back and just love love the entrepreneurial you know day-to-day and freedom that you alluded to and and just the multiple streams of income and certainly has its challenges I I probably work harder now than ever   than I ever have um but it's by choice right so I love it exactly same here man I mean it's you know my my days are long I mean I I get up way before I used to get up when I when I had a 95 I worked past when I would have worked a 9 to-5 and it definitely more hours but when you're doing it for yourself and you're doing it because you're working towards something that you believe in yeah it doesn't feel like it's you're putting that much time in definitely I I wake up early a lot of days it's not not on   purpose it's because I'm just excited to get Kracken so yeah yeah absolutely yeah well let's let's kind of get into your current business I know you you had mentioned that you focused on your strengths and your assets um and you know I think it's important I'll just I'll just say it's important to take an inventory of what your strengths are when you're kind of considering going into something else um because a lot of our listeners are attorneys they're doctors folks like that they kind of feel like maybe they're they're pigeon   hold right like well if I'm not an attorney what the hell else can I do right like I don't know anything about real estate investing or node investing or starting a business or anything like that but if you really take a step back you you probably have a lot of skills that you've learned and honed in your career that you can use for something else moving forward and that was that's what you were able to do definitely and one thing I'd say is that um you know one thing that's always comforting for   me is nobody knows everything right so you can always find somebody who knows more than you in a certain area um you know there's one quote about every man is my Superior in in in something right so um basically it gets me a lot of comfort to know like just because an attorney listening to your show knows way more than I do about a particular topic and probably many many other topics that doesn't mean I'm less of a person or you know I don't know more than that attorney does in another area so it's   okay I'm never going to know everything there are other people who've already figured it out so um you know that's that's always comforting to me is and when I say look to your strength it's also looking to the people in your network who know and can help you get to where you want to go um so yeah I mean so many things we take for granted that we do know and um you know example when I started working at a title company fresh out of college because it was my first real job and it paid you know a a   salary um I realized quickly how little I knew about title insurance settlements you know just just basic stuff now looking back pretty basic stuff but you don't know that unless you work for a title company or you're heavily involved in this you don't you're not trained in that in school typically right so you know you forget and so your your listener out there the the attorney the doctor I guarantee they have a lot of life experience not just from their professional world but just life experience that that they shouldn't take   for granted and the fact that you can go through law school and then be you know Be an Effective attorney or go through medical school and Be an Effective doctor that that means you you can learn things right and so again I go back to life has Seasons I mean you've shown that in your own story Seth like you know um it's uh it doesn't mean just because I started a certain business doesn't mean that's going to be what I'm going to be doing for the next 20 years or just because I'm an attorney now   doesn't mean that's what I have to do for the rest of my life so we always have options I mean you might look back and wish you'd done something differently or something but you only have one chance at this and so you know you just make the most of it and and just keep I think keep learning constantly um is critical I I just hired a business coach we've had one call um but one of his motos is um you know one of his sayings is that he's always he's in permanent beta so he's always changing always improving he's always   growing so I'm trying to trying to implement that as well yeah I love that permanent beta I haven't heard that before but I like that I like that phrase like that phrase um so tell me about your current business tell me about mortgage node investing start with the basics um sure what is it yeah so and and I'll try to keep it uh there's so much to it but again none of it is difficult it's just a lot of moving parts and you've got to you know it takes time to learn um we buy debt so we buy a mortgage note   and that could be performing or non-performing the the real highlevel version is is um a performing note is kind of like a a long-term Buy and Hold rental property but you're buying the debt and becoming the lender becoming the bank if you will um and so you're buying that performing note for cash flow so I buy a performing note the barer now pays me through a loan servicer and I get monthly payments so that's a great way to go the the problem with that is you can't really add value to that asset very well you're kind of   it is what it is and in fact with mortgage notes the value actually goes down over time generally speaking because the principal balance goes down so it's just it's worth less than you know than uh you know than it would than it was when you bought it then on the other side the non-performing side of things we buy those uh as well and those are more like a Fix and Flip property so um although we're still buying the debt we're not buying the property but there's a chance to add value There's an opportunity to buy distressed asset and   add value to that asset and then sell that that non-performing note either well I should say sell that asset whether that's as a rep performing note or as uh through the the real estate itself there there are a few different ways you can exit a non-performing uh note deal and but but back to your kind of one of the the themes um thus far one of the reasons I got into specifically that space was that I understood the real estate space so I understood the single family residential real estate space so it wasn't a huge   leap for me to go from owning the property to now owning the debt on that property whereas it would have been a lot bigger leap for me to say oh I want to start buying distressed you know multif family debt um which I know you could probably help me understand better but that you know it's like incremental progress and and and change isn't that scary so I kind of expanded my um you know toolbox if you will and got into the mortgage note space so we have a couple of note funds one is open um currently and they're they're they're   all for accredited investors um and uh the the income fund that's open pays a monthly uh aims to pay a a monthly uh per referred return I know you and a lot of your listeners are attorneys so I got to hold the line here and uh so the fund is structured to pay uh to aim to pay a a monthly return uh of 8% it's not a there's no growth in that fund it's literally a cash flow play and um diversification play you're putting your your capital in we buy assets across the country we we've bought notes in in probably 25 States at this point   um and so the investment is Diversified across Geographic areas across borrower types and um you know we buy for a certain yield we take a small management fee and then we um ideally uh pay a pay the preferred return that we're aiming for to our to our investors yeah nice 506c you're able to talk about it it's uh ACC credit investors only just want to throw that out there um so yeah I mean so just going back to the basics a little bit and we'll get back into the fund like how do you how do you even   find these things I mean how do you get started how do you find these things so I mean that is an ongoing challenge I'm not going to lie to you that's one of the the things that truthfully a a passive investor who doesn't have time to to develop the network to go find these assets they're just not going to have success um you know they might here and there but it takes time it's a it's a word of mouth industry just like real estate itself is and um so we've built out a network of of Sellers and you know that could   be quite honestly I I've never had luck buying directly from Banks it's really either a larger uh mortgage note fund that's closing so it might be a three-year fund and then they've got to they've got to liquidate they've got to figure out how to sell off what to do with these assets um and so that's a great opportunity to buy is just a fund that's closing or somebody a note investor who's getting out of note investing or they've had a life change or something um you know where they just uh there's an opportunity to buy from   them as well um and so there there are other you know I guess we buy from hedge funds note investors other note funds um those are there are also note Brokers as well out there um there are also some online exchanges like paper stack and a couple of others that you can go and I've bought and sold on on paper stack and other exchanges as well um and you know you can you can find assets there um but at the end of the day we have our list that we list of people that we work with regularly and I would say one thing   is that doing due diligence on a note seller is just as important as uh due diligence on the assets that they're selling and so it's it's taken some work and it's it's a work in progress always um but it is the million-dollar question is where do you where do you find these assets yeah so that's that's the hard part right that finding these assets is the hard part um have you ever had to foreclose on on any of these notes and actually acquire the property and I guess a followup question is do you ever   look at a non-performing note like hey I actually want to own that property great questions yeah great questions um to be clear we're not trying to kick people you know Grandma out on onto the street or anything like that um you know that's not our our goal typically well that's never our goal but we're never trying to kick someone out of their home um but the reality is some people honestly need a little bit of a kick in the pants and often times that's not really the best them staying in the house is not often   The best scenario for them I know that might sound sound harsh but at the end of the day if someone can't afford to live somewhere sometimes these people are living in squal and they really need a change of of environment um to answer your question about do we target the property yes sometimes we do in fact we just closed on two they're called uh heckum loans or reverse mortgages where the borrowers are deceased the property is underwater meaning you know the the loan amount is high greater than the   property value and it should be a quick exit through the property so HUD will sell off these uh big pool of of reverse mortgages and we were able to purchase two of them very recently it's a vacant property you're not doing an eviction borrower is deceased you've got to work through the airs or or foreclosure um and get and exit the property that way um if your listener wants to go to my website I've got a really good um it's a Jacksonville blog post I've got a couple of blog posts about this deal I still hold this rental   today and it was a non-performing note that we purchased a few years ago and um I had no intention of exiting through the property or holding holding the the property as a rental property but uh running the numbers it just was too good to to let go and so long story but we we uh you know ended up doing a deed in Lee of foreclosure actually in this case and got the property back and now it's a long-term Buy and Hold property for my own rental uh portfolio yeah that makes sense that makes sense there's there's always   multiple ways to look at an investment right um but it does sound you know is not something that that I've executed on myself but it sounds like this is an active business right and that's why you've put together an income fund for people that want to get involved passively um because as as everybody knows there's active Investments there's passive Investments if you're going to do something active maybe your returns are going to be a little bit better but you're going to give up a lot of time and effort to to get those returns   um so if you want to go to the passive side if you if you're still full-time in your career you're you're a full-time doctor or lawyer or or whatever you are you know these passive Investments are the way to go without having to know every single detail about a new business yeah and I don't know if you can see this but I I wore this specifically for your for this show there it is there it is passive income um you're absolutely right you know these gurus some of the some of the node investing gurus out   there will try to sell you know notes as passive um we have another blog post that talks about uh just the it's a spectrum there's active and passive on either end but at the end of the day if you're gonna node investing in my world is very very active and we have a non-performing note fund that's considerably more active than the Performing note fund so um you're dealing with foreclosures bankruptcies deed and L tracking delinquent property taxes do I have to physically go anywhere no but it is not passive um but   that's why we offer the passive investment to for you know people who like you said have maybe more Capital than time or energy and they want to put that Capital to work that's right there there are certain gurus out there that you know whatever it is that they are pitching it's they they tend to always pitch it as as passive even though it is an active business whether that's ma money yeah whether that's a mortgage note or I mean people pitch Airbnb short-term rentals as passive they're like well you can delegate this and you   can you know you can automate that and there's software for all these things but you still got to put all that stuff together you've still got to monitor all those things you you've still got to you still got to oversee all these different aspects of a business and that's what it is it's a business that you're running and it's not passive like it's not it's not and and it is on a spectrum some things are more passive than others but when you're inves in you know as a passive investor into some sort of a   fund or a syndication that's really leaning really far into the the passive side absolutely 100% and I and I'm as you are Seth I'm I'm I'm I I assume you are I know you're an active investor but I I do have passive Investments myself in other other funds other note funds and and my own my own note funds as well and so nothing wrong with doing both but I would say you need to be careful about you know you got to make a decision at some point do you want to scale this thing and and make this really a   business or do you do you are you satisfied with potentially a little bit lower return and you are giving up some control but much you know much fewer headaches and just a lot less work right right yeah and a lot of you know a lot of the listeners are high income earning professionals so they've already dedic put a lot of time and effort into being able ble to earn this much money from their W2 and absolutely that's probably your best bet to be honest with you I've been there I was in those shoes you're   probably better off putting your head down like let's grind for a few years let's let's not spend every single dollar that we make on all the new stuff on a on a new car every two years or every year in a bigger house that you don't need like let's set aside some of that and invest it passively and then maybe one of those will stick maybe one of those passive investments will be a mortgage note fund where you're like man I kind like this business like I like the sound of it I've learned about it   and then you start maybe progressing on the active side and maybe that takes over and and you want to get into that as a as a business as an entrepreneur but um a great way to kind of dip your toe in the water is to become a passive investor um that's the way that I did it into you know multif family syndications I invested passively in a number of deals first and kind of learned about it learned the ropes and I'm like I can do this and then that's when I made the transition yeah definitely it's it   really comes down to what you what your goals are and what your situation is for sure I I'll say I was too passive initially when I went into notes um because personally I just don't you're you're you were probably a little better student Seth not that I was a bad student but you know I I invest unless I'm actively in investing you know I'm just not going to learn a lot so the reality is yeah it's fine to learn about the asset class you definitely should learn about the operator for sure if you're putting Capital with them but   you're not going to once you're getting your checks and your dispersements you're not going to probably learn a whole lot about how to do that on the active side and so that's what we're here for yeah yeah it's more of like a spark of an interest right like may you already have that spark and then you invest passively then you're like okay well now I'm invested like let me learn about this you have to you have to actively go out there and educate yourself and network and talk to people that are in the business definitely 100   per. all right man before we jump into the Freedom Four you have one last gold nugget for our listeners oh man um I would say within when it comes to investing um you know take the long-term view um don't chase immediate returns um you know I do think just yeah it's certainly we all want to make a million dollars tomorrow but I think it's it's play the long game when it comes to investing I think that's critical love that man all right let's jump into the Freedom Four what's the best thing you do to keep your mind body   healthy yeah I mean one thing that I instituted this year actually um is breath work and it's um you know it's so it takes 10 minutes um and per day for me at least and it's been phenomenal and it's something that quite honestly as a as a you know athlete back in the day or even in the military I would have scoffed at something like this to be honest with you because it's just you know it's not manly or whatever it's like it is phenomenal so uh breath work I mean I do other things for sure but that's certainly this year it's been a   game Cher for me I just feel like it resets my central nervous system and it just gets me focused and uh I know there are other physiological benefits that you can ask uh Dr Andrew huberman or somebody else about cool I have to look into that actually have I mean obviously everybody talks about it's a Hot Topic I haven't gotten into it I haven't gotten into that plus like the cold plunges and that sort of thing um but I really want to explore that a little bit I don't know how much you can cut this out if we   don't have time but I had a I'm just going to be be open about this I just had a you know in late December I got a viral infection like a neuro virus and then I had I had a what I think was a pretty severe panic attack and it was super scary and so that's why I started uh doing this and somebody on my team actually sent me a a I guess we'll call it an implement or a tool that uh I use for the breath work it's BL there's a Bluetooth connection to your phone and it's pretty cool so it's structured and   back to that discipline right but um yeah so it's there was a reason I started doing it and um it's it's so accessible five to 10 minutes a day you can start doing it so yeah very cool highly recommend cool thanks for sharing that man um with all your success what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it um I think just uh you know being afraid to you know that you have to be perfect right so um I used to be an editor back in the day and so many things would just not get done   or not get completed within our team our organization um because it had to be perfect and and it's like I think as I've progressed into more of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and and uh it's just it's not a it's not an option anymore um so um yeah I think just taking action has kind of overcome that limiting belief of of of chasing Perfection yeah yeah I can I can I can agree with you there done not perfect um as you know my background as an attorney I mean we're we're paid to be perfect like we can't make mistakes especially   in contracts and the way that we write things but when you kind of make that transition over to being an entrepreneur there's too much there's too much to to be to be perfect you got you just got to get it done good enough absolutely good enough has to you have to be open um willing to accept that for sure y what's one actionable step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom so I'll use the military here you can um which is where I learned U kind of reverse backwards planning reverse   planning so literally just and I'm not going to tell you I'm perfect at this um but you know think about what create a vivid vision for your life in in the next three to five years pick a pick three years out from today and what do you want your life to look like and then backwards plan and now I'm not saying you need to plan every minute of every day but you can be that will that will increase the urgency uh sense of urgency in your life and the intentionality of every every hour and every day because you realize this is   doable but I got to take ownership of of my current situation if I want this to be the reality in three years so I would say create a vivid vision and and kind of reverse or backwards plan to get there perfect perfect last but not least how has passive income made your life better yeah I mean I think in multiple ways but a big one that stands out is is giving me I guess we'll call it margin um to take some more risks on the entrepreneurial side and because I do have alternative sources of income   passive income um it's allowed me that kind of mental and financial bandwidth or margin to maybe invest in a company that even if it doesn't per go perfectly it doesn't go well it's not profitable that's okay I still have that cushion um for for me and my family so that's yeah it's a huge it's been a huge factor in that regard yeah absolutely Game Changer man it just changes your mindset changes your life in so many ways uh Jamie this has been incredible dude you've got so much great content to to share in your   brain man you got to get it out there um I know you've got an awesome podcast that I was on adversity to abundance everybody should check that out um other than that Jamie where else can people find out more about you yeah just two things I'll mention very quickly uh literally got my book delivered today like an hour before I hopped on here it's uh from adversity to abundance it is based on the podcast so I encourage your listener to check that out from adversity to abundance is the book that's out and then Labrador   lending.com l b r a d o r.com is where you can check us out all right man awesome I'll drop all that in the show notes thanks again for coming on brother thanks for having me Seth this has been great Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6nU0TtMAFc https://www.instagram.com/p/C2sKtrAPX50/ https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid029mGsZgw2DFvrvFV6QPkwf2U2ewUxCGoRmnjGvuBicaWmM9oHWbemP7NCVFFXz8jxl&id=100089126144055   Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en   Jamie Bateman's Links: https://x.com/batemanjames https://www.facebook.com/batemanjames https://www.threads.com/@batemanjames11? https://www.instagram.com/batemanjames11/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-bateman-5359a811/ https://labradorlending.com/about/

Title: Trump's Wealth Strategies for 2025 (and How to Apply Them Today) Summary: The video discusses the financial landscape in the aftermath of the 2024 election, particularly in the context of Donald Trump's anticipated presidency. The speaker expresses an optimistic viewpoint on how Trump's return will invigorate the economy, creating wealth-building opportunities, particularly in real estate and private equity markets. They outline several strategies for capitalizing on Trump's pro-business policies, including deregulation, tax incentives, and a strong focus on American manufacturing. The speaker emphasizes the importance of proactive investment in high-potential areas such as real estate, capital raising, and cryptocurrencies to benefit from this economic shift. Their approach includes increasing investment activity, building a robust network, and taking advantage of favorable regulations to maximize returns and mitigate risks in a changing economic environment. Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dtsGF8NEokD60wmA54A04hRHnYS7sjsi/view?usp=drive_link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFD3v9ERpNI&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=3 Bullet Point Highlights: Pro-Business Environment: Trump's presidency is expected to create a pro-business atmosphere with decreased government intervention. Deregulation and Opportunities: Anticipated deregulation will likely open up new financial avenues and incentivize investment in real estate. Real Estate Boom: A predicted resurgence in real estate investment is positioned as one of the most lucrative opportunities during Trump's term. Capital Raising Simplified: Reduced scrutiny on capital raising will facilitate more investment opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. Tax Benefits Forecast: The return of substantial tax incentives, including retroactive bonus depreciation, will benefit real estate investors significantly. Crypto as a Key Component: The speaker notes the potential for increased investment in cryptocurrencies, positioning it as an essential part of modern investment strategies. Building a Network: Emphasis on establishing a strong investor network preemptively to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the evolving economic landscape. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) the election is over and guess what you're still not wealthy and you're still not in Nazi Germany but Donald Trump is about to make a lot of people rich and I plan on being one of them if you're smart you will too whether you love him or you hate him there's one thing you can't deny when he's in office the economy moves money shifts New Opportunities open up and old ones disappear and if you know where to look you can set yourself up to win big in 25 so I'm going to break down exactly how I plan to capitalize on Trump's return   from real estate investing to Capital raising to attx strategies so you can get ahead of the game and build some serious wealth let's get into it all right let's start with the big picture if Trump is in office this is what you can expect deregulation and business growth Trump has always been Pro business pro- entrepreneur and anti-g a that means less government interference fewer roadblocks for businesses and a pro capitalist environment expect them to cut funding to agencies like the SEC the IRS and   other regulatory bodies that slow down investment and deal making so also expect more tax incentives for small businesses investors and real estate developers and of course tariffs right America First manufacturing Trump has made it very clear he's bringing Manufacturing back to the US expect tffs on China Mexico and other foreign producers forcing companies to reinvest in American infrastructure factories and real estate so what does that mean that means more demand for industrial real estate warehouses and Logistics hubs   right here in the US and guess who's already looking at those opportunities this guy next think about stock market volatility private Market opportunity things like that the stock market will always be a roller coaster investors will Panic foreign economies will overreact to tariffs and our economy will overreact to Mean Tweets but the real money it's going to be in the private markets real estate funds direct Investments small businesses smart investors will pull money out of the stock market and put it into hard assets   and that's where the real opportunity is let's talk specifics next now that we know what's coming let's talk about where the money is moving and how I'm going to capitalize number one of course real estate real estate is about to explode again Trump is a real estate guy he's going to bring back policies to favor investors I'm calling it now 100% bonus depreciation is coming back and it'll be retroactive that means massive tax writeoffs for Real Estate Investors making syndication funds and Commercial properties even   more attractive Trump will push for more opportunity zones making it easier to defer and reduce capital gains taxes by investing in you know it real estate and we're going to see lower regulation which means easier development faster approvals and more investor-friendly lending so what am I doing doubling down on multif family things like self storage and especially industrial real estate also raising Capital raising Capital aggressively to get in before the next wave of incentives positioning myself to capitalize on tax advantages   while everyone else plays catchup that's the key start thinking about your real estate play now number two raising Capital will be easier than ever under Trump trump will likely gut the sec's budget of course he's already doing it now which means less scrutiny on private Capital raising more capital is going to flow into the private Equity markets syndications and alternative assets fewer restrictions on fundraising advertising and deal structuring those sorts of things and institutional investors will reallocate big money to   private markets as the economy shifts so what am I doing specifically scaling up my Capital raising strategies for these syndications for funds for fun to funds using especially 506c offerings to publicly Market deals and attract accredited investors and positioning funds to take in institutional Capital that's going to be fleeing the stock market and that volatility and getting into the private markets and number three a lot of people hate him for this but it's true and it's going to happen happen the rich get richer so you better   play the game to win Trump won so expect major tax cuts for businesses and investors in a pro capitalism Market expect lower corporate tax rates more deductions for business owners and a friendlier tax code for those who actually know how to use it he'll defund the IRS and possibly eliminate it all together we'll see he's talked about the external Revenue Service replacing it we'll see but anyways less audits less enforce less aggressiveness from the IRS if it even exists anymore this will favor   business owners investors in high net worth individuals so what am I doing structuring my investments to take full advantage of bonus depreciation and tax loopholes using cost segregation studies to maximize tax deductions on real estate and remember it's highly likely predicting it now 100% bonus depreciation will be restored and on top of that be retroactive to the previous few years so I'll be advising High net worth investors on how to legally keep more of their money number four investing in   crypto and Bitcoin Trump is pro crypto and creating massive tax shelters and deregulating this will be the perfect storm for another crypto Bull Run so start setting some money aside for crypto it's got to be part of your portfolio get educated make sure you know what you're doing invest wisely and again make it a major part of your portfolio moving forward and if you're still playing by the old rules W2 income stock market Investments zero tax strategy you're going to get left behind that's all all right so here's what I'm   doing right now to prepare number one stacking up capital for real estate deals before these policies actually shift number two building a bigger investor Network because when the floodgates open it's going to be too late I've got to be ready I've got to build that Network number three structuring my business entities to take full advantage of tax benefits number four focusing on Industrial real estate and always multif family as well because if Trump brings back us manufacturing that's where the   Gold Rush will be number five using my legal and investment expertise to help investors navigate and win in this new economy huge help you guys out along the way number six investing in Bitcoin and crypto crypto As Trump is pro crypto and creating massive tax shelters deregulating is going to be huge look guys this is not about politics it's about understanding how money moves and positioning yourself now ahead of time to get ahead of the curve so here's the deal you can either sit back you can let   this opportunity pass you can let everybody catch up you can sit on the sidelines and let things happen let it pass you by or you can get in the game right now if you're serious about raising capital Capital investing in real estate and multiplying more of your money in 2025 let's talk drop a comment hit that subscribe button and follow along because I'm going to be breaking down exactly how to play this game in real time let's go get it   Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFD3v9ERpNI&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=3   https://www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq/posts/pfbid0YM2q1WNHabhysUrF6eSRyeGFHErEFG88pFgxsjQjgxcuXpBMwndSRXJkVYUR4APal   https://www.instagram.com/p/DGBUz4uzg-m/ https://x.com/sethbradleyesq/status/1890086851630997992 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sethbradleyesq_trumpeffect-donaldtrump-wealthbuilding-activity-7295852153070333952-p_px?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAKVay0BMf-qnL2v6W-30PvVRZnCs0eCFQU https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en  

Title: The Truth About Capital Raising That Your Attorney Won't Tell You with Devin Robinson Summary: In this episode of the “Funds on Fire” podcast, host Devin Robinson interviews Seth Bradley, a seasoned SEC attorney and a friend. Both share insights into the world of capital rasing, investment funds, and legal compliance. Robinson highlights the rapid learning curve and opportunities within the fund management landscape. He discusses his background in raising millions for real estate ventures and transitions into the value of complying with SEC regulations when raising capital. The conversation sheds light on common misconceptions surrounding securities law, stressing the importance of education and understanding regulations related to passive investments. Bradley offers practical advice on starting investment funds, the advantages of teaming up with experienced SEC attorneys, and the evolving trends in alternative investments, particularly in light of recent market changes. He emphasizes the necessity for diversity in investment management and the need for entrepreneurs from all backgrounds to have access to the financial education that empowers them to raise capital and scale their business ventures effectively. Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-w_w6WAUVw Bullet Point Highlights: Capital Raising Insights: Devin Robinson shares his journey in successfully raising millions for investment projects. Legal Compliance Importance: Seth Bradley emphasizes the significance of understanding SEC regulations to avoid legal troubles in fund management. Fund Management Strategies: Discussion on navigating funds, from 506(b) to 506© offerings, providing clarity on compliance requirements. Education Gaps: The necessity for education in the finance and investment space is underscored, highlighting the lack of resources for aspiring fund managers. Diversity in Investment: Recognition of the disparity in investment opportunities for minorities and the importance of fostering diversity in fund management. Trends in Capital Raising: A shift towards fund-of-funds structures and other innovative investment vehicles as alternatives to traditional capital raising models. Confidence Building: Advice encouraging newcomers in investment to be confident and educated, asserting their place in the industry. Transcript: raised tens of millions of dollars myself as well as um you know we purchased just in 2022 Alone um I was a GP on over $120 Million worth of commercial assets we don't want to say anything that might get us into trouble you know I'm I'm an entrepreneur first so I'm out there to to educate it started going down you started seeing some people get in trouble but all along the way on that rise up he's suing anybody because they've been getting their returns and they've been everybody's been crushing it and even if   you're a terrible operator you've still been crushing it because the market saved you and nobody's getting sued so it's all good until it's not welcome to funds on fire the podcast that ignites The Passion of investment funds in capital raising here we turn the complexities of fund management into clear actionable steps that drive results I've invested into diverse real estate across the United States and managed thriving funds and I'm committed to transforming lives through the vehicle of investment funds and helping   others to do the same join me as we document the Journey of scaling businesses raising capital and impacting tens of thousands of people around the world my name is Devin Robinson and welcome to funds on fire on this episode of the podcast I actually interview Seth Bradley who is an SEC attorney and has become a really good friend of mine so him and I met a couple years back at raay Fest and which is we're part of a mastermind for Capital raising and fun launching and then both of us as we've become friends   as we did this podcast interview gosh a couple of months ago and then now I've launched the podcast and even since then this is pretty cool him and I have actually started a partnership on um on helping people to launch uh manage scale and raise capital for investment funds and it's something really cool so you'll hear more about that later but it's really cool that it started uh with this podcast we both are very like-minded people we both have very similar goals and desires especially when it comes to   Capital raising and the access to information with when it comes to that and for other people to be able to learn how to um honestly be able to launch and scale an investment fund and there are so many people that have the ability to do it have the um the skills and the knowledge to do it but don't have the opportunity to do it or honestly just think it's too hard to do and so I'm so excited because partnering with somebody like Seth is incredible he's a guy who has helped hundreds of people to launch   and manage their funds or would just really launch their funds he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and invested into hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate himself and so to be able to partner with him on something like this is really really awesome so I'm excited for that as we talked through his journey talk through all the things as we go through his progression from just being a real estate attorney to then an SEC attorney that goes and helps people to launch and manage funds his involvement   in that some of the things he's doing and honestly it's going to be a really good conversation for you all to hear how to stay compliant how to make sure that you guys are raising Capital appropriately how to make sure that you guys aren't going to get in trouble with the SEC because of how you guys are raising Capital so excited for this really pumped for this episode just thought I'd give you a little preface before we dive in you are going to want to listen to this cuz he is awesome and I'm excited so thank you so much enjoy   the episode all right what's up and welcome to this episode of funds on fire I I love this uh because today we have a friend of mine Seth Seth we go back I don't know like at this point I feel like it's like two years now or a year and a half what we met at Ray's Fest a while ago and I'll tell you I was super impressed by this dude because we met we met at a bar we were like at this event we had guess us that's right that's exactly right we were at this event for Ray Fest and like I'd gone downstairs he was   chilling I was chilling we started talking and I was like I like this dude because one he's not like the typical like white dude that's here he's all tatted up he's really cool and then I realized he's by far the smartest in the room and I was like yo Seth is the man so Seth I would love for people to tell or for you to tell people like who you are and what you do I've enjoyed keeping up with you over the years content you're putting out is incredible and so if you haven't give this man a follow   ESP if you want to stay compliant with funds and the legal aspect of it cuz he's doing some really awesome stuff and I love how just like fit you and your Wi-Fi that's pretty cool too so I respect that too so Seth like tell people who you are where you're from what do you do cuz I think it's going to be important for people to know you all right man Deon I appreciate that intro brother yeah it was it was great meeting you back in the day now we've kind of followed each other on social media and   kept in contact and loved it love it man love it but I'm I'm a Securities attorney so anytime you're raising capital from passive investors you can get me involved I've got I've got the pedigree I worked in big law for seven years before starting my own Boutique Law Firm I think what people like the most about working with me is that I actually come from the business side as well so I'm a syndicator and a fund manager myself so um you know I've raised tens of millions of dollars myself as well as um you know we   purchased just in 2022 Alone um I was a GP on over $120 Million worth of commercial assets so you know I come from not just the legal side but also the business side and I look at every single deal like you know whether I'm you know actually an equity holder or I am just the vendor as the Securities attorney I look at the deal like hey how are we going to get this thing done right a lot of attorneys kind of get in the way um I don't want to get in the way I I will tell you what the risks are what your liabilities are what you might   be opening yourself up to what the gray areas are but at the end of the day you're the business person and you're the entrepreneur so you make the decisions based on the information that I give you so I'm I'm there to help you you get the deal done that's cool man cuz like I know man there's a lot of misconceptions about funds and so one I can tell you I really appreciate I really appreciate you because I have had some not so great SEC attorneys that I was not a big fan of then I've had some good ones and so I'm thankful for it and   so when it comes to that uh we're going to we're going to talk about compliance because that's super important but we'll also talk about uh because I I I guess so I'm in another Mastermind I think I was going to bring this up a little bit later but I'll bring it up now and I want to talk about the importance of finding a good attorney because like I I'm in a different Mastermind and it's more of an operators based Mastermind like how to a lot of single family things and I I talk to people and I'm like and because I'm   going to set the groundwork for this podcast but I talk to people and they're like oh yeah I've got some friends they've let me borrow some of their money and I'm just using that money and I'm like oh hold on uh what do you mean and so I talked to like I mean I can't tell you the last po I was there two months ago three people told me this said three people and so they were like they were like yeah so I have an LLC and they wire the money into my LLC account it's like three or four friends they   wire this money into my LLC account and then I use it and I give them a return and I'm like you need to call an attorney right now because you are literally violating Securities Law like you you you are and they're like wait wait wait okay but but what if what if they they say we we sign up you know a promisory note they put it in here and I'm like security and then they're like okay but what if that the the the people hold it an escrow our attorney is holding an escrow I'm like security and so like just to even like set the   groundwork what is like what what is a security and and and what do you see most often when people come to you and they're looking for an attorney and they're like hey I'm doing this is this legal and you're like no that's not legal but what do you see like what is the security and what is the misconception or the mistake that you see a lot of people make when they come to you yeah I mean you just said it so the number one problem or the the biggest problem I see every single day is just the lack of knowledge like   people just don't know and there's there's maybe a fine line there between not knowing and not caring enough to know right exactly you're like I know I'm doing something here and I don't care to look into it a little bit further to figure it out but that's but that's really what it comes down to is just not having the knowledge because you think like you know I'm just going to you know me and this guy are going to partner he's going to give me all this money and they're not going to do anything and they're going to they're   going to expect a return on their investment and all that kind of stuff and it's all good but it's not you're getting yourself into into issues you know to define a security in a in layman's terms I like to just say look if you've got a passive investor involved in your deal and they're expecting a return on their money and on the actions that you're taking as the active participant then that's a security and that that's it like if if you have a passive investor meaning they're not you know making decisions   they're not managing they're not helping you out on the active side that's a passive investor and you're probably dealing with the security right and this is what I think separates like syndication from the fund right so like if you have a syndication and then you have somebody who is brings the capital typically they're making some of the decisions which makes them a little bit more active so then it's not in that sense of violating that Securities laws if it's just either like one person or even a couple a group that's actually   making decisions on that and I guess that's not the main differentiator between a syndication and and a fund but I think that's where people get confused is the passive part of things that's right that's right it's the passive part of it right like you have people that come in whether it's a syndication or a fund if if they have um some sort of managerial rights or meaningful voting rights because you'll see if you if you invest passively in a deal and you read through the PPM and the operating   agreement you'll see that you really don't have any rights to make any sort of decisions there might be some convoluted way that you might be able to get the manager out if a b c d and f happens but probably not so you'll see that you're really passive right and if you're passive then that's a security that you're dealing with you're investing into security cool that's cool and I appreciate us understanding that groundwork because I want people to listen to this I want people in my Mastermind to listen to this I want   people to just hear and understand that more often times like more than you think there are people clearly violating SEC like security law and so I just want to make sure that people are compliant and this is like you mentioned it earlier and I think that's really important is just the lack of Education side of things and you and I talk about that we talked about this before this of like really there's only like two main Educators in this space that are doing this and unless you know those two you   run the risk of not really being honestly educated enough to run a fund unless you have the self-education side of these and so I love like what you're doing and the content you're putting out especially from a Securities attorney aspect to be able to help that what what have you seen has been like the main sources of Education because even just like outside of what I do outside of what you do uh are there other sources of Education since you've been in this space longer than me that people can go to to gain more   information about what it looks like to raise a fund or uh or even start looking in that direction yeah dude it's tough out there right like you just you just said it and I I'll just name him I mean Hunter Thompson has some really good content that he puts out love Hunter super intelligent guy great stuff it's about raising Capital 4 real estate specifically which is great for the for your audience um and then Bridger Pennington of course um his is a little bit not necessarily real estate related   more in the private Equity space but also real estate sometimes and those are really the only two guys that are putting out content um typically before them you're really getting your education from your securities attorney that you engage with you know that can you know they're going to give you legal advice they're not going to give you kind of like you know they they'll review your marketing materials and things like that to tell you hey this is compliant this is not maybe this is what you should do this is what you shouldn't   do but there's not really anything comprehensive out there where you put the whole package together when you're really trying to start a capital raising business other than those two guys right now so you know there's a lot of room in that space for people to to step in and do it and and also you know Securities attorneys if you look I mean there's only a few of us putting out any kind of content cuz you know as an attorney most most of us are pretty conservative we don't want to put ourselves out there we   don't want to say anything that might get us into trouble you know I'm I'm an entrepreneur first so I'm out there to to educate and that's what I was going to ask so for you man just like a little bit about your journey because like it's not every day that you meet a a Securities attorney now granted we are at a fund event so then like of course you're going to run into a Securities attorney but like honestly you you I feel like and this is kind of cool I feel like me and you don't fit the molds   of our role like for like we're tatted like you know like you know I'm saying we're tatted we're a little bit more laid-back I got I think I posted this the other day I graduated college with a 2.3 GPA like I I just am not very qualified of what you would put the normal qual qualifications of a fund manager would be but for you like for you how did you get started and like what Drew you to Securities Law cuz it's a very specific Niche to be in for sure yeah and I really got started in real estate law so I was always drawn to real   estate I just knew it was a great investment I've just like intrinsically loved real estate I don't know what it was like even when I was in undergrad I was like man it would be so great to own these tow houses that I'm living in like things like that I've just always been attracted to it and investing in it so I started investing in it myself I started out doing real estate transactional law oh cool from that from that perspective and then I realized that you know raising Capital was a little bit more   sophisticated I I like that aspect better and I started gravitating towards that and got into Securities Law and and again at the same time as I was doing that I was also starting to Syndicate my own deal so um pretty interesting that I got kind of the legal side got the business side going at the same time so it gave me really good perspective that's cool so you talked about your journey a little bit I love like diving into that Journey because you you said that you you were in on some of your own   deals so you started as real estate attorney chop that like started doing that were you like a closing attorney yeah yeah okay so like a closing attorney uh and then started did you get to a point where you're like yo I see all this money that people are making I kind of want to do that is that how it like switched into you becoming an active investor into real estate uh yeah somewhat man I mean I took kind of the traditional route of real estate investing I read Rich Dad Poor Dad I started listening to Big Pockets the   purple Bible you know it man what it is um yeah did all that and house hacked into a duplex I mean that was my first property started fixing and flipping a few few property still own some single family those sorts of things um and then you're San Diego right I'm in San Diego yeah but I'm originally from West Virginia West Virginia West by God Virginia that's right all right I mean like I feel like if you I feel like if you're from there you would say something like that that does make sense that does make that's the say that's   what we say West by God Virginia no I don't know anything about V West Virginia but now but now I do so now do you own some of your properties in in very two very different markets West Virginia or San Diego is that like where you own them or are you in other markets they're all over the place so like we invested I lived in Charlotte for a little bit like you know so own a couple properties there own a property in West Virginia that duplex that I was telling you about cuz I moved there for a job really you know California is   tough like to make anything cash flow there's some Adu opportunities right now for that but really just own the house that I live in then I have a condo that I rent out up in Orange County and that's about it but the other ones are all kind of all over the place like we invested in Cleveland for a little bit as well oh yeah some multi family stuff in Cleveland that that was kind of in the single family phase but as far as like the multif family the retail a lot of that was like in the midwest um in   the in the um in the sun sun Bel area so all over the place and we did like industrial we did retail we did multif family um all all sorts of stuff man on the commercial side and it's good to know that background for you like not that background but like you had the ability to understand and how to structure some of those deals um and so I'd love to I'd love to talk about the structure of funds a little bit because this is sure I'm going to as the question that I think like everybody wants to ask an SEC attorney about the   difference between a 506b and a 506c and then what constitutes like having that pre-existing relationship right because like if you have a 506b or a 506c there's certain stipulations but those are the two most common right like 90% of funds are 506 BS or 506 C's and so and if I'm wrong just just let me know but I believe that's like the statistic and and with those what constitutes the differences and then the pre-existing relationship part is one that a lot of people have questions about for sure man   yeah you're spot on so far I mean 506b I like to Remember by buddy so it's typically going to be a buddy right like yeah you have to have so the rule isn't that you have to have a pre-existing substantive relationship the rule is you're not allowed to solicit or advertise that's the rule and the way that you show that is by having a pre-existing substantive relationship with those investors so that that's a little bit of a Nuance there the rule is really you can't or advertised you can't go on Facebook and talk about it you   can't take out Google ads and and put it out there you can't even talk about it really to strangers and invite them into your deals you have to have that pre-existing substantive relationship because otherwise think about it well how would they know about your deal if you didn't right like that's that's kind of the the mindset there so yeah be but the the advantage there of course is that you're allowed to bring in 35 non-accredited investors so that's why people go with the 506b route number one   you can bring in a limited number of non-accredited investors uh number two there's there's less requirements for you as the uh fund manager or the syndicator the capital raiser on proving if they're accredited or not because they just self-certify so those are really the two big reasons you would choose a 506b versus a 506c which you can remember that by community so it's a bigger pool of people all right it's 506c for Community those folks when you have that exemption then you can go out there to your community you can solicit   you can advertise you can put it on Facebook you can put it out there in your m mind you go speak on stage and say hey guys come invest in my deal you can do whatever you want really it gives you the freedom to operate and not feel like oh am I doing something wrong but obviously the big thing there is accredited investors only so if you choose that 6C exemption you're only allowed to bring in accredited investors and they're all you're also going to have to take reasonable steps to verify that and that's typically through uh a   third party vendor or through that Investor's attorney or uh CPA that's going to write them a letter that says that they're qualified yeah which typically and you and not typically but like this is why you see even older more established funds go with a B because it's easier to just bring them in so they don't have to do all that stuff yeah what you see is they'll do a 506b but they won't allow uh non accredited investors in so it'll be 506b but only allow accredited investors so that they don't have to they don't they can   self-certify yeah which is makes it just a whole lot easier of paperwork standpoint so then uh that's which is really really interesting so for for me and I'm actually I'm going to just dive in a little bit deeper because there's so much gray here and like you can it's fine if you don't bring any like Clarity to the situation but there's so much gray here because I hear people that are like all right now when you meet that person add it to your calendar that you met that person and then you could talk   to them three weeks later and then like then you could pitch your fun to them and then like then now you're showing the SEC that it's a a pre-existing relationship and then it's like well where the heck is the line if there isn't even a line and then it's like then then what do they what is the expect me to do you know like if somebody introduces me to somebody how the heck do I make sure that I'm compliant in that in that relationship that we have if I know that they even come into the relationship interested in   what I'm doing I want to take a quick second to talk to you guys about something that could completely change the game for you if you're serious about launching and scaling an investment fund if you've ever wanted to start a real estate fund private Equity Fund or syndication but didn't know where to start this is for you fund Founders is giving you free access to foundations 101 a step-by-step course designed to help you to structure your fund the right way so you stay SEC compliant raise Capital like a pro even if you   don't have a network yet scale your fund without constantly chasing investors and avoid costly legal mistakes that can shut you down this is the exact road map successful fund managers use to launch manage and raise capital for their funds without wasting time or money and the best part it's completely free go to funds onf fire.com back/ Founders or click the links in the notes to get instant access to the fund Foundation 101 course don't miss this if you're serious about raising capital and growing your fund this is where you   start again that's funds onf fire.com Founders or click the link in the notes now let's get back to the show yeah uh pre-existing uh actually just means pre-existing the offering so pre-existing your syndication pre-existing your fund so that makes it a little bit difficult when you've got let's say an evergreen fund right it's like well you got that offering open forever right so you can't even bring anybody in after you've opened it um that you don't already know but there is a there is a kind of a loophole I'll   call it it's not really a loophole it's it's actually a regulation but you can actually convert um a 506b to a 506c now you didn't used to be able to do that but I think that pass um maybe like two or three years ago where you can convert the 506b to the 506c now you can't go back after that but once you make that conversion you know get all your 506b investors in if you want to fill that 35 non accredited pool and then convert it to a see you can do that and then you can go out you can solc it you can   advertise you can talk about it you can bring in strangers yeah now that's really interesting too well and I do know that I think you just have to close subscription for like 24 hours right or something like that and then you can open back up you really just have yeah there's not really a Time requirement you'll hear something you you'll hear where there's like a cooling off period and they'll say 30 days 60 days but it really just comes down to closing that first offering because it's separate   that 506 B exemption offering and then opening that new C offering and just to be safe because again we're dealing with Securities it's always gray maybe give it that 30 days to cool off and then open up that 506c and then you're good to go and you have to refile like a form D and everything like that you do okay you do okay cool I wonder if you're your blue skies you can use the same documents but You' need a new form D yeah okay cool all right very interesting so that's cool to know too so I use a platform and I think we've   talked about it briefly called aester and I'm a big fan because it's a customizable fund they actually don't I think because of the nature of the customizable fund they actually said that I can't close down my be and open back up as a c just by nature of that type of fund and I thought that was really interesting and I know you and I have talked about potentially chopping up like what the heck is the I I think I sent you the stuff for it I can't remember but uh yeah I think so yeah talking about that customizable fund   because it sounds like um you know there's different fund models there's um there are the reg d506 B and C's there's reg CF reg A's and then you also run into like syndications and then you have fun of funds right and so it sounds like and for you you've kind of done all of them I think oh yeah but right now you're really focused on one major one right is that what you like so the fund that you currently operate and you're running uh I'd love to hear a little bit more about that yeah for sure so just to   comment on the the aester fund you know it's it's a kind of a new product right the customizable fund it's pretty new it hasn't really been tested on the legal side quite yet it's pretty complicated right like complicated from well what it spits out is simple right they say Hey you create this Evergreen fund and then you get you know each investor only gets 1 K1 even though they might be invested across a bunch of deals things like that which is great um but you lose that flexibility so I don't know the the   intricacies of it but you know you can imagine you've got this this customizable fund that's invested in let's say 10 different other deals or whatever and some of them it's acting as a fun of fund some of them it's acting as u a lead sponsor or all these different things so trying to convert that to a 506b from a or 506b to a 506c I can see where you can run into some complications there it might not be possible yeah and I think so because the structure sorry the structure of it they tell me what makes it customizable is   the fact that like our investors can log in and I don't actually like I have an overarching PPM they log in and they choose the their investment that they want to I'm not telling them the investment that they have to like invest into they read the deal disclosures and decide decide that that's what they want where they want to allocate their money to which allows for for the customizability of this type of model so I think like that's where converting it to a c would be yeah what you're saying for sure y that's that's kind of the   defining I guess piece of that customizable fund is that investor actually gets to pick and choose within your fund that you created where they invest um and that actually I can see where that why they do that I mean it's a it's a great concept but also that keeps you from actually making any decisions as the fund manager so that keeps you out of some certain regulations I'm like hey this is what we offer yep you can look at the deal disclosures and decide on where you want but like they could and this is like one   of the things that they like is I can say oh you could you could essentially diversify your portfolio within one fund because you could choose this one this one this one this one but you choose how much you want to go into there so that's that is a very interesting model and so that's really cool um or like yeah the investor chooses it yep the investor chooses it and yeah and and I'll you know that contrast to what you're alluding to which is an SPV fund of fund so that's what we do over at tribe vest   in full disclosure I'm Chief legal officer and a and a shareholder of tribe vest um so I'm a little bit biased and aester is you know we don't like to call him a competitor honestly they do fund of funds and we do fund of funds is like the overarching product but it's completely different you know one situation which why I brought it up it's the only reason why I brought it up because I'm excited to dive into tribe vest and what you guys offer um because this is not a pitch for tribe vest and like I didn't even know about I did know   I've heard of trivest but didn't even know you were a part of it before this podcast but I love hearing what you're a part of and that's why I want to dive into that a little bit because I think it's cool yeah and I like it it it might be a good to kind of lay it out right you've got these customizable fun of funds out there avor is really the only one offering them there's a couple other uh groups out there that are going to be offering them soon you can actually go to a Securities attorney and they can   put it together for you as well um and yeah and then you've got the SPV fun of fund again you can go through triest or you can SPV just for clarity special right special purpose vehicle or single purpose vehicle kind of either either one really applies then you've got your typical discretionary fund which you would go directly to a Securities attorney and that's where you're actually making some decisions you're saying okay I'm going to raise 10 million bucks and I'm going to invest in Deal one two three four five six seven   eight um and you're kind of making those decisions and there's a lot of rules and regulations that you've got to abide by to be able to do that without a license but anyways back to the SPV the single-purpose vehicle instead of a customizable fund where you know the investor is making the decision and you as the fund manager in you know you make all these different things Avail all these different Investments available the SPV is designed as a single purpose vehicle to invest in one single deal so   if there's a Target deal let's say a 200 unit multif family property in San Antonio um we're going to spin up an SPV for you to invest as a passive investor into that Target deal and that's it it's super simple it's super contained it's not complicated it it just keeps everything compartmentalized both from an asset protection standpoint and from visibility right you're going to know as the fund manager and as the investor exactly what you're investing in what you're how you're going to get paid what   your projective returns are and it doesn't really get mudded by other Investments and this is what I CU I've talked to other SEC attorneys and they've talked about it's funny they've talked about how rare what I've done so I've like maxed out my 506b on a my first fund being a blind fund and they were like that's super rare because you're saying hey just trust me but what you guys are saying what you're doing is saying hey this is the specific and that makes it a lot easier to raise Capital because like you said ton more   transparency they know what they're investing into and so for people starting out that's probably the route that they want to start with is something where they can bring transparency and then the investors that they're coming in know exactly what they're investing into that's right de yeah what you did Devon was incredible like it's really difficult to do most people don't start there they can't start there they don't have the ability to um to be able to build that up that level of trust and track record prior to   you launching the fund that's why you're able to do it but most people can't do it most people have to get their first few in the door by showing the investors hey this is the exact deal that you're going to invest in and you're getting you're going to be a part of and they can do their own due diligence and underwriting and those sorts of things and they're say oh yes I believe in that property or that deal and I also believe in you as the the fund manager or the syndicator and it's easier to raise   Capital that way as opposed to a blind pool fund where it's like hey just give me your money and we're going to invest in something that looks like this and yeah exactly exactly so I actually I want to dive into more into tribe vests cuz like so where does the benefit come in because like somebody can just go and get with an SEC attorney and create their own SPV and and kind of go that route but where's the benefit of somebody coming in and working with tribe vest like why I mean honestly like I please I like tell me like why have   you invested into it why do you believe in it so much and then yeah tell me a little bit more about it man yeah because it it just makes everything super simple and super contained and we handle everything so if you go to an SEC attorney like myself I'm going to come in and I'm going to I'm going to draft your offering documents I'm going to file your exemptions do your blue sky filings and that's it and I I'm going to wipe my hands of it and I'll say you know good luck you know more than that I'll help you out of yeah exactly I'm   going to charge you a lot of money I'm going to charge you at least 25k right Tri vest includes everything that you could possibly imagine so all these different parts that you would have to put together as a capital aggregator TR vest handles so that includes not just the offering documents the legal stuff the filing of the exemptions and the blue sky filings but we're going to file for your entity we're going to get your EIN we're going to be your registered agent we are going to uh onboard your   investors so we're going to act like an like an investor relations person on your team so all you do is send us your list of investors and we start reaching out we send them the docs we walk them through how to sign and get them through the signing ceremony we hound them or we call it hurting the cats to get them to actually fund the deal cuz sometimes people get cold feet so bug the hell out of them yep bug the hell out of them until they make that wire we do all that we do the uh the accounting in your k1s   we configure your cap table very cool we do your distributions we open your business banking account we do uh everything on the back end uh we've got the investor dashboard or investor portal that you can use which alone is you know you're going to pay $500 a month at minimum for that by itself so it it's incredible and we do it at an incredible price and I mean we're not we're very transparent about that it's $5,000 upfront and then $2,000 a year annually and that comes with docs and everything that comes with docks and   everything there's just you can't be beat I mean it literally can't be beat and the other thing is the speed so as soon as you sign the greenl docks which is basically just like hey you agree to the services that we're going to provide we will have you raising capital in five business days no way man that's really cool that's fantastic if you come to to me if you come to me as a security attorney I've got that hat on you know we're not doing in 5 days I'll tell you that now how much education do you help   with because I tell people all the time like here's the questions you should have beforehand because your SEC like your attorney will be the most expensive education you have ever paid for if you don't have that information beforehand so like what what type of because they'll charge you like if you don't know if you want a 506b or 506 C you don't know if you if you want your waterfall this way if you want this and you're just asking questions they're going to charge you by the hour to ask those questions and so for you like how   much help do you guys help for people who are like I've never started a fund I'm really looking forward to starting this but I don't know where to go what does that look like for you guys yeah I mean for tribe vest we're putting together some modules actually right now we're going to roll them out literally before the end of the year which will be fantastic because we're going to share that with with the world you're going to be able to self-educate on what is a fun to fund how does that look like in the   fundraising ecosystem like you know what is a preferred return what is the profits what kind of fees can you charge all kind of the nuts and bolts that you need to know we're going to have that out there so soon enough that'll be available to the public and that'll be a huge value ad and huge help for us as well because we don't have to educate one-on-one anymore as a Securities attorney I I will advise on people I mean I'm I'm happy I'm I'm more of a mentor and a coach when it comes to that sort of stuff and I'll I'll be like look   attorney hat off right now I'm going to tell you this and here's kind of your gray area and that sort of thing so you know I I I think I get into those sorts of things a little bit more than most attorneys will um but if you go to like a a large Law Firm or even a regional Law Firm they're they're going to charge you per hour and that's going to be anywhere between you know $400 to $1,500 an hour yeah there's no doubt there's there's no doubt so and this is really interesting because one of the questions   that I had just going into this um and not even knowing about uh the not even knowing about tribe vest and and all of that is what have you seen as far as like trends that you're seeing in the industry right now because Trends seem to be changing one just even I I'm a disruptor you're it seems like you're a disruptor of Industries and we're trying to disrupt this huge investment fund industry um but it seems like there's being like there's different type of offerings there different structures there's different   things that people are doing what are some of the trends that you're seeing that people are kind of pressing against or starting in as far as funds as a whole you seeing that being the case of being become more common yeah I mean so like biggest picture right is trying to get these types of alternative Investments to the masses because most wealthy people even rich people whatever you want to call them that have some Expendable income that want to invest the only thing they know are 401ks stock market mutual funds   and those sorts of things and they we just need to get that out there and I think you're seeing a trend towards that I think bringing in more people that want to raise capital and start a capital raising business is how you do it right because they've already got their built-in networks and then those networks know other people and and it kind of spiderwebs out from there so that's that's kind of the biggest picture trend is just trying to see well we're seeing you know alternative investments just become more available   to the masses second you're seeing the industry go away from the CP model which I like to say the cgp model is dead and you're seeing people turn to the fun of funds route yeah because the cgp model has just been abused if you do it the right way if you're actually an active partner and you're actually participating in the meetings and and decid on Asset Management typee decisions then all good that's how it's supposed to be but when you're just raising capital and not doing anything else that's when the CP model gets   abused and it's not just oh well you shouldn't do that it's illegal it's plain and simple illegal so that was like the conversation I'm telling you when um I was having the conversation with that guy at my at my Mastermind and he was like we're doing this and I go like stop and he's like haa and I go no no it's illegal and he's like oh haha and I'm like no no like prison illegal and they I feel like just people don't understand the severity because they feel like what's wrong with it it's not that bad and it's like no no it's   illegal yeah and you know that this is just what happens right like you just kind of everybody just pushes boundaries pushes boundaries and you know fortunately or unfortunately however you want to look at it the industry's been fantastic for a long time right the real estate industry's went up since the the crash in 2009 2008 all the way until really covid and that was just a blip and then it took off again and then B basically up until last year 2023 is when you started seeing it kind of take   a nose dive a little bit because of interest rates and not because of the actual state of the market but the interest rates but either way it started going down you started seeing some people get in trouble but all along the way on that rise up all the investors have been happy he's suing anybody because they've been getting their returns and they've been everybody's been crushing it and even if you're a terrible operator you've still been crushing it because the market saved you and nobody's getting sued so it's all   good until it's not and then you've seen in yeah and then you see in 2023 you see you know potential foreclosures and workouts and you know Capital calls things like that investors aren't happy and we're in America and people are like yo how can I get my money back well you try to sue somebody and that's when you start seeing some of these things where the cgp model was abused or people weren't raising Capital the right way or they didn't f exemptions all those sorts of legal things that nobody really   worried about because everything was great start coming up and you're you're seeing that now so you're seeing that shift away from the CP model to the fund of funds model because the fund of funds model is compliant obviously if you do it the right way but it's more compliant and it's always been the answer but at the end of the day it's expensive it's more complicated you've got more attorneys you've got a whole separate offering all these different things that you have to take into account and people   were like I'm not doing that but now we're kind of forced into having to do that and that's where you know tribe vest and aester and some other folks are coming in and having coming up with solutions for that yeah that's really cool um because one one more thing I'm really curious on that you've seen because I feel like there is a fairly irreg irregulate asset you know coming into a very regulated um like structure right so one the things I'm talking about is like the rise of crypto in these crypto funds and these blockchains   based funds have you seen that start to affect like the legal landscape of funds and the formation that people have of that and the way that people are thinking through that and even how the SEC is starting to figure that out and uh and stuff like that have you seen like an emergence of more of those blockchainbased funds I have yeah and not just like strictly you know blockchain and and crypto but also just spin-offs of that right like you saw tokenized real estate was a big thing for a little while it's kind of turned   down a little bit but that was huge that was like I was crazy that you could be like I'm tokenizing my my bathroom and when I sell it you get like that much of the footage and the appreciation it's like what that's crazy yeah so it's kind of cooled out a little bit you know I don't I honestly don't follow that that closely just because I know that it just changes so fast and especially now that we've got the new Administration in here you're probably going to see a lot more loosening of that which would be good   for us but yeah I mean you know you're going to see that right like CU we are just on the the precipice of just crazy technological advancements from tokenized Real Estate to you know crypto to AI like all this stuff is going to like this landscape 5 years from now is is going to be unrecognizable yeah that's it's it really will just because of the way that contract law is going to go from the from the from um from I guess blockchain based like because like you'll see that where the blockchain will take a lot of   those uh a lot of that aspect and change it and flip it on its head so it's going to be super interesting to see how that goes man I want to respect honor your time I appreciate you being on I guess one thing I guess one more question that I have before we kind of go into the exit if there's somebody that's thinking about starting a fund because what you were saying earlier really there's only two main people if I'm fully transparent I want to be able to be uh the voice of funds for minorities and women in this   country because like all those other they all the white dudes they could have all the other white dudes that's fine with me but there's a lot there's a there's a huge disparity I heard uh don peees once say and this has changed my my my thought my process like my mindset ever since he says in the history of America there has been $94 trillion to come in through private equity and real estate in the history of American and history of America 8.3% of that had no sorry 1.7% of that have gone to minorities and women that means 98.3% of   that has gone to white men and so there's this massive disparity between access to education like you're saying access to Capital Access to I think there there's this quote that says the world equally distributes talent but doesn't equally distribute opportunity and so there's this huge disparity of opportunity of people that look like me and look like you and look like women around this country that I would love to make sure we're the voice for and so for people who don't have a lot of that education one what's a big piece of   advice that you would give them and when they're starting to think about starting a fund because I think like if I'm full of transparency most of the people I talked to and I told you I saved from prison there were black dudes they're just trying to do the right thing but don't have the education to do the right thing and so for for that like what what's a big piece of advice you would give people that are thinking like I think I want to start a fund um what should I look out for how expensive does   it matter because we've talked about a better solution for how expensive it can be but what's the thing that they should be looking out for yeah I mean you know right off the bat like be confident and don't be intimidated because I think some people yep in those groups that you described might feel a little discouraged because of that because you walk into a room that is maybe all fund managers or all capital risers or you know those types of people and you're like who I don't look like everybody   else so maybe I don't belong here or maybe your confidence goes from here to to hear and you're like and then and then you come off that way right like you've got to you got to step into that room with confidence and a lot of a lot of that comes down to self-education right like it comes from education and it's out there now I mean we mentioned that there's only a few really good sources but you can still piece it together I mean you can find anything on YouTube University just to at least get the you know being able to talk to talk   and walk the walk and and feel confident doing that so just get educated to start get that Baseline and then get out there and just be be confident like I said don't be intimidated don't feel like you don't belong because we got to get folks out there that are that are doing it from from those groups yep that's right man well I appreciate it Seth where can people find you where can people hire you where can people join what you're doing um because I think that they should I'm a big believer in you and   what you're doing and I'm excited for for all those things appreciate it man I usually update all my Links at Seth Paul bradley.com so you can find everything there I'm all over social media so all my handles are Seth Bradley Esq cool man I appreciate you thankful for your time thankful for your friendship I really look forward to uh to Growing growing together man it's fun to see other people that like we're about the same age I don't know you look like you're in your 20s but you're you're not I know   that but like uh but like like for us to just rise together on this man and so I'm thankful for this journey that we're on together and I appreciate you being here today love it brother appreciate you yes sir talk to you later man wow I hope you enjoyed that I have a quick favor if you've been enjoying the show there's one simple way you can support us and it's by hitting that follow button or that subscribe button on the app app you're listening to I want to level this podcast up in every single   way possible bringing you more value incredible content and guests and new strategies Following the show and leaving a quick review goes a really long way in helping us to grow and continue to deliver top tier content it's the only free thing I'll ever ask you to do and it makes a bigger impact than I can possibly put into words so thank you for being a part of this journey and I'll definitely catch you on the next episode to great success and greater impact peace Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-w_w6WAUVw https://www.instagram.com/p/DHbcSjGT7Jn/ https://tinyurl.com/FFfoundations-YT https://pfcapital.us/ Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Devin Robinson's Links: https://www.instagram.com/devin.robinson1/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/devin-robinson-997ba040/ https://www.facebook.com/drob737/ https://x.com/devinrobinson37 https://www.threads.com/@devin.robinson1 https://www.tiktok.com/@devin.robinson1  

Title: Rare Earths to Truffles: Diversified Investments You've Never Heard Of with Louis O'Connor Summary: In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes back Lou, an international investor, to discuss diversification, rare earth metals, and a unique agricultural investment opportunity. Lou, who splits his time between Europe and Latin America, emphasizes the importance of global diversification for peace of mind and flexibility. He highlights the geopolitical dynamics affecting rare earth metals, where China dominates the refining process, and discusses the increasing demand due to restricted exports. Transitioning from metals to agriculture, Lou introduces his truffle farm investment. Leveraging agri-science and Ireland's favorable climate, the project offers investors ownership of inoculated truffle trees with professional farm management. Returns are projected to begin in year 4-5 and continue for up to 40 years, offering IRRs between 14% to 69% based on historical truffle prices. Risks include mismanagement and natural elements, though strong biosecurity and proven success mitigate concerns. Lou finishes with a valuable mindset tip: improve by 1% daily to compound results over time. Bullet Point Highlights: Diversification across countries and industries provides flexibility and peace of mind China's control of rare earth refining and export restrictions create scarcity and opportunity Truffle farm investment offers strong IRR potential, with returns starting in years 4-5 and lasting 30-40 years Minimum $30K investment includes 400 saplings and full farm management with a 70/30 profit split Primary risks are mismanagement and nature, mitigated through biosecurity and replacement guarantees Lou's golden nugget: Focus on improving 1% daily to unlock exponential long-term growth Transcript: (Seth Bradley) (00:02.062) What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.   If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Lou, what's going on, brother? Welcome back to the show.   Thank you very much Seth. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Good to see you again.   Yeah, absolutely man. Great to catch up with you. Are you tuning in from where?   Well, in Europe still, you know, I'm back and forth between Ireland, Germany, mostly, a little bit of time in Panama as well, because my wife's from there, but I'm in temporary in Ireland, horse breeding country and agricultural heartland actually of Europe. And at the moment anyway, yeah, so in Europe.   (Seth Bradley) (01:16.664) awesome, awesome. That's the beauty of being on a video conference call that you can talk to anyone from anywhere in the world now. That's the one good thing that came out of COVID is it made it normal to do it.   Yeah, it's funny, unbelievable. Just yesterday I was contacted actually by CNBC in the US, I'm in Europe, about the metals. We're not talking about metals today, but I've spoken with you before about the rare earth metals. And I guess the US chamber, secretary chamber of commerce is in China this week because China is restricting the export of certain technology metals and that's their area.   And within a day, there's like an hour after I speak with you, I'm doing an interview with CNBC on, I think it's Power Launch or something they call it. So it's fascinating really how quickly you can sort of ping around the globe and find somebody and do this.   Yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool, man. Well, thanks for taking the time to tune in with us today. And we've got a brand new thing to talk about and we'll jump into that. But before we do, just for listeners who didn't listen to your previous episode, give us a little bit about your background and your story. Just a general synopsis,   Sure, thank you. Yeah, so I'm obviously, you can tell from the accent, I'm Irish or Scottish or Australian, but it's Irish. And I suppose you could say I'm bit of a world traveler who has come back home specifically for this project we're going to talk about. Ireland is known as sort of the breadbasket of Europe. But yeah, I lived in Germany for 10 years, lived in Central America and traveled extensively in South America during that time.   (Louis O'Connor) (03:05.422) But my niche, if you will, you know one other business we're involved in. And my niche, what I'm looking for is always what I call, I don't know what you might call it in the US, but we sort of call it a path of progress play here, which is if you sort of look at an industry or a product, what's happened in the last 10 years, or even a country or even a business for that matter, if you look at what's happened in the last 10, you can sort of   have a look at likely what's going to happen in the next 10. So I'm always looking for somewhere where demand is increasing and supply is either going to be limited or subject to disruption and somehow, and that's what we will be talking to an agricultural product and we'll talk more about it. But I like to be diversified in every way. So I have business in Germany, this agricultural product is in Ireland.   I do my banking in Belize and Panama and different parts of Europe. So just trying to be as diversified as possible.   Right, right. And that's part of your kind of plan as well, right? Like to be kind of this international man of mystery, right? Like you have different ties to a couple of different countries, which gives you flexibility in case something goes wrong in one of them, right? Like, you know, I think a lot of people were worried here for a while and I think it's still in the back of people's minds in the United States about, you know, the strength of the dollar and   You know, people were talking about getting a second citizenship and things like that. Can you speak to that a little bit about kind of, you know, how you've done that and what your kind of thoughts and feelings are around that?   (Louis O'Connor) (04:46.552) Sure, sure. Well, you my feeling always has this peace of mind, you know, I just want peace of mind. I want to be at peace with myself and the world around me. that's, I mean, I'm probably talking about more philosophically and spiritually as well, but also, you know, in business or residencies or banking. I suppose it's because I left Ireland quite young and I did live.   I didn't just go on a vacation somewhere. lived in Germany for 10 years. I learned the language. Ireland is an island, even though we're part of Europe, continental Europe is completely different. And then I went to Latin America, which is a completely different kettle of fish altogether. And I suppose it was those experiences that the perspective that gave me was that, that sounds very simple, really, root of entry, but there's...   there's good and bad, know, you we do certain things in Ireland very well, and maybe other things not so well in Germany, they do, you know, they've made better cars and better roads. And we do and you know, Latin America, I think they dance better and drink better maybe than you know, but so yeah, what I learned is, you know, you know, you can pick is a bit like life can be a bit like a buffet, and you can pick what you like, and you know what you don't like leave behind, you know, so and the idea, I suppose the point I should make is that   What I've learned is it's not expensive or difficult to be diversified. Like have your banking in different jurisdictions really doesn't cost anything. Having a second or third residency if you do the right homework on I'll go into more detail if you want. have residency still in Panama and I three passports. I'm working on the fourth and it has been a little bit of effort but not expensive or costly.   And will I ever use it? I worried that the world's going to end? No. But it's just that peace of mind you have when you've got these other options that, God forbid if something did happen here in Ireland or Europe, I have a residency in Panama, I banking there. So it's just that, suppose it's like having a parachute or a safety net that's always there.   (Seth Bradley) (07:00.13) Yeah, yeah, I agree. mean, that's, you know, especially the way that things are today and people kind of just worry about things generally, right? If you have that peace of mind and you have that, you know, second or third option, it's just something that can kind of let you sleep at night a little bit better. It's like having a nest egg or, you know, having a second, third, fourth, fifth stream of income.   things like that that can let you sleep at night and while other people are panicking and worrying and making, you know, maybe even bad decisions based on that, you know, based on those worries, you can sleep soundly and make decisions that are best for you.   Yeah, yeah, and you're not limited, know, if you're just, you know, like, I mean, it's funny though, as well, I think it's timely. I think the time has come. I you see people, you know, we were chatting earlier, you know, being involved in multiple different industries and, you know, with technology, we're allowed to do that. We can reside in one country, we can do our bank in another, we can do our tax responsibility somewhere else, we can do our business. So it's probably just in the last 20, 30 years that we can move so freely.   with all this stuff, know, you know, only maybe 25, 30 years ago, I wanted to, I couldn't really do business in Germany, but live in Ireland, it'd have to be one or the other. There was no internet, you know, everything. So, so yeah, I think, I think we're heading in that direction anyway. And it's just, yeah, there's great freedom in it and great peace of mind, even though, you know, I mean, I'll be in Ireland for, you know, my two kids are, there's another six or eight years.   before they finish school. So I plan to be here, but I just have other options as well, you know.   (Seth Bradley) (08:41.42) Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. And speaking of diversification, mean, your investments are very diverse, right? I mean, in the previous episode, we jumped into rare earth metals. And then in this episode, we're going to jump into something new. Before we jump into the new thing, though, give us a little update on what has changed in your business with the rare earth metals or if anything has changed or how those things are going.   Yeah, well, thanks. Thanks for asking, Seth. Since we spoke, actually, the big news is just in the last 60 days, I think I mentioned to you that China pretty much sort of dominates the rare earth industry. it's, I think really, it's possible and we understand now that China sort of saw before the EU and maybe before the US or they understood at least that rare earths would become   the backbone of manufacturing in the 21st century and they've been, you know, they've taken action on that. So we're in a situation now and it's not really an economic strategy. It's more of a geopolitical strategy that China has big plans for electric cars, big plans for solar, big plans for wind. you know, they, they've hundreds of million people, they're, taken out of the poverty, into the middle class all the time. So sort of   thinking strategically and long term, they rightfully secured their supply of rare earths. And what happened just in the last 60 days is the US sort of initiated a sort of a block. Now it was also supported by Holland and Japan and they're blocking sort of the latest sort of semiconductor technology from going to China. And in retaliation for that, China   You know, they have, you know, an ace up their sleeve, which is where it hurts. So the West has the technology and China has the raw materials. And just in the last 60 days, China has said they're going to, well, effective August 1, which is a month ago, they're restricting the export now of gallium and germanium, which is two of these technology metals, and that China, you know, is responsible for 95 % of the global production. so we're seeing the prices go up and this is sort of.   (Louis O'Connor) (10:57.826) what I talked to you about that these metals are in demand on a good day, you know, you will make a nice return. But if something like this happens where China sort of weaponizes these metals economically, then you'll see prices increasing quite dramatically, which they are. Yeah, that's that's what's happening there. It's basically a market where there's surging demand and you have sort of political landscapes affecting as well. So   It makes for interesting investment.   Yeah, yeah. Are these rare earth metals, are they not something that we can mine or is it something we're not willing to mine, like let's say in the West?   (Louis O'Connor) (11:44.142) Yeah, good question actually. that actually gets right to the heart of it, Seth, because despite the name rare earths, they're not all that rare. Some of them are as sort of common as copper and stuff, but there's about eight or ten of them that are rare and they are available in the US. But this is what's changed dramatically in the last 30 years is the rare earths don't occur naturally. So they always occur as a byproduct of another raw material.   They're sort of, they're very chemically similar. they're, sort of all stuck together. So they have to be extracted and separated and then refined and processed into, you know, high purity levels for jet engines or smartphones or whatever the case might be. what's happened where China dominates is, is China is responsible for 95 % of the refining. Now there's about 200 or sorry, $390 billion available in subsidies in the U S.   from the Inflation Reduction Act, which despite the name is all about energy transition. And that's all very well, except the human capital and the engineering expertise to refine rare earths is depleted in, it doesn't exist in Europe, and it's very much depleted in the US. Just to give you some context, there's 39 universities in China, where they graduate degrees in critical minerals.   So the Chinese are graduating about 200 metallurgists a week, every week for the last 30 years. I think the US has a handful of universities. I'd say there's probably 300,000 metallurgists in China and there might be 400 in the US and probably none in Europe at all. So it's not just a question of if they're there, it's how do we get them into 99.99 % purity? Without the engineering expertise, we can't, not anytime soon anyway.   Wow, yeah, yeah. mean, that just alone sounds like a recipe for a pretty good play for an investment. you know, there's these bottlenecks, right? Whether that's people that can refine it or the actual element itself or willingness to mine it, you know, all these different things come into play to make it a good investment. All right, let's switch over a little bit here. Let's talk about the new investment vehicle.   (Seth Bradley) (14:06.99) that you talked to me about. It's an agricultural play, correct? we're talking about truffles, talking about mushrooms, right? Tell me a little bit about it just to get started here.   Okay, well, you probably I mean, you know, truffles are in the culinary world, they're known as the black diamond of the kitchen, you know, they're, they're a delicacy going back to, you know, thousands and thousands of years. Traditionally, the black perigord, which is the Mediterranean truffle would have originated in France, but for the last sort of, you know, the last 100 years or so,   they've been growing abundantly in sort of South, Southwestern France, Northern Spain and Italy. So traditionally, you know, that's where they grow and they sort of, know, because the truffle, as you said, it's a mushroom that has a symbiotic relationship with a a native tree, an oak tree or hazel tree or sometimes beech. So it's a very delicate balance, you know.   And although I have invested in agriculture before, we started, we, I mean, a collective does not just me involved here, and I don't want to sound like I take credit for any of this really. I was just a part of a team where we had some agri-science people, and we had sort of four generational farmers involved. But we were looking at, it is no question that climate, there's a climate change, right?   It doesn't matter to me whether people, whatever the causes of that are, the reality is if you talk to an olive grower or a truffle grower in Italy or France, they'll tell you the climate has changed because their harvests have been decreasing for about the last 30 to 40 years actually, but really more so in the last 10. So we were sort of, I'll tell you basically the AgriScience partner involved in this.   (Louis O'Connor) (16:10.958) As a test back in 2005, they started to plant and the trees inoculated, the baby trees inoculated with the truffle sort of in the root system as a test all over different countries, not just Ireland, England, UK, also the US. So this has been in sort of research and development since about 2005.   And we got seriously involved in about 2015 when history was made and this Mediterranean truffle was grown here in the British Isles for the first time. we then with our agriscience partner in 2015 planted a thousand trees in five different locations in Ireland where I am.   and one of them is about 20 minutes away from me here. They're all secret locations. I won't even tell you where they are because they really are. They're highly valued or highly prized. And so it takes about four or five years to see if you're a business. So yeah, we now are growing the Mediterranean truffle, not just in Ireland, but in other parts of the UK. But the real interesting thing, Seth, it's just now ready for scale. And all of the farmers,   who were involved in the original research. None of them are going to take it to scale. The one that's local to me is a lovely gentleman. in his 60s and he planted a thousand trees really just as a retirement. His daughter works in banking in Switzerland and so there's nobody really to take over the farm. So we're the first to do it with scale. So we're inviting in...   a portion of some investors in as well.   (Seth Bradley) (18:05.87) Gotcha. Are there specific, I assume there are, are specific growing conditions where these things can prosper? Like I can't, I'm in San Diego, I can't just plant them in my backyard and wait five years and be a millionaire.   Well, if you you if I hear you're growing truffles death, you know, we should assign an NDA we should assign. You could try but no, they wouldn't grow in San Diego because I mean, there's a very delicate balance and you're what you're you're what you're using here is agri science and nature. You're working with nature. And because the reason they've grown so well in demand is   No way.   (Louis O'Connor) (18:48.738) just because of that balance up they get a sort of a dry season or sort of they got to get a lot of rain and then they get the dry season and what's happened is they're getting more drought and less rain and it's just upset the balance. So it's a very, very delicate balance. But what people wouldn't know, I think, is that truffles have always grown wild in Ireland.   There was a time five or 600 years ago when Ireland was 85 % forest and our native tree is the oak and the hazel tree, is the tree that's also where the fungus grows. And what happened was when the Brits were before, you know, when shipbuilding was the thing and the British Navy were, you know, the Spanish were, so the Brits sort of chopped down a lot of the forest for the wood for shipbuilding. you know, our forests were depleted. But to this day,   Truffles do still grow wild here, but we're doing it differently. know, we're only planting on land where you have like certain protein and pH levels and limestone. And then we're planting baby saplings that are already two years old that were inoculated with the truffle fungus like at birth, like in the root system. And we only plant them after we see that the root system and the fungi are already thriving.   So if you get into the right soil and it's already thriving, then two, three, four years later, you'll get truffles.   (Seth Bradley) (20:17.216) the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.   That's awesome. just, I think about like wine and like, you know, you can grow it, you know, vines in different places. Some places they grow, some places they don't, some places they grow and the result isn't good and some places they grow and the result is awesome. It's probably a very delicate balance between, you know, environment plus how they're raised, how they're taken care of and all those sorts of things.   It is 100%. I mean, first and foremost, mean, because of angry science and technology today, you know, I mean, we can plant baby saplings that are already and not, I mean, we're playing God a little bit with nature, but you know, I mean, it's just amazing, you know, like you could do it. And then, you know, the biggest threat is actually mismanagement. You know, if you don't then manage it correctly. If you have a root system inoculated with the fungus and you have the right soil conditions,   after that and it's management and it's sort of bio security meaning they have a very pungent smell. mean, squirrels and pigs and they love them. They love to eat. So you have to, mean, you're literally it's like protecting a bank, know, you have a bio security fence. You've you know, you limit visitations to the farm, you've, know, special footwear and cleaning and stuff. so yeah, it's serious stuff, you know.   Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Well, let's dive in a little bit to the kind of the investment itself. Like what does that look like for an investor? Like what are your projected returns? You know, what, how does it all kind of, how does it all shape out? Like you've grown these wildly valuable truffles and now I guess the first step would be what's the business plan? Who are we selling these truffles to? What makes them so valuable? And then get into kind of the investor   (Seth Bradley) (22:33.794) portion like how would someone get involved in whether projector returns.   Okay, so we sell, first of all, the estate that the farm is, it's called Chan Valley Estate. People can Google it, it's beautiful. It's 200 acres of north-temporary farmland. The estate itself, it's a bit like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. It's a Georgian.   a three story Georgian home, it's over 200 years old. It's also a museum and we have events there and it's also a working farm. And it's a herbal farm. So we grow plants and herbs there that we then we have our own, we work the value chain where we also sell those herbs for medicinal purpose and we convert them into medicinal oils and things like that. So the location is already up and running.   And what we're doing with the truffles is for every acre, we can plant 800 trees. And so what we're doing is we're offering investors, well, a client, the minimum investment is $30,000 and the investor for that price gets 400 baby saplings already inoculated with the truffle fungus. And then they get the farm management   included up to the first four to five years. takes about, there'll be truffles after, bearing in mind that the sapling, the baby tree is two years old. So after three years in the ground, it's already five years old and there'll be truffles then and the returns don't begin until then. But what's included in the price is all the farm management, know, all the, you know, the,   (Louis O'Connor) (24:23.508) implementation of the farm, the irrigation, the electricity, the hardware that's needed. So all the management right up until there is production and then when they're producing, the investor gets 70 % of the growth and the farm management company, we get 30%. So it's a 70-30 split. Now the great thing about the oak and the hazel is they'll produce   for 30 to 40 years. it's a long term, it's a legacy investment, you might call it, because you won't see returns until the fourth or fifth year. But once you do, you'll see returns then for another 30 to 35 years. And they're very, very good. mean, we have three numbers in the brochure. We looked at what's...   price half the truffles never dropped below. So we have the very low estimate, which is they've never gone below this price. That brings in an IRR, which would be from day one of about 14%. And then the highest that they've sold for, you're looking at about 69%, but the average is about 38%.   So the returns will be very, very good once production kicks in and then they'll maintain. We've included an inflation for 30 to 40 years. I hope, I think I answered everything there.   Yeah, definitely. sorry. I gave you about six questions there to answer in a row. But yeah, I think you covered everything. And having an IRR, which is time-based on something that has this long of a horizon and even takes four or five years to even start producing, those are really, really strong numbers.   (Louis O'Connor) (26:23.63) Yeah, well, again, even the, you know, one of the reasons obviously we like truffles because they're very, very expensive. mean, they're a luxury product. You know, we're about an hour from Shannon Airport here, which is the transatlantic hub between Europe and the U.S. So we can have truffles in U.S. or anywhere in Europe or even the Middle East or the Far East, for that matter, in less than 24 hours. that's important as well. But they're a luxury item. There's huge demand for them. mean,   You know how the world is. mean, there are, unfortunately, you know, there's always sort of, people are getting richer and some people maybe are getting poorer. But the luxury, you know, high end market and the culinary, international culinary explosion means that, you know, there's huge demand for truffles. And also you have to factor in the fact that the harvests in the Mediterranean are less and less every year. And I mean, very, very sadly,   I mean, it's an opportunity for us, but very sadly that they've done very specific scientific studies and it's going to over the next 50 years, the truffle harvests in the Med will go will decline between 73 and 100%. So literally, they will not be growing truffles there in 50 plus years from now. So that's an opportunity for us. you know, again,   We've been working on this really since 2015. And it was only, you know, it was only 2019, 2020 when we began to get to truffles we knew because there was no guarantee, you know. But yeah, now that we're growing them, we just need to scale up.   Gotcha. Gotcha. what's kind of the I see that you know, for that minimum investment, you get X number of baby saplings. How many was that again? 400. That's what I Okay, 400. What's kind of the survival rate, I guess, of those saplings? Do you have kind of a percentage on that? Is it like?   (Louis O'Connor) (28:17.102) 400   (Louis O'Connor) (28:27.086) Yeah, well, we expect you got what's happening so far is within in about year three, which is actually year five, because the sapling, you should get three of the five trees producing. But once you have production, once that fungi is thriving, it will just continue to grow. So in year four, you should have four of them. In year five, you should have all of them producing.   Now we also put a guarantee in the farm management contract that if any tree, you know, if it dies or if it's not, you know, producing truffles, we'll replace it free of charge at any time. in the event, you know, for some reason, I mean, we put a tree in that's inoculated and it doesn't take, then we just replace it. So either way, over the first four to five years, we get them all. And the great thing is if you protect that soil from   pests and diseases and other sort of unwelcome sort of mycorrhizal or fungi, then it will thrive. It will thrive. It'll keep, you know, it'll spread, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship underground between the tree and the fungi.   Got it. Yeah, that's awesome to know. like survival is not one of the things that we should consider because if for some reason it wouldn't survive or is not producing, then it just gets replaced. So you actually are getting those full 400 saplings turning into trees that will be producing.   almost they mature and produce and you know as I said barring you know any pests or diseases or you know interference then they just continue you just protect them you just allow nature then to do its work.   (Seth Bradley) (30:18.848) Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the risks then? What are the downsides that you can foresee if something were to go wrong? What would it be?   Well, the greatest threat is mismanagement, literally. I obviously we're doing this with scale, so it's a professional endeavor, you know, people from time to time, know, I mean, some of the test sites here, mean, I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and they're not that hard to manage, but people just lose interest, or the younger kids don't want to farm. But the greatest threat is mismanagement. So as long as you put in these biosecurity measures,   and manage, you know, there's got to be some clearing done, there's got to be some pruning done, there's got to be tree guards. So there is a process involved in bringing them to nurturing them along and then keeping everything, you know, neutral, if you will. that's first, weather is always, you know, factor in agriculture. We don't feel it's as much of a threat here, because although we're for the first time,   growing the Mediterranean truffle. Truffles have grown, they grow here wild anyway. So the climate is right and has been right for thousands of years in Ireland. So, you know, and again, we'll have irrigation as well. You know, we get a lot of rain here. It's not likely we'll need any more rain, but yeah, we, you know, the agri-science will kick in there as well. And then, you know, as I said, like,   you know, biosecurity we call it, which is, you know, very, very serious fencing, limited visits to the farm, know, special footwear if people are going up to the area and sort of rinse. We have a pool area where they have to disinfect before they go into, you know, it's a very, very, very protected area from pests and from diseases or anything, you know, that could be brought in from the outside on whether that's machinery or humans.   (Louis O'Connor) (32:22.892) So yeah, it's almost like a laboratory. mean, you keep it very, very delicate balance and keep it very limited on who visits and, you know, people are a visit, but they have to be properly, you know, the feet have to be cleaned and footwear has to be worn and stuff like that. So, but, know, at the end of the day, Seth, it's, you know, well, any investment really, but agriculture, you know, the final say is in nature's hands, you know, not ours. mean, we...   We like to think, suppose, we're in the results business, but the reality is we're not. in the planning business and all we can do is plan everything as well as we can. It's just like, you if you planted a rose, you know, bush out in your backyard there today, you wouldn't stand outside and will it to grow, right? You know, grow quicker. You know, we have to allow nature and the cosmos to do its work. so yeah, nature has the final say, you know.   Yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally understand. And any investment has its risks, whether you're investing in truffles or real estate or any of the above. Quick question on this. Don't want to paint you like in a bad way at all, but we have had and it's not you, of course, of course, but we've had an influx of bad sponsors and people that are anything from mismanaging investor capital on one end, which can happen pretty easily. And there's not a whole lot of   Not a lot of bad blood there. Things happen. And then on the other side of the spectrum, we've seen everything from fraud to Ponzi schemes and all kinds of stuff lately. One thing that I tell investors is to make sure you know who you're investing with and make sure your investing dollars are actually getting invested where they're supposed to. Could an investor invest with you and actually go to the farm?   and see their saplings or see the farm and see this business.   (Louis O'Connor) (34:24.654) 100 % in fact, we would rather people do I mean, I it's not always possible. Right. But Shan Valley Estate, I mean, I'll give you the website and stuff after Shan Valley Estate. It's a 200 acre farm. It's already a museum. have events there. It's a herb dispensary as I said, as I said, it's our our manage our farm management partner is the Duggan family, their fourth generation farmers and they're being in temporary, you know,   longer than that even. absolutely, you you know, of course, there's legal contracts. mean, people get a legal contract for the purchase of the trees and then we have a legal contract for the farm management that we're responsible for implementing the project, we're responsible for bringing the hard, the trees to truffles to harvest. But we do, we just beginning, we just had our first tour, but it was sort of Europe from Germany. Last, sorry,   the 18th, 19th of August. But we will be having tours every quarter. And if anybody wants to come at any time, we'd be delighted to have them because it's like I said, it's like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. And we've accommodated, we converted the stables into accommodation, you know, because we have weddings and events and stuff there as well. It's not just a field that we bought.   Yeah.   And so it's a big deal. I'll give you the website. The location is spectacular and clients can, you know, stay the night, you know, and there's a three story Georgian estate house and the bottom floor is a museum. So it's like walking into a pharmacy from 1840, all the bottles and the counter is 200 years old, you know, and then the middle level, we've an organic vegetarian restaurant, all the   (Louis O'Connor) (36:17.24) food is grown on the farm. There's an old walled garden that they used to wall the gardens years ago to keep out the pests. And all the food that's served is grown on the farm. And then the top floor is accommodation as well and the stables have been converted. look, it's all about trust, Seth. And, you know, I would say to anybody, you've   I mean myself, if I have any doubt about anything, don't do it. And it might not be that somebody's a scam or a fraud, it's just if you're not 100 % sure about it, don't touch it. But what I would recommend is people do their due diligence because we've done ours. We've eight years invested in it, put a lot of time and effort into it. And at the very least, we'd like people to check it out and see it all the way through.   for what it is. yeah, we'll be, we're hoping to, we have a partner in Europe and we're to connect with somebody in North America. I don't want name anybody here because it might not come off, but there's a few sort of marketers and there's plenty obviously that we might sort of do a sort of an agreement with where they'll, you know, I mean, we could even have sort of investment real estate conferences on the farm.   you know, and do farm tours as well. so definitely 100 % we'd love for people to visit and, and they get to drink some Guinness and they're really brave, they can swim in the Irish sea.   Yeah, and I'm looking at the website right now. We'll drop that in the show notes, but it is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, it's making me want to get on a plane right now and check it out. It's incredible.   (Louis O'Connor) (38:00.046) Yeah, that's the estate, shambali.ie. I mean, what I love about it's 100 % organic or members of the Irish Organic Association, track ref, fourth generation. You know, this is not me, I'm a part of this, but the farm management team are, you know, they're already like growing herbs and plants and converting them to medicinal, you know, oils and things. And this is just another, it's more of a farming enterprise, I suppose, than a farm.   And then the other partner is the Agri Science Partner, which is this team of scientists who basically made history by growing for the very first time eight years ago, the black, the Mediterranean truffle in Ireland, you know, so there's a lot of professionalism and thought and effort being put into a chap.   Love that. Love that man. Is there anything else about this type of investment that I didn't ask about that I should have?   I think you know Seth, you should be on CNN or something because I you did. I'm pretty sure you did, you definitely covered it. I mean I may have left something out but I think it's a good foundation for somebody if they're interested, I'll give them my email and you know it's not that expensive to get to Europe and it's a great way to mix a holiday and you know come to the farm and stuff you know.   Absolutely, absolutely. Well, since you're repeat guest of the guest of the show, we won't go into the freedom for but you have one last golden nugget for our listeners.   (Louis O'Connor) (39:34.446) You know, I knew you were going to ask me that, Seth, you caught me off guard. So I have one ready and I stole this from someone else. So I'm not going to take it. But I was listening to a guy last week and he, sort of a big operation in Europe. And he was talking about a phrase they have in the office and it's 1%. And they always look at each other and when you pass them, they go 1%. And I love what it's about. It's about the idea that in a way it sort of comes back to what we talked about earlier, which is forget about.   Yeah.   (Louis O'Connor) (40:04.664) the fact don't think you're in the results business. You're in the planning business. And the 1 % is every day, try and improve every little action. I'm not just talking about work. I'm talking about family, your spiritual practice, if you have one, increase it by 1 % every day. And you know, it's like compound interest, isn't it? That in a way, then you don't have to worry about the big picture. And the results will just look after themselves then, you know.   Yeah, yeah, I love that man. Always improve. mean, you you've got to take small steps to get to those big goals. And a lot of times you just need to ask yourself, did I improve 1 % today? If the answer is yes, then it was a successful day.   Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's great because, you know, if I was to try and think now, or you were to try and think now, everything you have to do in the next three weeks, right, you just be overwhelmed, right. And sometimes my head is like that, you know, I mean, I've got meditation practice and stuff, but I watch my thoughts and you know, I mean, it's it's a fact. I mean, it's a human condition. I don't know, some disestimates of how many thoughts do we have a day? How many are repetitive and how many are useless?   A lot of them are repetitive, a lot of them are useless. So it's good just to narrow it right down to what's the next thing I can do right now and can I do it 1 % better than I did yesterday, you know?   Absolutely. Love that man. All right, Lou, we're gonna let us find out more about you.   (Louis O'Connor) (41:34.954) Okay, so they can email me. It's Truffle Farm Invest. Sorry, it's a new website www.trufflefarminvest.com or they can if somebody from your your audience wants to email me directly, it's louis at trufflefarminvest.com   Alright, perfect man. We'll drop all that in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on the show. Always a pleasure, brother.   Thank you very much, Seth. A pleasure.   (Seth Bradley) (42:08.088) Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Louis O'Connor's Links: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054362234822 https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-o-connor-a583341b8/ https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/08/30/strategic-metals-founder-louis-oaconnor-breaks-down-china-u-s-rare-metal-wars.html

Title: What They Don't Tell You About Raising Capital (Until It's Too Late) with Ben Fraser Summary: In this episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, host Ben Frasier interviews Seth Bradley, the Chief Legal Officer at TribeVest and an experienced securities attorney. They discuss Seth's transition from a big law background to becoming a passive investor and then an active capital raiser, detailing the steps involved in his journey. Seth shares insights on private placements and syndications, emphasizing the importance of understanding legal documents such as Private Placement Memorandums (PPMs) and operating agreements. The conversation also highlights key trends and shifts in capital raising, particularly the emergence of the fund-to-fund model, which allows passive investors to leverage their networks without taking an active role in deal management. Furthermore, Seth talks about the services provided by TribeVest to simplify the investment process for both passive investors and new fund managers. They touch upon the current state of the alternative investment market, discussing the advantages and opportunities available amid economic challenges. Links to listen and subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/155-moving-from-passive-to-active-investor-feat-seth/id1587171662?i=1000652125962 Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s Bullet Point Highlights: Seth Bradley's Journey: Transitioned from big law to passive investing, and now to active capital raising. Understanding Legal Documents: Importance of critically reviewing PPMs and operating agreements as an investor. Red Flags in Investments: Identifying key terms and clauses in legal documents that can affect investor rights and returns. Fund-to-Fund Model: Insights into how new capital raisers can operate without needing to be actively involved in deals. TribeVest Services: Overview of how TribeVest supports fund managers with a streamlined legal and operational framework. Market Trends: Discussion on the evolution and current opportunities within the alternative investment space. Advice for Investors: Encouragement to dive into the market now to capitalize on upcoming opportunities as conditions stabilize. Transcript: hello future billionaires welcome back to another episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast today's guest is Seth Bradley very fun to talk with him he's friend of mine for several years and he's the chief legal officer at tribe vest which is a really cool company if you haven't heard of them we actually had their CEO and founder on about a year ago but they're kind of doing a really new cool push that I'm going to talk about in a sec but his background he's a big law Securities attorney spent a lot of time in kind of   corporate world transition really to kind of becoming a passive investor invest a lot of syndications so he talks a lot about his journey making that transition kind of going to generate passive income Financial Independence but then he's actually shifted back to becoming an active Capital Riser and he's seen a lot of people make this transition that been investing for a little bit and now want to kind of activate their Network and some of the stuff they're doing at Tri bestest is making this really really easy for   people so it's a really cool interview we kind of hit a lot of his journey from his perspective as a Securities attorney what are some of the big things you got to focus on when you're reviewing legal documents what are the red flags yellow flags Etc and then he kind of shares a little bit about some of the things and the trends going on in the kind of private placement syndication and capital raising worlds that if you haven't heard about some of these ideas you definitely want to tune in and listen because it's pretty cool I'm   seeing the same thing on my side of things so you're going to enjoy this episode he's a very very sharp guy and a lot of great insights that he shared I think you're going to love this episode please enjoy this is the invest like a billionaire podcast where we uncover the alternative investment and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth the tools and tactics you'll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build Legacy wealth join us as we dive into the world   of alternative Investments uncover strategies of the ultra wealthy discuss economics and interview successful investors looking for Passive Investments done for you with and funds we help accredited investors that are looking for higher yields and diversification from the stock market as a passive investor we do all the work for you making sure your money is working hard for you in alternative investments in fact our team invests alongside you in every deal so our interests are aligned we focus on macr   driven alternative Investments so your portfolio is best positioned for this economic environment get started and download your free economic report today welcome back to another episode episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast I am your host Ben Frasier and joined by a very exciting guest Seth Bradley I've know Seth for several years he is the managing partner at Ray's law and the chief legal officer at tribe vest and uh Seth and I have done some business over the years and different things he's an   attorney and uh a very experienced Securities attorney and even has his own podcast called the passive income attorney podcast and so he comes with a really unique perspective both being an entrepreneur investor as well as an attorney gives him some really unique insights in this space of kind of private placements alternative Investments and super excited to have on the show so Seth thanks for coming on man Ben appreciate it man we finally got around to to recording this really really appreciate it man yeah it was   kind of fun because we reached out a couple years ago and uh we're we're gonna do something that never worked out and then all of a sudden you're ready to do the podcast tour and Pops back up three years later so hey let's do good I'm I'm gay man so looking forward to doing this now so give a little bit of uh context for your background uh for those who maybe aren't familiar with you and just kind of what you do in kind of the areas of expertise that you focus on as an attorney sure man so I worked in   big law for about seven years um most recently at a top three globally ranked Law Firm um as a real estate started out as a real estate attorney made my way over to Securities um at that point um I started kind of getting that you know mo as most entrepreneurs do that feeling like you want to do something else you don't want to have all these bosses you want to get out there and do your own thing um but you know I'd worked pretty hard to get where I was so I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting   myself into um I'd already been working with Real Estate Investors and folks like that as my clients um started talking to them started talking to some of the partners in my in my firm about how they invest what they do um really Lear learned about you know passive investing um and making my way kind of to the equity side and that's really where I my journey began as a passive investor in in syndications so I invested in a number of those um and also invested actively you know I kind of did the the Bigger Pockets uh you   know path where I listened to Bigger Pockets I did a you know house hack I did fix and flips I did buy and hold single families things like that as well as past investing in larger Investments um and at that point I realized hey I've got this network of attorneys and other folks that I can raise capital from so I made my way from passive investor to active investor man so you've done done the the full circle here I love it so started Big Lot and your bio says you Clos billions of dollars in real estate   transactions over the past decade so you've you've seen a lot of deals um I'd be curious because you know a lot of people that maybe newer to real estate investing newer to Alternative investments in general and just the world of private placements they kind naturally think hey the only way I can do it is you know the Bigger Pockets path which is a great path if you want to go and you know do it actively and have a second job so to speak where you go and buy your own real estate and and fix it up or work with contractors to   fix it up but you went straight into syndications which in a lot of ways uh fits better for uh people that are working professionals and you know don't want to necessarily trade time for wealth building already have a great income uh generator through the their job or their business and they want to just redeploy that into syndications so what was kind of the journey for you understanding the world of syndications and really with your background um insecurities law and how did you kind of get comfortable with that and what was   the Journey For You diving head first into syndications early on yeah I mean you really have to have skills uh money or time that those are the three things you can really offer right so it depends on how much of each one of those you have as to what your investment profile should look like and what you should get started in um I was actively wanting to participate in deals from the get-go but I did already have exposure from my real estate uh real estate practice to syndications and and watching other   people raise Capital knowing that those types of Investments are out there so I think I had an advantage there because prior to that I had no idea the only thing I knew was kind of that Bigger Pockets path it's like okay well house hack into a single family or dup or a duplex and then rent the other side out and then Fix and Flip This or wholesale that um I didn't really know about syndications other than through um my my law practice so I think I had that Advantage um get getting that exposure   and being able to transition to that quicker yeah talk a little bit about I mean your podcast is called passive income attorney and your your big goal is passive income and what was really kind of the idea behind that or why was that your primary goal and what does that mean to you yeah I mean the idea behind that was to be passive and I think we kind of as entrepreneurs we go back and forth I think we all want to end up on the completely passive side eventually but sometimes you don't get there as quickly   if you don't go on the active side for a little bit and I think I'm I'm seeing that a lot myself I did that I started investing passively and now I went to the active side as an active syndicator as a fund manager raising capital and participating in deals even on the operational side um because you can accelerate quicker that way if you the more time and effort that you put in the faster you can accelerate now a lot of folks out there especially pive investors listening if their doctors dentist lawyers they don't have time for   that so they need to invest passively that's probably the best use of their time because their highest and best use of their time is in their career being a doctor a dentist a lawyer an engineer where they're making a lot of money in their active income it doesn't really make sense that for them to start a fix flip business or wholesale business or even a syndication business really out of the gate until you figure out what what you want to do it makes more sense to take that active income put it into   passive investment vehicles that don't take any time away from your practice Yeah I love that what' you say there's you you one of three things skills time or money right and so one of those you're going to be trading to generate more passive income or wealth and wherever you're at in the Spectrum and where you're willing to kind of trade for for that invest I love that it's very uh makes a lot of sense so talk a little bit you know I want to get to what you said this in the minute kind of transitioning kind of bluring the line   of going back and forth between passive and active I think this is really interesting I've seen the same Trend but before we get there you know a lot of a lot of our listeners you know that are maybe newer to syndications newer to passive investing they um get a little bit shell shocked when they see a PPM or a set of legal docs to review for a deal and they they don't know what should I be focusing on what should I be looking for what are potential red flags or yellow flags and you know from your perspective and   I'm sure you probably saw a lot of things early on they like okay that's interesting or um you know making that transition you already had a leg up uh given your background but what are some kind of key things that you know maybe even coming into it you already had a leg up but now even 10 years later down the road have learned and things that you said you know hey this is way more important than I thought it was originally from from a pure passive standpoint because I think that's a roadblock for a lot of people yeah yeah   and you know it's intimidating right when you get that first PPM which is going to have exhibits to it and the exhibits are going to be an operating agreement subscription agreement maybe um maybe some marketing materials a business plan things like that you're looking at at least a 100 page document maybe it's 200 pages and if you're not a lawyer and used to looking at 100 page documents that is intimidating you're like what am I supposed to do this is going to take me you know this is like a month's worth reading if I'm actually   going to read this thing and really most past investors don't read it um but you should I mean you should at least start reading them um because it gets it gets easier and easier to read because they're all going to be very similar they're all going to have a similar structure and similar pieces and things to look out for I think one really important thing and you might not be able to do this the first time but you can start um kind of thinking about it but just really matching the PPM to the oper room because the PPM should really   be um kind of a a summary so to speak of the operating agreement because the operating agreement is the meat of what's actually going to be the the terms uh within that LLC within that investment and at the end of the day if something goes wrong or not even goes wrong but if there if there's some sort of um agreement or disagreement that needs to be figured out you're going to look at the operating agreement not necessarily the PPM to figure out uh what the next step is what is the mechanism for fixing this problem so you   know just making sure that the people PM accurately reflects what the operating agreement says is very important and and then taking a step further that the operating agreement and the PPM match what the lead sponsors are telling you let's say in the marketing materials or the webinar like just making sure that there's a clear picture between all the marketing materials the webinar um and the legal documentation is really important and sometimes if it doesn't make sense or there are certain terms   that don't match up you know maybe they're not as meticulous as they should be and you need to look elsewhere that that's a really important thing to look out for um kind of coming back to your question you know when when you're first starting as a passive investor all you're really looking at is the returns right you're comparing kind of your projected returns in this deal to your projected returns in this other deal and you might get a 2% more irr return projected in this one than that one so   you're going to go with this one but at the end of the day those are just projections right those are just projections and those can be manipulated those are based on assumptions from the lead sponsor and those are not the most important things the most important things are the the sponsor and their track record what they've done how they've performed um and you know the market and the deal itself but just those projected returns can be manipulated so that's really you know it's important at the beginning or at   least you think it's important and then later on you become a more um wiy vet in passive investing you'll realize it's not as important as as as some other things like hey are your fees aligned things like that like what are the Voting Rights like how what if something happens and the manager is doing a terrible job how can you possibly get them out like what are those mechanisms um what are the mechanisms for a capital call when things go wrong what what happens those are the those are the more   detailed things and the nuances you need to look at as a past investor rather than just looking at the projected returns that's a lot of lot of good nuggets right there you just listen to that skip back a few minutes and listen to it again because that's really good I think you're so right right if it just it can feel intimidating to look at a 100 page 200 Page document and where do I start but just start at the beginning just start reading it it just got to skim read it skim read it and just the more   you get familiarized with um these different document sets the more they all kind of seem similar over time and you can kind of notice the the things that are common among different deals and then you also kind of notice the things that pop up as oh that's kind of unique or that that's kind of different than what I've seen in other deals and that's maybe outside of the norm um and just kind of getting familiarized with it you're going to pick up a lot on it but I think you hit a few of the sections that I think are really   important that a lot of people kind of glaze over because if you're getting just looking at the here's the irr projection here's where turns are going to be like you said there's uh a lot of assumptions that go into what those numbers are derived from and you know I always come back to my banking background you know risk adjusted returns right because every element of uh every deal you know whatever return you're projecting there's different levels of risk and if you're you know taking a lot more risk in a particular   deal or strategy or structure the same level of return it's it's not Apples to Apples right and so understanding what that is from a deal standpoint but there's also risks uh some of the points you made within the legal structure and so he's saying go straight to the operating agreement as a starting point because that's ultim timately what's going to govern the the deal and the mechanisms for potentially firing the sponsor as a manager or like you said the capital call and the waterfall section understanding how does do   profits flow through the entity and what are the splits between them what are some things that maybe 10 years down the road now invested I don't know how many deals you've invested in passively but you look back you're like oh man you know what I I read that section and you know I kind of knew that maybe was a little outside the norm but I was so excited about the deal didn't really wasn't too concerned about it now looking back like oh man now that was that was a good learning experience because now you know maybe I can't vote   out the manager or you know different things that you would say looking back are more important that maybe you put weight on in the front end and maybe some examples of um you know especially right now I think a lot of a lot of deals that people invested over the past few years you know unfortunately are requiring Capital calls or are kind of headed in a direction that may not be good and um you know maybe it's the fault of the operator maybe it's not but if it is a fault of the operator What mechanisms do you have and what voting   rights do you have as a passive investor and talk a little bit about that because I think that's going to be very relevant especially over the next few years is sure certain older deals are kind of not hitting the projections they thought originally yeah I mean I think I already touched on most of them from a high level but like for instance um voting out the manager like if the manager is doing something um fraudulent or misrepresented what they were doing or you know really just doing a terrible   job is probably not a reason enough to get them out but it could be um if it gets to a certain certain point um but that's really one thing to to look for to see like what the mechanism is like does it take a unanimous Vote or does it take a majority vote or does it take a majority or super majority of each share class each membership class within the LLC so it it and typically they're set up so it's really difficult to get the manager out right because the lead sponsor is going to be the manager and   they're the ones that are going to be making all the decisions and they don't want to lose control so they wanted to make it as hard as possible um and still make it legal um to stay in that seat and not get voted out so you know you will see some pretty onerous um Provisions within the operating agreement to be able to get them out but there should be a reasonable way to do it whether that's a super majority vote perhaps that's that's reasonable so super majority vote um in the event of a misrepresentation fraud you know any   sort of like bad boy act by the the manager or if their bad performance reaches the level of you know negligence or something like that there just needs to be a mechanism to get them out that's that's just one example when you had mentioned Capital calls as well so Capital calls it's like what is the mechanism when the LLC or or the syndication needs additional operating expenses to survive what what is the mechanism to do that like can is the first step to actually do a capital call and is that Capital Call Mandatory   meaning that the investors have to participate um on a proat a basis or that's not typical so if you that's one thing to look out for if it is mandatory that you do and and if you don't then you're basically out or you lose uh you know an unreasonable amount of your Equity if you don't participate then perhaps that's a red flag right like if you don't participate um well I should say the capital call should be optional and if you don't participate that's okay um but you will most likely be watered   down your Equity will get watered down on a prata basis rather than something above a pro basis right so that's an example you're saying of if it's required which is uncommon right that that's that's a red flag potentially um or if you get diluted a higher than the proat mount is another another negative and you're exactly right I mean I think you know part of this is when you're when you're investing passively you're you're giving up control of of operating the deal to the sponsor right is so that that's kind of   the the trade-off is you're hiring experts you're investing with experts that hopefully know what they're doing so that you don't have to be doing the day-to-day stuff and so it can be difficult to replace managers and and uh you know have uh impactful voting rights uh that can change the outcome unless there's fraudulence or negligence but I think it kind of goes to the point too of understanding what these kind of parameters are and what's normal and then also like I think you can pick up a lot of what you're saying and just the   congruence between PPM the operating agreement the the offering memorandum the webinars and um and then really the alignment of Interest right because if ultimately if the sponsor stands to lose alongside the investors if they're not just getting rich just off of fees and you know does they don't have a whole lot of skin in the game then ultimately it might not be you know a great deal but if they have a lot of lot skin in the game and even if it's written in these certain ways it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad a bad   investment so okay love it get a little bit in the weeds there for for some people and if this is you know um newer to you I I definitely encourage you um to just start this you know opening up the bpms or reading them and you're going to pick up a lot by doing that and then just ask questions right and I think it's a great thing too that if you're reading the PBM and reading operating agreement to ask questions of the sponsor and that's usually pretty indicative of one how well do they know their own documents and to how willing   are they uh to address certain questions that maybe maybe concerns to you right and I think you can actually get a really good sense of um how they and how they respond of of what that interaction is going to be so love that thanks for some of that Insight Seth I'd love to shift a little bit uh you mentioned something earlier I I wanted to come back to is you you kind of you have said before you the future of capital raising is kind of Shifting and evolving and I think a lot of people are realizing and   I've seeing the same thing too right I'm a a coach and you know masterminds for Capital risers and this fun to fund model is becoming very popularized and people that maybe think oh I'm not really a capital Riser or you know that's that's not my you know what I've learned to do went to school to do or whatever or realizing hey actually I've been investing passively for a while I have a pretty great Network because I'm around a lot of accredited investors I've done enough to kind of know a good amount and   I can actually turn this into a business right and so talk a little bit about what the fun to fund model means and maybe someone that's in that boat where what you said is I think I'm gonna go 100% passive but then you know you're also learning a lot along the way and you have a a network that maybe you can activate and also raise capital and get get paid to do it compliantly that's right and and you said it and I'm seeing it time after time where past investors they invest in a number of deals and and   you know folks that are investing in these deals typically have a little bit of money and they probably have friends that have money as well and their their friends start asking them about the deals that they're investing in um and they start thinking hey you know what what can I can I get paid can I have a is there a business here that I can develop that I can build um by bringing in all my friends and family that might also be wealthy might be able to put these These funds together um and invest   in the deal together um you can certainly do that but you start to run into lots of Securities lots of rules and regulations that some people know about and some people don't you'd be surprised uh um that you know you see people out there raising capital in ways that they shouldn't do it um but what's great about the fund of funds model is that you know you're not a what's called a CP so you're not an active partner with the lead sponsor that's kind of the I'll call it the old way and I you know   I've been saying that the CP model is dead just to kind of put it out there that um you know we shouldn't be raising Capital with lead sponsors and then not doing anything else not participating in deal and and having an active role if you're a true cgp you need to have an active role in in the deal and that's kind of what deters um passive investors and doctors and dentists and lawyers and people like that that already have a career they don't want to take an active role right like they don't want to do   the asset management or manage the property manager or talk to tenants or anything like that and that's where the fund of fund solution comes in the fund of fund solution is really creating another syndication or another fund um that invests into the lead sponsor syndication or fund and that's where the name fund of fund comes from now traditionally the issue with that is well it does come with responsibilities for the fund manager they they have to put the deal they have to put their own fund together they have to put their cap   table together open a business banking account form an LLC get a Securities attorney um you know manage their investors manage their distributions do taxes all those sorts of things and so it turns into an active business and on top of that it's expensive because we are creating a second syndication a second fund to invest in that uh lead sponsor Target Fund um so that's the the problem that's always been the solution the fund of fund has always been the right solution but those problems that I   just mentioned are why it hasn't been widely adopted but you're seeing a big shift in the market as we're able to provide a more affordable option and a and a solution to bringing all those different services that a fund manager would normally have to go out and get themselves and putting it into a package yeah that makes a lot of sense and so like we said we're seeing the same thing where people are um they've been investing they they like what they're doing they have their friends and their family asking about the different deals   they're doing and then they have thought well hey I mean that's I can make money doing this and what most people have done historically is cgp model and for those that are unfamiliar with that is basically you raise money directly into the lead sponsor syndication or entity and then you get uh granted certain General partner shares for doing that but and you're the you're the attorney so I'm I'm gonna say at a very high level as I understand it by by doing that you are um uh well you can't raise   money and get paid for it unless you're a registered broker dealer unless you're General partner and uh are continuing to operate the uh the deal the business and have an active role in it but most people that are just raising capital or just want to raise Capital as um you know on the side of what else they're doing that's not a realistic expectation so what what we've seen I'm sure you probably see a lot more than me is these different uh uh folks that are raising capitalist cgps and then you know this   this new SP has about 10 different CPS on the list on the roster here and it's pretty hard to make an argument that they're all actively participated in managing the deal because you just don't need that many people right if it's the same deal and so then you kind of run into compliance risk and you just you don't want to mess with that I mean that's that's just let's leave it there and so the fun of fund model has always been around it's basically you create your own fund and as your own fund manager you're exempt from um uh some of   these uh securities issues to basically raise capital from your investors into your fund then that fund invests into the uh kind of the mothership fund or the the lead sponsors fund and by doing that you um you know it's you're in the in the you're not in the gray area anymore where it can kind of be um maybe not great from a compliance standpoint and the challenge as you mentioned though is it can be expensive maybe it's a little complicated to know how toell up and I'm not really a professional fund manager   how what do I know um but that's that's what you're doing now at triest and we've had Travis Smith on the podcast before so if you haven't listened to that episode um it's probably a year or so ago we'll put the put the link in the show notes because it's a um a great episode talking about tribe vest and what what you guys are doing really trying to from my perspective simplify the access and the kind of backend back office functions of um both for Passive investors and for fund managers to continue to increase   access to more to more deals so talk a little bit about kind of what you guys do at at tribe vest and to kind of help people um you know both from a passive standpoint that's want to direct the investors past investors that don't really want to do it as a business but then also kind of the new fund manager programs that you guys are putting together to help people that want to kind of activate their Network want to you know use this as a way to make money and um do it without having to be an expert in all the the backend side of   things absolutely at at Trio I'm the chief legal officer for tri best I help create the fun to fun product that we have out there right now it makes it simple TurnKey and affordable for anyone to really start a capital raising business um all those things that I mentioned before opening your business bank account um starting your LLC drafting your offering documents um getting your EIN onboarding your investors creating your cap table doing your distributions doing your taxes all those things you normally have to put   together and find different uh platforms and different people like attorneys and CPAs to help you out and put those put the the fund of fund together we do that we put it in a fund of fund we call it a fund of Fund in a box it's really a Lego block that you can use and invest in a deal like with Aspen if Aspen has a fund you can create your own fund you try best bring in your five or 10 uh best friends that want to put in some money you can carve out a piece for yourself so you actually get paid a fee a front   maybe you get paid a fee um during the uh hold period and then perhaps you get a percentage of the equity on the back end so it can be a very lucrative business for someone to get started and because triest makes it so easy to do it meaning put all these different services and things together for you it it really anyone can do it yeah that's so cool and we we've worked with you guys and have seen it in action and you know to say f Fund in a box sounds almost uh trite because it sounds like can you really do   that but it's it's cool because you guys have have solved it and and not only have you solved it but it's also pretty cost- effective right I think one of the big challenges with the fun of fund is generally you can invest if you kind of pull Capital together in a fund you can invest at better terms with a sponsor so you can have a little more margin that you can kind of get paid from and your investors still make the same returns um but if you have a lot of legal costs a lot of ongoing um kind of portal and   back office expenses and tax returns everything else then it gets kind of expensive and eats away at the margins that you know you're hoping to to use to pay yourself so you guys have kind of Crea a really streamlined um kind of off-the-shelf product that can fit majority of of offerings and make it pretty easy right that's right it gets really difficult to make it work that's again the fund of fund like we've talked about it's always been a solution it's just really expensive and really hard to put   it together um especially for someone that that isn't a professional Capital Riser um that just wants to put together $500,000 a million a million5 something like that it it it doesn't even make sense cost wise in the old way of doing it you're going to pay a Securities attorney minimum of like let's say 15,000 maybe 20 maybe $25,000 to put one of these together maybe even more I used to work at a big Law Firm where it cost $75,000 it's crazy the expenses that add up and that's just the legal piece that   doesn't include all the back office administration things that we talked about doesn't include um engaging with a CPA to do your taxes it doesn't include all those things that's just the legal cost by itself and tribe best has made it super inexpensive to be able to do this and to be able to do it time and time again so it works with a $500,000 raise it works with a million dollar raise you don't have to raise $20 million to make it work from an affordability standpoint yeah that makes sense so do   you guys also have like any kind of education or different coursework to help people that are you may want to make the transition of like yeah I think that that sounds like something I could do I my friends are always asking me what what I'm investing in and it wouldn't be that hard to go get five 10 friends to go and invest and create a fund and you know but they just don't they've never done it before they never thought about it till just now so right you guys have I know you're really more given the solution but do you also have   like any kind of education or do you have resources you guys can point people to to learn more about what does it look like to you know what what's what's the process you have to go through to um kind of go from idea to actual uh you know making a fund yeah yeah I'll tell you we don't have any formal legal or sorry formal educational things out there at the moment but we are working on that um but we have made it so simple that we can jump on a zoom call with anyone that that's in is potentially   interested in being a capital raiser and putting together a fund of fun and walk you through a pitch deck and it should be pretty clear what you need to do because we handle basically everything you you put together your investors you put together your terms and how you're going to get paid and then we'll be able to do kind of all that back office all that legal all those things that you don't want to know or don't want to do we handle all it yeah makes sense awesome well kind last question I just   love to get your insights on just the market in general for Alternatives and and private placements and you've obvious been in this space for over a decade and we've been in the space for about 11 years now as as an operator and it just feels I mean it's it's already been the amount of capital that's kind of come into kind of private Equity into real estate into private placements in eneral it's totally shifted the game but it also feels like we're still kind of early Innings right it still feels like   people are just discovering this for the first time and and even the conversation we're having of you know um activating people to raise Capital right in a compliant way that's just an easy way because you guys are creating a system that just reduces friction to continue to increase more Capital to come into the space like do you feel the same thing are you seen I know there's kind of some potential proposed regulation to you know increase the requirements for accreditation and you know there's   always a battle going back and forth on on that but what's kind of your sentiment just at a broader level of just the alternative kind of private placement space in over the next 10 years yeah I mean I'm I'm bullish right like we're we're kind of in a little bit of a lull right now um you'll hear that capital's a little bit harder to come by investors are holding on a little bit tighter um but that's because there's actually deals out there right now I mean said right now is actually a great time to invest right now is a great time   to invest because prices are are depressed a little bit um investors are a little bit reluctant to invest um there are less buyers in the market because a lot of them are getting kind of washed out um but there are some properties coming online through foreclosures through things like that this is where you know when you talk about during good times you're like oh man I cannot wait until there's blood in the streets and I'm going to pounce on it I'm want to pounce on those opportunities that time is right now it   it's not it's not you're you can be waiting on the sideline for years and you're gonna you're gonna miss it it's right now right now is the time to to figure out how to invest how to raise Capital how to do deals how to make them work because right now it's difficult to make them work that's that's the truth of it right now is the time to act and you're going in five years from now for instance you're going to look back to this time and say man I wish I would have got started because we're we're   we're going to be in the upswing again very soon totally no I was just uh I was a one of the guys I follow who's been in real estate for a long time he was talking and reminiscing about he bought uh I think he said three dozen single family homes between uh 2009 and 2011 right and he's held on to them since then and you know looking back he's like the only thing he wishes he did was buy more right because it's but at that point it was you know everything was on sale everyone was like real estate's over and it's it's so hard to   be contrarian I think it's Warren Buffet this said be uh you know fearful when everyone else is greedy and greedy when everyone else is fearful right it it's it's a simple idiom that makes sense but it's really hard to do and right now we're kind of in that that time where investors are reticent there's a lot of pressure on deals right now that's kind of creating a great buy opportunity you know we're seeing I know you're seeing it and uh you know I think I agree with you I think it's a great time to be to   be jumping in right now and uh Seth thanks so much for coming on man what's what's the best way for folks to get a hold of you and learn more about uh your law firm uh raise law and try vest if they want to learn more about what that looks like for sure uh the best place where I keep all my links is Seth Paul bradley.com um you'll have links to try best there links from my uh law firm and social media it's all posted on there okay we'll put that in the show notes and definitely appreciate you coming on   today set it awesome all right Ben appreciate it [Music] [Applause] [Music] man Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s https://www.instagram.com/p/C5mNnwsv2fs/  https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit- https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/ https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/   Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

Raise The Bar Radio Launch Summary: Seth Bradley unveils his rebranded podcast, Raise the Bar, a bold evolution from The Passive Income Attorney. This show goes beyond passive income, it's about scaling real businesses, raising serious capital, and leveling up your life. Seth shares his personal journey from big law to real estate empire builder and lays out the podcast's structure, purpose, and powerful call to action. Highlights: Rebrand from Passive Income Attorney to Raise the Bar to better reflect the audience: not just attorneys, but all capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs Focus has expanded from passive investing to include business building, capital raising, and deal structuring Seth's background: former big law attorney, now securities lawyer, real estate investor, founder of RaiseLaw, Tribevest CLO, and co-founder of multiple startups Personal story: fired from big law, used it as a catalyst to go all-in on real estate and entrepreneurship Podcast is for real estate investors, capital raisers, and entrepreneurs ready to level up and ditch limiting beliefs New podcast structure: Monday – Million Dollar Mondays: how pros build and scale wealth Tuesday – RTB Live / Q&A: live shows, events, guest features Wednesday – Main deep-dive solo or guest interview episode Friday – 1% Closer: tactical, short-form deal-closer insights Theme: go all-in, raise your standards, and raise the bar in life and business Final call to action: subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share with someone who needs to hear it Transcript: Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:05.196) Welcome to the brand new Raise The Bar podcast with yours truly Seth Bradley. This is the show for real estate investors, capital raisers, and entrepreneurs who are ready to take their game to the highest level. If you've been following me for a while, you know this isn't my first rodeo, but we're making a big shift. And today I'm going to break it all down for you. So first, why the rebrand? Why now?   and most importantly, what's in it for you. So let's dive in. So why the rebrand? If you've been rocking with me since the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, first off, cheers to you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. It's changed my life for the better, and I hope it's changed for yours too. Our show is all about helping high income professionals escape the golden handcuffs, start building wealth through passive investing, and it was a killer show. Tons of incredible conversations. But over time,   I realized something. I wasn't just helping attorneys and I wasn't just talking about passive income. I was teaching people how to build a business, how to raise capital, how to structure deals, and how to build legacy wealth. So I had to ask myself, is my brand serving the people I want to serve? And the answer was clear. It was actually yes, but I needed to go bigger, bolder, more direct, and that's how Raise the Bar was born. This show is all about raising standards, raising capital,   and raising the bar on how you build your wealth in your business. I still love and believe in passive investing, but now we're also getting tactical and strategic, providing you with ways to explore active capital raising and entrepreneurship. So you can stop playing small and you can start operating like a real pro. So who am I and why should you listen? I'm Seth Bradley. I'm a securities attorney and a real estate entrepreneur.   who has closed billions of dollars in real estate transactions over the past decade plus. I'm a former big law attorney turned boutique securities law firm founder of RaiseLaw, and additionally, I'm the chief legal officer of TribeBest. I'm the co-founder of Klaviss and StackRack Battery Systems, and also the managing partner of Law Capital Partners. I've closed every kind of real estate transaction you can imagine, from house hacking into a duplex, to closing hundreds of syndications and funds. I've built businesses, I've raised millions,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:29.92) and worked with some of biggest names in the game. But here's the thing. I didn't start off in this world. I grew up deep in the mountains of West Virginia. No silver spoon, no family connections in real estate or finance, just grit, hustle, and the willingness to learn. And the willingness to take risks that most people were too scared to take. I walked away from the traditional path. I gave up the cushy, multiple six-figure, big law firm job. I broke free from the golden handcuffs and went   all in on building wealth through alternative investments, capital raising, and entrepreneurship. And now, I help entrepreneurs just like you do the exact same thing. Who is this podcast for? If you're a real estate investor, a capital raiser, or an entrepreneur, or interested in any of those things, if you're interested in raising capital, structuring deals, building a real business, and raise the bar in your life, you're in the right place. If you're ready to ditch the limiting beliefs,   to raise more capital and start thinking like the top 1 % that you are, you belong right here. Let me tell you a quick story. So I was flying high in a big law firm, prestigious law firm, big paycheck, fancy title, all that kind of stuff. But behind the scenes, I was absolutely miserable. I had no control over my time, my future, my life. Then one day I was involuntarily shown the exit. I was fired, just like that. Gut punch.   Looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because that was the moment I realized, if you're not all in, whether that's a big law firm job, your W-2, whatever it might be, you're going nowhere. That experience forced me to commit 100 % to my own entrepreneurial path. No more safety nets, that was gone. No more playing it safe. So I went all in on real estate, capital raising, entrepreneurship, buying businesses, and I never looked back.   And that's what this show is all about. It's about going all in, raising your standards, raising your game, raising the bar. Not just for yourself, but for everybody around you. And if you're ready to level up, stick around because we're about to take things to another level. Raise the bar structure to give you a mix of high impact content, balancing deep dives, expert insights, short tactical takeaways. And here's the quick breakdown. Million Dollar Mondays, Quick Hit Insights.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:56.288) how top entrepreneurs, investors, capital raisers make and keep and scale millions. RTB Live, Q &A Tuesdays, guest appearances, top podcast interviews on When I'm on Other People's Shows, webinars, live speaking events, direct audience Q &As, send me your questions. And of course, the main episode will air on Wednesdays. Deep dive solo episodes for high impact guest interviews, breaking down success, capital raising, entrepreneurship.   On Fridays, we're going to do the 1 % closer, close out your week, fast-paced, short, taxable episodes, focus on closing deals, raising capital, leveling up to get you to be the top 1 % that you are. As we grow, we'll refine and evolve, of course, but right now, that's the game plan to help you level up fast. If you're ready to stop playing small, start raising the bar on your business and your life, hit that subscribe button, and make sure you don't miss that one show, that one single show,   It's going to make a massive impact on your life. And of course, if this has resonated with you, please leave a five star rating review. Share it with someone you love, your acquaintance, your loved one, your family, your friends, someone who really needs to hear it. That's how we grow. That's how we change the game. Welcome to Raise the Bar. Let's go.   Links from the Show: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq

Title: Stop Chasing the Woman in the Red Dress: Multifamily Is the Smartest Move with Joe Fairless Summary: In this conversation, Joe Fairless and Seth Bradley discuss the importance of authenticity in business, the current state of the multifamily real estate market, and effective strategies for raising capital. Joe shares insights on sticking with multifamily investments despite market fluctuations, leveraging technology like AI and EOS for operational efficiency, and the significance of building authority and expertise in the field. The discussion also touches on personal reflections and aspirations, emphasizing the value of character and commitment in both business and personal life. Links to watch and subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Authenticity is key in business interactions. Focus on your strengths and expertise. The multifamily market fundamentals remain strong. Utilize technology to enhance capital raising efforts. Building authority is crucial for new capital raisers. Networking through influential connections can be effective. Character is more important than reputation. Sticking to one niche can lead to greater success. Continuous learning and adaptation are essential. Coaching and mentoring can be fulfilling personal pursuits. Transcript:  Joe Fairless (00:03.629) Hey, how you doing?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:04.881) Alright man.   How are you? I don't know if we've actually met in person or not, but funny, I'll share the story once we start officially recording, but once upon a time when I was trying to find my place in this syndication world, had a phone call with you and it was awesome to actually get to speak with you at the time because it was just like, whoa, this is Joe Fairless, right? So it was a huge deal, so it's awesome to have you on the show.   Joe Fairless (00:34.966) You know what? I take notes of every conversation and I see it was around May of 2019. Yeah, yeah, I see that. It's awesome. Well, looking forward to every five years we should do this.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:43.988) There you go. There you go. Awesome, man. Awesome.   Yeah, let me...   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:53.1) Sounds good, man. Sounds good. Sounds good. So just to give you a little bit of groundwork here. So I'm a securities attorney by trade. I've raised capital for syndications, those sorts of things. I'm currently with Tribest, I'm chief legal officer over there. So we do, put together fund to funds in a box for capital aggregators. And I'm rebranding the podcast. So once upon a time it was Passive Income Attorney. I was really focused on bringing in investors into my deals, raising capital, that sort of thing.   Now I'm rebranding this as raising the bar gonna be kind of more of a general General podcast on business and raising capital and in real estate that sort of thing. So It's gonna be more of a general audience before it was past investors This is gonna be more kind of business people active investors because I'm actively trying to bring in you know capital raisers and People like that. They're putting deals together for my law firm and for for tribe vest   Joe Fairless (01:33.998) Mm-hmm.   Joe Fairless (01:48.354) Mm-hmm.   Joe Fairless (01:51.884) Makes sense. Thanks for that context.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:53.544) Yeah, cool cool. So and then format wise we'll just do it'll be pretty short We're gonna do like 25 minutes 30 minutes And then we'll go into kind of these like mini segments because I want to do these mini episodes And I think I sent those over to you one is just million dollar Monday. Just kind of how you made your first million How you made your last million how you're make your next that sort of thing and then the next one is the the 1 % segment which is kind of you know, how did you become basically?   Joe Fairless (02:00.504) Sweet.   Joe Fairless (02:15.47) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:21.364) 1 % like the best top 1 % in what you do and that sort of thing and just kind of giving actionable steps to the listeners about how they can get there too.   Joe Fairless (02:25.442) Mm-hmm.   Joe Fairless (02:30.314) Awesome. Sounds good. Sounds like fun.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:32.98) Cool. All right, man. Well, we're already recording, so I'll just kind of jump into it and then we'll make the, I'll make the cuts later. cool. Welcome to Raise the Bar with me, your host, Seth Bradley, where we have elevated conversations on raising capital, real estate, and entrepreneurship. Today, we have an incredible guest, Joe Fairless. If you've been living under a rock, then maybe you haven't heard of Joe, but everybody in my industry knows Joe as an industry leader, a thought leader.   real estate entrepreneur, extraordinaire, marketer, master marketer, all of the above. So Joe, welcome to the show.   Joe Fairless (03:10.36) Looking forward to our conversation, Seth.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:12.884) for sure man. So, you know, I like this question because it's kind of unusual and I have a hard time answering it and you might too, but we'll see. you know, when a stranger asks you what you do and it just comes up to you maybe at a conference or on the streets, what do you say?   Joe Fairless (03:28.398) I'd I buy apartment buildings.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:30.546) I love it. Keeping it simple, man. I guess that was an easier answer than I anticipated.   Joe Fairless (03:35.182) Well, yeah, I've been to in my early days I went to seminars and they have much longer more thought-provoking responses like, know, I help high income earners create passive income or something along those lines, but I keep it simple. I buy apartment buildings and then, you know,   let the conversation go where it naturally would go.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:06.366) I love that man. Yeah, and you know, to be honest, know, that response that you just mentioned is a little bit played out. Don't you think? I feel like if you're on LinkedIn or if you're on, you know, conferences, everybody's like, yeah, I raised capital from passive investors so I can help them do this and do that. Do you think that's a little bit played out? Do you think that people need to kind of change that marketing strategy at this point?   Joe Fairless (04:25.697) Well...   I think you should just be authentic. think just go with what feels right for you and what you'll enjoy talking about. Just go with what feels right for you. That's what I do. I am not a salesy person.   I feel uncomfortable if I'm trying to sell someone something. I believe in what I do, but I feel uncomfortable if I'm trying to force it. And so if I'm like, I was just at a dad-daughter dance this past Sunday and we met up with some couples that I didn't know any of them. was just couples that, you know, my daughter...   goes to their parents of the kids who go to school with my daughter. And so I was talking to one of the dads and he said, what do you do? I I buy apartment buildings. And he said, that's interesting. Then we started talking about what I do because he was naturally interested. And I enjoy that much more than trying to intentionally bait a hook. I'd just rather just have a conversation.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:40.03) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:43.57) Yeah, yeah, I think that's the key, right? Especially in today's world where everything's online and you just get marketed to and advertised to all the time. You've got to be authentic and you need to have an elevator pitch, it's got to be authentic. It's got to be really who you are. And it can't be sales because people are so sensitive to that nowadays, whether you're raising capital or whether you're W2 doing your job. And we're all salespeople to a certain extent, whatever we do.   But people are very sensitive to that. So you've got to really focus on being authentic and coming from a place of genuineness.   Joe Fairless (06:20.91) Nobody in the world can do you like you do you. You've got a unique strand of DNA that no one else can be the Seth Bradley that you are, the Joe Farrells that I am, because it's impossible. It's impossible. There is no one like you. There is no one like me.   And it's just the more magnetic, the more genuine and true to who I am, the more magnetic I feel like I become because people enjoy authenticity and it's just the right way to play it, right way to do it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:01.684) Totally, totally, totally. For our audience, just tell us what you're doing nowadays. mean, there's been kind of some changes in the market with the interest rates going up, those sorts of things, maybe starting towards the end of 2022. I know for myself, I was in the capital raising game for a number of years and then I kind of slowed down there towards the end of 2022, beginning of 2023, just to kind of see what the market was gonna do, just to see if we could still get some really good deals going, see if some of the other deals were going bad.   you know, what, what are you up to nowadays? Like what's your focus? right now.   Joe Fairless (07:36.77) The focus has been and always will be on our current portfolio and the deals that we have and operating those deals the best that we can and continuing to improve the NOI. So that is the focus.   There we have some deals that have floating rates with rate caps and the focus is to figure out how not to have floating rate with rate caps that you have to continue to renew once they expire. So that comes with refinancing and in order to refinance and sometimes you have to do a capital call or if you don't do a capital call you gotta bring in equity in some form or fashion to refinance.   some cases, it just depends on the deal. So the focus is on the portfolio and always will be. And then the secondary thing that we look at is acquisitions. How do we capitalize on the market that we're at right now? mean, the best way to describe it that I've read is it's stagnant. You know, it's just...   Not sure. The water, there's stuff growing in the water, but not sure if you really want to be part of what's growing in the water right now. Like it's just, it's stagnant and what will, but we also know what is coming.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (09:00.486) Yeah.   Joe Fairless (09:12.264) and that is the supply demand shift in multifamilies favor depends on the sub market and the market obviously. But generally the Sun Belt is going to greatly benefit in the next year, year and a half, in some cases six months from now.   with the supply-demand dynamic with new supply drying up and increasing the demand for the existing supply. Again, depends on the market, depends on the sub-market. So how do we capitalize on that? is there any way to be opportunistic with what's happening with some deals from other operators that   didn't work out. know, there haven't been a lot of foreclosures, but there have been some. And we have relationships with our lenders that are pretty strong. And in fact, one, a large lender that we have a really good relationship with, that we have properties with, they foreclosed on someone else's deal. And I won't name names on who they foreclosed on, but they foreclosed on someone else's deal and they came to us   Afterward and said hey here here. Here's a here's an opportunity. It's in a great area of Fort Worth and I'm from Fort Worth so I know we have a lot of property there too, but I know the market also I grew up there and We'll give you this special financing of around 3 % or so interest rate fixed interest rate   for year one and then it's fixed through the whole period of the loan but then the interest rate steps up to around four, four and a half percent over the five years. So to get that type of essentially seller financing but it's lender financing direct from the lender lending institution that foreclosed on the deal in a very good area of Fort Worth.   Joe Fairless (11:29.326) There are opportunities out there also. So it's how do we become opportunistic and find these deals. And so we're in the process of closing on that deal or doing due diligence on that deal. We're under contract and we're scheduled to close in about a month and a half from now.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:49.316) Awesome, awesome. Have you found it difficult at any point in time, kind of over these last couple years where the market has slowed down?   Joe Fairless (11:56.654) Whatever you're gonna say, yes. So finish your question, but the answer is yes. Yes, I found it difficult over the last couple years, but what exactly are you asking about that's difficult?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:59.732) Yeah. Sure. Specifically, should say sticking with multifamily because you are a multifamily guy and you you've seen you've seen where everyone, you know, everybody wanted that on that multifamily train for, you know, a decade, if not longer.   Joe Fairless (12:15.598) Mmm. Man.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:23.696) And now you've seen a lot of these same people change their tune and say, okay, well, you know what? Let's pivot to something else. Let's pivot to car washes or private credit funds or all these other things.   Joe Fairless (12:29.998) Man, I'm actually, I know you're an attorney, but can I strike my yes actually from that question? Cause no, actually the answer is no. I haven't found it difficult to stick with multifamily. Hell no. No. You know, you go to a restaurant at a diner and they offer lasagna, California roll and what else?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:41.16) Hahaha   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:49.107) Ha ha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:01.204) Ha   Joe Fairless (13:01.356) Pad Thai, you know, are they gonna have the best lasagna, California roll, and pad thai? No, no. They've got something for everyone, but they're not gonna be great at any of it. I'd rather go to an Italian restaurant that makes their own noodles, right? Makes their own pasta. And where they specialize in one thing.   Not at all. No, we I believe in the fundamentals of multifamily. I believe in the supply demand that is here. I mean we had a record number of supply across the board and multifamily and the occupancy maintained 90-91 percent depending on the market but it maintained in the 90s in a record number of supply and by the way at the same time you got   the capital markets raising interest rates the way they did. And a lot of people have been able to hold serve. And the fundamentals of the supply demand and how much...   how many renters there are out there and how that will continue is there. That's cold hard facts. There is demand, a lot of demand, and there will continue to be even more demand because the supply is trailing off. We have never looked.   outside of multifamily because it's so strong. I think that is a cultural thing actually because if you, anyone who's in the sports, college sports, they'll know about the NIL and   Joe Fairless (14:54.784) how you can bounce from one team to another year after year. And so you'll find some people who aren't starting and if they put in the work then, and I'm for NIL, I think players should be paid, but I don't think that they, I don't think they should, I don't think it serves them as young men and young women.   mostly young men in this case who are bouncing from place to place, to not compete and not work for a starting position and instead just go somewhere else the path of least resistance. That's not how you build character. There's a really good book, it's called The Road to Character.   and they talk about in the book, they give different examples of people throughout history. And they're not exceptional, like saintly people. They're people who are normal people, but what they did that is atypical for what our culture does now is they stuck with things even when it was tough.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:09.682) Mm-hmm.   Joe Fairless (16:09.998) and instead of bouncing from thing to thing because what happens is when you bounce from thing to thing you don't get an expertise you don't get the the depth of knowledge the scars that that you need in order to be truly exceptional at that one thing and it's just surface level   And it'd be like if you feed your kids candy for every meal. I mean, it's same thing. You can't live on mental candy, right? You gotta have some substance. You gotta go through things.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:43.06) Yeah, I love that man. I love that metaphor. I love that. Like you've got to get reps, whether the times are great or an easy or whether they're hard. And those hard reps are the ones that are really going to set you up for success down the line. Like if you're able to execute in the hard times, then when times turn good again, you're going to be at the top, right? You're going to be cream of the crop. What do you, what do you think it is about you and maybe your company that's enabled you to do that, to stick?   to multifamily and not say, ooh, you know what, I'm a really good marketer so I can raise capital for anything if I really want to, right? You're in that position and what is it about you and your company that's been able to allow you to stick to multifamily and just stick to it during these hard times?   Joe Fairless (17:32.762) the fundamentals are there. I mean, you could make an argument that if we were office investors, and I have some friends who are really keen on investing in office now and in the future, but you could very easily make an argument that with the amount of office space that people have currently, you don't need as much of that space.   It's not a five, you know, three to five to seven year play. Maybe it's a 20 to 50 year play. I don't know. Who the hell knows what's going to happen with office and working from home and AI and automation and all that. But with multifamily, the challenge is capital markets. Now there are some other aspects like the hyper supply, which has tapered off.   because of the higher interest rates increase in you know insurance which has tapered off back to the single digits by and large but that that was a big thing property taxes depending on where you're at but the fundamentals are there people are renting and consumers for yeah unfortunately for generally you know for the general consumer their credit card debt   is going up. They're still paying off their credit card debt from purchases almost 12 months ago. More than half of people are paying off purchases for more than 12 months ago. that's so right now they've been out earning their income because income has been increasing. But what happens if that income stops increasing the way it has been?   the debt's not going anywhere, especially credit card debt, and that's certainly not going to make more first-time home buyers that dynamic. So the fundamentals are there, and not to mention we already have a housing shortage deficit, major deficit.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:50.866) Yeah, so it's the belief and it's the knowledge like it's the education like you you know that the fundamentals are there you you're you're basing your resilience in the market to What you're seeing in the data like hey, it's you know We we believe in this asset type because of the data that i'm Well educated and well versed in   Joe Fairless (20:09.752) Mm-hmm.   Joe Fairless (20:14.346) Absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (20:16.168) That's incredible. That's incredible. Has anything changed in the way that you potentially because you've got a deal that might be going through in the way that you either have raised capital recently or how you are going to raise capital for your next deal as compared to when it might have been a little bit easier, let's say five years ago from passive investors?   Joe Fairless (20:38.612) Yes, we have implemented a system that I'm sure a lot of your listeners have heard of EOS, Entrepreneur Operating System, and that has been very helpful. We just did our focus day a month ago, but we've hit the ground running and we have our, I think, Vision Day part one later this month and Vision Day two.   next month and that has allowed ownership among the team members to really thrive because team members are responsible for rocks or their goals but if you say goals instead of rock they'll the EOS person will slap your hand so I'll continue to say rock so they're responsible for rocks and it's just   It takes more, the individuals on the team have more ownership. So that's not something sexy or flashy that I think your question was getting to. So I'll say something else that has been helpful would be doing Facebook ads for getting new accredited investor leads.   at scale. That's the best way that we found to get credit investor leads at scale is through Facebook ads. And we have an agency that we work with. And I just hired a director of marketing who has some really good experience and he's overseeing them and the marketing team. And then   Another thing that has been helpful that where I'd say just scratching the surface I'm a big proponent of AI and how I believe We are in the middle of a major change for our society with because of AI I think it is just as major of a change as it as it as when we all got internet in our homes   Joe Fairless (22:51.602) on a personal computer. I think it's that big to have access to, just think about phone books to Googling something on your computer. So with AI we've incorporated it and are incorporating as much as possible in one aspect to address your question about how we're doing things differently. One aspect.   is that on our investor calls, our prospective investor calls, we record them. They know it's being recorded and on a recorded line. We have an AI service that then takes the information from the call and grades the call. But then not only that is we look at, those investors, which ones of those investors invest?   What did we say? What did they say on those calls? What are some common commonalities? Which ones didn't invest? What did they say? What did we say? And starting to identify trends and words and topics to talk about and to address on the calls to increase the conversion rate.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:07.048) That's great, man. I love it. You kind of went full circle there. You've got EOS, which I'm a huge proponent of. We use that across the various companies that I have, some form or another. There's got to be a framework of organization and accountability and being able to look back and say, hey, we've had this problem before and here's how we solved it before. Or hey, this problem is still occurring from last week's L10 meeting. What do we need to do to improve it? How do we solve that issue?   Joe Fairless (24:33.166) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:36.712) How do we keep moving forward rather than, what did we talk about last week or what did we talk about last month? You've got to have a way to organize things and a way to solve issues organizationally, especially as you grow. So EOS, huge proponent of it, man. I mean, it's awesome. Like you have to have some form of it, even if it's not to a T with the book, Traction is where that comes from. You have to implement some form of organization and framework for your company. And then like you said,   Joe Fairless (24:41.389) Yeah.   Joe Fairless (24:56.575) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:03.284) you know, with AI, everyone has to stay on the forefront of what's going on right now. I know I was even a little resistant myself. was like, chat GPT, is that? Eh, you know, and put it off for a little bit. And then once you start using that, along with all the other things as well, I'm just using that as kind of a baseline, but just learning how to use chat GPT in your everyday life, it's just a game changer. Because now your whole thought process changes. It's not like,   Joe Fairless (25:08.547) Yep.   Joe Fairless (25:20.14) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:31.22) I need to put together this entire article or blog post. It's like, how do I prompt it correctly to to produce this blog post or this article in my voice and then edit it through that or, you know, all these different things you figure out, like how to prompt rather than how to actually take this solution all the way from start to finish. Let that technology tell you how to do it. So it's awesome. And then Facebook ads as well.   Joe Fairless (25:45.206) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:58.964) you've got to really dial those things in, right? It can be a money pit, but at the same time, if you can master that, and it sounds like you hired an agency that's very industry specific, which helps out a lot. And from what I've seen, we have gems, we have a capital raising business, we have all these different things, and finding somebody that's niche to that industry is super important.   Joe Fairless (26:22.434) That's right.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (26:25.756) I'd love to go back and stay on this capital raising subject, especially for people that just started out. So like now you're doing EOS, now you're using AI, now you're using Facebook ads, do you have some capital to be able to invest in those ads? What about for somebody that's just kind of starting out? they're, you know, maybe this is their first fund to fund or, you know, their first property that they're raising capital for. Like how do they effectively launch their first   Capital Race.   Joe Fairless (26:56.59) Well, I would read the book that I wrote on syndication because I walked through the whole process of that best ever syndication book. So, but for this this relatively short conversation, I'd say first,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:04.404) Great book.   Joe Fairless (27:19.606) People have to make sure you have to make sure that people perceive you and you are actually a real estate expert and That because you might have you might have been if this your first one first deal then I'm assuming you came from some other industry or   If it was real estate, maybe you're a property manager, they don't know about all aspects of your expertise as it relates to real estate. you've got to, by having a thought leadership platform, you'll interview others who have that experience, you'll continue to learn, hone your skills, and then you'll also be associated with those who have those skill sets, and that will be helpful for you.   Once you do that, assuming that you are the expert and you are also perceived as the expert, then what I would do, and what I did actually on my very first one is I created a spreadsheet. And the spreadsheet had the name of the person, how I knew them, and then,   What I did is I wrote down all the different names and then how I knew them. So for example, I was on the alumni advisory board for Texas Tech. I was on a flag football team in New York. I wrote someone's name down there. On my flag football team, was working at different companies. I worked at different companies, so I wrote down different coworkers at different companies.   the key here for doing it this way is identifying the person. So then you sort them by how you know them. all the people from the flag football team would be sorted together. All the people from XYZ company would be sorted together. And then you identify the most influential person within that group. And you talk to him or her.   Joe Fairless (29:39.306) about your opportunity. And once you talk to him or her about the opportunity, and if they find it appealing or at least they want to learn more about it, then you can go to the next person in that group and you can name check. You can say, I was just talking to Seth about this and he's got some follow-up questions about it and I thought it also would make sense to talk to you about it too.   So then you come in a little warm with the group dynamic versus if you come in cold on an individual level.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:11.924) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:18.822) I like that man. That's a very, very nuanced strategy tidbit there. What I really heard was, you know, authenticity and authority, authenticity in that. Yeah, you've got to educate yourself. You've got to be a real estate expert if that's what you're raising capital for and authority. And then you've got to show people, you know, why you're the expert, why you know all these things, why they should listen to you to invest in something like this and even leveraging the authority of others with that.   that strategy where you go to this influential person and say, look, this person likes this deal too, and here's why. And then they can go to them and they kind of look to them as additional authority because they kind of look to them as that thought leader or that leader in general. So pretty great, man. Start wrapping this up, but this is kind of a nuanced question that I love to ask and ...   Because once upon a time I went to I went to med school for a little while and then I dropped out and because I just I hated it knew it wasn't for me and I'm going to law school and then got into real estate. So you know in a parallel universe tell me about a different version of you a different but likely version of you if you didn't exist as you do today because right now you know you're you're an apartment buyer you're a great marketer you're an entrepreneur.   Joe Fairless (31:38.164) I'd say I really enjoy coaching my daughter in soccer. I do not know soccer. I grew up in Texas. I played football. I played baseball. I ran track in that order. There wasn't a soccer option or maybe even a soccer ball in Texas when I was growing up. But I enjoy coaching and in an alternative universe, I would   I would do more of that because time is, it flies whenever I'm doing that.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:15.036) Awesome, awesome. All right, Joe, for our listeners out there, what can they find out more about you?   Joe Fairless (32:21.494) You can go to AshcroftCapital.com and if you're looking at passive investing or if you're an operator or someone who is partnering with others, then my conference is a good place to be. It's besteverconference.com. It's gonna be March 3rd and 4th in Salt Lake City this year.   I can get a discount code to your people too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:52.51) Great, yeah, I'll drop that in the show notes and I'll see you there, Joe. So we'll shake hands in person. So thanks again for coming on the show. Really appreciate it and we'll catch you next time.   Joe Fairless (32:57.304) Sweet. Awesome.   Joe Fairless (33:05.518) You know what, in just a second, I'm gonna just tell you the code, that way you don't have to do any work. Whenever I do a podcast and someone says, I'll send it to you, I'm like, more work for me to do later. So, all right, here's a code. Hurry 25, it'll be 25 % off all ticket types. H-U-R-R-Y, all lowercase, and then number 25, you get 25 % off all tickets, except for the LP ticket.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:09.917) Okay.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:13.808) Yeah, I know then you gotta follow up.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:35.924) Let's roll right into these million dollar questions and then I'll let you go.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:44.884) Alright Joe, let's jump into this. So, how did you make your first million dollars?   Joe Fairless (33:52.185) Same way I made my last one so spoiler alert. It's it's selling when a deal exited so The is probably The seventh or eighth Deal I had one million dollars on one transaction, right? Like is that chunk about? Yeah, I   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:55.56) Hahaha   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:12.767) Really million dollars in your net worth   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:17.96) What puts you over the edge there? How did you grow that first million?   Joe Fairless (34:21.626) I lost my first million before I ever came across it. That was on the very first deal. It would just be, it'd probably be through an exit of a deal.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:26.056) Ha   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:35.614) Sure, yeah, and I'll bet it's probably similar. mean, how are you gonna, how are you planning on making your next million dollars? Same thing, the apartments, all about apartments, man. I love it, singular focus, that's where it's at. mean, riches are in the niches.   Joe Fairless (34:41.144) Same thing. Yep. The apartments. All apartments. That's right.   Yep.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:52.564) All right, you're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do. What is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   Joe Fairless (34:58.958) Mmm.   I do what I say I'm gonna do. And sadly, that separates me from a lot of people, not all people.   but that's a big focus of mine. And it's not about my, I recently read something that resonated and that was don't focus on your reputation, focus on your character. Reputation is such a vanity metric, but the character is who you are when no one's looking and being proud of who you are. And that's vital to me.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:37.524) Yeah, and it's not just saying what you're going to do to other people, but also with yourself, right? To yourself.   Joe Fairless (35:43.726) Mmm good point. Yeah when you're when when I'm on those runs and I can just stop Whenever I want But then I'll be I'll know I'll know I didn't go through this, you know, you know made up finish line that I had predetermined in my head and And that's that's there's there's something to be said there. I'm glad you brought that up   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:10.644) Yeah, that's that's the key right? It's not just when somebody when it's dependent on somebody else or somebody else is watching It's you know, what do you do when nobody's watching and what do you do when it's just a promise to yourself? Do you follow through do you keep those promises things as easy as hey when you set your alarm in the morning and you wake up Do you do you get up or do you hit the snooze button? Like you made a promise to yourself the night before to wake up and get up when that alarm goes off Do you keep that promise?   Joe Fairless (36:15.415) Mm-hmm.   Joe Fairless (36:25.229) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:39.12) Awesome. All right, brother. I think that should do it. I will see you. I'll see you at BC, man.   Joe Fairless (36:46.42) Awesome. I appreciate it. yeah, if anything you can do to help get to get the word out about the conference to your email list, I'd appreciate that also. All right. Thanks, Seth. All right. Bye.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:57.404) Absolutely. All right, brother. Talk soon. See you. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en   Joe Fairless's Links: https://www.facebook.com/imjoefairless https://x.com/joefairless https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefairless/ https://ashcroftcapital.com/our-team/joe-fairless/ https://www.instagram.com/besteverpodcast/?hl=en

Title: From Burnout to Balance: The Holistic Health Framework for Business Leaders with Justin Roethlingshoefer Summary: In this episode, Seth Bradley interviews performance and holistic health expert Justin Roethlingshoefer, who shares his journey from overweight and obsessed with data as a child to becoming a thought leader in elite athletics and executive performance. Justin reveals that while most people approach health through a "body up" lens, obsessing over diets, workouts, and gadgets, true health and healing come from the opposite direction. He advocates for a "top-down" method where spiritual identity and emotional clarity are foundational, which then naturally align the mind and body for sustainable, lasting change. Justin explains how high achievers, even billionaires and franchise owners, often remain unfulfilled and unhealthy because they treat symptoms rather than root causes. His company, Own It, integrates data-driven physical health with deep mental, emotional, and spiritual coaching to create real transformation. True health, he argues, is only possible when all areas of life are aligned — and while results may take time, the impact is profound and permanent. Links to watch and subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Body-up health solutions are backwards. Real, lasting transformation starts with spiritual identity and mindset before physical optimization. Holistic integration is required. Mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health must be aligned for true healing and performance. Success ≠ health or fulfillment. High-performing entrepreneurs and executives often suffer because they chase outcomes, not alignment. Transformation takes patience. Sustainable results require commitment to small, integrated steps, not quick fixes or shortcuts. The solution is full integration, not fragmentation. Own It's model addresses all aspects of health in one place to create life-changing outcomes. Transcript: Seth Bradley (00:02.062) What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game. If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you, and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Man, excited to have you on the show. Let's just jump right in, Tell the listeners a little bit about your background and take it back as far as you like. Justin Roethlingshoefer So man, how long's the show? I think the big thing, to be honest with you, anytime I kind of get asked about my background, my background shaped me. My background kind of brought me through to what it is that we're doing now. And I kind of speak in terms of anointings and callings and what it is that was stamped on us from a young age. And for me, it was health. I knew that. When I leaned into that as a young boy at 12, 13 years old, I was a fat kid. was the one that I was just made fun of. But I also had this deep desire to know and understand my body at a level that didn't make sense to a lot of people. And there was, I still remember I did this study at the University of Alberta, born and raised in Canada, and was a very athletic kid, but was just overweight. And I did this study. And they were looking at how kids and based on their habits and behaviors, whether you could actually be fat and fit. And so they brought me in and we did all these tests and all these studies and my VO2 max was at the 99 percentile. My muscle mass was at the 99 percentile. My time spent watching TV, playing video games, all these other things was at the 99th percentile of not doing those things. But yet I had a BMI that was obese. I had a body fat percentage, I think of 34%, something in these areas. And I still remember the article that came out, it was the front page of the paper, because it was a really groundbreaking study in Canada, and it said, and fit, question mark, with a picture of me. and I was on the bike and it really just started, like it messed with my mind. And obviously only continued the teasing, continued all these things. But I was the kid that wore a heart rate monitor to bed, wore a heart rate monitor all day long, had a pulse oximeter that I would look at three, four times a day. When I was reading, when everyone else was reading comic books, I was reading medical journals. And this was something that I was just fully enthralled with. Well, That experience threw me the other direction and from about 14 to 18 became severely anorexic. Had a really hard ability to see myself well and just love who I was and I had a major body composition issue and that propelled me down into the United States. I still happen to be a very good athlete. I came to the United States on a hockey scholarship. Did two undergraduate degrees one in exercise science another nutrition went got my master's degree in exercise physiology concentration and sport performance Went and got my massage therapy license went and got my postgraduate doctoral studies in heart rate variability sleep and recovery science and that propelled me into the National Hockey League I started to really understand the body in a way that not many people did and realizing that health is Holistic health is integrated health is mental physical spiritual and emotional conditions or states of the human being and they all have to be aligned and if there's any type of Disintegration between those four you will not be healed you will not be healthy and you will not realize what I call true health and so I took that philosophy of using data technology and Information to help heal the entire person to the NHL and all of a sudden we started to see injury rates drop, we saw recovery times drop, we saw sickness rates drop, we saw performances increase, we saw energy increase, and the owners, the GMs are coming to saying, what are you doing? Like, I don't understand this. You're bringing a philosophy that is very weird to us, we don't understand it, but yet we see the fruits of it at the end of the day, what's happening? That, over the course of eight years, caused me to become a thought leader and really take... some stages in some unique ways in professional sports and change the culture and the dynamic of how we approached performance. But going from Washington to Anaheim, I had one of the ownership team members of the capitals come and say, hey, I need to meet with you when you come out. And I'd seen this person and as they walked through the door, I was like, my gosh, I'd seen them six months previous. And as they walked through, was like, you've aged 30 years in five, six months. Like what's going on? He's like, I don't know. I don't feel well. Like I'm not sleeping. I'm stressed. I feel like I've got no control of my body and I don't understand what's happening. Can you help me? And the back of my mind, I was like, this guy's a billionaire. He's just making copious amounts of money. He's a businessman. I work with athletes. But then all of a sudden I realized, no, this isn't an athlete problem. This is a human problem. And I put him through the same philosophy. We did testing. We looked at heart rate variability. We started to track information. We started to have conversations that were very philosophical in nature, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally aligned, starting to go through a lot of these identities that he had that he wasn't able to shake. And all of a sudden, eight months later, the guy looks like he's 35 years old and He's 80. And that was the turning point for me to be like, hey, I can no longer just stay in the national hockey. Like I have to walk away and be able to impact the health of the world because like I said, this is not just a athlete problem. This is a human problem. And the more that we can empower people, the more that we can help them understand their bodies and understand how to heal. The definition of integrated is the exact same definition of heal. To make one, to make wholeness, to create oneness. And that's what we have to do mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally if we truly want to heal. You just can't be a muscle head on the outside and be sick internally and think that you're healthy. On the other side, you can't just not go to the gym and go to the therapist all day and be so aligned and do meditation and just know your purpose and be preaching from the stages. there's still disintegration. We need to make sure it's holistic, all-encompassing and integrated to realize that deep healing. And that's what we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of people who are business owners and business leaders, entrepreneurs for the last two and a half, three years. So it's been, that's kind of been that journey in what looks like about six and a half minutes. Seth Bradley That's incredible, man. There's so much to unpack in six and a half minutes there. Man, I don't even know where to start. I mean, it sounds like you've had this almost an obsession with data and reading that data from your body before everybody had a Fitbit, right? Justin Roethlingshoefer Oh, for sure. A Fitbit or some sort of watch, right? And you were doing this before that kind of hit the stage because it just interests. So like on that note, they're like definitely doing it before it was cool. But like quick story, when I was 12 years old, I asked my parents for a heart rate monitor for Christmas. And you have to realize this is back in 1998. So the heart rate monitors were not like they are now. You can't get them for 100 bucks. You can't get a wearable device that's cheap and easy. I think that the heart monitor then cost like $1,600. And they're like, why do you need a heart monitor? Like, are you sick? Is there something wrong? I was like, no, I'm just interested. Well, they're like, we're not buying one of these things. And I said, no, like, pool your money that you give me for Christmas, my birthday, and pool grandma and grandpa's money and pool like aunt and uncle's. Put it all together and that's all I want. You can just never get me a gift for the next year, not till next Christmas. So that's what they did. And that was literally how I got my first piece. And I've just been obsessed with it ever since of really being able to just provide information. Because I think understanding, knowledge is one thing, understanding is something completely different. And we need to be able to dissociate between information and understanding and help cross that bridge so that you can be empowered to take action in your own health. Seth Bradley Yeah. Yeah, that's incredible. Your parents kind of made that sacrifice to make it happen for you. I don't know if you would have been a little bit set back because they didn't provide that for you at that time, but it kind of catapulted you on this journey. You know, do you think that, you know, reading that data is maybe the first step in kind of working towards analyzing that holistic approach? Or where do you kind of see all this beginning? Justin Roethlingshoefer First step is, that's to be honest with you, that's the world's approach. The world's approach I say is a body up approach. So it's, there's four entities of health, right? Mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. And I attach each one of those to a different entity. So physical, your body. Emotional, your heart. Mental, your mind. And spirit, your spiritual component. And the world's approach is to take a bottom up body first approach. You need to get the wearable device. You need to start tracking all this stuff. You need to look at everything under the sun. You need to go get your DNA tested. You need to go get your blood tested. You need to go and do the cold plunge, the sauna, the red light, the intermittent fasting, the high intensity interval training. You have to do all the things because you have to get the six pack. You have to lose 20 pounds. You have to do whatever it might be. It's the body up approach. Well, that body up approach creates a poisoning of the heart, poisoning of the emotions, it brings on anxiety, it brings on fear, it brings on this feeling of overwhelm. All things that I experienced as a child, which is why I continue to pair them through, I was fearful of becoming fat again, thus I took things to an extreme. I was fearful of... not being able to have the energy to do what I wanted, thus I was acting out of certain things and I would have to go do my workouts and it would bring up massive anxiety because it was just so much and I was overwhelmed by it all. That poisoning of the heart creates a separation of the mind, thus I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm never gonna get there, I'm not consistent enough, I'm not worthy of all these things. And that separation of the mind creates a cloudiness in our spirit, a cloudiness of who we are and what we identify with. I identified as a fat kid. I identified as the anorexic sick kid, the weird kid. That's what stuck with me and that's why I was never fully healthy even though at 20 years old to now at 36, I don't look any different. I've still got the six pack. I've still got the muscles. I still can lift a house. I still feel really strong. But it's not until about two, maybe even three years ago that I was holistically healthy, that I loved who I was, that I was really rooted. What we have to do is we have to take a top-down approach. We have to really create oneness in our spirit first. Who are we? Why are we here? What's our calling? What's our identity? What is that true desire that we're wanting to live for? Once we have that, we have a sense of oneness of our mind. We are worth it. We are good enough. We're exactly where we need to be. We're in a journey that's exciting. Thus that eliminates and creates a purification of our heart and eliminates the anxieties, eliminates the fears and puts us into a state of enthusiasm, energy, mental clarity, empowerment to go and step forward into these things powerfully, which then we're able to create consistency, sustainability and longevity of our body through our habits, behaviors and lifestyles that are now something we look forward to. And so coming back to your comment is the first thing we have to do is not get the wearable device, is not do the thing. The first thing we have to do is get our self right spiritually, which comes back to identifying who we are. Who do we identify as? What are we? What is our goal, our mission, our purpose? Because once we align that, once we get clear on that, everything else starts to fall into place. Seth Bradley Got it, got it. Yeah, and it's like that body up approach. It's easier to sell. The culture that we live in, it's just easier to sell products. It's easier to get people thinking they need to look a certain way. It's just that sales kind of approach, but it's backwards. You've got to get yourself right spiritually, mentally before the more the body type of physical things can even matter to you internally. Justin Roethlingshoefer I think, yes, I think you're right, but even as you start to look at that, why do you think we're more unhealthy now than ever? We are living in a place where there's more mental illness in our society than ever before. There's more anxiety than ever before. There's more depression than ever before. We're actually sicker physically than ever before. Diabetes is on the rise. Alzheimer's is on the rise. Alzheimer's is just type three diabetes. That's all it is. An inability to control blood sugar. We have an obesity epidemic rising. We have now 52% of Americans that are obese, not overweight, obese. And so it's not more information. It's not getting more of these things. It's not go do this, gym, go and do this thing. There is 77% of people who lose weight and get healthy, gain back the weight they lost. Why? Because it was done in an unsustainable way. They had a hole that they were searching to fill that didn't align along the way. And once they accomplished the certain outcome, it didn't make them feel any different. And so it comes back to this component of integrating everything together. And when I built Own It, that was the big thing I was focused on. Do you have to have an exercise routine? You're darn right you do. Do you have to have a new way of eating? You're darn right you do. Do you want to be able to supplement the right way? You sure do. Do you want to make sure you're sleeping well and have a recovery routine? You're darn right that's important. But you also have to have... the person who's gonna help you with self care, the person who's gonna get your mind right, the person who's gonna get your heart right, the people who are going to help you align in this way, which is why we've got everything in one place and everything had to be integrated. You can't be trying to put your own wheel together because when you put your own wheel together, you miss out. And so I wanted to create a space where somebody could walk in and everything is there. You're gonna come in, you're gonna have your team, your team that wraps their arms around you. You're gonna get your DNA testing, you're gonna get your cellular blood testing, you're gonna get your custom supplementation, you're gonna get your workout plan, you're gonna get your wearable piece of technology so that your health coaches and your functional medicine docs and your RDs can track everything and help you and guide you and put these things in place for you in a slow, iterative way so that over 12 months, you don't even recognize the habits you were in before. But on the same breath, you're gonna be working mentally, emotionally, and spiritually on identifying who you are and how do you get over this gap so we can create a bridge so that you do come in this state of oneness and you step into everything powerfully. And so as a business owner, as an executive, as a business leader, you have become transformed, not conformed to what we're telling you in the world. Seth Bradley Got it. So it truly is holistic, right? It's not let's start one thing two three four. It's all at once small steps to lead to a major change. Justin Roethlingshoefer 100%. And I think the reason that people aren't willing to have patience with it, they're not willing to be developed. Everybody wants to arrive. Everybody wants to get to the end result. But nobody's willing to take the trip. Nobody's willing to have great story. So we had a client who started, this guy owns 17 different franchises and he came to us about three months ago. Four weeks into his process, he called and goes, I'm unhappy, I'm not seeing changes. I've been in this for four weeks and I've just been adding some different habits. I'm looking at my wearable devices. I've just got my testing done. Nothing's changing yet. I said to him — and let's call this guy Chris — I said, Chris... We don't even have your full testing results back yet. We've only really started to implement a lot of these lifestyle changes and routines about three and a half weeks ago. We've only been able to get two really deep in-depth calls to get you realigned. We've only just started to add some of these things in. And you kind of talk him off a ledge, talk him off a ledge. He comes back, continues to be consistent. And just last week... He's been with us, like I said, for about three and a half months. Just last week, he sends us a screenshot. His quality of sleep used to be at about 37%. So REM and deep sleep totals over total time of sleep time. His quality sleep was always about 37%. He just passed 50%. His HRV, which is an intrinsic measure of how your body's adapting to stress and strain... was his average was about 24. Just for a little bit of context, your goal is to always see a trend line upwards. His trend line was always downwards. He has an average HRV now of 54. His respiration rate, meaning how many breaths per minute he's taking throughout the course of the day is dropping, meaning he's becoming more efficient. His blood glucose levels, because we've now tested twice, are half of what they were before. He was at a pre-diabetic level previously. His anxiety in terms of just talking is half of what it was and he's down 16 pounds. Seth Bradley Got it, got it. Yeah, and it's like that body up approach. It's easier to sell. The culture that we live in, it's just easier to sell products. It's easier to get people thinking they need to look a certain way. It's just that sales kind of approach, but it's backwards. You've got to get yourself right spiritually, mentally before the more the body type of physical things can even matter to you internally. Justin Roethlingshoefer I think, yes, I think you're right, but even as you start to look at that, why do you think we're more unhealthy now than ever? We are living in a place where there's more mental illness in our society than ever before. There's more anxiety than ever before. There's more depression than ever before. We're actually sicker physically than ever before. Diabetes is on the rise. Alzheimer's is on the rise. Alzheimer's is just type three diabetes. That's all it is. An inability to control blood sugar. We have an obesity epidemic rising. We have now 52% of Americans that are obese, not overweight, obese. And so it's not more information. It's not getting more of these things. It's not go do this, gym, go and do this thing. There is 77% of people who lose weight and get healthy, gain back the weight they lost. Why? Because it was done in an unsustainable way. They had a hole that they were searching to fill that didn't align along the way. And once they accomplished the certain outcome, it didn't make them feel any different. And so it comes back to this component of integrating everything together. And when I built Own It, that was the big thing I was focused on. Do you have to have an exercise routine? You're darn right you do. Do you have to have a new way of eating? You're darn right you do. Do you want to be able to supplement the right way? You sure do. Do you want to make sure you're sleeping well and have a recovery routine? You're darn right that's important. But you also have to have... the person who's gonna help you with self care, the person who's gonna get your mind right, the person who's gonna get your heart right, the people who are going to help you align in this way, which is why we've got everything in one place and everything had to be integrated. You can't be trying to put your own wheel together because when you put your own wheel together, you miss out. And so I wanted to create a space where somebody could walk in and everything is there. You're gonna come in, you're gonna have your team, your team that wraps their arms around you. You're gonna get your DNA testing, you're gonna get your cellular blood testing, you're gonna get your custom supplementation, you're gonna get your workout plan, you're gonna get your wearable piece of technology so that your health coaches and your functional medicine docs and your RDs can track everything and help you and guide you and put these things in place for you in a slow, iterative way so that over 12 months, you don't even recognize the habits you were in before. But on the same breath, you're gonna be working mentally, emotionally, and spiritually on identifying who you are and how do you get over this gap so we can create a bridge so that you do come in this state of oneness and you step into everything powerfully. And so as a business owner, as an executive, as a business leader, you have become transformed, not conformed to what we're telling you in the world. Seth Bradley Got it. So it truly is holistic, right? It's not let's start one thing two three four. It's all at once small steps to lead to a major change. Justin Roethlingshoefer 100%. And I think the reason that people aren't willing to have patience with it, they're not willing to be developed. Everybody wants to arrive. Everybody wants to get to the end result. But nobody's willing to take the trip. Nobody's willing to have great story. So we had a client who started, this guy owns 17 different franchises and he came to us about three months ago. Four weeks into his process, he called and goes, I'm unhappy, I'm not seeing changes. I've been in this for four weeks and I've just been adding some different habits. I'm looking at my wearable devices. I've just got my testing done. Nothing's changing yet. I said to him — and let's call this guy Chris — I said, Chris... We don't even have your full testing results back yet. We've only really started to implement a lot of these lifestyle changes and routines about three and a half weeks ago. We've only been able to get two really deep in-depth calls to get you realigned. We've only just started to add some of these things in. And you kind of talk him off a ledge, talk him off a ledge. He comes back, continues to be consistent. And just last week... He's been with us, like I said, for about three and a half months. Just last week, he sends us a screenshot. His quality of sleep used to be at about 37%. So REM and deep sleep totals over total time of sleep time. His quality sleep was always about 37%. He just passed 50%. His HRV, which is an intrinsic measure of how your body's adapting to stress and strain... was his average was about 24. Just for a little bit of context, your goal is to always see a trend line upwards. His trend line was always downwards. He has an average HRV now of 54. His respiration rate, meaning how many breaths per minute he's taking throughout the course of the day is dropping, meaning he's becoming more efficient. His blood glucose levels, because we've now tested twice, are half of what they were before. He was at a pre-diabetic level previously. His anxiety in terms of just talking is half of what it was and he's down 16 pounds. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en   Justine Roethlingshoefer's Links: https://www.youtube.com/@justinroethlingshoefer https://www.facebook.com/justin.roethlingshoefer https://www.instagram.com/justinroeth/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-roethlingshoefer/ https://justinroethlingshoefer.com/

Title: 20 Brutal Truth Bombs I Wish I Knew in My 20s | Part 2 Summary: In this thought-provoking video, the speaker lays out 20 impactful lessons that serve as vital truths for achieving personal growth and success. Ranging from the importance of gratitude to actionable steps for overcoming complacency, these insights aim to challenge viewers' perspectives on life and instill a sense of urgency to take control of their destinies. Key themes include the necessity of gratitude for happiness, the importance of seeking mentorship, and the significance of taking decisive action instead of waiting for the “perfect moment.” The speaker stresses the idea that relationships are built on effort, the value of time as a non-renewable resource, and emphasizes personal growth through embracing solitude and cutting out toxic influences. Ultimately, the speaker urges the audience to adopt a proactive mindset and build a fulfilling life, free from the comfort zones that often limit potential. Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXcFrxrn7rE&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=5 Bullet Point Highlights: Gratitude is Key: True happiness stems from being grateful for what you already have rather than endlessly chasing external markers of success. Value Mentorship: Asking for help from mentors accelerates learning and growth, showing that seeking guidance is a strength, not a weakness. Act Now: There's no ideal moment to start; taking messy action is crucial for progress. Relationships Matter: The idea of a ‘soulmate' is a myth; strong relationships are built through hard work and mutual respect. Time is Precious: Time is the only non-renewable resource; once spent, it cannot be regained. Embrace Solitude: Learning to be alone is fundamental to personal growth and discovering one's true self. Flexibility Over Rigidity: Life is unpredictable and plans may need to change; being adaptable is essential for success. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) if you survive part one welcome back but fair warning these next 10 bombs they're sharper they're louder and they might just punch you right in your ego it isn't feel-good advice this is not motivational fluff these are the lessons I wish someone drilled into my head when I was starting out so sit up lock in and let's finish what we started let's go gratitude is the secret to happiness you're chasing happiness in all the wrong places the secret to being truly happy is simpler than you think happiness doesn't come from money or   success or status it comes from gratitude when you're grateful for what you already have you stop obsessing about what you don't gratitude shifts your perspective instead of focusing on all the problems you have you focus on the possibilities you focus on the things that you have and that doesn't just make you happier it makes you more effective it makes you more productive it gets you in the right mindset to optimized moving forward grateful people are more resilient they're more resourceful they're more likely to   succeed hey and look people like us are never going to be complacent or satisfied and that's not what we're talking about we're talking about gratitude regardless we are hard driving people we're obsessed with success and we're obsessed with the next thing but that life in itself can lead you to an unhappy life if you don't have gratitude and respect for what you already have and what you've accomplished even today I'm moving towards Big goals eight nine figure exits and I'm focused I'm driving   I desire more I always have I always will but I do remind myself how far I've come and the incredible friends and family and people I have around me my good health and countless other amazing things in my life and that keeps me happy it keeps me centered it keeps me in the right mindset so that I can focus on my big goals and to keep driving forward start every day by appreciating what you already have it won't just make you happier it'll make you Unstoppable number 12 ask questions ask for help get   a mentor stop being so damn proud stop acting like you know everything you do not know everything you don't and if you think asking for help makes you weak you're wrong success uccessful people don't succeed alone they ask questions they seek advice and they surround themselves with people who've already done what they're trying to do a mentor isn't just someone who gives you answers it's someone who shortens your learning curve calls you out on your [ __ ] and helps you avoid mistakes asking for help   isn't a sign of weakness it's a sign of strength a sign of confidence it shows your serious about leveling up constantly seek advice constantly find those people and engage with them in my 20s I rarely asked any questions I tried to figure everything out myself I was too damn proud to seek help it stymied my growth today totally different mindset I pay tens of thousands of dollars every single year to coaches to be parts of masterminds and to surround myself with people who can help me level up faster and to avoid mistakes don't be   afraid to ask the right advice from the right Mentor at the right time can change everything number 13 don't wait for the perfect moment it does not exist you're waiting for the stars to aign you're wasting your damn time there's no such thing as the perfect moment conditions will never be ideal you're never going to feel fully ready and if you keep waiting for everything to be perfect you're going to be waiting forever or you're just going to miss the opportunity entirely the people who succeed consistently are the   ones who take action they're the ones who start before their ready they take messy action they figure it out as they go they build the plane on the runway and they adjust along the way I've launched over a dozen businesses and each time I had no clue what I was doing sure I get better at it each time I launch a new business I get better at evaluating the risk and the reward and whether or not it's a great opportunity or just another opportunity but each time that I jumped in I made mistakes and I figured it out if you recognize a   great opportunity the time to take messy action is now not later fortune favors the Bold take action start now 14 there's no such thing as the one this one will probably be a little bit controversial and if my wife's listening you get it if you're out there searching for your soulmate I've got bad news that person does not exist there's no single m iCal person out there who completes you who fixes all your problems and makes your life perfect relationships aren't about finding the one they're about finding someone who   compliments you who works together with you to build an incredible life together there are billions of people on this planet so guess what there might be more than one that could work out for you the best relationships are Partnerships they're not built on fate or fairy tales or anything like that they're built on effort and communication and mutual respect stop searching for Perfection and start focusing on connection when the chemicals fade what do you got left if that doesn't sound romantic then so   be it that's the truth my wife and I we make an incredible team we work on our relationship and we're willing to do so we have trust we have boundaries we love and respect each other and that's all that matters the one isn't found it's created through hard work and shared Vision 15 I told you I'd get back to this one time moves faster than you think blink in a decade is gone let me tell you how to stop wasting the most precious asset you have and that's time time is your only nonrenewable resource   you can make more money you can build more businesses you can meet new people you can find new opportuni ities but you can't buy back your time the problem is most people live like they've got all the time in the world they say I'll do it tomorrow or I'll do it next week or I'll do it when I'm retired they procrastinate they waste their days they put off their dreams and then one day they wake up and wonder where the hell all the time went don't let that be you and on top of that your perception of   time speeds up as your mind slows down and guess what your mind is slowing down right now it's doing it right now you'll continue to do that every single minute you're alive enjoy being bored now you won't even know what that is later your future 60-year-old billionaire self would give up every scent to be your poor ass right now let that sink in so stop wasting time on things that don't matter use your time wisely because once it's gone it's gone forever 16 learn how to be alone if you can't stand to be alone you're never going to   figure out who you really are you're never going to know what you're made of being alone isn't loneliness it's time for clarity it's the space where you can learn to understand what drives you your goals what you really care about and what what you really care about most people are so afraid of being alone that they fill their lives with noise Doom scrolling meaningless relationships distractions but real growth happens when you Embrace Solitude that's where you're going to find your strength and   your confidence when I first moved to California I didn't know a single person in La I lived alone ate alone I went to bars alone I know it sounds sad I learned a lot about myself and I'm a more confident person now because of it I'm not afraid of being alone in fact I love it I love going to a new city or city that maybe I haven't explored before by myself learning things seeing things talking to strangers answering to nobody learn to love your own company when you do you'll never need anyone else to validate you all right here we   go 17 cut out people who don't Elevate you I'm not even going to repeat it but you know what it is the five people around you right and keeping toxic people around is like drinking poison and wondering why you feel bad let me tell you why you need to cut the dead weight out of your life your environment determines your success if you're surrounded by complainers pessimists and lazy unmotivated complacent people who don't believe in you they'll hold you down and they're going to kill you slowly it's not about being heartless   it's about protecting your energy if someone isn't adding value to your life if they're not helping you grow and supporting your goals then they're holding you down and the worst part unfortunately sometimes that's the people that are closest to you close friends that you grew up with even family members but look some people change some people stay the same some people grow some people don't it's a fact of life and this life is too short to be held back and to not fulfill your potential I used to hang out with people   who thought working a 9 to-5 and partying every weekend was the peak of life right when I started hanging out with multi-millionaires with doers with Builders with winners I had no choice but to level up my own life your circle should inspire you it should challenge you it should push you forward if it doesn't it's time to let those people go surround yourself with winners number 18 finding yourself is a waste of time books and movies Floy flowy gurus out there they'll say you need to find yourself you need to discover who you   are I mean what the hell does that even mean you don't you're not lost you're just avoiding doing the damn work here's the thing you don't need to find yourself like you're some treasure buried in the sand you build yourself you create yourself you create the best version of yourself through action and effort and experience people who spend years or their whole lives finding themselves are usually just spinning their wheels they're avoiding the uncomfortable things that they don't want to do or the uncomfortable truth   that that prevents them from growing those people are lazy those people are losers stop searching for some magical answer and start doing stuff start doing the hard things that's how you figure out who you are when I quit medical school I didn't have a grand plan or a Clear Vision I focused on bettering myself in whatever form I could taking business classes getting my MBA even trying to teach myself mandering at one point but I didn't just sit there I didn't sit around trying to find myself I got to work I tried new things I   learned new skills and I let the process shape who I am that's how I built the life I have now you're not found you're made stop searching and start building 19 stop following your heart and listen to your brain brain follow your heart sounds cute but your heart can't think it can't reason and it can't make rational decisions start using your brain if you actually want to get somewhere your heart is emotional it's impulsive and it's shortsighted it'll lead you into bad relationships and bad business deals wasting time and bad   decisions that you're going to regret your brain on the other hand knows how to think critically it can take its time it can weigh options and it can make decisions based on logic and facts now I'm just going to say there's a little caveat here that doesn't mean you ignore your emotions it means letting your brain take the lead and using your heart really as a kind of a gut check in the background but not actually making the final decision the older I get the more I make decisions with my brain and the   better my decisions become and it's not a coincidence anytime I feel rushed or I feel emotional you know what I'm talking about you get forced into a sale or you get forced into giving an answer if I feel rushed or I feel emotional about something I just stop I stop I think and I wait and then when the emotion dissipates whether that's a minute or a day or a week then I make a rational decision based on facts and reason but also listening to my gut your heart feels but your brain leads remember that   use them both but your brain is the leader trust it here we are at the Finish Line number 20 your life plan is a waste of time life doesn't care about your 10-year plan or your long-term plan or your white pick fences we're taught at an early age to pick what we want to do to marry who we want to be with forever to find our passion to work a million years and retire when you're too old to enjoy it but here's the reality life is unpredictable you can plan every detail but it's not going to turn out like you plan it the   people who thrive in this life are the people who not only accept change but they welcome it the fastest adapting people the people who can deal with the most adversity and problems and continue on those are the ones who experience massive success it's called resilience your life plan is a comfort blanket not a road map it's fine to have goals but don't get so attached to this exact plan that you miss opportunities or you can't handle curveballs be flexible not rigid when I was five I wanted to be a monster   truck driver when I was 15 I wanted to play in the NBA when I was 20 I wanted to be a doctor I don't know if I ever wanted to be a lawyer but here I am leveraging my knowledge and skill set to create massive wealth and build a life In My Dreams enjoying all of it the life plan changes you've got to be flexible your life plan is not the final plan be resilient be flexible adapt pivot Thrive and there you have it 20 truths that'll hit you hard if you're paying attention life isn't about Comfort it's not about   approval it's not about patiently waiting it's about taking risks it's about making moves and doing whatever it takes to build something that actually matters you've got two choices now you can nod your head and say h wow that's great and go right back to doing the same old [ __ ] that kept you stuck for how long or you can take what you've learned look in the mirror and say I'm done with average let's go the truth is no one's coming to save you not your parents boss not your friends not the president it's on you to take action to   take the leap to take the hits and to build the life that you've been pretending that you want it's time to get to work the clock is ticking it's always ticking share this with someone who needs to hear the truth and if you're ready for more unfiltered no BS advice hit the Subscribe button and join me for the next one all right enjoy the journey [Music] Links from the Show: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en  

Title: 20 Brutal Truth Bombs I Wish I Knew in My 20s | Part 1 Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHW8jd2YpRw&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=6 Bullet Point Highlights: “Follow Your Passion” is Bad Advice: The speaker argues that pursuing passion without developing relevant skills leads to wasted time and frustration. No One is Watching: The fundamentally liberating realization that most people are too engulfed in their own lives to scrutinize your choices. Growth Comes from Discomfort: Becoming comfortable with discomfort is essential for personal development. Work-Life Balance is a Myth: Prioritizing your energy according to the season of your life is more crucial than trying to achieve an impossible balance. Failure is Feedback: Instead of being paralyzed by the fear of failure, view it as an opportunity to learn and grow. Not Every Opportunity is Worth Chasing: Recognizing distractions that do not align with long-term goals is vital for sustained progress. Take Risks While You're Young: The speaker advocates for seizing opportunities and taking calculated risks early in life when responsibilities are fewer. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) you've been fed lies your entire life they told you to follow your passion wait for the right time and keep everyone around you happy does that sound familiar well I'm here to tell you that's all Bs those ideas aren't just wrong they're keeping you broke stuck and miserable at the time of this recording I'm 41 years old even though I was moving forward educationally getting my MBA and law degree during my 20s I was also wasting my time and health Away by partying chasing women and caring what other people thought about me today   I'm dropping 20 truth bombs that no one else wants to say out loud this isn't your typical motivational stuff it's raw it's real and it's going to make you uncomfortable and that's the point if you want a life worth living it's time to wake up and stop playing by the rules that were designed to hold you down if you want to be average turn this off now if you want to be exceptional buckle up by the time this video ends you'll have no excuse to keep living small this is the advice I wish someone had told me   when I was in my 20s even if I were willing to listen so pay attention because if you're serious about winning these 20 truths will change everything let's go all right let's start out with a banger finding your passion is trash advice Follow Your Passion has to be the dumbest piece of advice out there you know who says that broke ass dreamers who've never actually accomplished anything let me tell you why chasing your passion is is a one-way ticket to wasting time and frustration you don't need passion you need skills a plan and   the ability to solve problems people will actually pay for you're not born with some magical purpose you're supposed to uncover that's Disney what works in real life is developing a skill set becoming so good they can't ignore you and then using that leverage to build something meaningful and guess what when you get really good at something and you get paid a lot of money to do it suddenly you've got a passion for it passion follows success not the other way around you know I skipped around from exercise science to   medical school to business school to law school asking myself the whole time what's my passion never could find it and I'll explain when I started in law school I wasn't passionate about Securities or real estate law and even still I hated working at a big stuffy law firm with a million bosses with every 6 minutes accounted for sounds miserable and it was but I did see an opportunity I learned the game I mastered my craft and I built my reputation now I get to call my own shots I'm building businesses with a   basis of Highly valuable knowledge and skill sets that people will pay a ton of money for more specifically legally raising capital for Real Estate well now it's my passion if I just Chase my passion I'd probably still be broke chasing my quote unquote dreams that wouldn't pay me passion doesn't create success skills do build something meaningful valuable and get paid properly to do it and I promise you that you'll find your passion and the freedom that it gives you stop waiting for inspiration and start creating   opportunities number two no one gives a what you're doing here's the cold hard truth no one is watching you as closely as you think nobody cares what you're doing it's called the spotlight effect look it up and really it's a bias that you believe that people are paying more attention to you than they really are most of us waste so much time worrying about what other people think of us but let me break it to you people are way too busy worrying about their own lives to care about yours that business you're   nervous about launching that big risk you're afraid to take because you might look stupid too nervous to talk to that girl at the bar look nobody's thinking about it as much as you are so stop holding yourself back it's all you if you fail no one will notice or even if they do they'll soon forget look I used to worry about what other people would think I used to think about what would they react if I left big law and shifted to real estate or started my own business but the second I did it I realized that nobody gave it they were   too focused on their own lives they've got things to do they don't care what I'm doing they don't care what you're doing so free yourself from the illusion that the world is watching nobody cares so do what you want to do live your best life get out there take some chances take some risks no regrets baby number three get comfortable with people not liking you I know it's a hard pill to swallow for some of us more than others but not every every one is going to like you and you've got to get comfortable   with that being okay in fact it's a good thing trying to please everyone is the fastest way to lose yourself some people aren't going to Vibe with you no matter what you do your opinions will piss them off your success will make them jealous and your authenticity will make them uncomfortable but don't worry about it get comfortable with it guess what that's their problem it's not yours you were not put on this planet to make every one happy you were put here to live your life and do your thing the   right people will support you and the wrong ones will fall off and you're going to be a better person for it and you're going to be better off because of it when I started sharing my journey online I got a lot of criticism I was very uncomfortable doing it people were saying you know what are you doing why are you doing a podcast why are you leaving law are you crazy but the more I stayed true to myself and the more I attracted people who understood my vision the rest honestly totally irrelevant it's a little bit of   short-term pain for some long-term gain so be you no matter what the people who matter will stick around and the ones who don't let them go four your comfort zone is slowly killing you the most dangerous place to be isn't Rock Bottom it's your comfort zone Comfort zones feel safe but they're just sand traps nothing grows here no progress no change no success the longer you stay comfortable the harder it becomes to break out it's easy to be average it's easy to accept your weaknesses and it's easy to collect a paycheck every 2 weeks   it's hard to be exceptional it's hard to turn your weaknesses into strengths and it's hard to take big risks but growth comes from discomfort pushing yourself taking risks facing challenges and if you're not at least a little scared or uncomfortable you're not growing and you're not doing it right and if you're not growing you're dying I'll tell you about something that makes me extremely uncomfortable you know what I'm kind of doing it right now not long ago like many my biggest weakness was public   speaking or really just speaking generally it doesn't even need to be in front of a ton of people it can be in front of a camera it could be in front of a handful of people introducing myself I mean I would nearly have a panic attack just having to introduce myself to a room and I hated that about me but did I just accept it and did I avoid it honestly for a little bit I did and then I said look if you want to grow you've got to learn this skill and you've got to get better at it so I launched a podcast I accepted speaker   invitations and I took every opportunity possible to make myself uncomfortable and now I've turned it into a strength and was tough because when you get asked that question hey do you want to do this do you want to speak do you want to have this meeting my first inclination no but then I thought to myself yo let's get uncomfortable and I respond yes every single time until I got good at this Comfort zones kill dreams step out take the risk and watch yourself transform number five work life balance is a myth   we've been told a lie your whole life work life balance it does not exist and if it does man it's not for you I know it's not for me chasing it's only going to make you miserable life is not about balance it's about priorities some Seasons you're going to be grinding some Seasons you're going to be sacrificing sleep weekends relationships and build your dreams instead other Seasons you'll have time to celebrate and enjoy but there's no balance here if you want to be super successful your balance is   going to be way over here and then it's going to maybe swing back here later on and then way over here and then swing back staying right here this is that comfort zone that I talked about avoid it trying to balance everything equally every day it's a recipe for Burnout the anxiety that it creates just by trying to stay right center it's going to kill you the people who suceed Ed know when to go all in and when to take a step back balance isn't about splitting your time perfectly it's about putting your   energy where it matters the most at that Optimum time for example right now I'm in grow mode I'm completely unbalanced I'm scaling three startups to nine digigit companies while also running my old businesses running my Law Firm investing in real estate growing my brand balance is out the window right now the grind though is temporary and I've conditioned myself to love it I know at some point I don't know when that is it's going to swing back and I'm going to be able to enjoy myself and I am actually really good at taking a   vacation putting things on the side keeping things moving forward but also taking a break but balance isn't something you find it's something you create over time by being intentional with your priorities number six failure isn't fatal you know what pisses me off watching people treat failure like it's some kind of terminal disease it's not failure doesn't kill you your fear of it does so let's talk about why you need to stop being a little about failing here's the hard truth failure is inevitable and you need it you're going   to fail you have to have it to succeed you're probably going to fail a lot nobody who's actually successful ever got there without face planing first Michael Jordan you know got cut from his high school team maybe he was a freshman going out for uh Varsity whatever Steve Jobs fired from his own company failure is feedback remember that failure is feedback so instead of crying about it learn from it and keep moving I've had tons of epic failures I've dropped out of medical school I got fired from a   multiple sixf figure job on New Year's Eve I raised exactly 0 from investors for a real estate project at those times I felt like it's the end of the world but you know what failure was the best damn thing that ever happened to me it forced me to look in the mirror be humbled learn improve and then the next time with a chip on my shoulder so what's the lesson here failure isn't the end it's the beginning if you're too scared to fail too scared to to succeed stop playing it safe take the leap when   you fall you'll be fine get back up and let's go number seven not every opportunity is a good opportunity opportunities are like shiny objects they're distracting you and most of them look good at first glance but not every shiny object is worth chasing some will drain your time energy and your sanity faster than a toxic relationship the truth is good opportunities align with your goals and your long-term Vision the bad ones they're just expensive distractions in Disguise don't confuse movement and being busy with progress   the more successful and experienced you get the bigger the opportunities you're going to have to turn down 15 years ago I would have killed to have an opportunity to partner with someone anyone on any real estate deal today I turn them down daily I don't even look at anything that doesn't align with my long-term vision and my goals no matter how big the opportunity is if it's a distraction from my long-term strategy it's a no for me dog saying no to the wrong opportunity frees you up to say yes to the right one when it comes along   you've got to get comfortable with saying no that is an expensive lesson to learn your future saying no to the wrong opportunity frees you up to say yes to the right one when it comes along you've got to get comfortable with saying no that's a valuable skill the ability to say no your future self will thank you number eight don't wait for permission or approval if you're sitting around waiting for someone to say all right go ahead you can do it now playing the wrong game let's get real the only   person who needs to approve your dreams is you not your parents not your family not your friends not your significant other or you should have chose better waiting for someone else's permission is just another way of procrastinating and it's a one-way ticket to the Comfort Zone don't need a committee you don't need a cheerleader you don't need a green light what you need is the balls to start and you don't need anybody clapping for you when I started my first gym while working at a big Law Firm   everyone told me I was crazy what if it fails why are you doing this how will you have time but I didn't need their permission I didn't need their approval I didn't need their green light I just needed the confidence to bet on myself and guess what it worked so stop waiting for approval that's never coming stop listening to people who are less successful than you want to be take control make the lead and prove to yourself you can do it green light baby number nine you've heard this before but this is so true comparison is is the   thief of Joy scrolling through someone else's highlight reel is the fastest way to hate your own damn life let me tell you why comparison is a disease and how to cure it we've all done it we've looked at someone else's car or their house or their career or their girl and thought why not me or man they got really lucky what do they do it but here's the thing comparing yourself to others is a losers game because it's never a fair fight you're comparing their curated Picture Perfect moments to the raw unedited life that you live   every single day social media is fake even still their success does not equal your failure there's enough room for everybody to win it's abundance mindset I couldn't even imagine growing up in today's social media environment we did so much crazy growing up and I'm just so thankful that we didn't have all this because it might be on the internet somewhere fast forward though I'm guilty of all this as well looking at my peers seeing what they're doing seeing what success they're having but look I use it   for fuel I don't let it affect how I feel about myself and about my accomplishments and I learn from what others are doing better than me stop looking sideways focus on your own Journey your own progress and your own W's consistency and confidence that that's how you move forward number 10 take more and bigger risks when you're young if you're in your 20s and you're not swinging for the fences you're wasting the biggest Advantage you have in its time let me break it down when you're young you can afford to take   risks you don't have a mortgage you don't have kids you don't have the weight of responsibilities that come later frankly you don't have the weight of your conscience either you don't give a hopefully and that's a competitive Advantage whether it's start a business or investing in yourself or making a bold career move the worst case scenario isn't as bad as you think you recover faster than you expect and even if you fail you'll be 10 steps ahead of the person who didn't try when I bought my first rental property I was terrified   had no clue what I was doing what if I lost money what if it all went wrong what if it burned down but taking that risk paid off I got the experience I got a great property I still own that property but even if it hadn't the lessons I learned would have been worth it don't play it safe play with a little reckless abandon you've got a little bit of time now we'll talk about that later but you've got more time than most and you've got less to lose than most use that to your advantage all right that's 10 bombs raw and probably   made you a little uncomfortable but if you made it this far you're already winning because most people out there just can't stick with anything long enough to gain any value from it but that's not you and we're not done there are 10 more truth bombs in part two that hit even harder so make sure you're subscribed and share with someone who needs a wakeup call now go take some action and I'll see you in part two Links from the Show: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

Title: Raise The Bar Radio Launch Summary: Seth Bradley unveils his rebranded podcast, Raise the Bar, a bold evolution from The Passive Income Attorney. This show goes beyond passive income, it's about scaling real businesses, raising serious capital, and leveling up your life. Seth shares his personal journey from big law to real estate empire builder and lays out the podcast's structure, purpose, and powerful call to action. Highlights: Rebrand from Passive Income Attorney to Raise the Bar to better reflect the audience: not just attorneys, but all capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs Focus has expanded from passive investing to include business building, capital raising, and deal structuring Seth's background: former big law attorney, now securities lawyer, real estate investor, founder of RaiseLaw, Tribevest CLO, and co-founder of multiple startups Personal story: fired from big law, used it as a catalyst to go all-in on real estate and entrepreneurship Podcast is for real estate investors, capital raisers, and entrepreneurs ready to level up and ditch limiting beliefs New podcast structure: Monday – Million Dollar Mondays: how pros build and scale wealth Tuesday – RTB Live / Q&A: live shows, events, guest features Wednesday – Main deep-dive solo or guest interview episode Friday – 1% Closer: tactical, short-form deal-closer insights Theme: go all-in, raise your standards, and raise the bar in life and business Final call to action: subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share with someone who needs to hear it Transcript: Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:05.196) Welcome to the brand new Raise The Bar podcast with yours truly Seth Bradley. This is the show for real estate investors, capital raisers, and entrepreneurs who are ready to take their game to the highest level. If you've been following me for a while, you know this isn't my first rodeo, but we're making a big shift. And today I'm going to break it all down for you. So first, why the rebrand? Why now?   and most importantly, what's in it for you. So let's dive in. So why the rebrand? If you've been rocking with me since the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, first off, cheers to you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. It's changed my life for the better, and I hope it's changed for yours too. Our show is all about helping high income professionals escape the golden handcuffs, start building wealth through passive investing, and it was a killer show. Tons of incredible conversations. But over time,   I realized something. I wasn't just helping attorneys and I wasn't just talking about passive income. I was teaching people how to build a business, how to raise capital, how to structure deals, and how to build legacy wealth. So I had to ask myself, is my brand serving the people I want to serve? And the answer was clear. It was actually yes, but I needed to go bigger, bolder, more direct, and that's how Raise the Bar was born. This show is all about raising standards, raising capital,   and raising the bar on how you build your wealth in your business. I still love and believe in passive investing, but now we're also getting tactical and strategic, providing you with ways to explore active capital raising and entrepreneurship. So you can stop playing small and you can start operating like a real pro. So who am I and why should you listen? I'm Seth Bradley. I'm a securities attorney and a real estate entrepreneur.   who has closed billions of dollars in real estate transactions over the past decade plus. I'm a former big law attorney turned boutique securities law firm founder of RaiseLaw, and additionally, I'm the chief legal officer of TribeBest. I'm the co-founder of Klaviss and StackRack Battery Systems, and also the managing partner of Law Capital Partners. I've closed every kind of real estate transaction you can imagine, from house hacking into a duplex, to closing hundreds of syndications and funds. I've built businesses, I've raised millions,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:29.92) and worked with some of biggest names in the game. But here's the thing. I didn't start off in this world. I grew up deep in the mountains of West Virginia. No silver spoon, no family connections in real estate or finance, just grit, hustle, and the willingness to learn. And the willingness to take risks that most people were too scared to take. I walked away from the traditional path. I gave up the cushy, multiple six-figure, big law firm job. I broke free from the golden handcuffs and went   all in on building wealth through alternative investments, capital raising, and entrepreneurship. And now, I help entrepreneurs just like you do the exact same thing. Who is this podcast for? If you're a real estate investor, a capital raiser, or an entrepreneur, or interested in any of those things, if you're interested in raising capital, structuring deals, building a real business, and raise the bar in your life, you're in the right place. If you're ready to ditch the limiting beliefs,   to raise more capital and start thinking like the top 1 % that you are, you belong right here. Let me tell you a quick story. So I was flying high in a big law firm, prestigious law firm, big paycheck, fancy title, all that kind of stuff. But behind the scenes, I was absolutely miserable. I had no control over my time, my future, my life. Then one day I was involuntarily shown the exit. I was fired, just like that. Gut punch.   Looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because that was the moment I realized, if you're not all in, whether that's a big law firm job, your W-2, whatever it might be, you're going nowhere. That experience forced me to commit 100 % to my own entrepreneurial path. No more safety nets, that was gone. No more playing it safe. So I went all in on real estate, capital raising, entrepreneurship, buying businesses, and I never looked back.   And that's what this show is all about. It's about going all in, raising your standards, raising your game, raising the bar. Not just for yourself, but for everybody around you. And if you're ready to level up, stick around because we're about to take things to another level. Raise the bar structure to give you a mix of high impact content, balancing deep dives, expert insights, short tactical takeaways. And here's the quick breakdown. Million Dollar Mondays, Quick Hit Insights.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:56.288) how top entrepreneurs, investors, capital raisers make and keep and scale millions. RTB Live, Q &A Tuesdays, guest appearances, top podcast interviews on When I'm on Other People's Shows, webinars, live speaking events, direct audience Q &As, send me your questions. And of course, the main episode will air on Wednesdays. Deep dive solo episodes for high impact guest interviews, breaking down success, capital raising, entrepreneurship.   On Fridays, we're going to do the 1 % closer, close out your week, fast-paced, short, taxable episodes, focus on closing deals, raising capital, leveling up to get you to be the top 1 % that you are. As we grow, we'll refine and evolve, of course, but right now, that's the game plan to help you level up fast. If you're ready to stop playing small, start raising the bar on your business and your life, hit that subscribe button, and make sure you don't miss that one show, that one single show,   It's going to make a massive impact on your life. And of course, if this has resonated with you, please leave a five star rating review. Share it with someone you love, your acquaintance, your loved one, your family, your friends, someone who really needs to hear it. That's how we grow. That's how we change the game. Welcome to Raise the Bar. Let's go.   Links from the Show: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

Description: Why the ultra-wealthy invest in real estate? Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 29 | How Silicon Valley Turned Its Back On Wall Street To Invest In Main Street with Alex Kholodenko CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/  

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, Seth is joined by Ken Van Liew as they talk about how you can stack, scale and supercharge your investment returns! Ken has built Manhattan skyscrapers, studied under Tony Robbins, and has been responsible for over a billion dollars of commercial real estate construction across dozens of projects that have forever changed the New York City skyline. Learn how you can put your money to work for you, rather than the other way around. Enjoy the episode! “If you want to create any type of process mastery, you have to mirror and model, but if you don't set a basis for measuring, you're not going to get the result that you want.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: How Ken got into building Manhattan skyscrapers, the “apex” of commercial development How to transition from W2 engineer to having your own projects Why motivation and productivity are the keys to achieve long term success Why work-life balance is completely unachievable Discover the Modern Wealth Building Formula Ken's hot takes on the hottest investments in today's and tomorrow's market And so much more!   ABOUT | KEN VAN LIEW: Ken Van Liew started his professional career with a civil design engineering job, twins, and two master's degrees, underpinned with a six-figure debt and a burning desire to serve others. Ten years later, he cut the ribbon on the development of a 17-million-dollar, 72,000 square feet, 113-bed assisted living facility. He parlayed this success into a Staten Island waterfront development and began a mastery journey with Tony Robbins. Unfortunately, while attending a Tony Robbins event in Hawaii, his waterfront development was terminated due to the World Trade Center tragedies. This moment gave Ken time to reflect on where he was, where he wanted to be, and the impact he wanted to have. Alongside the syndication and development of over a billion dollars of high-profile real estate investments, Ken created the Modern Wealth Building Formula as the fastest track to building wealth – a project that has empowered thousands of developers over the last 20 years. Simply put, Ken is a titan in the world of real estate responsible for over a billion dollars of construction across dozens of projects and has forever changed the New York skyline. In addition, Ken regularly speaks on stages, including NYU Real Estate Institute and the College of Engineering at Rutgers University, and is a best-selling author. Ken is an unsung hero in the world of stage magic, has been married for over 30 years, and is the proud father of three talented and successful children.   FIND | KEN VAN LIEW: Free 45-min Strategy Session: https://strategic.kenvanliew.com/ Free Book: https://my.kenvanliew.com/freebook Website: www.kenvanliew.com ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 43 | Why Doing What the Doctor Ordered is Just What You Need to Build Generational Wealth with Dr. Jeff Anzalone CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by passive investing expert Lane Kawaoka as they talk about how having multiple streams of income allows you to have the flexibility and freedom to live on your own terms. Lane is a seasoned real estate investor who controls over 4,800 units. Frustrated by the wealth-building dogma of corporate America, he walked away from his W-2 engineering job, designed a life for himself through real estate, and now mentors other high-paying professionals how to do the same. Enjoy the episode! “Success is a bunch of binary yes's and no's strung together in the right order.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: - Why commercial syndications and private equities are much more scalable than single-family investments - What Lane realized about his 401(k) that made him look into alternative investments and real estate  - How to transition from a high-paying W-2 job to become a full time investor - How to create multiple streams of income to give you the freedom and flexibility you desire - Criteria you should consider with regards to the market and the type of asset - Indicators that you must watch out for when deciding whether or not to invest - How to turn your emergency fund into an opportunity fund - How to know who to trust when investing your hard earned cash - And so much more! ABOUT | LANE KAWAOKA: Lane Kawaoka has been investing for over a decade and now controls 4,800+ units. As the owner of CrowdfundAloha.com, SimplePassiveCashflow.com, and ReiAloha.com, Lane is responsible for finding investment opportunities, analysis, and marketing. Lane obtained a BS in Industrial Engineering and an MS in Civil Engineering and Construction Management from the University of Washington. In addition to an analytical engineering background, Lane has real-world experience working as a project manager for over $250 million of capital construction projects in both the public and private sectors. Working as a high-paid professional in corporate America and frustrated by the traditional wealth-building dogma, Lane was compelled to inspire and mentor other working professionals via his Top-50 Investing podcast at SimplePassiveCashflow.com. FIND | LANE KAWAOKA: Crowdfund Aloha: https://crowdfundaloha.com/ Simple Passive Cashflow: https://simplepassivecashflow.com/ REI Aloha: https://reialoha.com/ Email: lane@simplepassivecashflow.com ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Why you need to learn about tokenized real estate today. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 40 | How to Use Blockchain Technology to Stay on the Cutting Edge of Real Estate Investing with Michael Flight CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, Seth is joined by his friend and fellow passive income expert Chad Wittfeldt, as they talk about building your business around your life rather than the other way around. Inside this episode, you'll learn how to live with purpose and with your end game in mind, so that you can choose the right passive income streams for you. Chad is an entrepreneur, master marketer, and real estate investor passionate about freedom, flexibility, and fun. Enjoy the show! “Just be bold, be yourself, and just do what your gut tells you to do. All it takes is one or two wins from doing just that, and you'll feel unstoppable.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: Changing to an abundant mindset at an early age resulted from exposure to business owners Using the Wall Street rule of time allocation to your advantage How to be on the cutting edge of cryptocurrency investing Designing a life according to your liking by having a business that can run on its own How you can buy back your time and do the things you love And so much more!   ABOUT | CHAD WITTFELDT: Chad is an entrepreneur and a real estate investor. He started his entrepreneurial journey at a very young age. He quickly got started investing in equities and currency markets in his teens and later moved into real estate investments. While real estate has always been his interest, he didn't know how to get into the market at the time effectively. So he put his skill set to use and has since syndicated over $30,000,000 in apartments. This growth later spawned his marketing agency, where he serves other entrepreneurs by building their attraction-based marketing systems and automation. Today, Chad stays focused on his businesses, creating cash flow, and living a life they told him he couldn't have.   FIND | CHAD WITTFELDT: Website: www.chadwittfeldt.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/chad.wittfeldt ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Perfection does not make perfect. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 38 | How to Make Profits While Building Strong Communities and Helping Families with Matt Faircloth CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, Seth is joined by fully recovered attorney Emily Hirsekorn as they talk about the necessity for alignment to envision your dream life and move towards it quickly and with purpose. Inside this episode you'll learn how you can go on the journey to building your dream life without leaving your career behind. Emily is a certified professional career coach who helps ambitious lawyers and other professionals navigate their careers and live more balanced lives so they can stress less and achieve more. Enjoy the episode! “Life is just a game. The whole point is not to win, it's to show up and play full out, whatever that means for you.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: -Emily's journey from psychology, to law school, to professional practice, to finally becoming the Lawyer's Career Confidence Coach - How “hope” equals goals, pathways and motivation - How to make big changes with a rational, logical mind - Why you're wasting your time getting more degrees - Why you should build confidence at the early stages of your career - How coaching can help you recognize and harness the power of choice for a better life - Emily's approach when it comes to discovery sessions and prospective clients - How to decide between sticking with your current career path or leaving your practice - Why the purest coaching is about empowerment and not giving advice - And so much more!   ABOUT | EMILY HIRSEKORN: Emily Hirsekorn is the Lawyer's Career Confidence Coach. She is a certified professional coach helping high-achieving lawyers build confidence in themselves, their career choices, and their leadership potential so they can reduce stress, achieve more, and love life. Emily supports clients around the world, ranging from law students gaining confidence for interview success to early-career lawyers navigating the demands of the legal field to law partners reevaluating what's most important in their lives and wanting to shake things up. Emily does 1:1 work and will also be relaunching her Career Confidence Club for Entry-Level Lady Lawyers in 2022.   FIND | EMILY HIRSEKORN: Website: https://www.hirsekorncoaching.com/ Career Confidence Persona Quiz: https://www.hirsekorncoaching.com/confidence Coaching Advocates Website: https://www.coachingadvocates.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hirsekorn_coaching/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyhirsekorn/ ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Following HGTV buys you another job.  Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 39 | How to Lose It All and Come Back Even Stronger Through Mobile Home Park Investing with Eloy Retana CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, Seth is joined by Robert D. Burr as they talk about the big benefits of investing in oil and gas. No investment in the U.S. provides better tax benefits and incentives than domestic oil and gas production, which makes these types of investments very intriguing for high-income-earning professionals like you. Bob is an absolute icon. He's the president of Panther Exploration and has been in the industry since 1973 with worldwide experience in structuring and funding oil and gas investment ventures. Enjoy the episode! “When you get rich, get rich overnight. . .Be aware 24/7, 265 days a year because that opportunity will come by and you'll miss it if you're not cognizant of that.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: - Robert's entry into the oil business and how he built his empire - Why you must set aside your ego and change your mindset to create and keep a successful team - How you can utilize massive tax write-offs from oil and gas investing against your ACTIVE income - How Robert structures his deals so his investors win every time - Find great business partners - How to succeed in business by putting family first - Optimism and the contrarian investing when it comes to the oil and gas industry - And so much more! ABOUT | ROBERT D. BURR: Robert D. Burr, 74, entered the oil and gas industry in 1973 in Dallas, Texas. He's the President of Panther Exploration (Panex) and is a seasoned professional with worldwide experience in structuring and funding oil and gas investment ventures. Mr. Burr has been responsible for placing over 300 million dollars in his 47-year career in a myriad of industries, with the majority of his efforts being oil and gas ventures. Mr. Burr and his family have been residents of Bowling Green, Kentucky, for over 25 years and have been very active in city and county civic matters. Mr. Burr and his wife, Doris, have been married for 57 years and have five grown children, 20 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. FIND | ROBERT D. BURR: Website: https://www.panex.us/ Email: admin@panex.us ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

You make a lot of money, but do you have a plan? Cheers to freedom. Full Episode |EP 42 | How to Ditch Debt, Avoid the Golden Handcuffs, and Find Balance with Rho Thomas CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by Jefferson Lilly as they talk about taking a contrarian point of view to find rare opportunities where you least expect them. Inside this episode, Seth and Jefferson take a deep dive and explore mobile home parks as a valuable and viable investment to the tune of $600K per month. Additionally, Jefferson gives away his secret to exponentially scaling your business by going from “irreplaceable” to “irrelevant.” Enjoy the episode! “The best way to generate income is to be come irrelevant to the business.” HIGHLIGHTS: -Jefferson's big discovery of mobile home parks -Why you must consider investing in mobile home parks -What makes mobile home parks better than multifamily -How mobile home parks could be the key to solving the affordable housing crisis -The resident-owned model vs. the park-owned model -A breakdown of Jefferson's criteria for a killer mobile home park deal -How to scale your business by going from irreplaceable to irrelevant -And so much more! ABOUT | JEFFERSON LILLY: Jefferson Lilly is the founder of Park Avenue Partners, a self-made millionaire, mobile home park investment expert, educator, and industry consultant. His fund owns 17 mobile home parks coast-to-coast, totaling over $32M in value. Before launching the fund, he spent seven years investing his own capital acquiring and operating mobile home parks. FIND | JEFFERSON LILLY: Website: https://www.parkavenuepartners.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffersonlilly/ Recent BiggerPockets Interview: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/biggerpockets-podcast-369-jefferson-lilly Podcast: http://mobilehomeparkinvestors.com/ ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Money makes you who you are. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 46 | How to Overcome Obstacles Through Fitness, Passion, and Purpose with Angela Han CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, Seth is joined by John Casmon as they talk about how to utilize and leverage your current skillset and assets to successfully invest in real estate without leaving your day job. Inside you'll learn how to decide if you should invest actively or passively and some of the key things you should look for when making your first investment. John is the managing partner of Casmon Capital, host of the Target Market Insights podcast, and co-founder of the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit. Enjoy the episode!   “This is not a dream. . .you can absolutely do it. But you have to take action, and one of the easiest things you can do is to reach out.”   HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: John's  transition from a marketing executive to a full time real estate investor How you can leverage your current skillset to invest in real estate in the same way John did with his marketing background 4 things you must look for when making your first real estate investment Deep dive into deciding whether you should invest actively or passively in real estate Why investing in the Midwest is better than investing in Coastal and Sunbelt markets And so much more!   ABOUT | JOHN CASMON: John Casmon launched Casmon Capital Group to help busy professionals invest in real estate without taking on a second job. As a result, they've helped families invest in close to $90M in multifamily apartments to create passive income, reduce their tax obligation, and foster generational wealth. John hosts the Target Market Insights: Multifamily + Marketing podcast. In addition, he is the co-founder of the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit. As a former marketing executive, John oversaw marketing campaigns for General Motors, PepsiCo, and MillerCoors.   FIND | JOHN CASMON: Website: www.casmoncapital.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/multifamily-apartments-john-casmon/ ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 37 | How Climbing Mountains, Making Widgets, and Buying Apartment Buildings Are One In the Same with Anthony Vicino Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-37-how-climbing-mountains-making-widgets-and/id1543049208?i=1000520479387 CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

Be careful who you share your dreams with. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 80 | From Furloughed to Flourishing Through Real Estate with Steve Rozenberg Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-80-from-furloughed-to-flourishing-through-real-estate/id1543049208?i=1000553558114 CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, Seth is joined by commercial real estate pro Dan Lewkowicz as they talk about triple net retail and all things commercial real estate. Dan is a seasoned real estate veteran and is the Director of Sales at Encore Real Estate Investment Services. He answers all your burning questions about owning triple net retail assets like Walgreens and fast food restaurants, the future outlook of various commercial real estate assets, the Industrial Revolution 2.0 and how you can get started investing today. Enjoy the episode! “It's very important to educate yourself and to understand your asset class…partner up with a good broker who will help you to underwrite those leases and those properties.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: Dan's inflection point of initially getting into real estate How to jump from single family houses to institutional quality commercial real estate What is a triple net lease? Why you should invest in triple net retail assets Walking through a typical triple net retail deal Why Dan is bullish on triple net retail compared to other asset classes Is multifamily still a good investment? Current trends in the marketplace concerning retail and other asset types Industrial Revolution 2.0: the movement of products from online retailers And so much more!   ABOUT | DAN LEWKOWICZ: Dan Lewkowicz is a seasoned real estate veteran with over a decade of experience in many facets of the real estate industry. Starting his career “house hacking,” he quickly moved on to flip houses in and around metro Detroit. Eventually, he created a company called Renaissance Real Estate Ventures, specializing in the acquisition, financing, renovation, and resale of single-family residential properties in the booming city of Detroit, Michigan. Before joining Encore Real Estate Investment Services, Dan was a Senior Advisor at a national real estate brokerage specializing in commercial real estate investment sales. Dan is also a former business development executive for Amazon in Detroit, Michigan. Currently, Dan is director of investment sales at Encore Real Estate Investment Services and specializes in shopping centers, medical office buildings, industrial fulfillment centers, and automotive repair and parts stores. Of lesser-known fact, Dan possesses industry-leading knowledge on cannabis cultivation and its impact on the economy in general and industrial commercial real estate specifically. An expert on Multi-Family and the current economic undercurrents facing this asset class in today's #postcovid world, Dan often expresses the incredible opportunities for investors of all sizes. Dan resides in Oak Park, Michigan, and enjoys running, lifting weights, yoga, and playing acoustic guitar.   FIND | DAN LEWKOWICZ: LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/dan-lewkowicz-7118361 Podcast: https://www.nrmstreamcast.com/videos/dan-on-top/watch-dan-on-top/ Website: http://www.creprocourse.com ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Speed beats everything. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 86 | How to Protect, Grow and Multiply Your Wealth with Hunter Thompson CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, Seth is joined by Megan Smiley as they talk about how to find more flow, fulfillment and fun in you life by unshackling from the golden handcuffs and breaking through the traditional school of thought. In this episode, you'll learn how to untrain your brain to live a happier, more fulfilled life. Megan is a recovering attorney turned podcaster and life coach. She provides expert advice on how to get unstuck and start living a lifestyle by design on your own terms. Enjoy the episode! “The world is your oyster – if you're willing to accept that, your possibilities outweigh your limitations.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: Going to law school for the wrong reasons How to escape the rat race and find an alternative career How much is too much? The realization of not enjoying the job Tips and tricks to get your finances in order before leaving your job How to start thinking about what you want to do instead of what you can do Design your life with a new mindset called “Illegal Design” Stages of unhappiness to determine the best time to leave the profession An explorative approach to turn thoughts into action and real progress And so much more!   ABOUT | MEGAN SMILEY: Megan Smiley is a former corporate lawyer turned coach. She helps lawyers ditch the grind, identify purposeful work, and build businesses that allow them to live life on their own terms. She is also the host of the podcast, The Lawyer's Escape Pod.   FIND | MEGAN SMILEY: Podcast: www.thelawyersescapepod.com Website: www.megansmiley.com ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Learn how to know the big lie on wall street Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 45 | How to Fight Back Against Wall Street and Create Your Own Economy Using EQRPs with Damion Lupo CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by Billy Keels as they take a deep dive into the pros and cons of (really) long distance real estate investing. Billy knows a thing or two about long distance real estate investing, since he invests in the United States while residing in Barcelona, Spain. We'll give you the knowledge and tools you need to confidently diversify your portfolio by removing all the borders. Enjoy the episode! “Realize that when you focus on your life, on your family, and your finances, that's going to give you the best long-term return.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: How Billy went from growing up in Ohio to living in Barcelona, Spain Three major events that changed Billy's life and led him to alternative investments Challenges and differences between investing actively in small multifamily vs. passively in large multifamily Discover how to invest in real estate from anywhere in the world How to invest in precious metals, energy and ATMs What is Return on Sleep (ROS) and why you need to maximize it Discover how to work full time in a successful career while scaling your real estate investing How to maximize time management as a W2 employee And so much more!   ABOUT | BILLY KEELS: During his corporate career, Billy put his leadership and relationship-building skills to good use to help clients get to the root of issues that were holding them back from full success. Billy earned his stripes as a true problem-solver, a skill he carried into his new entrepreneurial life. What made him popular with employers who sent him across the globe to meet with Fortune 500-level clients is the same thing that makes him popular with investors, buyers and sellers in real estate today… his skills in coming up with real solutions that work in the real world for real people! Billy says that he was happy enough in his JOB, but something was missing. An emptiness and longing for a different life chewed on him, pulling him to what he knew he wanted to do more than anything else. Billy wanted to be an entrepreneur who brought two worlds together. He wanted to give individuals where he lives the chance to invest in properties on US soil. So he took steps and kept on the path to his goals. KeePon Cashflow is the result of his efforts. Today Billy is an international real estate entrepreneur, problem-solver, author, coach and mentor. He sees opportunities where others often don't in real estate. No “overnight success,” Billy continues to work toward his vision and goals. Topmost on his list? To build a bridge between investors and buyers in Europe with sellers in the US.   FIND | BILLY KEELS: Website: http://billykeels.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billykeels/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/billykeels/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/keeponcashflow Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keeponcashflow Twitter: https://twitter.com/billykeels Free Guide: http://billykeels.com/7mistakes ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Freedom is taken, not given. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 82 | The Cash Flow Niches You've Never Heard of That Will Make You Rich with M.C. Laubscher: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by Shaahin Cheyene as they take a deep dive into the world of e-commerce, and specifically Amazon. Shaahin has over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience, and we'll dive into his story of transitioning from the rave king to the Amazon master by selling nootropics (a.k.a. smart drugs) to ravers and overachievers alike. You'll learn how adding an e-commerce store to your portfolio could take your passive income game to the next level. Learn from Shaahin's expertise that he's honed by selling BILLIONS of dollars in e-commerce products. Enjoy the episode! “It comes back to the three things. . .knowledge, courage and action.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: A legal and natural drug alternative that generated billions of dollars in revenue Selling at raves to selling with Jeff Bezos How to break e-commerce sales records at Amazon The one key secret that makes a product successful Step by step process to get started in an Amazon business and create passive income E-commerce as a side hustle to create an additional income stream And so much more!   ABOUT | SHAAHIN CHEYENE: Shaahin Cheyene is an award-winning business mogul, Amazon expert, inventor, author, filmmaker, and creator of Herbal Ecstacy, the nootropic that sparked the—100% legal— smart drug movement. His career as a serial entrepreneur spans more than 30 years, earning over a billion dollars in revenue. More recently, his Amazon products have outpaced sales of Fortune 500 companies on the platform, selling millions of units worldwide. Shaahin was also an innovator in the vaping world, as the inventor of the Vapir Vaporizer—an industry first—as well as hundreds of other multi-million dollar products. Shaahin and his family live all over the world, but he has a special place in his heart for Venice Beach, California.   FIND | SHAAHIN CHEYENE: Billion: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/billion-how-i-became-king-of-the-thrill-pill-cult/id1541413971 Hack And Grow Rich: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hack-and-grow-rich-podcast/id1540376926 Website: www.shaahincheyene.com ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Learn how to take a two-hour lunch and not get fired. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 28 | How to Use Business Therapy to Stop Trading Your Time for Money with Darren Frank: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208?i=1000511626289 CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by Jonathan Greene, as they take a deep dive into how to successfully run a fix and flip business, how to find an investor-friendly real estate agent, and most importantly, how to live a focused, yet balanced lifestyle. Jonathan, as a self-proclaimed introvert, shares his journey of leaving a thriving business behind to completely unplug from the world for a whole year to focus on himself and his happiness. Jonathan is a former attorney and has over 30 years of real estate experience. Enjoy! “Everybody wants to push everything forward so fast. . . but I don't think they're looking wide enough. . . I think everybody needs to take a step back and look at an aerial view of their life.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: How exposure to real estate growing up set the table for his business today Transitioning from a law practice, to the art industry, to real estate Discover how to make house-flipping passive with a team that can make decisions for you How to find investor-friendly real estate agents Why you need to have the knowledge before the capital in real estate The importance of self-reflection to accelerate your business And so much more! ABOUT | JONATHAN GREENE: Jonathan Greene is a real estate investor and team leader/concierge agent, and a certified life coach and real estate coach. He is also a former attorney, gallerist, museum curator, and educator who left standardized employment to pursue his lifelong obsession with real estate investing full-time. Jonathan's company, Streamlined Properties, is a single-member LLC sourcing off-market deals in New Jersey and other cities across the country. Streamlined Properties On-Market, brokered by eXp Realty, is a fast-growing nationwide team of investor-friendly real estate agents built to fill the niche for real estate investors who need agents who understand exactly what they are looking for. They are training and mentoring agents to become investor-friendly in their market, with the long-term goal of helping them build their own team and their own investment portfolio. Jonathan has been involved in real estate transactions for more than 30 years. He runs a separate family real estate partnership with his sister, Karin. They have several properties in New York, New Jersey, and California that they manage. Jonathan provides real estate investment guidance and workshops all over New Jersey and nationally and can advise on the viability of any market. In 2018, Jonathan took a year off from the real estate business and local investment guidance to focus on living a minimalist life. He deleted all of his social media except Instagram and committed to living his life on his own terms and not at the end of a phone. Jonathan is a national speaker who has been featured at Dippidi Deep Dive, Curaytor Excellence, and NurtuRE Con, as well as local events. He has also brought these skills to podcasting with two podcasts, Dad and Assemblage. Dad is a parenting podcast about the role fathers play in our lives. Assemblage is a podcast for creatives building something unique. Jonathan grew up in Brooklyn Heights, NY, but graduated high school in NJ at the Peddie School. He has a BA in Criminal Justice from the University of Hartford, where he graduated magna cum laude. Jonathan also has a J.D. from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. He lives in West Orange, New Jersey, with his two children.   FIND | JONATHAN GREENE: Website: https://www.streamlined.properties/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-greene-re/ ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Fear mediocrity, not pain. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 76 | The Difference Between Being a Real Estate Investor with Logan Freeman: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-76-the-difference-between-being-a-real/id1543049208?i=1000550682320 CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by the one and only Gino Barbaro as they talk about life, family and business. We take a deep dive into how you can get your whole family involved in your business so you can grow personally and financially together. Gino is an investor, business owner, author, entrepreneur, and the co-founder of multifamily real estate education company, Jake & Gino. Gino and Seth will take you on a journey to establish an abundance mindset. The more you give, the more you receive. Enjoy! “Decide what a need is versus what a want is. It's really important to teach our kids the value of something.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: Transition from the family restaurant business to multifamily real estate What the structure of Gino's first apartment complex syndication looked like How to treat your first single-family home as its own little business and cash machine Why the Jake & Gino brand was created to give back to the community How to establish an abundance mindset How your family can become part of the business Establishing balance and boundaries And so much more!   ABOUT | GINO BARBARO: Gino Barbaro is an investor, business owner, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. He has grown his real estate portfolio to over $100,000,000 in assets under management and is the co-founder of Jake & Gino. This multifamily real estate education company offers coaching and training in real estate founded upon their framework of Buy Right, Manage Right & Finance Right®. He currently resides in St. Augustine, Florida, with his beautiful wife Julia and their six children. He is the best-selling author of three books, “Wheelbarrow Profits”, “The Honey Bee” and “Family, Food and the Friars.”   FIND | GINO BARBARO: Website: https://jakeandgino.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gino-barbaro-03973b4b/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jakeandgino/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JakeandGino ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Alternative assets will set you free. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 41 | How to Achieve Financial Freedom by Becoming an Empowered Investor with Mo Bina CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/2

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by Dr. Eric Tait as they talk about why you need to make money while asleep by creating multiple streams of income outside of your 9 to 5.  Inside this episode you'll discover how attorneys, doctors and other busy professionals can buy back their time and create a lifestyle by design, all while still scaling a successful career. Dr. Eric Tait is a highly successful physician and intelligent alternative investor. He shares why you should have multiple streams of income so you can withstand and even thrive through adversity. Enjoy!   “If you do what everyone else does, you're going to get what everyone else gets.”   HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: Figuring out how to exit the “Wall Street Hustle” early Why busy professionals must consider investing in real estate The only two ways to get wealthy The biggest pain points and solutions for highly paid professionals Tait's recommended approach of real estate investing - actively and passively? Why high-paid professionals like doctors and lawyers are unhappy And so much more!   ABOUT | DR. ERIC TAIT: Dr. Eric Tait is the founder and fund manager of Vernonville Asset Management. Since 2008, Eric has analyzed, purchased, repositioned, managed, and developed numerous income-producing investment projects both domestically and internationally. He has personally overseen all aspects of the company's day-to-day operations with help from trusted advisors and experienced contract professionals. Vernonville Asset Management was born because Dr. Eric could not find any investment products that he felt were suitable for his own portfolio. His motto is “if you find a need, fill it.” Dr. Eric is also the President of Pinnacle Physician Management Organization, a Medicare Advantage partnership with Universal American Corp that has generated over $25 million in revenue since 2009. Dr. Eric received his M.B.A. in entrepreneurship from the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University, as well as his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Eric is a practicing physician in Internal medicine in private practice in Houston, Texas.   FIND | DR. ERIC TAIT: Website: https://vernonville.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-tait-m-d-mba-b2581a5/ ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Passive income is freedom. Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 34 | HOW TO ASSESS THE BENEFITS AND RISKS OF PASSIVE INCOME OPPORTUNITIES WITH ALISA FREUNDLICH  CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by Cloudfire Capital's Adam Lach as they take a deep dive into cryptocurrencies and the power of blockchain technology. Adam is an experienced real estate investor turned cryptocurrency, DeFi, and blockchain expert. He explains why cryptocurrencies should be a worthy addition to your investment portfolio. Enjoy!   “The biggest difference between the people that work for a living and the people who have financial freedom, is that the people who have the freedom have chosen the wisest ways to invest their money.”   HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: Learn the nuts and bolts of blockchain technology How blockchain technology is infiltrating every industry on the planet How cryptocurrencies were born out of the blockchain technology What are cryptocurrencies Comparison of the technologies behind Ethereum and Bitcoin Cloud Fire Capital's market advantages from active management, storage, and education Foresight on the future of cryptocurrencies with the emergence of new coins And so much more!   ABOUT | ADAM LACH: Adam has a diversified professional background, including several years spent with a global financial services giant and experience in the oversight and management of business-to-business sales for both local and global organizations. In his spare time, Adam owns and operates two separate independent ventures in RSL Holdings and RSL Brands. In 2016, Adam turned his attention and interest away from the real estate investment industry and towards the inevitable rise of cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance, and their underlying technologies. The rapidly changing economic and investment landscapes in 2020 prompted Adam to found Cloud Fire Capital and CFC Bitcoin Fund in an effort to provide traditional accredited retail investors with a safe, secure, and actively managed option to gain real exposure to the digital asset investment space.   FIND | ADAM LACH: Website: https://cloudfirecapital.com/index.html Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cloudfirecapital/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloud-fire-capital/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cloudfirecap YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr1WePtVXgDrvw1Fne150tQ   ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY:

Why the  ultra wealthy invest in real estate? Cheers to freedom. Full Episode | EP 29 | How Silicon Valley Turned Its Back On Wall Street To Invest In Main Street with Alex Kholodenko CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: Get Started | Download The Freedom Blueprint: http://www.attorneybydesign.com Subscribe and Leave a Rating and Review: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passive-income-attorney-podcast/id1543049208 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5a0Qp9G2x337nZCDWoVgoO?si=MKn01_t8Tfu0JBZCnagrCw Join EPIC | The Esquire Passive Investor Club: https://passiveincomeattorney.com/join-the-passive-income/ Join | The Passive Income Attorneys Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/passiveincomeattorneys Follow Us: Website:  https://passiveincomeattorney.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethpaulbradley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passiveincomeattorney Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passiveincomeattorney/

On this episode of the Passive Income Attorney podcast, Seth is joined by Mike Morawski as they talk about learning from your mistakes, finding God, fitness and purpose, meeting the perfect mentor and knowing your exit plan. Mike made millions in real estate. Then Mike made some mistakes. He went to prison. And now he's back to tell his redemption story and to help others. Mike is a 30-year real estate investing veteran and a successful entrepreneur, author, coach, and speaker. He shares with us his inspiring story of ascent, rock bottom, and redemption. Enjoy! “Make sure you take the time to think things through. When you look at a situation today, don't make a quick rash choice or decision. Think things through because you can look at something today, and it might not be the same tomorrow.” HIGHLIGHTS: Here's a breakdown of what to expect in this episode: Why you should take more time to stabilize a deal and disclose everything to your investors How to learn from your mistakes and bounce back even stronger Finding God, fitness and purpose How to turn a terrible situation into a redemption story How to find a coach that helps you grow professionally and personally at the same time Why buying smaller assets might make more sense The importance of having an exit plan before you buy a deal How to strike a balance between alternative and traditional investing for a great portfolio And so much more!   ABOUT | MIKE MORAWSKI: Michael Morawski is a 30 plus year real estate investment veteran. He has controlled over $285,000,000 in real estate transactions. An entrepreneur, author, real estate trainer, public speaker, and personal coach. With a strong personal resilience and a deep desire to help others live extraordinary lives. He has coached hundreds of real estate investors to fulfill their dreams.   FIND | MIKE MORAWSKI: Website: https://mikemorawski.com/   ✈️ CONNECT | SETH BRADLEY: