Podcast appearances and mentions of dallas fort worth

Senate passes Respect for Marriage Act; Flu hospitalizations outpace coronavirus hospitalizations in North Texas; Supreme Court appears divided in Texas case over Biden immigration policies; Dallas-Fort Worth is home to 37 of the most traffic-choked roads in Texas

Email us at inherimagepodcast@gmail.com Find us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/inherimagepodcast/ RSVP to the Divine Feminine interfaith event in Dallas/Fort Worth at https://www.nataliejeanneart.com/dfwdivinefeminineevent Have a wonderful Holiday season! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/inherimage/support

Welcome to Tom Talks! This is a show where we talk about everything Dallas and Fort Worth, including news, upcoming events, and the real estate market here. Jack and I are Realtors located in Fort Worth, so we like to think we know what's going on in the area.Time Codes:Fort Worth's rent problem - 1:53Renting VS Buying a house - 7:05Fort Worth Twitter scam - 13:12Texas home insurance - 17:00The death of small businesses - 26:41Follow us on social media!TiktokInstagramFacebookYouTubeContact Us!If you are thinking about buying or selling a house, we would love to help you!If you have any questions about real estate, investing, or the Dallas-Fort Worth area, don't hesitate to reach out!tomstexasrealty.com

Many experts say we are in a loneliness epidemic with over 61%  or 200 million people saying they are lonely.  That number takes the total metropolitan area population of Phoenix, New York, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas Fort Worth, and Seattle and only reaches 1/2  of that number.  That is a lot of lonely people.  Chances are there are lonely people all around you.  Chances are you are one of them.  When you are lonely, what happens inside of you?  What happens outside of you - or what do you struggle to do, stop doing, etc

Welcome to Tom Talks! This is a show where we talk about everything Dallas and Fort Worth, including news, upcoming events, and the real estate market here. Jack and I are Realtors located in Fort Worth, so we like to think we know what's going on in the area.Topics:0:00 - Intro1:46 - Christmas Lights & Chocolate5:40 - A New Type Of Neighborhood8:26 - Dallas Making Evictions Easier13:37 - New Home Neighborhood in Fort Worth17:54 - A Rental ScamFollow us on social media!TiktokInstagramFacebookYouTubeContact Us!If you are thinking about buying or selling a house, we would love to help you!If you have any questions about real estate, investing, or the Dallas-Fort Worth area, don't hesitate to reach out!tomstexasrealty.com

Just two months after Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was murdered in broad daylight, District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia McLelland were killed in a home invasion. With three dead and a community held in fear, a helpful tip leads to a mountain of evidence against the killers.Sources:1.) Austin, B. (2013, April 18). Former Kaufman official's wife says he killed DA, Assistant. KERA News. https://www.keranews.org/texas-news/2013-04-17/former-kaufman-officials-wife-says-he-killed-da-assistant2.) Casey, K. (2018). In Plain Sight: The Kaufman County Prosecutor Murders. William Morrow.3.) Emily, J. (2014, December 30). Wife of convicted Kaufman County killer sentenced to 40 years in prison. The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2018/07/29/wife-of-convicted-kaufman-county-killer-sentenced-to-40-years-in-prison/4.) Eric Lyle Williams v the State of Texas On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, No. 17-7603 (The Supreme Court of the United States). 5.) Ford, D. (2013, March 27). Colorado governor: Shooting suspect Evan Ebel had “bad streak.” CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/26/us/evan-ebel-profile/index.html6.) Hargrove, B. (2013, May 2). The Killings in Kaufman. Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/the-killings-in-kaufman-64295837.) Heinz, F. (2013, April 2). Search warrant sheds light on McLelland investigation. NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/search-warrant-sheds-light-on-mclellan-investigation/2073056/8.) Hennessy-Fiske, M., & Pearce, M. (2013, April 1). Slayings of Texas prosecutors called unprecedented. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2013-apr-01-la-na-nn-texas-prosecutor-kaufman-county-20130401-story.html9.) Hernandez, S. (2021, September 21). Kaufman County DA recalls 2013 murders. The Courier of Montgomery County. https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Kaufman-County-DA-recalls-2013-murders-16475313.php10.) Interim Kaufman district attorney gets 24-hour security as authorities scramble for leads in slayings. (2013, April 3). The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2013/04/03/interim-kaufman-district-attorney-gets-24-hour-security-as-authorities-scramble-for-leads-in-slayings/11.) Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, wife found dead in home. (2013, March 31). The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2013/03/31/kaufman-county-district-attorney-mike-mclelland-wife-found-dead-in-home/ 12.) Lindsley, G. E. (2014, December 17). Kim Williams provides gruesome murder details. The Kaufman Herald. http://www.kaufmanherald.com/hot_news/article_6bdeebda-8600-11e4-96dd-9725c54eff63.html13.) Mitchell, K. (2016, May 27). White supremacist gang conspired to kill Colorado prisons director, new documents allege. The Denver Post. https://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/27/white-supremacist-gang-conspired-to-kill-colorado-prisons-director-new-documents-allege/14.) Nicholson, E. (2013, April 15). Kaufman County murders: Eric Williams, a segway-riding justice of the peace, is the top suspect. Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/kaufman-county-murders-eric-williams-a-segway-riding-justice-of-the-peace-is-the-top-suspect-711580315.) Schlesinger, R. (2016, December 10). Target Justice. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/target-justice-48-hours-probes-texas-prosecutor-killings-hasse-mclelland/ 16.) Timms, E., Eiserer, T., Emily, J., Sides, E., & Pruet, J. J. (2013, April 14). Complex picture arises of ex-Kaufman justice of peace eyed in case. The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2013/04/14/complex-picture-arises-of-ex-kaufman-justice-of-peace-eyed-in-case/17.) Two challengers try to unseat Kaufman County district attorney accused of DWI. (2010, February 24). The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2010/02/24/two-challengers-try-to-unseat-kaufman-county-district-attorney-accused-of-dwi/ 18.) Vendetta. (2015, February 27). In Dateline. NBC. https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/vendetta--part-2-499608131883Good News Sources:1.) Burns, Ahraya. “You've Got to See the Adorable New Baby Hippo Born at the Dallas Zoo.” NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. Accessed November 14, 2022. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/dallas-zoo-welcomes-baby-hippo/3119148/.2.) Ramos, Harriet. “Meet the Baby: Fort Worth Zoo Welcomes Western Lowland Gorilla to the Troop.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, November 9, 2022. https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article268535742.html.Check out more All Crime No Cattle at our website allcrimenocattle.com.Visit our Patreon page to support the show and earn some awesome rewards: https://patreon.com/allcrimenocattle. Get some ACNC merch: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/all-crime-no-cattle-podcast-shop?ref_id=9435. Find us on Twitter: @ACNCpodcast and on Instagram: @allcrimenocattle. Tip Jar: https://paypal.me/allcrimenocattle.And always remember, crime is bigger in Texas, y'all!

Country artist Drake Milligan joins Nancy to talk about life after America's Got Talent, his new album Dallas / Fort Worth, and his Grand Ole Opry debut. Plus, Drake discusses the impact of Elvis on his career, starring as Presley in the mini-series Sun Records, and the power of collaboration (:56). Listen to Drake Milligan's album Dallas / Fort Worth. Watch Drake Milligan's AGT performance. Read Nancy's story about Drake via Forbes.com Hollywood & Entertainment. Learn about segment sponsor HumorOutcasts.com (:45). Visit Nancy's website.

Today, we are joined by Randy Streig to talk about the power of building meaningful relationships. He is the founder of Friends in Real Estate, a commercial real estate networking group committed to getting to the fun part of networking without all the fluff. He takes us through how he has grown the group to over 600 people and how they are taking a different approach to networking.    Randy is also an associate at Dominus Commercial and he has a strong experience in underwriting with over $1 Billion+ of real estate underwritten and $100 Million+ worth of transactions. He shares with us his insights on retail and industrial real estate, particularly in the Dallas Fort Worth market.   [00:01 - 04:00] It's a Relationship Business Randy on how he ended up in real estate by accident One of the biggest lessons in his career is that the big deals take as much time and effort as the small deals  He was able to grow fast in real estate because he met, talked to, and learned from as many people as he could   [04:01 - 13:20] Dallas Fort Worth: Retail and Industrial Market Breakdown Retail has been severely affected by the pandemic and he believes that there will be a consolidation in terms of tenant mix Industrial continues to be a hot asset and there is a lot of demand in DFW To find opportunities, you need to understand the buyer market pool He recommends Class B and C properties in retail because more distressed assets have more flexibility   [13:21 - 19:24] Making Friends in Real Estate Randy has always been put off by the membership payments for networking groups or events He started inviting his friends to hang out and his friends invited their friends and so on Friends in Real Estate turned into something that has been a membership group without all of the professional orientation of most membership groups They value the personal connections and fun aspect of it Randy's advice to anyone who wants to create their own group: Start small What's next for Friends in Real Estate?   [19:25 - 21:01] Closing Segment Reach out to Randy!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “You need to make sure you're meeting as many people as you can and just asking as many questions as you possibly can.” - Randy Streig   “I would tell them to start small. Don't think about where you wanted to end up. Just let things unfold naturally and try to just invite people you think would get along well together.” - Randy Streig   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Randy! Follow Randy Streig, Friends in Real Estate, and Dominus Commercial on LinkedIn.   Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Randy Streig: it's really understanding the market from a buyer pool perspective, figuring out what exactly you would want to buy as an investor in comparison to what everyone else is buying because the least competitive class is going to be the one where you're going to be most successful in, as compared to the private equity groups of the world who know what their fairway is and know how to close a deal and are, you know, I can go to a seller and say, Hey, my guys can send you an offer and we can close in 30 days. And we're confident about doing that.  [00:00:26] Sam Wilson: Randy Streig is a commercial real estate broker at Dominus Commercial in Dallas, Texas. He's also the founder of Friends in Real Estate, a free to join and participate happy hour group with close to 600 members. Randy, welcome to the show.  [00:00:51] Randy Streig: Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.  [00:00:53] Sam Wilson: Hey man, the pleasure's mine. Randy, there are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now, and how did you get there?  [00:01:02] Randy Streig: Yeah, so fell into commercial real estate by accident. Went to school originally for music, decided within my first semester that music wasn't going to end up paying the bills. And took random principles of real estate class at University of North Texas with John Bain, who ended up becoming a mentor and friend of mine, ended up running the real estate club there. From there did a case study project for ICSC, we took second place, our group mentor, Whitesman took me on as a full-time financial analyst, one of three guys for a billion and a half dollars retail portfolio, which was super fun. From there, went to work for 42 Real Estate who do a lot of FedEx ground build the soup projects, a bid on half a billion dollars of FedEx field issue projects, underwrote a hundred million dollars of portfolio acquisitions and a mid-rise acquisition here in Dallas. From there, went to a private firm. I can't publicly talk about, but it was a nice opportunity, but not where I ended up needed to be and kind of fell in here at Dominus, where I've been here for two and a half years now doing brokerage. So started with development, ended up here in brokerage and I'm loving it.  [00:02:06] Sam Wilson: That's impressive. Like, that's a lot of moving pieces. When you look back on that, what are some of the key maybe pieces of the puzzle that you learned along the way that you're using today in your brokerage business?  [00:02:18] Randy Streig: The biggest thing is that even the small deals, well, a better way to say it is the big deals take as much time and effort as the small deals and usually ends up taking less time. So if you can learn the fundamentals, the rest is easy and falls into place.  [00:02:35] Sam Wilson: That's very interesting. You even say that from the brokerage side. For you guys, it's just as much work to do as small deal as it is to do a big one.  [00:02:43] Randy Streig: Yeah. Well, yeah. I'd say even more work to do a small deal than a big deal. [00:02:47] Sam Wilson: Wow. What do you tell people? I mean, you know, you guys have a membership group there with 600 people in it. What do you tell people when they're, you know, I'm sure you get lots of, you know, people interested in real estate, you know, just getting started out. What do you tell 'em on that front? You just say, Hey, go big as fast as you can. And then if you do that, what steps do you tell 'em to take?  [00:03:07] Randy Streig: Really, I tell them it's a relationship business. You need to make sure you're meeting as many people as you can and just asking as many questions as you possibly can. One of the things I really took to heart when I was still at UNT, my high professor said, Look, you need to eat when you get out of school. That's the first thing, and you can kind of figure everything out later. When I was starting as an analyst, as kind of getting my feet wet, I was still networking around 12 to 15 times a week. I usually had a coffee, lunch, and happy hour set up every day and just meeting as many people as I could, talking to as many people as I could, trying to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could while I still had the energy to do it. [00:03:48] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. I think if you asked me to add 12-15 appointments to my calendar right now, every week, I just say that's not going to happen. There's just nothing. So I love the caveat there when I had the energy to do it. So you've gone into brokerage, you are now focusing on, what are you focusing on the brokerage side? You said it was retail and...  [00:04:08] Randy Streig: Yeah, owner rep, and tenant rep.  [00:04:10] Sam Wilson: Okay, and in what categories? Is that retail, industrial, or?  [00:04:14] Randy Streig: Yeah, Retail and industrial.  [00:04:15] Sam Wilson: Got it. Okay. Cool. That's a lot of fun. One of those is a hot asset class or has been the darling child for the last few years. And one of those has, you know, had some mixed reviews on it, depending on who you talk to. Some are like, Hey, man, retail's doing alive and well, just, you're not seeing it. Give me the kind of market breakdown, if you will, on those two asset classes and what your current view of where they are now and maybe where you see 'em going in the short term.  [00:04:42] Randy Streig: Yeah, well, you know when I started, I started at a retail shop and the big narrative at that time was, you know, retail is dying. It's all over from here. And while that's true with things like malls, it's definitely not the case for a lot of the bigger retailers. And by bigger, I mean national chains and franchises. A lot of the mom and pops have been hurt severely by inflation and just what's gone on with coronavirus and all that jazz. I mean, that's been really sad to see. You know, I just closed a deal with a luxury fitness client of mine out in Plano, and they're still wanting to grow rapidly and I'm seeing another couple Fortune 300 and 500 companies that been talking to for some lease deals, and they're still growing as fast as they can. So I think retail is going to consolidate in terms of the tenant mix that's expanding. So it's not going to be as diverse of a tenant mix that is growing. But the tenants that are growing are just going to kind of rocket ship, kind of using that parade distribution principle. So 20% of the retailers are going to have 80% of the growth across retail. And then for the industrial side, in Dallas Fort Worth specifically, it's going to continue to be hot. I mean, everybody's still wanting to come here to Texas and you're seeing like, you know, Elon Musk is coming here, even had Joe Rogan coming here. So we're building a big both entertainment and business-oriented culture out here, which is really interesting to see, especially 'cause I grew up in a town where the only grocery store was a Dell Diamond, if anyone even knows what that is. And then now in the same intersection you have a Walmart, an Albertsons, and a Kroger with AGB that owns a site just down the street. So DFW is going to keep growing rapidly across retail as far as I can tell, because another function of DFW and Texas, in general, is how much space there is geographically speaking. There's a lot of room to grow outwardly, and we still have Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, which is I think the number two or number one busiest airport in the US right now. You have still space to grow in there in line as far as industrial goes. The last time I checked there was 3 million square feet of industrial going up right now, going vertical and the demand to fill it. So I think the DFW is a great spot to be right now.  [00:07:00] Sam Wilson: How does someone find opportunity? Let's say they're not in the kind of know on these deals that are getting traded. How does someone find and develop opportunity in industrial today?  [00:07:13] Randy Streig: From a development side or from a user side? Or what side do you want to talk about?  [00:07:18] Sam Wilson: I'm thinking like if I came to you as an investor and I said, Hey, Randy, I've got, you know, I've got a pile of money, I'd like to invest in industrial, or I've got a backing with a bunch of investors. We really want to start investing in industrial. Where do they start? [00:07:32] Randy Streig: That's a good question. I would say you just look for the least competitive asset class right now and understanding who the other investors that are buying 'cause you have the Blackstones of the world that are kind of pulling back right now just because they want to see where interest rates are going to fall out to. And then you have, I'm working with a couple of private equity groups who we're still extremely bullish. They've got their investors lined up, but most of those groups have a very specific fairway they want to run down. So it's really understanding the market from a buyer pool perspective, figuring out what exactly you would want to buy as an investor in comparison to what everyone else is buying because the least competitive class is going to be the one where you're going to be most successful in, as compared to the private equity groups of the world who know what their fairway is and know how to close a deal and are, you know, I can go to a a seller and say, Hey, my guys can send you an offer and we can close in 30 days. And we're confident about doing that.  [00:08:24] Sam Wilson: Right. Right. And that if you're bating or playing in those leagues that, you know, it can be very challenging. So I like your idea of finding the least competitive avenue inside of maybe industrial and saying, okay, how do I get in here and make this a compelling investment thesis? That's really interesting. What do you see on the retail side of things? You know, is there, what would you say is the ideal buy box right now if, say, returns were our primary objective?  [00:08:50] Randy Streig:  I would try to stay in that the class B, class C. I mean, class A is always going to be class A. It's in the sense that your returns are always just going to be set by what the new development standard is. So with Class B and class C, though, you have more opportunity in the sense of you can redevelop it, you can you know, just improve the asset altogether. But I mean, I know some, a couple of groups that are looking at turning malls, like into industrial hubs. So just in the more distressed asset classes, you have a lot more flexibility because usually the retail is well positioned just from a geographical standpoint. And real estate is always about where you buy, how good is the land.  [00:09:30] Sam Wilson: Absolutely. Can you give me maybe quick definitions of A, B and C type of retail maybe? Define those classes broadly if you could.  [00:09:39] Randy Streig: Yeah, yeah. For a class A center I'm going to refer to retail specifically and not a mixed-use property. So retail specific, you're looking at a grocery-anchored center right now. Something with like a Kroger or AGB. If you're an investor and you actually own the grocery box, it's even better, but it's kind of unlikely right now. Most of the groceries like to own their own box. You want to have not too many big box retailers at the moment because their junior box faces are a little hard to lease up. So I would kind of classify those, more junior box-oriented power centers as the Class B retail strips right now or retail centers. And then class C is going to be anything where the building just looks a little dilapidated, maybe it was built in the eighties and no one's really put a lot of money into it, a lot of deferred maintenance. That's kind of the quick, quick scale that I look at.  [00:10:26] Sam Wilson: Right. And you see opportunity right now in that B slash C. And that's really where we should be looking if it's like, Hey, I want to find opportunity and you think that's a great spot in retail.  [00:10:36] Randy Streig: Yeah, I mean, there's more risk entailed and when there's more risk, there's more opportunity. [00:10:40] Sam Wilson: For sure, for sure. You know, but it's interesting. You know, I think about some of those places. There's some spots here that come to mind, you know, where they may have, like, and it's not last mile per se, but just maybe to get our listeners' wheels turning, you know, I'm thinking about like, you know, a hair studio or a laundromat or, you know, there's one place down here. It's a Mexican ice cream store. And it's like, okay, you know, it's like all these little shops that go in there. Maybe the risk is there, 'cause of course, they can pack up and leave in two days and it's like, well now you're high and dry as the owner, but yet at the same time, that's stuff that's just, you can't Amazon to your front door, so.  [00:11:14] Randy Streig: Right, right. Well, and another thing to think about too, and I'm going to reference the case study from my time at 42 Real Estate, the guys who, when they redeveloped Deep Ellum. You know, Deep Ellum was, it's a little crime oriented now, but at the time it was very crime oriented. But there was a lot of art. It was a very artist-centric hub. And when there's art, it tends to draw in a lot of people especially the creatives and the hipsters. And there's a joke somewhere that like, you know, the fourth horseman of gentrification is Whole Foods, but there's no whole foods there yet. But when you look at something like Deep Ellum, you look at a neighborhood that might typically scare away of a lot of investors because of crime, but where there's art, it'll draw in more people. And there's a lot of interest in bringing in new or people that want to revitalize the area. What made me think of that was you referencing the local stores, the mom and pop guys that are kind of local, not necessarily the big Main&Main retail strip, but somewhere in an urban area that has a local-oriented draw to it. So there's a lot of opportunity there too, if you can find it. [00:12:16] Sam Wilson: Right. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And I think especially when you see those old kind of more dilapidated buildings, that's where the market I would say is probably, I'm guessing here, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's where the market is still fragmented 'cause you still have single owner, you know, mom and pop, maybe they've owned it for decades, things like that. I would guess that's one of the last pieces in retail. That's still kind of where opportunity really would would lie and of course, risk as well.  [00:12:40] Randy Streig: Yeah. Well, and to that point, Deep Ellum was owned a lot by those mom and pop guys, but Scott Rohrman over 42, went and met with each of these owners individually and slowly, like, gained their confidence and trust over time that he could do something cool with the neighborhood and then ended up closing on 50 different parcels at once that were I think owned by 40 or so different owners. [00:12:58] Sam Wilson: Wow. That's a story in and of itself, which I would want time for, but I'd love to hear how someone strategically goes about packaging up 50 parcels with 50 owners and then closing all in one single go. I think that's a work of, yeah, that's a work of art in and of itself, figuring out how to do that and keep everybody on board. So yeah, that's very, very cool. I love that. You know, I want to take a little bit of time here and talk about your Friends in Real Estate group. I know you had mentioned early on that it was something that it was kind of accidental. Most people, especially in the syndication side of things, and as you probably are well aware of this, but we're all trying to always grow our network, especially when it comes to people interested in real estate looking to invest in real estate. You've grown a group of over 600 people accidentally. What are some you did on accident that worked and then tell us a little bit about the group overall if you don't mind?  [00:13:51] Randy Streig: Yeah, yeah. So I kind of got this notion when I was reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi and just kind of seeing the importance of networking, generally speaking. And when I got into commercial real estate, I joined the big networking groups out here, but I was always kind of put off in the sense that you have to pay a membership fee just so you can go to an event where you're paying another dollar fee to go to the event so you can meet two or three people to go have a drink with them or lunch. And I was, like, there's got to be a better way to do this. And so what I did was I just started inviting a group of my buddies out to drinks once a month. So I texted some friends that I already knew in the industry that I had met through some of those networking groups, and I said, Hey guys, let's go grab a drink altogether. And we had eight people come out to a bar out here in Dallas and we just, you know, shot the breeze and talked to each other and had a good time. And I was like, all right, well cool, you guys want to do this again next month? Why don't you invite a buddy of yours and, see if they want to come. And then it grew from that day to 12 or 15 the next time and then 20 the month after that and then three months later it was at 30. And within eight months I had somebody come to me and say like, Hey, we'd love to sponsor this event and host it at our office. And I was like, Okay. Sure. And by that time people had been, people that had attended said, Hey, add my friend so and so to the invite list. And by the time we had our first sponsored event, we had 50 or 60 people come out to the event. And after that I had people start lining up to offer to host the event and sponsor it. And they're adding people to the list, their friends are adding people to the list. And so just kept growing and growing and I was really trying to meet with every new person that would get involved with the list or get on the invite list just to try and make it a more personal connection there. And it's kind of grown outside of my ability to reach everyone. But I still try to at least catch up with as many people as I can. So the reason I started thinking even about having this monthly event was I started meeting so many people where I couldn't keep in touch with everybody on a one-on-one basis, but I saw it as an opportunity to at least, you know, have a touchpoint once a month with all these people, even if it's just me sending an invite out to a happy hour. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to offer something to people I wouldn't normally be able to offer them in the sense of like, Well, I may not be able to offer you anything from a service standpoint, but I can introduce you to somebody. And I looked at this happy hour group as a way like, Oh, you're in this field? Well, meet so and so, they're kind of doing a similar thing and this can help you out. And you know, I met banker buddies who made a bunch of deals off of it and got to sit court-sided the Mavs as a thank you, which was super cool. And I've met other people that are getting deals done, which is really exciting for me just to see Friends in Real Estate turn into something that has been a membership group without all of the necessary professional orientation of most membership groups and that we're still just a happy hour group to come hang out and make friends. We're not there to advance our business necessarily, speaking of business comes out of it great, but we're more focused on building the relationship first and if whatever business comes of it comes of it and it's just kind of happened naturally and or, and organically. To kind of reference what I mentioned earlier and seeing the necessity of building a relationship network in real estate because it is such a relationship-based business. So I figured if I can build my relationships with people and help other people build their relationships, then it'll kind of, you know, just grow out of there. And it's been a wild journey in the last five years that I've been doing it. [00:17:34] Sam Wilson: I'm sure, I'm absolutely sure. And then, you know, you get to kind of position yourself as the thought leader in the group as well, which I think is always a great spot to be in. Maybe you don't know everything, but still it's the person that organizes it is the one that kind of gets the front row to the whole thing. That's really cool. I love that. What advice would you give to somebody if they were going to launch, and I don't want to use the word meetup, but I guess I just did, a meetup or a group like this? What would you tell them to do? [00:18:03] Randy Streig: I would tell them to start small. Don't think about where you wanted to end up. Just let things unfold naturally and try to just invite people you think would get along well together. That's the biggest thing. And one of the things I'm really grateful for about Friends in Real Estate is there's a culture that's kind of created itself, and it's something I'm happy has developed because it's a bunch of people that share an interest in just the enjoyment of friendship and that has attracted more people of similar mindsets, and that's how it's grown from there. [00:18:37] Sam Wilson: That's awesome. That's awesome, man. I think that's really, really cool. What are your hopes long term for the group is they're like, Hey, you know, we're going to plan I mean, are there kind of bucket list items that you think about as it pertains to Friends in Real Estate?  [00:18:52] Randy Streig: We had looked at doing a bigger event this past year, but realized it just didn't have the bandwidth to actually like put it all together, which was no big deal. You know, kind of wish I had thought a little bit more about the amount of effort he would've taken to put on that event. So would like to kind of put together a bigger event maybe later down the road at some point and as dumb as it sounds, I really want to make merch because I've always wanted to just sell merch. I think it'd be fun.  [00:19:19] Sam Wilson: I love that. No, I think that's great. You'll have to put me on the buyer's list when you get your merch. I'll wear on the next show. So let me know when you get that done. Randy, this has been awesome. I've certainly enjoyed learning from you about the opportunities in retail. I think that's actually been a very fascinating conversation then you know, what you're seeing going on in the industrial side of things you've told us about friends in real estate, what it's been like to kind of launch and maintain that large of a meetup group. I mean, that's a lot of, I mean, how many people show up on average? I mean, you might have a 600-number role.  [00:19:52] Randy Streig: Yeah, I think 50 is kind of the set. Yeah.  [00:19:55] Sam Wilson: Okay. Right. But even 50 people descending on one bar or one location is still, I mean, it's still a lot of people, if they're not prepared for it. So it sounds like that figured out as well. But no, I think that's really absolutely great. Thank you for taking the time to come on the show today. If our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you or any of the assets maybe that you are brokering right now, what is the best way to do that? [00:20:19] Randy Streig: Our website's still in the works, so I would say just check us out on LinkedIn. That's the best way to keep in touch at Dominus Commercial on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn, Randy Steig, and then Friends in Real Estate as well. It's all there.  [00:20:31] Sam Wilson: Fantastic. Randy, thank you again. Certainly appreciate it. [00:20:34] Randy Streig: Oh, thank you for having me. It's been fun.

Community Impact reporters Rebecca Heliot and Destine Gibson bring development insights from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, including discussions of projects planned in the newly-renewed Lake Highlands public improvement district in Dallas and in Lewisville's Northern Gateway. The DFW Breakdown is a production of Community Impact. This episode was produced by Olivia Aldridge with editing by Marie Leonard. Weather and allergy reports are sourced from www.weather.com and AccuWeather. ***PATRON PROGRAM SIGN-UP: www.communityimpact.com/patron

On this episode we talk with Rodrick Smith the CEO of Elevated Moves one of the premiere CBD stores in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. He educates us on the power of CBD when it is infused with a healthy lifestyle. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thebusinessminds/message

I am joined this week by one of my favorite people on the planet. We've been friends for years. He's one of the few people I actually trust in this wild industry that we call home. He is one of the most successful mortgage brokers in Dallas/Fort Worth doing great volume, but more than anything guys, this gentleman, he provides an experience like no other and so I am so honored to have Milo Draven on the show. You don't want to miss this episode!Connect w/ Mylo:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mylo682 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mylo_draven/Want a better presence online, but don't have all the time you need to put into it?!You're welcome! :)www.contentcompounding.ioConnect with Coach Kyle:Website: https://kyledraper.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachKyleDraper/Instagram: https://instagram.com/coachkyledraperEverything Else: https://linktr.ee/coachkyledraperDo you love the music in my intro and outro?Hit up @michaelglennmusic on IG to get your own!https://www.instagram.com/michaelglennmusic/Want FREE Social Media Advice?http://bit.ly/topofmindsellingfbgroupNeed a Dynamic Speaker for an Event or Group? Duh...Me!http://bit.ly/coachkylespeakerkit

Rebecca and her husband Warren Buller amassed several single-family homes while stationed in the different locations the US Navy sent them. In 2012, they founded Starboard Equity for the purpose of investing in real estate to become financially independent. With over 10 years of experience in real estate investing, Rebecca is a full-time multifamily syndicator, asset manager, and investor. She has led in the acquisition of 5 multifamily properties, and owns over 2000 multifamily units. While Warren was stationed at Naval Base San Diego as Commodore, Rebecca began to syndicate in Dallas-Fort Worth. Because she was able to hold a full time job in one state, travel to find exceptional properties in another state that generated excellent returns for investors, she has been a featured speaker at real estate investing events and webinars to inspire others they can do the same.Key Highlights- Hiring a mentor- Challenges as an asset manager- Getting funds for Capex renovation - Market research for asset managementFollow Rama on socials!LinkedIn | Meta | Twitter | InstagramConnect to Rama KrishnaE-mail: info@ushacapital.comWebsite: www.ushacapital.com

Benjamin Franklin once said, “He that good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” That quote is over 200 years old, and we just can't stop making excuses. But now there's a new book, written by Robert J. Hunt and Salem Thyne, that could help us climb out of the muck of blame and excuses. It's called Nobody Cares (Until You Do): Living Beyond The Blame, Excuses and Doubts That Hold You Back. Joining Joe on the podcast this week is co-author Robert Hunt to tell him more about it. Robert is an Executive Coach who leads CEO Peer Groups in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and is driven to help people be the best version of themselves.

In this episode of SA Talk, host Zachary Espericueta sits down with Danielle Gunter. Danielle, the executive director of The Texas YES Project explains how the organization got started, how it's changed over the years, what led her there and much more. Danielle also discusses how important it is for students to have the necessary tools when they are in the classroom so that they can ultimately succeed. TEXAS YES is an educational nonprofit committed to closing the gap for educational equality through the support of Title 1 students in San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Corpus Christi and Austin. For over 20 years the YES program has worked to provide students with the supplies/resources they need for success. Their Box of Dreams and Little Locker programs deliver schools supplies and provide easy access to books within students' own neighborhoods. Additionally, they provide direct grants to teachers and schools to fund new initiatives such as STEAM education and classroom updates. Where to Find/Follow The Texas YES Project: Website: https://www.texasyesproject.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/texasyesproject/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/texasyesproject/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sapodnetwork/support

Today's guest uses what she learned as a student-athlete to build an inclusive team at her law firm. Amy M. Stewart is the founding partner of Stewart Law Group, the only minority and women-owned law firm based in the Dallas Fort Worth area representing companies in business, employment, and personal injury disputes. Prior to going to law school, Amy was an NCAA Division I collegiate student-athlete and coach. She uses her experiences in sports to build inclusive teams based on the concept of servant leadership, winning the right way, and relying on a strong work ethic to get things done for her firm clients. Tune in and learn more about her professional and entrepreneurial journey and her unique contribution to the legal industry.

Earning through passive investing is a dream for many, but how do we do it wisely? In this episode, we welcome Lee Fjord to discuss the importance of evaluating deals thoroughly before submitting an offer. He mentions why he avoids anything with a shorter-term horizon in order to keep his deals flexible and able to meet the needs of his clients. Listen in for more practice advice when approaching property investing.   Lee Fjord is a results-driven, goal-oriented professional real estate agent and investor with a "go-getter" attitude, currently focusing on brokering commercial real estate transactions throughout Greater St. Louis and surrounding markets. He approaches each client with the goal of meeting or exceeding all of their expectations to ensure the creation of "long-lasting" and trusted relationships.  [00:01 - 12:43] Pay Attention to Debt - Impact and Implications   The caveat to purchasing older properties Lee on the types of debt to avoid - shorter-term horizon and less security Realizing the value of the assets and the impact of debt on cap rates   [12:44 - 21:58] How to Build a Business to Sell   Lee shares his thoughts on growth markets around the US What it takes to scale a management business The key to building your team is to find those with relevant experience   [21:59 - 24:11] Closing Segment   Reach out to Lee See links below  Final words Tweetable Quote   “Focus on the type of debt that you're placing on the property. Because at the end of the day, that's what's going to, you know, save or kill your deal… If you didn't plan that out accordingly or properly, or you didn't execute your business plan perfectly to hit that, you might be in for some trouble.” - Lee Fjord   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Lee Fjord on Linkedin. Check out his website and email him at lee@greenforestcapital.com.    Resources Mentioned   Built to Sell by John Warrillow     Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Lee Fjord  00:00 We focus on the bottom line of the debt, you know, focus on the type of debt that you're placing on the property. Because at the end of the day, that's what's going to, you know, save or kill your deal. At the end of the day, if you've got the wrong data on whether that'd be the rate or the terms, or the horizon. If you didn't plan that out accordingly or properly, or you didn't execute your business plan perfectly to hit that, you might be in for some trouble.    Intro  00:26 Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we will teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson  00:38 Lee Fjord is a multifamily syndicator based out of St. Louis, Missouri. He's the founder of green forest capital, and they do value-add multifamily assets in the Midwest and the Southeast. Lee, welcome to the show.    Lee Fjord  00:49 Sam, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm really excited to jump on the podcast and bring some value to your audience.    Sam Wilson  00:58 Oh man, this would be a good time. Three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less? Where did you start? Where are you now? How did you get there?   Lee Fjord 01:06 started in the trenches as a property manager. I, you know, am now a full-time investor syndicator with 588 doors under my belt. Roughly five deals have gone full cycle on a 38 unit that doubled in value in 30 months. And I got there by partnering with amazing folks who rely on me and my team to be able to execute, you know, the business plan with them and on the RAF.    Sam Wilson  01:36 Love it, man. That's fantastic. And you guys are exclusively focused on the multifamily market.   Lee Fjord  01:42 Absolutely. So, bread and butter value at apartments in the Midwest and southeast. That's what we do workforce blue-collar housing. We provide wonderful, clean, modern places for people to live and grow and become the best versions of themselves.   Sam Wilson  01:59 When you say workforce housing, it conjures in my mind, a 1960s 1970s build classy c minus needs a lot of work. dispel that myth for me, if you can, please what is workforce housing to you.   Lee Fjord  02:15 So workforce, and I consider more blue collar housing where it is, you know, it's the it's the place where the guy who changes your oil lives, it's where you know, his wife or fiance who is the assistant manager at Applebee's lives you know, where they, you know, maybe they start a family or maybe it's the place where you're, you know, a postal worker who is now you know, retired and living on fixed income lives out, you know, the remainder of their years until they need you know, a place to place to go so those are kind of the two major demographics that we provide housing for our people that are eventually going to be homeowners and people who are no longer able to maintain or want to maintain a home but aren't a class people they aren't granite countertops and stainless steel you know appliances type folks, they're you know, regular everyday people age we generally focus on 1980s or newer, we try to buy newer assets because they carry with them a lot lower level of deferred maintenance, you know, so on and so forth. So 1980s or newer, generally is what we try to try to focus on   Sam Wilson  03:29 what are you guys doing? I mean, the theme that all of us here probably at every conference every podcast we listen to we hear workforce housing or we hear the term affordable housing, which I don't even know how you define what affordable is but I digress. Affordable housing all these things it's like how are you finding opportunity right now are you finding assets that pencil that then you know are able to meet the demographics needs that you you guys serve? I guess I see a lot of garbage assets out there how are you guys finding the right assets in today's market being as competitive as it is?   Lee Fjord  04:07 My trash bin is full of garbage deals that I've just thrown you know, you look you evaluate your view, you toss you look, you evaluate your review you underwrite then you toss you look you evaluate you underwrite your submitted offer you toss it, look you underwriters, you submit an offer, you get approved, then you do inspections, then you toss. I mean, it's a process and it's a full time job of you know, picking the needle out of the haystack the right opportunity. We don't buy deals that Jen that don't work or at least obviously everyone wants to say we do that or you do your best to do that. But at the end of the day, we have some pretty stringent requirements on the type of asset that they were willing to acquire. I agree there's a lot of people that did dumb deals over the course last couple of years. You know, we we focus on the bottom line on the debt you You know, focus on the type of debt that you're placing on the property. Because at the end of the day, that's what's going to, you know, save or kill your deal. At the end of the day, if you've got the wrong debt on whether that'd be the rate or the terms or the horizon, if you didn't plan that out accordingly or properly, or you didn't execute your business plan perfectly to hit that a year, and you might be in for some trouble. So yeah.   Sam Wilson  05:25 Absolutely know that. That's super insightful. Tell me about what you guys today is, oh, we're recording this October 25, of 2022. So I'm not sure exactly when this will go live. But for those of you who are listening know that this is relevant as of today. So tell me what are you guys seeing on debt terms right now? And how are you securing that in such a way that it makes sense to you?   Lee Fjord  05:48 Each deal is different, but one, and generally, a different type of debt type is applied to each deal type. So what I will say is we don't do any form of bridge debt, we don't do non recourse bridge debt that has a, you know, a shorter term horizon on it. Historically, we do either longer term agency debt options. Or we will do bank debt, where we literally put our name on the line, where we put our deposits on the line with the bank in order to negotiate better quality terms with that local lender, which not a lot of syndicators are willing to do. But we are on the right deals on the right side and the right areas. So bridge bank is how we do it bank that right now we're seeing in the mid to low sixes. So like six and a quarter, six and a half is what I'm getting right now on bank on bank debt quotes. And then on agency, it's slightly lower, we're in the high fives, you know, on on agency debt options, which considering that literally in December, a year ago, less less than a year ago, we locked in a 10 year note below three and a half. So for three and a half to five and three quarters is a big deal.   Sam Wilson  07:12 That's a really, really big deal. What has that done to your projections, if anything?   Lee Fjord  07:20 so we focus on the value of the deal and what size of debt we can do. So the proceeds on the loan are going to be I don't know, let's call it seven and a half million, the most I'm going to be able to pay for that property is $10 million. Now the brokers right now, which I used to be one with a publicly traded company, right now they're trying to sell buyers on Oh, no, it's just lower leverage, you just the property still worth 12, you just can only get seven and a half and dead on it. So it's still it's still a $12 million property even though it doesn't qualify for the right amount of leverage. Or you can go get bridge that good luck with that, too. So no, prices are coming down sellers are realizing that you you know the value of your asset and is based upon the amount of debt you can take on it. So what's literally cap rates are directly correlated to debt cost. So yeah, those two are projecting five, four, and a quarter four and a half cap rate exits now or next year, or good luck to them.   Sam Wilson  08:31 Man that's in this is a point of contention, where I hear this argued both ways. You know, in in Illinois, anybody's necessarily 100%. Right. But I have to agree with you. I mean, it's like it just doesn't make sense. I had somebody shipped me a deal literally this morning. And it was just the the bike cap rate was below the cost of or I guess above the cost of debt, whichever one Oh, look at that. Yeah, he was like wait, like, the day I buy this. I'm paying more for the debt than what this produces like this is I don't care what the value add plan is like, now we're gambling. That's assuming that you can go and execute a value add plan and increase revenues, blah, blah, blah, and then cover that no, like, it's just not going to work. And I think I think there will be a reckoning, it's going to take a minute to use to use a term. But it's it's going to take a while for this to work out. We're finally I think sellers are going oh, I've been sitting on this for a long time and I can't seem to move it was because you're asking too much for it doesn't make sense.   Lee Fjord  09:30 Yeah. Well, you know who the last person is to find out how much the property is worth. Right? Who's that? The seller?   Sam Wilson  09:40 And I think I think that's painfully true. One thing I want to circle back on is your story of coming from the property management side of things. I've often wondered. And maybe that's the entrepreneur and me but there's always a head scratch when I'm like, wait, you understand everything about this business? Why are you still in the property management side? Now? I've been out, that's the business they built great. But a lot of times I see people working in property management, and they know more about how to own and run a big multifamily property that I would argue.   Lee Fjord 10:12 Yeah. Oh, yeah, you learn in the field; that's where I learned, yeah.   Sam Wilson  10:17 How did you then get the bug and say, “Wait, I want to, you know, move over to the ownership side and not be in the employee slash property management side?”   Lee Fjord 10:26 I was lucky enough to have someone come into my life who kind of brought me under their wing and told me, you know, Lee, this is great, what you're doing, you're learning all these skills, but what are you gonna use them for? And it was like, and then it was, I don't know, and he goes, eventually, you're gonna own things. And I go, Okay, tell me what that's like. And he's like, Well, I got started, essentially, you know, from the bottom where you were. And now, you know, at the time, he was the guy who doesn't even have to bother posting about their plane on on Instagram, or Facebook, because he doesn't care. You think he's got the place and Aspen and the place, beachfront house in Malibu, and literally, he's one of those people that couldn't care less, right. And that's who I would eventually want to be as the guy who, you know, couldn't really care less and learn from him. It was you own things. That's how you, you know, how you become wealthy and not by feeding things or building a, you know, theoretically building a property management business, but you're just building the business, what do you do with businesses, you run them, and you sell them? Right? And you make take that money, go buy things with it? Right? So then you own it. So the only reason why you go vertically integrated is to sell the business and he who builds a vertically integrated business in order to make sure it's done right or whatever. It's like, no, now you're, once again, you're still doing it wrong. You build a business to sell just like you, you know, that's what you build a business for.   Sam Wilson  11:58 Yeah, no, that's, that's absolutely right. I think it was. influential book for me was John Warrillow is Built to Sell never read, it was like, Oh, I actually owned a company at that point in time when I read that book, gosh, going on a decade ago now. 13 years no, yeah. Anyway, a while ago, and it was kind of the lightbulb moment was like, Oh, wait, I'm building this so I can sell it like that's that's the that's the point of it is to is to build this to sell it and then setting it up such that I could sell it was was a great a great first move. And that was that was really influential for me how you guys are kind of buying things that are maybe off the beaten path of other investors like a lot of people who you mean if I hear Dallas Fort Worth multifamily syndicator again, it's like that's great. Now you guys are doing it and you're crushing it. But there's more markets than that. And you guys have found a unique way to get into some smaller niche markets maybe that don't have the demographics that a Dallas Fort Worth might, how are you underwriting those in such a way that you feel like it makes sense but then also not just justifying it but then making those opportunities work.   Lee Fjord 13:11 So we I love growing tertiary markets outside of, you know, top 40 MSS. That's what I love, where the people live, where the growth is generally happening is you know, where you can really jump in and make a big splash is in those municipalities that are you know, 50 to 100,000 You know, that is where I find you can still buy assets directly from the original owners where you can go find a mom and pop sitting in the office chain smoking marbles, maybe not them but you know somebody I've seen it before. Sure, I haven't bought one from one of those yet but you see it all the time in these smaller markets. You do have to plan accordingly for your exit though you have to determine who your future buyer is ahead of time and what are they or how are they taking out debt what is their most likely level of you know, spread between rate and cap rate that they're willing to you know, adhere to or or apply the purchase towards, and we increase that spreads. So normally the spread is 100 basis points. Sometimes in a major MSA like Dallas or Atlanta that's growing or whatever it might be more like 75 So if you've got 5% debt you can buy a deal it's a five and three quarter cap whatever. So ours is spread a little bit wider it's more like 150 basis point spread. So you know if we are buying it we believe that in debt or is going to be five and a half we plan for a seven cap exit you know and if we do better that's great. But we generally also look for below institutional size investment properties but also above you know your standard mom and pop so we only look generally for 100 Plus, occasionally we'll make a small exception, like on this current, you know, future one that's just below by about, you know, five or six units, whatever. But I've tried to do it with the 70 unit, I've tried to do it with a 76 unit, I've tried to do it with a 38 unit, and it just doesn't work. So you gotta go 100 Plus, or compile multiple assets. And we like, yeah, you know, county see diverse, diverse economy, in, you know, areas that are a little bit more landlord friendly, as well.   Sam Wilson  15:32 Yeah, absolutely. Now, have you guys built since you have a history in property management, are you guys vertically integrated now?   Lee Fjord 15:37 So we rely on third party, professional management groups to be able to jump in and run the day to day aspect of the asset, you know, well, and execute our business plan. My role is putting together deals, finding creating relationships with investors, and then asset managing the deal, and then executing the business plan, making sure that we are building putting the roofs on properly with the right contractor make sure that all that is done. Management is a very low margin business. Our company they recently took over the 138 unit earns 3.5% of the gross monthly 3.5% of the gross, okay, yep. I mean, that's after all expenses and everything. And that is directly our full profit margin or whatever. But when you add it all up that one property, that one three and a half percent, it barely equates to a full time salary, level of income for that company and profit. But if you eventually you have to scale, you have to have you know, whatever 40 projects that you manage in order to have it make sense, right? Yeah, yeah. Theoretically, one day, but I don't know, I'd rather build a, you know, a brokerage business because quite honestly, the profit margins on brokerage are much, much greater brokerage, or construction or, you know, whatever.   Sam Wilson  17:14 That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking the time to break that down for us. Tell me what are some things from your experience in property management, maybe that you look for that other people may be would not.   Lee Fjord  17:27 they need to have direct experience in managing perfectly similar assets in the exact same market. So if I'm looking for someone to manage my 138 unit in Arkansas, they need to already be managing 100 Plus apartment complexes within a 45 minute radius of that exact property has to because the last thing you want is to bring somebody in who has to create all new relationships with service providers, whatever, staffing, that's the that's the bottom line with management, it literally all comes down to who is your who are the people, the boots on the ground, people making sure to execute the, you know, the top of the funnel business plan? And how well are they trained? And how well are they managed? And how much? You know, how often are they, you know, increasing the amount of training and expectations and all of that? How professional are they? Are they college grad type people? Are the AC certified people? Are they just some guy with a rusty pickup truck and some person who has a residential real estate agent license?   Sam Wilson  18:39 Like, understood? No, I think that's that's incredibly helpful. Have you ever had trouble finding a management company that met your criteria?   Lee Fjord  18:48 Oh, absolutely. And in that case, I won't go into the market. If I don't have a management company identified who's ready to take over an asset in that map in that township or municipality or location, then we just don't we'll, you know, that's the most important the most important part of the business plan. It's not can I get the money from the investors? Is it in a you know, is it in you know, Texas, like, not every part of Texas is good, by the way, just let you know, there are some some really bad places in Texas to invest your money that aren't very far outside of Dallas or Houston or Austin, like, good luck. So you know, it just so long story short, the manager if you don't have that lined up and you don't have a qualified manager, then we don't go there. We'll just pass on the deal. You know, but usually that's part of the process in establishing the markets that we look for deals is do we already have a manager there ready to go?   Sam Wilson  19:47 Yeah, that's that's awesome. And would you recommend that to somebody that that's kind of where they start?   Lee Fjord  19:52 Always. Build your team and not just have your you know, like your, like sponsorship group? you're you know, but all your all of your subcontractors, your insurance broker, your property manager, your, you know, your loan broker, make sure that you have someone who is lined up ready to go experienced and doing stuff. And who is ready to go to, you know, go to that property or knows how to do it already. And also a team who qualifies to build your team based upon the types of deals you want to do, or limit the deals you choose to look at to the deals you can take down or have experienced doing.   Sam Wilson  20:35 I think that's great. That's great advice. A when you rewind your investing career, what's one thing you've like, you've done really well, that other people should emulate?   Lee Fjord  20:44 One thing I've done really well, you know, I, I have done my best to create connected personal relationships with my, with my management staff, with my partners with the subcontractors that I work with. You know, it's this isn't just it is real estate is not, you know, Monday through Friday, nine to five, you get to know people in the evenings and the weekends and, and in the early mornings before the sun has come up. And that's when you get the extra mile out of people and with people you know, they want to see that you are willing to do it. I literally was the guy at my very first decent sized property picking needles out of the bushes with my well not bare hands. I was wearing gloves. But that's just the type of property that you start I started with I started with a D that I turned into a sea. And you know, it started with cleaning out the landscaping and getting rid of all of the the needles and the band aids.    Sam Wilson  21:59 Absolutely. It's in your reps in you've got to get your reps in. And that's yeah, kudos to you for for pressing on and getting beyond beyond that stage and then finding a course now your guys's niche in the in the criteria that you've really developed it sounds through a lot of experience, you know, the criteria used to buy and just how you you know work with property management you've shared so much with us here today, just on your investing journey. That's been super insightful. Thank you for taking the time to do that. Lee, this has been an absolute blast. Thanks again, for coming on the show here today. Last question for you is this if our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you what is the best way to do that?   Lee Fjord  22:38 The best way is on I'm on my website. It's green forest capital.com. You can also find me on Facebook. There aren't many fiords li fjord FJ already out there. You literally typed that in. And pretty sure I'm the only one that I know of. So find me on Facebook, send me a message. I personally know all of our investors, they have my cell phone number we are we love partnering with people who are not interested in being a landlord driving around town and a rusty pickup truck with a weed whacker in the back. You know your time is better spent allowing and working with other people who have already made the mistakes Been there done that and can help you avoid those things. I wish somebody would help me avoid them. But instead I just became the guy who does them does learn from my mistakes.   Sam Wilson  23:34 Absolutely. And we'll make sure we include that there also in the show notes Lee, thank you again for taking the time to come on the show today. I certainly appreciate it.   Lee Fjord  23:43 Thank you.   Sam Wilson  14:34 Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real EstatePodcast if you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen If you can do that for us that would be a fantastic help to the show it helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories so appreciate you listening thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.

Episode 253: I got us a lawyer for this podcast! In this episode, newcomer Rocky Dhir (Plano Comedy Festival) tells the guys a bombing story that reminds us all that you can choose the material, but not the people in the room. Fireworks! Luckily for Rocky, he's a lawyer, and he's been in a few tough situations. The guys talk about the pros and cons of comedy classes, what to consider when starting comedy later in life, and staying on comedy's true mission: bringing joy and laughter to other people. A little self-awareness goes a long way for a comic - and that means being willing to take feedback. Please rate and review Rocky Dhir Like all the great comedians in history, Rocky Dhir was just a baby when he was born. Like them, Rocky never fully matured into a functioning adult. Instead, he roams from place to place and club to club looking for audiences who are willing to lend him an ear or, better yet, a couple of bucks. Rocky has been doing stand-up since June 2021. Based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Rocky has performed inside and outside of Texas. Rocky has a day job, though even he doesn't quite know what it entails. He found a charitable yet gullible lady who married him. They produced a child, and so far — thankfully — all of Rocky's genes appear to be recessive. Website Instagram Twitter YouTube Art of Bombing: Blitzed Entertainment Art of Bombing "Nobody Had a Podcast Called The Art of Bombing" Theme by John Hult Bumpers provided by Joe Nicola Music Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/blitzed-entertainment Please leave us a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-art-of-bombing/message Buy us a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/aobpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/artofbombingpod Dan Bublitz Jr: http://www.danbublitz.com/ Josh Shirley: http://www.joshshirleycomedy.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-art-of-bombing/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-art-of-bombing/support

Community Impact editor Miranda Jaimes discusses how H-E-B's emergence in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has shaken up the local grocery industry. Plus, statewide reporter Hannah Norton digs into the current conversation surrounding whether Texas should rely less on standardized test scores when assessing school performance. The DFW Breakdown is a production of Community Impact. This episode was produced by Olivia Aldridge with editing by Marie Leonard. Weather and allergy reports are sourced from www.weather.com and AccuWeather. ***Link to E&P Reports episode with John Garrett ***PATRON PROGRAM SIGN-UP: www.communityimpact.com/patron

Yes, that is how Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon describes himself. Skip has served as an internal Medicine physician in the Army rising to the rank of colonel.   Throughout much of his life, Skip has also been a wrestler competitor, and he has been good at the sport.   In 2014 Skip discovered that he was suffering from a deep depression. As he worked through his condition and emerged from it he also wrote his Amazon Bestselling book entitled Wrestling Depression Is Not For Wimps.   I very much enjoyed my interview with Skip Mondragon and I sincerely hope that you will as well and that Skip's conversation and stories will inspire you.   About the Guest: Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon, MD is a transformed tough guy. Since recovering from depression in 2014, he's been on a quest to help ten million men struggling with depression, one man at a time. He's practiced Internal Medicine for over thirty years. Colonel Mondragon is a twenty-six-year Army veteran, spent eighteen months in combat zones, and is a national wrestling champion. Skip's book Wrestling Depression Is Not for Wimps! was published in February 2020 and is the author of Inspired Talks Volume 3, an Amazon International Bestseller. He's spoken on different stages, including at TEDXGrandviewHeights in December 2021. Skip's true claim to fame is his five independent and gainfully employed children, his four amazing grandchildren, and especially his wife Sherry. She's a fellow author and a tough Army wife. Sherry has endured raising teenagers on her own, a variety of moves to new duty stations, and far too many of Skip's idiosyncrasies for forty-one years of marriage.   Skip can be reached at: Email: skipmondragon@transformedtoughguys.com Website: www.transformedtoughguys.com Book: www.amazon.com/author/skipmondragon LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/skip-mondragon-66a-2b436 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkipWNW/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkipWnw   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes* Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Good morning or afternoon wherever you happen to be and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today, our guest is Donald  “Skip” Mondragon. I met Donald not too long ago, actually at podapolooza. And we've talked about that before. It's an event where podcasters would be podcasters. And people who want to be interviewed by podcasters all get together. Sometimes one person has all three at once. But I met Skip. And we talked a little bit and I said would you be interested and willing to come on the podcast? And he said yes. So now he's stuck with us? Because here we are. Skip. How are you?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  01:58 I am doing great. Michael, delighted to be here.   Michael Hingson  02:02 Now where are you located?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  02:04 I am in the Dallas Fort Worth area.   Michael Hingson  02:06 So there you go two hours ahead of where we are and any fires nearby? Hopefully not. No, sir.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  02:14 Thank you, Lord,   Michael Hingson  02:15 right now us the same way. And we're, we're blessed by that. But it is getting hot in both places, isn't   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  02:22 it? Oh, yes, indeed.   Michael Hingson  02:25 Well, tell me a little bit about you, maybe your early life and so on. And you know, we'll kind of go from there.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  02:31 Yes, sir. And the third of eight children born of Hispanic parents, but meager means but born in Denver, Colorado. My father went to the Korean War, and came back a broken man. The man that went to war was not the man that came home. He suffered, I'm convinced with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and he was an alcoholic. And when my dad drank, he was violent. My sister, my eldest sister, Roma tells us that when my dad would come home, we would run and hide, because we didn't know which dad was coming home. The kind, gentle, fun loving dad for the angry mean, violent dad. So this was my early childhood. I actually don't have memories before the age of seven, other than a couple little fleeting memories. So I don't remember a lot of that I get history really from my sister, my older sister,   Michael Hingson  03:33 I help that because he's just blocked it out or something worse.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  03:37 Yes. It's it's gone. Those I just don't have those memories are not accessible. But that was my early childhood. It was chaotic. It was. It was chaotic. It was traumatic. But I came from very loving family. Eight, you know, seven siblings were all close in age. 10 years separate us. We're still close to this day enjoy being together with one another loud, boisterous. Or they're very affectionate. No. My siblings are in Texas. I have a brother in the Baltimore area, Maryland, one in Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm here in Texas. The others are all in Colorado.   Michael Hingson  04:20 So I guess with a number in Colorado, that's the meeting place.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  04:25 Yes, sir. Between my wife and I, my mother is the only living parent. And so we go back home as we call it to his in Colorado. Yes.   Michael Hingson  04:36 Well, there's nothing wrong with that. Indeed. So you grew up? Did you go to college?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  04:45 Yes, sir. tended start my college career at the University of Notre Dame ROTC scholarship, left there, in my fifth semester confused, not quite sure what I was going to do. There's this tug, am I going to go into ministry or says medicine I was pre med at the time I left school I was out of school for three plus three and a half years trying to decide what I was going to do. And then I transferred into all Roberts University where I finished my undergraduate work for Roshan first in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And their I went to medical school and it's there for you that I met my sweetheart sherry. And this year we celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary,   Michael Hingson  05:30 Pierre just ahead of us by a year and a half, I guess because we will, our 40s will be in November. No congratulation, which is great. Now, we knew the marriage was gonna last I'm, I'm gonna get shot for this, I'm sure but we knew our marriage was gonna last because the wedding was supposed to start at four in the afternoon on Saturday, the 27th of November of 90. Yes, and the church was not filled up like it was supposed to be at four o'clock. And it got to be an I remember it well for 12 Suddenly, the doors opened and this whole crowd of people came in. And so we started although it was 14 or 12 minutes late, or 15 by the time they got in chair. And it wasn't until later that we learned that everyone was out in their cars until the end of the USC Notre Dame game. Being here in California, my wife getting her master's from USC, oh my gosh, we knew the marriage was gonna last when we learned that not what USC want the snot out of Notre Dame that   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  06:45 we took some weapons from USC, I'll be it you back. I was at Notre Dame that year that we we beat them and went on to win the national championship and 73. So that that was a turn of events, if you will, after taking some real whippings the years preceding that from USC.   Michael Hingson  07:07 I you know, I gain an appreciation for football and all seriousness. When it was a couple of years later, I was in Los Angeles and I had a meeting. And somebody was listening on the radio and keeping us apprised the fact that at the end of the first half Notre Dame was leading USC 24 to nothing. And then I got in the car and we started going home. And USC started scoring and scoring. It was with Anthony Davis and man who know about that game, and by the time it was over was 55 Switch 24 USC. But it's a great rivalry. And I'm glad it exists.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  07:50 Right. I think the next year is when they came to South Bend. And they hug hug him in effigy. So I remember they had this thing there. And it's   Michael Hingson  08:00 like the USC, USC, don't let him run against us like that again.   Michael Hingson  08:09 What makes it fun? And as long as it's a game like that, and people view it that way. It's great.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  08:16 There you go. It's a game. That's all it needs to be. Don't   Michael Hingson  08:19 take it too seriously by any means. No, sir. But it's a lot of fun. So, after Oral Roberts and so on you you went off and had some adventures?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  08:32 Yes, sir. What kind of happen next? Well, I went to do further training, internship and residency and Canton, Ohio. And there was a turn of events I had expected I was going to do a military internship and go on and complete my residency with the military. But I received this Dear John letter, approximately six weeks before the interview season was going to close the army telling me I did not receive an army internship and I had to pursue a civilian internship, I think and are you kidding me? I was supposed to be in the Army next year, I hadn't even looked at civilian internships. And so I was scrambling. This was a day maybe days before the internet. You had to go to the library, look up programs, phone numbers, call them find out what they needed. So you could apply to that program what documents they needed send to each program individually, the documents the letters, arrange a flight. Now they have a centralized application system. So you complete one application, your letters of reference are all uploaded there. Then you decide which programs you want the sent to wait. So I'm doing this video post taste. Making this application season is ending Christmas is going to be approaching and then there's nothing going to get done. So I gotta get this done. And it was it was hectic ended up in Canton, Ohio. And it was fabulous. I had the best of both worlds great academics, fabulous clinical teaching. And it just so happened. The new program director was retired brigadier general Andre J. Augmentee. And he scared the snot out of us.   Michael Hingson  10:22 What year was this? What year did this take place?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  10:26 I arrived there in 1985. Got it.   Michael Hingson  10:29 So he scared the snot out of you. Oh   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  10:31 my gosh, we call them Dr. Rowe, the big O or the Oh. And when he was when he was coming, we were like, Oh, no deals coming Fall, we'd be at Morning Report, we'd be talking about new cases that were admitted the night before. And he'd asked me to present the case or ask questions. And I would feel like I I felt like the voices on Charlie Brown. Go home and I tell my wife, oh, I can't seem to answer one interview. Question intelligently. When he is around, he must think I'm the stupidest intern he has ever seen. I I just get so flustered when he was around. I went down in a few months them because I was planning on doing physical medicine rehabilitation. But I had really fallen in love with internal medicine. Because my first few months were on the general internal medicine wards, and then a month in the internal or the intensive care unit. And I really fell in love with internal medicine, went to them and talk and said Dr. Rowe, I I'd like to talk to you. I am interested in drone medicine. But I don't know that I could be a good internist, I remember him looking at me and say, Skip, you could be a good interest. In fact, you could be a very good internist. And we'd love to keep you in the program. I could write letters that are permanent, so you can stay on the program and train here. That was a turning point for me. You away. He actually became very good friends. My last year, he actually asked me to be the chief president. I didn't accept because we were expecting our third child at that time preparing to move to join the army and I just couldn't put that pressure on my wife at that time. But we're still good friends to this day. Yes, wife. So it went from being that Bumbly Ugg boots, intern to a competent senior resident to friendship as the years went on.   Michael Hingson  12:49 So he figured you out and obviously saw something you and you kind of figured him out a little bit it sounds like oh, yes,   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  12:57 sir. Yes, sir.   Michael Hingson  12:59 Where is he today?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  13:01 He is here in Texas. He is outside of San Antonio. He and his wife Margaret. A little   Michael Hingson  13:06 bit closer than Canton, Ohio.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  13:09 Oh yes sir.   Michael Hingson  13:11 Well, that's great that you guys are still friends and you can see each other that is that is the way it ought to be. In the end, it's it's always great when you can establish a relationship with the teacher. You know, I wrote thunder dog the story of a blind man his guide dog in the triumph of trust at ground zero when I talked in there about Dick herbal Shimer, my geometry teacher. And to this day, we are still friends and chat on the phone on a regular basis.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  13:41 That reminds me of my junior high wrestling coach John Gregerson. We were great friends to this day. And we hadn't seen one another for almost 1015 plus years. I'd seen him at the I think it was the 1992 1994 NCAA Wrestling Championships division one in North Carolina, and hadn't seen him to till 2000. Approximately 2015, something like that, when seen one another, but got in touch with him because he had moved back when he retired from teaching there in Colorado. He moved to Wyoming, then moved back to Colorado, gotten in touch with him said to get in touch with you, John, we met when another talks just just like we hadn't been apart. And I remember upon leaving, talking Adam say, John, I love you. And he looked at me and says, I love you too. And a great man, great relationship. And there's so much affection in my heart and appreciation for that man. The things he taught me.   Michael Hingson  14:56 So wrestling is a part of your life, I   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  14:58 guess. Oh my goodness. It's in my blood.   Michael Hingson  15:03 Well tell me about that a little bit.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  15:05 Please. Oh, yes, I, I was miserable at sports any sport. Growing up, I didn't know how to throw I didn't know how to catch. I don't know how to kick. I didn't know how to run. I failed that tetherball. Okay. So I didn't know the skills, I wasn't taught the skills. So wrestling was the first sport that went out for an eighth grade that I thought after if you practice, I think I can be good at this. And IBM think i think i could be really good at this. That was the first time that I wasn't having to compete against boys that were a lot bigger than I was. Because I was typically the smallest kid in my class. And so I was wrestling in the 85 pound weight class in eighth grade, good lowest weight class. I was having good success. Only eighth grader on the varsity team. I didn't win a match that year. But I learned lots I gained a lot of confidence. The next year come in and the rest of the room. I'm the best wrestler in that wrestling. But I get so worked up before a match. I couldn't sleep a wink all night long. So I'd go into that match utterly exhausted mentally and physically. underperform. However, the summer afterwards, I won my first tournament I entered was a state freestyle wrestling tournament, one of the Olympic styles. When my first match, my second, my third match, win my fourth match. Now I'm wrestling for the championship. And I went after that my coach asked me, you know who this guy was you're wrestling have no idea coach. And he said that guy won this tournament last year. And that further cemented my love for this sport went on. He was a two time district champion in high schools, state runner up and honorable mention All American. So I had a lot of success. Moreso in freestyle wrestling a lot of state tournaments I won many state tournaments placed into Nash national wrestling tournaments as a high schooler and then after. After that, I've wrestled some in college and some in freestyle also. But last time it competed was in 2012 and 2013. In the veterans nationals.   Michael Hingson  17:33 How did that go?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  17:35 Oh, how did that go? It went great. I had been wanting to compete again. At ba I still had that bug. Oh, I'd like to do this. The dates the training. I couldn't work that in. But I'm sitting up in the stands watching the state finals of the of the Georgia state finals with my youngest son Joey, he had completed his wrestling career had he not been ill and injured. He would have been wrestling on that stage that night. He was one of the best hunter and 12 pounders in the state of Georgia, but being ill and injured, he wasn't there wrestling that night. So we're watching this I had this wrestling magazine. I think it was USA Wrestling and I'm looking at these dates. Veterans national so it's gonna be held in conjunction with the senior nationals and I'm looking at this. Tucson, Arizona, May 5, and sixth I say Joey, she'll train with me. I'd like to compete. Well, my 18 year old son looks and he goes, Okay, Dad, you're gonna have to do everything I tell you. So Joey became my training partner, my trainer and my manager retrained hard, very hard. So this was mid February. And at first week in May, we're going out to Tucson. Those first six weeks and I was in great shape. I mean, I trained worked out like a fanatic, but those first few weeks, you know, oh my gosh, you know, I'd come home from practice. Oh, my wife and go Have you had enough old man. I think I'm gonna go soak in the tub, honey. I'd sit on the couch with ice on a shoulder or knee or elbow or sometimes all of those week. By week, my body toughen and there was the day I got up. Because I added an early morning workout in addition to my afternoon workouts, bring my weight down help a little bit with the conditioning. And my feet hit the floor. I got out to do my workout. I thought Oh, am I feeling good? I thought Joey, you better bring your A game today because your man is feeling good. So we went out to Tucson won a national championship. And we're sitting there taking this picture with the stop sign of a trophy. Now that I got here, it's big that Joey asked me Dad, was it worth it? All those hot baths, all those ice packs? And I look at him and grin. I say, Yes, it was worth. I had a blast. The next year was a national runner up. So those were the last times I competed, but I've coached I've been around the sport. My sons all wrestled my four sons, my brothers. For my four brothers. They're all younger. They all wrestled my brother in law wrestled my father in law was a college wrestler. Wrestling is in my blood. In fact, my kids call me a wrestling groupie. Because I collect wrestling cards. I get wrestling card sign, I get poster side I mug with all these wrestling greats have friends with World Champions and Olympic champions. That's my blood.   Michael Hingson  20:56 What's the difference between the Olympic style wrestling and I guess other forms like freestyle wrestling, and so on?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  21:02 Okay, so freestyle and Greco Roman are the two Olympic styles. primary difference in those two styles is in Greco Roman, you can't attack the legs. That's the difference in those two. Now, the difference in our style, whether we call school boy or sometimes it's called catches catch can is you also have what we call a a Down and up position that are done differently the way that is in the scoring. To score for instance, a takedown when you take them to the mat, you have to have more control in freestyle is much faster or in in Greco you don't have to show the control, you just have to show the exposure of the back. Plus, you can get a five point move with a high flying exposure, the back or if you take a patient or a an opponent from feet to back in freestyle Aggreko, you can get four points for I said, if it's high flying five points, potentially. Whereas in freestyle, our in our style Americans out, it's two points for a takedown doesn't matter. Take them straight to the back, you could get additional points by exposing the back, if you help hold them there long enough, we'll call a nearfall. And then there's writing time. So if you're on the top position, and you control that man for a minute or longer, you're getting writing time. So there's those factors that that you have. So it's it's and the rules are, are somewhat different. So those are the basic differences in our style and the freedom and the Olympic styles.   Michael Hingson  22:41 But wrestling scoring is pretty much then absolutely objective. It's not subjective. It's not an opinion sort of thing. There are specifics,   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  22:51 there are specifics, but then you get into those subjective things. Yeah, it's a caution. It's a stall. It's it's this and you're saying, Are you kidding me? Or they say that's not a takedown you're going What? What do you mean, that's not a takedown? You gotta be blind not to call that thing. So there's still some subjectivity to it. Sure. There is, you know, are they miss? They miss something, the ref misses something in your thing. And you got to be blind dude, you know, that was   Michael Hingson  23:17 a tape. That's an answer. No, no, no. No, here's, here's my question. Is there ever been a time that both wrestlers go after the riff? You know, just check in?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  23:29 I have never seen I have seen some, some, some come off there and give up. You know, escaping something. Yeah, you do to me, your GP and we have to say though, never leave it in the hands of the ref. Never leave it in the hands of the ref. And you you don't want to leave a match in the hands of the ref that don't let it come down to that. Wrestle your match. So there's no question.   Michael Hingson  23:55 Well, so you have wrestled a lot. You went from Canton then I guess you joined the army.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  24:02 Correct? joined the army. Uh huh.   Michael Hingson  24:05 Well, if you would tell me a little bit about about that and what you did and so on.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  24:10 1989 Our first duty station, Lawton, Oklahoma Fort Sill out there on this dreary day, January 3, I believe is gray, dark, you know, overcast, cold, only new to people. My sponsor and his wife. They were the only people we knew when we arrived. I had gone earlier to rent a home for us. And then we were waiting. We our household goods were arriving. Got there. We had three young children. Adam was for Christmas too. And Anjali was four months old. We get there we're moving in. getting settled. I'm in processing to the arm mean, everything's new to us. And then I start practicing as a doctor had two colleagues and internal medicine, within six months of me joining the army or if you will come in on active duty, I shouldn't say joining I had already been on inactive status in the army, going through school and training, but getting their report sale, they turn around and say, well, you're one colleague, like Keith conkel, was named. He's going to do a fellowship, infectious disease. And then my other colleague, Lee selfmade, or senior colleague in internal medicine was chief of the clinic chief of the ICU, he decided very abruptly to get out and do a nephrology fellowship, civilian fellowship, so he was getting out of the army. Now they say, well, you're now the chief of the internal medicine clinic, you're the medical officer, the chief of the intensive care unit. And guess what? You're the only internal medicine physician we're going to have for the summer. Have a good summer. Well, it was worse summer I've ever had in my life. Miserable Oh, it was horrible.   Michael Hingson  26:20 So I was so   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  26:21 busy there with with patients and care and responsibilities there and having to tell some patients I'm sorry, we don't have capacity for you're going to have to be seen in the civilian sector. Now, mind you, when my two new colleagues came, we had all these patients screaming back saying please, please, please, may I come back, because they knew the care we rendered was superior to what they were getting the care they were receiving in the civilian sector. But it was it was such a demanding physically and emotionally and timewise. spending enormous amounts of time at the clinic and hospital.   Michael Hingson  27:06 So what does Internal Medicine take in   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  27:09 internal medicine, we are specialists for adults, you think of the gamut of non surgical diseases. We take care of adults 18 to end of life. And so our training entails taking care of the common cold, a community acquired pneumonia, that you can treat as an outpatient, to taking care of a patient that's in the ICU, hooked up to life support. That's the scope of what we're trained in. So if you think of the common diseases of adults, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, arthritis, gastrointestinal problems, this is the Bailiwick of an internal medicine physician.   Michael Hingson  27:59 Our biggest exposure to that for Well, first of all, my sister in law was a critical care unit and ICU nurse for a lot of her life. And, and then retired. But anyway, in 2014, my wife contracted double pneumonia, and ARDS, ARDS, oh my gosh. And she ended up in the hospital on a ventilator. And what they were trying to constantly do is to force air into her lungs to try to push out some of the pneumonia. They actually had to use and you'll appreciate this, a peeps level of 39 just to get air into her lungs. They were so stiff. Yeah, they were so stiff. And no one at the hospital had ever seen any situation where they had to use so much air pressure to get air into her lungs to start to move things around and get rid of the pneumonia. Everyone came from around the hospital just to see the gauges.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  29:02 And your they probably told you this risks injuring her lungs because the pressures are so high. But without the weather, we're not going to be able to oxygenate her.   Michael Hingson  29:15 Right. And what they said basically was that if she didn't have pneumonia, her lungs would have exploded with that kind of pressure. Exactly. Because what the average individual when you're inhaling is a peeps level of like between two and five. So 39 was incredibly high.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  29:33 Oh, yes, absolutely. But she's glad she recovered.   Michael Hingson  29:37 She did. We're we're glad about that. She was in the hospital for a month and and she was in an induced coma using propofol and when my gosh when she came out of all that I asked her she dreamed about seeing thriller and bad and all that. I was mean. But but no she ordeal, wow. Well, and that's what eventually caused us to move down here to Southern California to be closer to relatives. But I really appreciated what the doctors did for her. And we're, we're very grateful and fully understand a lot of what goes on with internal medicine and she has a good doctor now that we work with, well, who I both work with, and so on. You're very pleased with that. But you say you're in charge of Internal Medicine. And how long did that last at your first station,   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  30:39 first duty station, we arrived in 89. We were there till 92 till summer of 92. So arrived in January 89. I graduated off cycle. And Canton, arrived in, left in summer of 92 went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. But while I was at Fort Sill was first time I deployed to Operation Desert Shield Desert Storm, my first deployment and it was found out just days, like the week before, that my wife was expecting our fourth child or son Jonathan got home in time, for 11 days before his birth. Thank you, Lord. But that was my first deployment. And that was harrowing in that we were the first major medical group in theater, 47 filled hospital. And we knew that Saddam had chemical weapons, and that is Scud missiles could reach where we were at in Bahrain. So it was it was some harrowing times with that, getting our hospital set up. And knowing that we were well within range of Scud missiles, the alarms that go off and we'd be throwing on our protective gear we call our MOPP gear, our masks and our other other protective gear and these outrageous high temperatures. You know, within a couple of minutes, you were just drenched with sweat pouring off of you. In those those heat in that heat until you'd hear their alarms go off again and all clear. Thankfully, we never were bombed with the Scud. But we were well within the range. And we knew we had used chemical weapons, and we knew they certainly were in this arsenal. So we that was my first deployment. And then Walter Reed where I did a fellowship two years there in Washington, DC, and then we are off to Brooke Army Medical Center. And that was San Antonio, one of my favorite cities, that Fort Sam Houston. And we we were there for four years. And on the heels of that, I was deployed to Haiti for seven months, the last months that we live there, so I've gone I'm just redeploying returning home. And we're in the process of moving. Now we're moving to Fort Hood, Texas. There we spent, actually eight years at Fort Bragg. And there I was, again, chief of the Department of Medicine at Fort Hood, had amazing staff, great people that I worked with wonderful patients everywhere I went this wonderful patients to take care of. And then I was deployed during that time to Operation Iraqi Freedom was, Oh, if one Operation Iraqi Freedom one 2003 2004, stationed up in Missoula, treating caring primarily for the 100 and first Airborne Division aerosols. Major General David Petraeus was a division commander at that time, I got to work closely. My last few months, I was the officer in charge of the hospital, 21st combat support hospital and got to work closely interact with John Petraeus and his staff. Amazing man, amazing staff. incredible experience. Then from there after fort Fort Hood, we went back to Fort Sill, which was an interesting experience because then I was the deputy commander of Clinical Services, the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital. So first time I was there, I was a newly minted captain, new to the army, you know, expect you to know much about the army. Now I go to back to Fort Sill, I'm in the command suite on the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital now as a colonel, they expect you to know air everything. So it was it was interesting. Now, one of the first few days I was there, they give me a tour around to various places and the record group and we're talking and the the records lady, one of the ladies talking to us, telling us about different things and that she She says, You remind me of you remind me of Dr. Longer God, Dr. Monder. God, she had been there the first time I had been there, because we'd have to go down and review our charts and sign our charts on a regular basis. It was, it was amazing. But just some great people that I got to work with over the years, and that our last duty station was in Augusta, Georgia, at the Eisenhower Army Medical Center, where I was again, Chief of Department of Medicine, worked with great people helped train some amazing residents and medical students, PA students.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  35:39 Just some great experiences. And while I was at Eisenhower Army Medical Center, I deployed for the last time to Iraq for another year 2010 to 2011.   Michael Hingson  35:50 How did all of the deployments and I guess you're 26 years in the military in general, but especially your deployments? How did all of that affect you in your life in your family,   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  36:02 it gives you a much greater appreciation. Well, a few ways. Certainly a much bigger appreciation for your your family and your time with your family, I lost over three and a half years, 37 months out of the life of my family. And you don't get that time back. No, you don't get that back. So all major these major events that go on your life, seeing things with your children happening. There are no do overs with that that's time last. So you get a better appreciation for that, you also get a better appreciation for the freedoms, the opportunities we have in this nation, when you go to some of those countries realize, you see what poverty can be like, you see how certain citizens are treated, you see women who are treated like cattle, in some cases like property, that the lack of rights, you see these people who want to be able to vote, that it's not just a rigged election, but they actually have a say, in their country's democratic process. The appreciation, and one of the things that was so poignant to Michael was the fact that these so many people, every place I've been whether that's on a mission trip to Guatemala, whether that's in Iraq, whether that was in Bahrain and other places that have been there, how many people would come and say My dream is to go to the US and become a US citizen, I heard that over and over and over again. And when I would get back home, I would feel like kissing the ground. Because I realized, by virtue of being born American, the privileges, the opportunities that I have, are so different than so many people around the world. So gave me appreciation for that. But being deployed, you get to see Army Medicine, practiced in the in the field, because Army Medicine is world class medicine, but you get to see it in the field practice again, in a world class way. It's, it's really mind boggling. Some of the things that we do in a field setting in a combat zone, taking care of soldiers, taking care of other service members, the things that we do, literally world class, not just back in brick and mortar facilities. But they're in the field. Unbelievable. And again, working with great colleagues, amazing staff that I had there, the 21st cache and other places that I've worked. So that appreciation and that idea that you're working for a cause so much greater than yourself, that brotherhood that you have. Now, when you've deployed with people and you've been in combat zone with people, let me tell you, you build some strong bonds.   Michael Hingson  39:15 And it's all about really putting into practice what most of us really can only think about is theory because unless we've been subjected to it and need medical help, or have been involved in the situations like you, it's it's not the same. We're not connected to it. And it's so important, it seems to me to help people understand that connection and the values that you're exactly what you're talking about.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  39:46 Yes, yes. You were asking about the impact on my family. Well think about that. My first time employee My wife has three young children. Adam was six Chris was four. Anjali It was too, and she's expecting our fourth. We're deploying to this war zone that's very uncertain knowing he's got Scud missiles, he's got chemical weapon arsenal, that he's used this. And you're going into this very uncertain war zone. Not knowing when you're coming back home, or even if you're coming back home, all of this uncertainty. The night they announced that, okay, the war had started, that that officially had kicked, kicked off there, that hostilities it started, it was announced on TV. And the kids were at a swimming lesson at the pool, I believe. And somebody came running through some young soldier or something,   Michael Hingson  40:59 the war started, the   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  41:00 war has started. And the children all started bawling. And so Sherry's trying to gather them up and she's thinking, What are you doing, you know, trying to gather up the the kids and get them home. But she didn't allow them to listen to any reports do anything. Thankfully, we didn't have a TV at that time by choice. We didn't have a TV for many years. But she didn't allow him to listen to any reports, because she didn't want them to hear these things. But you can think about the uncertainty, you think about missing the events, you think about a spouse having to manage everything at home, taking care of the family, taking care of all the other things there that are involved in managing a household. That's what's left with that, that spouse and then them carrying on without you. So adjusting without you. And then as those children are a different ages, again, all of that, your spouse taking care of that. And your family, adjusting without you. Now if people don't realize they see these idyllic, idyllic reunions, oh, it's great look at they're coming home, and they're hugging and kissing and crying and looking at how wonderful that is. Well, yes, it is wonderful. It's magnificent. You can't believe the elation and the relief. But there's a short little honeymoon phase, if you will. But then the real work begins reintegrating into your family, finding that new normal, how do I fit back into this, they've done with it. They've been without me for several months, or even up to a year. My kids have changed. I've changed Sherry's changed, our family has changed. So how now do we find that normal? And I think that's what a lot of people don't understand that there is that work that needs to be done. And there's a lot of work that needs to be done after it. service members returned home from a deployment, that it's not easy. And it takes its toll. And I don't think that people realize the sacrifice when service members been gone. for months and months at a time years at a time, the sacrifice of that service member the sacrifice of their fam, with every promotion, every award that I received, I used to tell people, my wife, and my kids deserve this a lot more than I do.   Michael Hingson  43:50 And another thing that comes to mind in thinking about this back in the time of Desert Storm, and so on and maybe up into Iraqi Freedom, I would think actually is how were you able to communicate with home.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  44:07 Oh, with your family. And in Desert Storm is primarily snail mail. We did have the occasional call that we can make. Now, as the theater matured and they moved us out of living in tents. We got to move into hardened structure in there. I could make a regular phone call when we got to if there we could, I could send e mail and that became snail mail. And e mail were the primary ways that we connected. The last time I was in Iraq 2010 and 2011. Again, it was email but I could also I had a car that I could charge minutes to that I can Make through an international calling system that I can also place telephone calls. But the primary way became again, snail mail and email to communicate with my family. Today, is   Michael Hingson  45:13 there additional kinds of ways of communicating like zoom or Skype? Yeah.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  45:18 Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Now you're right. They can do face to face zoom. FaceTime there they have, they have their cell phone. So if they're not restricted from using their cell phones, and can even get the international plan and call, we weren't able to do those kinds of things. Yeah. There. Now we did have one thing when I was in Haiti, where it could go into a room. And you could do a as via satellite, it was on a monitor that I could speak to, and they were in this special room there that it was big monitor. But it was a very limited time. And that when that time ended, boom, the screen would just freeze. And the first time it ended like that the kids action starts, started crying because I'm in mid sentence saying something, and I freeze on the screen. And the kids didn't understand what was going on. Yeah. And they was so abrupt that Sherry told me later, can start crying when that happened,   Michael Hingson  46:25 cuz they didn't know they didn't know whether suddenly a bomb dropped or what?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  46:29 Right, right. Yes. It's shocking to them.   Michael Hingson  46:33 Well, all of this obviously takes a toll on anyone who's subjected to it or who gets to do it. And I guess the other side of it is it's an honorable and a wonderful thing to be able to go off and serve people and, and help make the world a better place. But it eventually led to a depression for you, right?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  46:55 Yes, yes. I ended up with major depression. And it culminated on April 17 2014, where I was curled up in a fetal position under the desk in my office. They're laying on that musty carpet. I had gone to work as I normally did, like, get to my office that day early, as was my custom. Nobody else on the whole floor. I locked my office turned on the lights, step inside. And everything just came crashing down on me. I was beat up, beaten down and broken. Should behind me lock the door, turned off the lights, close the blinds. And I crawled under that desk. And then for four hours. I'm asking myself skip, what are you doing? Skip? Why are you here? What happened? You're a tough guy. You're a colonel. You've been in combat zones for over 18 months. Your National Wrestling Champion, you're a tough guy. What happened? Then very slowly, looking at that, and scenes and memories colliding, looking at things, promise, difficulties, and I began to put the pieces together. And finally began to understand the symptoms I was having the past nine months, insomnia, impaired cognition is progressively moving these negative thoughts it just pounded the day and night. You're a fake. You don't deserve to be a colonel, you let your family down. You left the army down, who's gonna want a higher loss of confidence in decision, loss of passion and things that I normally have no interest in resting. Joy, no joy in my life. It's like walking through life in black and white. My body old injuries. Overuse injuries, the osteoarthritis body just a make it even worse. My libido my sex drive was in the toilet. Now you talk about kicking the guy when he's down. And I finally began was able to put those pieces together after four hours. Now I was finally able to understand, said scale. You're depressed? Go get help. And I crawled out from under that desk with a flicker of hope. And later that afternoon, I've seen a clinical psychologist to confirm the diagnosis of major depression.   Michael Hingson  49:25 How come it took so long for you to get to that point? Do you think   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  49:30 it was my tough guy mentality? This idea that you just keep pushing through that tough guy identity is like a double edged sword. That tough guys just keep pushing through. There was a lot of things colonel, combat that physician wrestler. So I took on this tough guy persona. And we even have a term for it in wrestling. We call it gutting it out. No matter how hard your lungs and what your lungs burn how much your muscles say, no matter how hard this is, you're just going to keep pushing and pushing. So that was my, that was my modus operandi. That's what I how I operated in my life. You just keep pushing hard and hard and pushing through these difficulties. With it, I couldn't see step back far enough to see what was going on. I knew it felt horrible. I couldn't sleep. I felt badly. I didn't want to be around people. I was withdrawn. But I couldn't step back even as a physician, and put these together to say, Oh, I'm depressed. It's just Oh, keep pushing. And the harder I push, the worse I got. So it was that blindness from that tough guy identity. That there probably some denial going on perhaps. But even as I look back retrospectively, that tough guy mentality just didn't help me. Allow me to see that until it got so crucial where I was just totally depleted. Ended up under that desk.   Michael Hingson  51:11 So how would you define being a tough guy today, as opposed to what you what you thought back then?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  51:20 Yes, yes. Well, there are two sides to a tough guy, Michael, I see a tough guy. Certainly one aspect of the tough guy as that provider protector, that decisive individual, that decisive man that can do things that need to be done now, and can make those tough decisions, no matter what. That's one aspect of so yeah, but that other aspect to hit balances is. So we think of that one tough guy, you might say that's your impart your rugged, individualistic guy that you see that module, tough guy, that the screen portrays at least aspects of that. But then you see this other aspect of that tough guy, this is the individual that has, can be in touch with his emotions, can understand and able to dig there into that and say, Oh, I'm feeling sad. You know, what, somebody what you just said, really hurt. That's, I'm disappointed with that. I'm able to shed tears open, I'm able to show that tenderness that love very openly, but to balance it between the two sides appropriately. That's what I see as a true tough guy. It's not just the one or the other. It's that blend of both that we need in our lives to make us a tough guy. And if you have only one or the other, you're you're not a tough guy. You only have the tenderness and the warmth, and the gentleness and the ability to share your emotions. Well guess what? You're going to be a tough time you're going to run over people can take advantage of they're not going to be much of a protector for those you need to protect. But if you only have that other side of you. You're very limited. You're not going to be able to function in the full array of what we're meant to function in as men or women. Nor women. Absolutely. It's not just restricted to one sex. Absolutely. You're right, Michael.   Michael Hingson  53:51 So you wrote a book wrestling? Depression is not for tough guys. Right? Not for wimps. Yeah, not for wimps. I'm sorry. Wrestling. Depression is pretty tough guys. Wrestling depression is not for wimps. Tell us about that and how it affected you and your family writing that?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  54:11 Well, that book, the genesis of that book came about about six weeks into my recovery, but still struggling. And throughout the time that I was sinking down deeper and deeper into the depression and the first several weeks in my recovery. My prayers had been lowered lower, please, please deliver me from this darkness. But six weeks into my recovery. My youngest brother Chris calls me he had been at a Bible study with Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham. In Franklin talked about the suffering of Christ. And the gist of what was if Christ suffered so brutally upon that cross why as Western Christians do we think we should be immune from suffering. And over the next two days, the birth that kept coming to my mind was from Philippians. To 13 Paul writes, oh, that I know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. I knew that verse I knew well, I'd prayed that verse hundreds of times in my walk with Christ, but in the midst of my suffering, I wanted deliverance. But over two days, my prayer shifted from Lord, please, please deliver me, the Lord. What would you have me learn? And how might I use it to serve others. And at that point, I knew I was going to have to share my story. I didn't know how, when but I knew I must share my story. So I began to note what lessons I had learned and what lessons I was learning with the intent of sharing those first time I got to do that was at a officer Professional Development Day, there at the hospital at Eisenhower Medical Center, our session, the morning, our session, the afternoon, and the hospital auditorium. And that became the genesis for my book, I want a writing contest in 2015, your have to retire from the army. And with that came a contract to have my book published. And then it was the process of going through the whole process of writing the book, editing the book, selecting the book, cover, all the things go into book, writing, that book was life transformed. It was transformational to me. And so I learned so many things about myself writing this book.   Michael Hingson  56:41 Did you have fun writing it,   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  56:43 I had fun at times. Other times, it was a grind, almost chickened out at the point where we had everything finished. It was ready to go to the publishers and I was I was I was on the cliffs, so to speak. i The book midwife as we called her, the lady is working with Carrie to read love the love with the lady with the company, their Confucian publishing is now called used to be transformational books. I called her and I said, Carrie, I don't know. I think I need to scrap this whole book. I think I need to start over. I can write a much better book. And she goes, No skip. This book is ready. We need to get it birth, we need to extend it to the publisher. And I'm thinking oh, no, no, no, I, I just can in Nice, I need to rewrite this whole thing. I can do a bunch better. This after working. You know, we've been working on this thing for two and a half years getting this thing ready. And I prayed about I'm talking about and then later I called her back in a day and a half and say, okay, Sherry talked me off the cliff. We're gonna send this book forward. But with that, learn things about yourself, going through that access some memories that I hadn't thought about, and some things, some promise that occurred that affected me in profound ways that I didn't realize how much of an impact that had on my life, and for how long that have an impact on my life. Case in point. I lost the state wrestling championship as a senior in high school by two seconds of writing time. Meaning my opponent, Matt Martinez, from greedy West High School knew Matt. There. He beat me by controlling me when he's on the top position for two seconds. He had two seconds more writing time controlling me on that map that I escaped from him three seconds earlier, you wouldn't have any writing time. And we had gotten into overtime. And I believe I would have beat Matt in overtime because nobody, nobody could match my conditioning. But it didn't get to them. So I really that that match. That was probably 10s of 1000s. But what it did is it it really devastated my confidence. And that carried on into my first couple years of college, the College wrestling. Just a lot of things about me. And what I didn't realize it took three and a half years. No, actually five, five years 73 It was 78 and spring of 78 when I was finally healing from that, regaining my mojo. And I didn't realize that until I was writing this book, that profound impact that loss had and the RIP holes, the effects that went on for those successive years there, the profundity of that. And there were other things that I came to light. So there'd be times I'd be laughing. There'd be times I'd be crying. There'd be times I'd be like, Whoa, wow. So it was an amazing experience.   Michael Hingson  1:00:23 So what are some tips that you would give to anyone dealing with depression today?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:00:29 Yep. Thank you for asking that. Michael, first and foremost, men, or anybody if you're struggling, don't struggle. One more day in silence, please, please, please go get help to remember, you're never, never, never alone. Three, keep your head up. And wrestling, we talk about this, keep your head up, instill this in our young wrestlers. Why because if they're on their feet, and they drop their head, and get taken down to the mat, if they're down on the mat, the opponent's on top of them and drop their head, they can turn over and pin. But that's also figurative, and emotional, keep your head up. Keep your head up. And I needed people speaking into my life, like my wife, my family, my friends, my therapist, others speaking into my life, it's a skip, keep your head up. Psalm three, three says the Lord is our glory, and the lifter of our heads. So I tell people, you're never ever, ever alone. third, or fourth, I would say attend to the basics, sleep, healthy nutrition. And some regular activity. Those basics are the basics for good reason. And I call them the big three. And probably the most important of all of those, if you're having dysregulation of your sleep is get your sleep back under control. The last few that I'm sorry, go ahead. And then the last few that I would say is make sure you've got a battle buddy. Make sure you have somebody that you can turn to somebody that you can confide in somebody that, you know, would just listen and walk this journey with you and a prescription. And there's many other things that I talked about in my book, but a prescription that I have left with 1000s and 1000s of patients. I've written this on prescription pads. And I've shared this with patients and I say this medication has no bad side effects. This medication has no drug to drug interactions, and you cannot overdose on this medication. So I want you to take this medication liberally each and every day. Proverbs 1722 says A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine. broken spirit. Drive up the boats. When I was depressed, I had a broken spirit. So lack is good nets. So I say each and every day, laugh and laugh hard to find something that you can laugh about. It's goodness.   Michael Hingson  1:03:40 Oh, whenever I want to laugh, all I have to say is I wanted to be a doctor but I didn't have any patients. See?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:03:55 Oh, that's great.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:03:59 Well, I tell people, in retrospect, I say, gee, if I had only been my own doctor, I would have diagnosed myself sooner. See, well wait, I am a doctor.   Michael Hingson  1:04:15 Or you know what the doctor said Is he sewed himself up Suit yourself. Yeah. I got that from an old inner sanctum radio show. But anyway. Last thing, because we've been going a while and just to at least mention it. You have been a TD X speaker.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:04:33 Yes, sir. I was a TEDx speaker. Indeed.   Michael Hingson  1:04:36 I got it that went well. Oh,   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:04:39 it was amazing. Was a TEDx speaker in Vancouver, in December of 2021. My talk is entitled tough guys are an endangered species. And standing up there on the TEDx phase and stage was a common addition of almost nine months of preparation, our mentor, Roger killin tremendous in helping prepare, myself and some colleagues for this, with the help of his sidekick, Dorthea Hendrik, just lovely, lovely people. But to stand on that stage, and deliver my talk, which is about 12 and a half minutes, started off in about six and a half 17 minutes, get cutting down, cutting it down, cutting it down, but stand there and deliver this message directed to tough guys talking about emotions, and the inability that men often have an accessing our emotions because of the way we've been conditioned, the way we've been raised the expectations placed on us. In fact, there's a medical term that was coined, that's masculine, Alexei timea, which means he leaves without words, and how that then sets men up, that I don't, I'm okay, I don't need help. I don't need to share my feelings and we lose contact with our feelings. Men don't seek medical care as often as women in general, much less when they're struggling with mental health issues, that denial, that tough guy, and now they seek it in maladaptive behaviors. I talked about that. But the ultimate behavior becoming suicide,   Michael Hingson  1:06:39 which is why you have given us a new and much better definition of tough guy. Yes, sir. In the end, it is very clear that wrestling depression is not for wimps. So I get it right that time. There you go. Well, I want to thank you for being here with us on unstoppable mindset. Clearly, you have an unstoppable mindset. And I hope people get inspired by it. And inspired by all the things you've had to say if they'd like to reach out to you. How might they do that?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:07:14 The easiest way for them to reach out Michael is go to my website. w w w dot transform, tough guys.com W, W W dot transform Tough guys.com. And there, you could send me a message.   Michael Hingson  1:07:35 Send you a message looking at your book. Are you looking at writing any more books?   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:07:39 Yes, sir. I am looking to write another book. And still in the making. But I think the next book, maybe wrestling movies is not for wimps.   Michael Hingson  1:07:53 There you go. Well, we want to hear about that when it comes out. And so you have to come back and we can talk more about it.   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:07:59 Yes, sir. Well, thank   Michael Hingson  1:08:01 you again, skip for being with us on unstoppable mindset. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. And it's easy to say you inspire me and and all that. But I seriously mean it. I think you've offered a lot of good knowledge and good sound advice that people should listen to. And I hope that all of you out there, appreciate this as well. And that you will reach out to www dot transform, tough guys.com and reach out to skip. Also, of course, we'd love to hear from you feel free to email me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com or go to www dot Michaelhingson.com/podcast or wherever you're listening to us. Please give us a five star rating. We appreciate it. We want to hear what you think about the podcast. If you've got suggestions of people who should be on and skip Same to you if you know of anyone else that we ought to have on the podcast would appreciate your, your help in finding more people and more insights that we all can appreciate. So again, thank you for you for being on the podcast with us   Donald G. “Skip” Mondragon  1:09:08 there. My pleasure, Mike. Thank you.   Michael Hingson  1:09:10 Pleasure is mine.   Michael Hingson  1:09:16 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

In this episode, I talk with Cade Thueson of Joe Homebuyer in the Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas region about why he chose to join the Joe Homebuyer franchise after working in the door-to-door sales industry and the benefits he has found in having his own real estate investing business.

Cariloop provides coaching and support for the caregiver. Cariloop has been recently recognized as number 40 in the "Dallas 100", which means they are the 40th fastest growing company in Dallas/Fort Worth! In this episode, I sat down with their co-founder and CEO, Michael Walsh to learn more about Cariloop, as well as to hear his personal story of entrepreneurship. The Cariloop tagline is "take care of your loved ones with an experienced Care Coach in your corner." and they consider themselves the "World's First Human-Powered Caregiver Support Platform" Anyone who has ever found themselves tasked with taking care of a loved one, be it an ailing parent, or a child that needs continual mental or physical care, knows just how emotionally difficult that role can be. Cariloop seeks to provide coaching and support for anyone who finds themselves in that position. Whether you need logistical support to coordinate care, assistance navigating the complex healthcare world, or simply just someone to talk to, Cariloop is there to help. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/spencer-harlan-smith/support

Welcome to Wellness Wednesday, brought to you by Crazy Water! Dustin Strong joins us to talk about the upcoming Crazy Wellness Retreat, Nov. 4th -6th, in Mineral Wells, TX. Dustin is the owner of Strong on Health, a private holistic health and wellness center in the Dallas/Fort Worth, TX metro area. As a holistic healthcare practitioner for nearly a decade, he is passionate about helping clients who have not had complete success with traditional healthcare methods. Learn more about Dustin and the Crazy Wellness Retreat at crazywellnessretreat.com.Next, Antonio Swad, Bernadette's ex-husband, joins us before election day to discuss his bid for a congressional seat in the 32nd District in Texas. Antonio Swad started working in restaurants at the age of 15. He worked his way from washing dishes to founding two of the most successful restaurant franchises in the country, WingStop and Pizza Patron with his former wife and the host of One Life Radio, Bernadette Fiaschetti. He grew up modestly in Columbus, Ohio as a son of a truck driver and a waitress. Swad started his first venture, Pizza Patron, in 1986 after finding a gap in the market that needed to be filled. He later used his knowledge and success to develop a new concept, Wingstop, in 1994. He grew the company to 90 franchises before selling the concept in 2004. You can learn more about him at swadforcongress.com, or on facebook or instagram @swadforcongress.Thank you to our sponsors!enviromedica – The BEST probiotics on the planetAttend the Crazy Wellness Weekend, Nov. 4th-6th in Mineral Wells, TX!Children's Health Defense - Listen every Monday for the Most Read News of the Week!sunwarrior - Use the code OLR for 20% off your purchase!Vegworld MagazineWell Being JournalThorne - Get 20% off your order and free shipping!

Ryan T. Senter, Partner who leads Opportune's Business Transformation practice, and Randy L. Hill, Partner who co-leads the firm's Complex Financial Reporting practice, discuss why the Dallas-Fort Worth area is a prime hub that helps Opportune grow its ecosystem of talent and business advisory solutions for companies across multiple industry sectors, why the firm's unique approach to client service delivery helps differentiate it within the Dallas-Fort Worth market, and, while Opportune has preeminence in energy, the firm's practice areas are industry agnostic and compatible for adding value to non-energy companies, and more. For more podcasts from Opportune, visit https://opportune.com/insights/podcast.

In a program of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth, Talmage Boston moderates a live event with the great Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and author of over a dozen books on diplomatic history and international relations. Since its founding in 1951, the mission of the nonprofit, nonpartisan World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth has been to promote international awareness and understanding. For more information and to become a member, visit www.dfwworld.org or call 214-965-8400.

Intense events can wreak havoc in our brains and bodies. Many people's bodies have shifted to PTSD to cope with the high stress they experienced. This week, we hear from Dr. Steve West on his journey from life changing events, to struggling with PTSD, and now working with an amazing team to live life to the fullest. If you or someone you know is struggling with PTSD, we see you. We hear you. And we are cheering you on. You are so valued and we want you to discover freedom to the greatest degree possible. If you're in the Keller, TX or Dallas/Fort Worth area and are interested in therapy, connect with our counselors at Crawford Clinics by visiting our website at drshannancrawford.com. If you're in any other state or area, we encourage you to reach out to AACC.net or CAPS.net to find practices and therapists in your area. The Bronze Scar Book - https://amzn.to/3SFNOTA 0:00 Welcome 0:23 Introduction to Dr. Steve West 1:38 Serving Joint Chiefs of Staff 3:00 Experience with Military Trauma 6:25 Bronze Star Honor 7:26 Bronze Scar Book 9:26 Discovering Potential PTSD within Self 13:00 “I talked to a psychiatrist” 15:00 Symptoms Indicating I had PTSD 17:00 Reflecting on the Signs 19:35 Diagnosis + Mindset 21:20 “What's helped you overcome shame?”   More about Dr. Steve West: Dr. West has a Master's degree in psychology and counseling and a second master's degree program in marriage and family therapy at the University of Nebraska. He is The United States Air Force Chaplaincy subject matter expert on family therapy, has over forty years' experience in military chaplaincy, as a police officer, urgency medical technician, pastor, and a hospital chaplain. Dr. West has almost five decades of counseling experience and is a college and university speaker on trauma. He is also a sought after podcast and radio interview guest. His military service spanned 41 years, during which he served two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was also chaplain for the White House Communications Agency during the Clinton administration and honored with the Air Force Association's Annual Chaplain Corps Award in 2008. Subscribe to the "Unlock U with Dr. Shannan Crawford" Podcast About Dr. Shannan Crawford: As CEO of Dr. Crawford & Associates in Keller, Texas, Dr. Shannan Crawford continues a family tradition of successful business owners and uses her skills and knowledge to help not only her patients in their personal lives through individual, couples, and family counseling, she also empowers entrepreneurs with her unique strategies to enhance the effectiveness of their leadership. She innovated the Restoring-Self-Cohesion model, which assists leaders in navigating common obstacles including self-sabotage, procrastination, self-limiting behaviors, and lack of work-life balance found in themselves and in those they lead. Dr. Crawford is also a national and international speaker, is an adjunct professor at The King's University in Texas, hosts her own popular podcast, “Unlock U with Dr. Shannan Crawford,” and is an author working on a fictional trilogy. She has served on the boards of philanthropic organizations such as 4Word and Kingdom Business Leaders, as well as lead groups that foster faith, community, and service. She earned her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Clinical Psychology from Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. A California native, Crawford now lives in Keller, Texas. Follow Dr. Shannan Crawford: Website: https://drshannancrawford.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drshannancrawford/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrShannanCrawford1/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drshannancrawford/ 

While the Federal Reserve is trying to slow down the economy and basically kill a few million jobs, some areas are just not cooperating. Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio have been gold mines for investors in recent years, and now that gold mine is moving north into the suburbs of North Texas. It's not only attracting remote workers who want a lower cost of living, but the area is turning into the next big American technology hub that will create thousands of new jobs. That's why I started a single family rental fund that is buying properties near those jobs. If you want to find out more about our Texas Single Family Rental Fund, got to GrowDevelopments.com.Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. As real estate investors, you know that population growth and job growth are essential for a good real estate market. Texas has both of those.Texas Population GrowthCensus Bureau data shows the Dallas-Fort Worth as the top population growth region in the U.S. Three other Texas metros were also on the top ten list. From July of 2020 to July of 2021, 97,000 new residents moved into Dallas-Fort Worth. Another 69,000 moved into Houston, 53,000 into Austin, and 35,000 into San Antonio. (1)Texas Job GrowthThe Lone Star state also grabbed the top spot for U.S. job growth. According to the Texas Economic Development Corp., Texas created a total of 736,700 new positions since July of last year. More than 400,000 of them were created since January of this year. TWC Chairman Bryan Daniel says it's a record amount of new jobs for Texas within that short time frame. (2)Growth in North TexasBut while some of the big metro growth is softening, there's another Texas hot spot that is just taking off. It's happening north of Dallas, along a 30-mile stretch of Highway 75 between the cities of McKinney and Sherman, and surrounding areas. The highway runs north from Dallas and is known as the new Silicon Alley or even Silicon Prairie by some people because it's attracting big players in the chip-making industry.The New Silicon AlleySherman appears to be ground zero for much of this big tech growth. Just a few months ago, in May, Texas Instruments broke ground on a $30-billion semiconductor manufacturing campus in the city of Sherman. The TI project will be a huge 4.7-million square-foot campus consisting of four chip-manufacturing factories and an estimated 3,000 new good-paying jobs. According to an article in Axios, TI hopes to be producing tens of thousands of 300mm wafer chips a day by 2025.Governor Greg Abbott also announced several months ago that GlobiTech will expand its chip-making operations in Sherman with an additional state-of-the-art $5 billion dollar chip-making plant. The factory is expected to employ another 1,500 people and produce 2.4 million wafers a month when it's up and running. GlobiTech is the subsidiary of Taiwan-based GlobalWafers. A chip supplier for Apple's iPhone is also operating a factory in Sherman. It opened in 2018 as Finisar but has since changed its name to Coherent. The Mayor of Sherman says: “Sherman has spent years building a business-friendly climate and laying the groundwork to support large employers. Now for the second time in less than a year, that investment has paid huge dividends.” (3)President of the Sherman Economic Development Corp. Kent Sharp says the two new chip-making projects are “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunities for the region. He says: “You work your entire career in economic development with the hopes of being part of a deal that has a “B” in front of it – and we've landed two in the past year.” I think he's referring to the multi-billion dollar price tags.New Boomtown Darlings But Sherman isn't the only boomtown darling along the Highway 75 corridor. Some of the other cities getting the attention of new residents, developers, and investors include Denison, Gainesville, Plano, McKinney, and a sleepy town called Anna.The Real Deal writes about Anna, saying that developers weren't interested in Anna prior to the pandemic because it was considered too far north of Dallas. But things started changing when Covid hit the nation. Thanks to remote work, people began migrating into the Texas suburbs from the bigger metros and other parts of the country. For reference, Anna is about 45 miles north of Dallas.Anna's Mayor Nate Pike works in Sherman as a financial advisor, and is seeing first-hand how the area is changing. She says: “The amount of momentum that (local leaders are) going to put into the U.S. 75 corridor, all the way to the Oklahoma border, Anna is certainly going to feel a lot of positive impact from that.” (4)The Real Deal says the city is expecting its population to more than double by 2030. That's prompting the city to invest in things like road improvements and to simplify the permitting process for developers. New rules have reportedly shortened the permitting process from a few weeks to just a few days.The Mayor says: “We have truly created a culture of wanting to be the most developer-friendly city in all of North Texas.” And homebuilders are responding with new development projects in various cities along the Highway 75 corridor. According to DMagazine, construction permits have more than doubled in Sherman since June of last year. They are up 15% in Anna and 2% in the city of Melissa, for example.Anna's Economic Development Director Joey Grisham says: “My phone has been ringing off the hook with interest. It's definitely an exciting time for the Dallas-Fort Worth region as a whole.”RealWealth has been helping members acquire rental properties in North Texas for over a decade now, and the growth has not slowed down. If you want to build your portfolio with the team we've been working with, just go to RealWealth.com and click on the invest tab. You'll see the drop down for Dallas, Texas, where you'll get more information on the area and contract details for the acquisitions team and property manager. If you are looking for a more passive investment, and are accredited, which means you either earn $200k as an individual or $300k as a couple, or have a million dollar net worth, check out our Single Family Rental Fund at GrowDevelopments.com. You'll find links to articles with more info in the show notes at newsforinvestors.com. Please remember to subscribe to our podcast and leave a review!Thanks for listening! I'm Kathy Fettke.Links:1 -https://www.axios.com/local/dallas/2022/06/06/north-texas-population-growth2 -https://businessintexas.com/news/with-72800-new-jobs-in-july-texas-hits-monthly-employment-high-for-2022/3 -https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-globitech-semiconductor-facility-expansion-in-sherman4 -https://therealdeal.com/texas/2022/10/19/is-this-sleepy-village-the-next-north-texas-boomtown/5 -https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2022/september/north-texas-is-the-countrys-new-semiconductor-manufacturing-capital/

In 2013, Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was murdered in what appeared to be a retaliatory act related to his caseload. Local, state, and federal agencies joined together to find the people responsible. However, in his decades-long career, ADA Hasse had prosecuted hundreds of cases and locating the one connected to his murder would prove difficult.Sources:1.) Casey, K. (2018). In Plain Sight: The Kaufman County Prosecutor Murders. William Morrow.2.) Emily, J. (2014, December 30). Wife of convicted Kaufman County killer sentenced to 40 years in prison. The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2018/07/29/wife-of-convicted-kaufman-county-killer-sentenced-to-40-years-in-prison/3.) Eric Lyle Williams v the State of Texas On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, No. 17-7603 (The Supreme Court of the United States).4.) Hargrove, B. (2013, May 2). The Killings in Kaufman. Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/the-killings-in-kaufman-64295835.) Heinz, F. (2013, April 2). Search warrant sheds light on McLelland investigation. NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/search-warrant-sheds-light-on-mclellan-investigation/2073056/6.) Hennessy-Fiske, M., & Pearce, M. (2013, April 1). Slayings of Texas prosecutors called unprecedented. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2013-apr-01-la-na-nn-texas-prosecutor-kaufman-county-20130401-story.html7.) Hernandez, S. (2021, September 21). Kaufman County DA recalls 2013 murders. The Courier of Montgomery County. https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Kaufman-County-DA-recalls-2013-murders-16475313.php8.) Interim Kaufman district attorney gets 24-hour security as authorities scramble for leads in slayings. (2013, April 3). The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2013/04/03/interim-kaufman-district-attorney-gets-24-hour-security-as-authorities-scramble-for-leads-in-slayings/10.) Ford, D. (2013, March 27). Colorado governor: Shooting suspect Evan Ebel had “bad streak.” CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/26/us/evan-ebel-profile/index.html11.) Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, wife found dead in home. (2013, March 31). The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2013/03/31/kaufman-county-district-attorney-mike-mclelland-wife-found-dead-in-home/ 12.) Mitchell, K. (2016, May 27). White supremacist gang conspired to kill Colorado prisons director, new documents allege. The Denver Post. https://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/27/white-supremacist-gang-conspired-to-kill-colorado-prisons-director-new-documents-allege/13.) Nicholson, E. (2013, April 15). Kaufman County murders: Eric Williams, a segway-riding justice of the peace, is the top suspect. Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/kaufman-county-murders-eric-williams-a-segway-riding-justice-of-the-peace-is-the-top-suspect-711580314.) Schlesinger, R. (2016, December 10). Target Justice. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/target-justice-48-hours-probes-texas-prosecutor-killings-hasse-mclelland/ 15.) Timms, E., Eiserer, T., Emily, J., Sides, E., & Pruet, J. J. (2013, April 14). Complex picture arises of ex-Kaufman justice of peace eyed in case. The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2013/04/14/complex-picture-arises-of-ex-kaufman-justice-of-peace-eyed-in-case/16.) Two challengers try to unseat Kaufman County district attorney accused of DWI. (2010, February 24). The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2010/02/24/two-challengers-try-to-unseat-kaufman-county-district-attorney-accused-of-dwi/ 17.) Vendetta. (2015, February 27). In Dateline. NBC. https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/vendetta--part-2-499608131883Check out more All Crime No Cattle at our website allcrimenocattle.com.Visit our Patreon page to support the show and earn some awesome rewards: https://patreon.com/allcrimenocattle. Get some ACNC merch: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/all-crime-no-cattle-podcast-shop?ref_id=9435. Find us on Twitter: @ACNCpodcast and on Instagram: @allcrimenocattle. Tip Jar: https://paypal.me/allcrimenocattle.And always remember, crime is bigger in Texas, y'all!

On this week's episode of the Tiger Bloc Podcast, Soju Operator returns with special guests, Bubble and Satana from the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club! You may recognize them from the Dallas Fort Worth area as they've been making headlines as of late defending the homeless from the police, working protest security, and defending queer-friendly establishments from fascist groups. Together, they discuss what goes into forming community defense, the important considerations to have when attending protests and doing security work, how they found their recent success, the vital parts of training, and the DFW organizing scene. Host: Soju Operator Guests: Bubble, Satan Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yellow_peril_tactical Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/yptactual Subscribe to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/yellow_peril_tactical Follow Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EFJBGC Follow Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club on Telegram: https://t.me/efjbgc Follow Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club on Mastadon: https://kolektiva.social/@efjbgc Follow Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club on No Blogs: https://efjbgc.noblogs.org/post/2022/07/28/points-of-unity/ Music credit: Trịnh Thị Ngọ by Yellow Peril Tactical

The Investor Relations Real Estate Podcast Episode 149 -  Investing In Office and IndustrialHost: Jonny Cattani Guest: Cody PayneProducer: April MunsonJonny Cattani is joined by Cody Payne to discuss: Investing in office and industrial State of the marketFinding good opportunitiesCody Payne is Senior Vice President at Colliers International in Fort Worth, Texas and specializes in selling Office and Industrial investment properties in the Dallas/Fort Worth market. Over the past 15 years, Cody has closed more than 600 commercial real estate transactions.Combined with Colliers International Platform and Cody's extensive knowledge and expertise of leasing, management, market conditions and business, The Texas Office & Industrial Team provides their clients and investors the opportunity to maximize value while creating a competitive advantage that yields the best results.Prior to joining Colliers International, Cody worked at Marcus & Millichap and Sperry Van Ness/Dunn Commercial for over 10 years, where he specialized in Office and Industrial investment sales, management and leasing. While there, Cody had a very successful and prominent leasing team of highly experienced and transactional agents. Cody has extensive experience in the Office and Industrial leasing sector having worked with many major companies from Local/Regional to Fortune 500 companies and GSA leases.Linked material referenced during the podcast:Book: The 10X Rule - Grant Cardone https://www.amazon.com/The-10X-Rule-Grant-Cardone-audiobook/dp/B005DGW34CConnect with Cody!Website: www.texasofficeinvestments.comEmail: cody.payne@colliers.comConnect with Jonny!Cattani Capital Group: https://cattanicapitalgroup.com/Invest with us: invest@cattanicapitalgroup.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cattani-53159b179/Jonny's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonnycattani/IRR Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theirrpodcast/Cattani Capital Group Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cattanicapitalgroup/TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@jonnycattani?lang=enYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCljEz4pq_paQ9keABhJzt0AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.cattani

Can playing video games help kids improve their memory and motor skills? What happened to the GPS over the Dallas-Fort Worth region on Oct 17th? And Twitter has noticed a decrease in heavy Twitter user activity since March of 2020.Starring Sarah Lane, Scott Johnson, Roger Chang, Joe.Link to the Show Notes. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/dtns. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can playing video games help kids improve their memory and motor skills? What happened to the GPS over the Dallas-Fort Worth region on Oct 17th? And Twitter has noticed a decrease in heavy Twitter user activity since March of 2020. Starring Sarah Lane, Scott Johnson, Roger Chang, Joe, Amos MP3 Download Using a Screen Reader? Click here Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org Follow us on Twitter Instgram YouTube and Twitch Please SUBSCRIBE HERE. Subscribe through Apple Podcasts. A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible. If you are willing to support the show or to give as little as 10 cents a day on Patreon, Thank you! Become a Patron! Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme! Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo! Thanks to our mods Jack_Shid and KAPT_Kipper on the subreddit Send to email to feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com Show Notes To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

How do you gain a sense of peace when you feel stressed? Overcoming Anxiety and Panic attacks is something that Jodi Howe knows how to help you find help in the midst of your struggle.   About Jodi Howe The Air That I Breathe Podcast is hosted by Jodi Howe. This podcast is a faith-based podcast speaking to those dealing with life's struggles and longing for a peaceful mind. Diving into the bible, Jodi shows how God's grace is sufficient for each day we live and breathe. This podcast offers ways to learn how to navigate through life including the mental storms and challenges that life throws at you. In early episodes of this podcast, Jodi shares her journey through anxiety and how through tried and true methods, devotionals, testimonies & prayer, she found healing! Jodi has dealt with anxiety her whole adult life with many seasons of learning and growing from this "thorn in her flesh"! Jodi has built a ministry on leading people to Jesus and is always learning, growing, and yearning for more Jesus in her own life. Find out more here: https://www.jodihowe.com/podcast Sue Detweiler is an author, speaker, and host of the Healing Rain podcast listened to in 135 nations. A recognized member of Randy Clark's Global Awakening Network and Apostle Guillermo Maldonado's Supernatural Global Network. Sue is frequently featured in Charisma Magazine, Christian Television Network, Cornerstone Television Network, and KCBI in Dallas. She holds a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt University and is pursuing her doctorate with Global Theological Seminary. Sue serves as the Executive Director of Life Bridge Global and lives with her husband, Wayne, in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. When Sue is not traveling worldwide, she serves on the ministry team at Upperroom. Find out more and download a copy of 5 Steps of Grace: A Journey Guide to Freedom at suedetweiler.com.   Give to Life Bridge Today  at https://lifebridgetoday.churchcenter.com/giving/to/missions.

Many SLPs and OTs dream of having the freedom to work with their ideal clients AND have plenty of time for family and self-care. I'm here to tell you that both are possible! And starting or growing a private practice is the perfect way to do it. Why? You get to call all of the shots and create a practice that works for your life with the clients that you want to treat! In this episode of Private Practice Success Stories, I sat down with one of my Grow Your Private Practice students, Marcia Church, to talk about her story and how she grew her private practice so that she could work with her ideal clients, earn the income she desires, AND have a schedule that works for her family.   Marcia Church, M.A., CCC-SLP is a Texas Licensed, ASHA certified Speech Pathologist of over 14 years and the owner of Pediatric Speech Stars, a boutique private practice in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She specializes in the birth-5 population both virtually and in-home. In addition, Marcia also offers flexible 1:1 parent and SLP virtual coaching options.  In Today's Episode, We Discuss: Why Marica decided to start her private practice How Marcia got her first clients Parent coaching services Becoming an insurance provider Making your first hire Setting boundaries and saying no Finding your ideal clients Investing in your business I love how passionate Marcia is about building a private practice that allows her to serve others while serving her family too. She's the perfect example of someone who built their private practice with boundaries in mind. She believes in balance over burnout and she has mechanisms in place to protect herself as her practice grows.  Want help to grow your private practice just like we helped Marcia? We would love to help you grow your client base, increase your revenue, set up systems, and hire a team inside of the Grow Your Private Practice Program. Visit http://growyourprivatepractice.com (GrowYourPrivatePractice.com) to learn more. Whether you want to start a private practice or grow your existing private practice, I can help you get the freedom, flexibility, fulfillment, and financial abundance that you deserve. Visit my website https://www.independentclinician.com/ (www.independentclinician.com) to learn more. Resources Mentioned:  Visit Marcia's website: https://www.pediatricspeechstars.com/ (https://www.pediatricspeechstars.com/) Follow Marcia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pediatricspeechstars/ (https://www.instagram.com/pediatricspeechstars/) Where We Can Connect:  Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-practice-success-stories/id1374716199 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-practice-success-stories/id1374716199) Follow Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/independentclinician/ (https://www.instagram.com/independentclinician/) Follow Me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jena.castrocasbon/ (https://www.facebook.com/jena.castrocasbon/)

Liz Brailsford joins VIP's Casey Hasten in a discussion about the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth. Liz is the President & CEO of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth. World Affairs Council is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating and engaging North Texans in national and global affairs. Liz is an experienced, “can-do” executive focused on developing partners and donors, professionalizing organizations to raise the bar, and managing talent programs.About The Guest:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizleaps/Website: https://www.dfwworld.org/About The We Are VIP Podcast:This podcast is brought to you by VIP to add value to your job or candidate search. Each week, we'll bring you helpful tips and insights from leading professionals to help candidates land their dream jobs and help employers find better talent. Hosted by:Casey Hasten, Director of Recruiting at VIPAbout VIP:We utilize a holistic approach to support your strategic initiatives in accounting and finance. From recruiting and strategic staffing, to project management consulting, our service model offers a comprehensive solution that allows for flexibility as you navigate transformation and growth within your organization.Connect:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/270216/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreVIPCompanyJob Openings and Services: https://wearevip.com

Amy Sikarskie, LVN, CHt, Author of The Ultimate Guide to Channeling and Lea Anne Carroll answer a listener's question and have a Lightworking Conversation on Aromatherapy and Crystals. +*+*+*+*+* https://spiritwarriorsway.com/ (Lea Anne Carroll) is a highly skilled Intuitive, Energy Therapist, Thai Massage Therapist and Yoga instructor based in Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas. Lea Anne is a healer's healer and became aware of healing magic in 1987 with an awakening and instantly began working with crystals and studying crystal healing. She uses ancient healing techniques and intuitive healing abilities to practice her unique healing art with clients in person and remotely through phone, Skype and email. Lea Anne teaches Spirit School's https://spiritschoolmagic.thinkific.com/courses/sound-therapy (Sound Therapy) course. Lea Anne is the host of Spirit Warrior's way podcast. You can find Lea Anne at https://spiritwarriorsway.com/ (SpiritWarriorsWay.com) +*+*+*+*+* Monthly WinnerCongrats listener Treeps12! Thank you for your review on Apple Podcast. You are the winner of October's drawing for a 30 minute reading or healing session. Please contact me to schedule. To enter our monthly drawing take a screenshot of your review and 5 star like and email it to SpiritAndSoulHealingPodcast@gmail.com If you enjoy this episode, please share, like and subscribe to be notified of future episodes.Amy's website with links to all services, books, resources and offerings. https://amysikarskie.com/ (AmySikarskie.com) +*+*+*+*+* Episode ResourcesFor a beautiful selection of artisan and professional crystals, including the Vogel crystal wands and Star of David pendants, visit https://www.crystallightandsound.com/?aff=6 (Crystal Light and Sound. ) Use Affiliate Code " Sparkle and Shine " for 5% off - excludes sale items The book about Anastasia and the Russian Taiga is https://www.ringingcedarsofrussia.org/Main/English/index.php (The Ringing Cedars) series by Valdimir Megre. Clair Senses Series Part 1 : https://spirit-and-soul-healing-podcast.captivate.fm/episode/the-gift-of-clair-tangency-clair-sense-of-the-root-chakra (Enhance Your Intuition with Clairtangency: The Clair Sense of the Root Chakra + Guided Meditation) (Episode 4 of the Spirit & Soul Healing podcast.) Part 2 : https://spirit-and-soul-healing-podcast.captivate.fm/episode/clairsentience (Clairsentience: Sacral, Solar Plexus & Heart Chakra Clair Sense + Guided Meditation ) (Episode 6 of the Spirit & Soul Healing podcast.) Part 3 : https://spirit-and-soul-healing-podcast.captivate.fm/episode/4-clair-senses-meditation (Clair Senses: Clairgustance, Clairalience, Clairaudience, Claircognizance & Telepathy + Guided Meditation) (Episode 7 of the Spirit & Soul Healing podcast.) Part 4 : https://spirit-and-soul-healing-podcast.captivate.fm/episode/clairvoyance-clair-senses-of-the-brow-chakra (Clairvoyance - A Clair Sense of the Brow Chakra) (Episode 9 of the Spirit & Soul Healing podcast.) +*+*+*+*+* Amy's website with links to all services, books, resources and offerings. https://amysikarskie.com/ (AmySikarskie.com) Courses, channeled messages, FREE, guided meditations http://spiritschoolonline.com/ (SpiritSchoolOnline.com) +*+*+*+*+* Connect on Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/spiritandsoulhealing.podcast/ (@SpiritAndSoulHealing.Podcast) https://spirit-and-soul-healing-podcast.captivate.fm/https-www-instagramcom-amysikarskie- (@AmySikarskie) https://spirit-and-soul-healing-podcast.captivate.fm/https-www-instagramcom-raisethevibetribe- (@Raise.The.Vibe.Tribe) +*+*+*+*+* https://amysikarskie.com/books (Books ) Authored by https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B08WH7X4HK (Amy Sikarskie) The Ultimate Guide to Channeling Activating the Starseed Messages from The Councils 7 Personal Chakras +*+*+*+*+* Amy Sikarskie is an internationally recognized energy therapist, intuitive channel, healer's healer and mentor....

Netflix has a plan for all those households that share login credentials. Uber is going to advertise to you, a lot. A mysterious GPS interference affected air travel in Texas. And did physicists uncover the cheat code to the universe?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Samuel Sells is an experienced Chief Executive Officer, combat veteran, and serial entrepreneur with a demonstrated history of success in developing and building sustainable and repeatable systems overcoming many of the key drivers of financial and social poverty.  He is skilled in Innovative Business Planning, Operations Management, International Relations, Management, Entrepreneurship, and Policy Analysis. Strong business development professional with a Master's Degree in Health Care Administration & Policy, Global Health focus, and an undergraduate degree in Business Strategy.   In this episode, Sam reiterates that there is more to life than living for yourself, and you can create an impact by helping others along the way through real estate. He shares his learnings from his failures, his insights on investing in mobile home parks and apartment complexes, and his advice to achieve success. [00:01 - 04:04] Living an Impactful Life Sam started with mobile homes and now went full-time now running successful commercial real estate properties Although he could live a comfortable life after retiring, he pursued to make an impact on the world while making money [04:05 - 11:28] Learning from Failure How his track record of success and how he leveraged his background and experience in the military to attract investors Finding lessons in mistakes He let others who are supposedly industry experts persuade him that something is worth more than he knows Sam talks about losing his earnest money and allowing people to sign him in on deals that weren't what they claimed they were [11:29 - 18:05] From Mobile Home Parks to Apartment Communities The supply chain for mobile homes became stuck in 2020 due to COVID leading to a lack of financing Sam decided to transition into apartment complex He also started self-storage development in Alaska Looking for a mentor who will guide you through every step is crucial Starting is always the difficult part as you need to be more present Sam and his team are focusing on disposition of mobile home parks and they are moving to work with institutional partners   [18:06 - 20:36] Closing Segment Sam on creating wealth by making a difference Reach out to Sam!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes “We've made a ton of mistakes. Now I know better.” - Samuel Sells   “Apartments are the easiest place to scale. It's the easiest place to secure debt. It's the easiest place to secure equity. It's the easiest place to transition from buying half a million dollar property to buying a 10 million property.” - Samuel Sells   “We're buying ugly stuff and we're changing it and making it a clean and safe and positive place for people to live, and still affordable. We're not turning it into million-dollar little condos. We're turning it into, you know, homes that people can live in and raise their kids.” - Samuel Sells   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Samuel Sells! Send him a message on LinkedIn or Instagram at @cleanmoneysam or email him directly at sam@wildmountaincapital.com Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Samuel Sells: I believe and I know that we can use our money in a way that makes a difference. And you can tell when you invest in syndication and when you invest in these deals, you know where your money is going. That's the difference. And with us, we're buying ugly stuff, and we're changing it and making it a clean and safe and positive place for people to live and it's still affordable. We're not turning it into million-dollar, little condos, we're turning it into, you know, homes that people can live in and raise their kids.  [00:00:44] Sam Wilson:  Sam Sells is a retired US Air Force officer and combat veteran who founded Wild Mountain Capital in 2018 with his as he says hero dad. Sam, welcome to the show.   [00:00:56] Samuel Sells: Hey, thanks for having me, Sam. Love the name and am super happy to be here.   [00:01:01] Sam Wilson:  Absolutely. You got a great first name. Well, certainly appreciate that. It's great to have two people with the same name on the show. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me? Where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?   [00:01:15] Samuel Sells: Yeah, we started in 2018, I was still on active duty Air Force trying to find a way to continue my impact on the world man started out with mobile home parks trying to take really distressed mobile home parks and creating nice clean places to live. We did that with found out that you can make money doing that. And a lot of it. And so we continued buying mobile home parks about eight more parks that year and to 2019. So in 2000 we had bought 10 properties that first year about killed myself. And then this was the amount of work we were doing slowed down that next year only bought one more property the following year. And then after that, we bought another 10 properties this time, apartment complexes and we did a storage development ground up develop development that we purchase and turnover. So now we're sitting at 20 properties. And we're in exit mode to a certain degree. We have property selling right now that we've finished our business plans on or gotten to a point where we could not finish the business plan due to COVID restrictions. But we are frozen. And it's been a fantastic journey.   [00:02:22] Sam Wilson: Okay, so you decided 2018. Look, we're gonna get into commercial real estate. Let's go close 10 mobile home parks.   [00:02:34] Samuel Sells: Yeah, so we just decided that we, you know, my dad doesn't retire, I'm coming out of Air Force retirement. Yeah, I can make money and go with Puerto Rico and probably the lid just fine. But I love my family. And I still want to make a difference in the world. And so we figure out how can we make money and make a difference. And we had $0. So like, I had $30,000 in a Roth IRA TSP, and my dad had 80 grand, and that was his entire retirement. And we put those together and we bought two mobile home parks. We turned that 80 grand somehow into $170,000 Credit cards that may have been involved. So was refinancing my core, but we did it with a couple of lines of credit. And we bought these two properties in and we made money and we started making like $10,000 a month and pass passive income we're like, This is crazy. We've got something here. And we totally cleaned up one of these little old park. People love this. crime dropped significantly, occupancy skyrocketed payments on time. And it just was such a nice thing to see. No more trash, no more other stuff. And we just like this is it. Now how do we do it? And so I started finding out about syndication. How do you raise money? FCC rules, and regulations, I absorbed everything I possibly could about it, and went out there and started doing it. And that's when we like I've never raised a single dollar from anybody and somehow I raised like $2 million that first year.   [00:04:06] Sam Wilson: Wow. Okay, what did you do to inspire confidence in your investors like, Hey, my name is Sam. I bought a couple of parks, we are making money on it. But by the way, now we're gonna go we're going gangbusters and buying stuff left and right. Get in because it's gonna be great. Like, how did you sell that?   [00:04:26] Samuel Sells: So, you know, I started flipping single-family homes in the early 2000s. We made it through 2008 crisis because we were buying we were flipping right and we were buying really distressed properties and good locations. And when the market crashed, guess what? You know, I paid $50,000 for this house. I spent 25 grand on the rehab. I'm selling it at $130,000 Cuz houses were cheap back then. Even at the pinnacle, and the market crashed and all of sudden you know, I had two homes I remember closing a 2000s Seven, December 2007, both of them fell apart because the markets are just ripping apart. And you know, we ended up reducing the price on one from 130, down to 120. And so much money, right. And then the other one, we turned to a long term rental held on it, I think for seven years, refinanced it probably four times and pulled cash out over those 10 or 12 years, made a ton of money off that little house in the middle of San Antonio, and then sold it and use the cash from that to buy apartment complex later on, a couple years ago.   [00:05:27] Sam Wilson: Yeah, man, that's great. I guess the, when you start raising money from investors, what was the thing I guess that you feel like you did? Well, that inspired confidence in the people investing with you? [00:05:42] Samuel Sells: Yeah, so a great question. And one was, you know, having a track record of success, it wasn't our first time and in the Air Force, I have been traveling around the world, I've been working with foreign militaries, for governments doing everything from building clinics and Africa, like ground up engineering, construction, the whole thing, right, which is a totally different world, right? Asia, helping them develop systems and working in their hospitals to Hey, Do this, do that? And how do you guys like to do this, you know, building sustainable systems that when I leave, that they continue, I'm not the ugly American great book, if you every death, but understanding how to work with others, right. And so and at the time, when I started raising, I was responsible for a $68 million rehab on a 500-bed hospital at mash ruins. And I was the project lead, you know, reporting to the big leagues. And so I had a ton of project experience, I had a ton of team experience, I spent a lot of time so they're there for Special Operations doing stuff and, and, you know, being able to combine teams and really smart people to accomplish a great task. And that conveyed well, to folks plus, we just proved the model we could show them, here are the financials, this is what's happening. i We flipped a bunch of properties before, essentially what we're doing is flipping except we're holding on to them and keeping the cash flow. So buy low rehab, create a difference, make an impact, and here are the actual dollars.    [00:07:10] Sam Wilson: Right. Okay, now, that gives a lot more color to it. Thank you for that. I mean, I think I think leveraging, leveraging your background is so so so important in this and it may not necessarily be that you have owned a dozen mobile home parks, but yet you've got the requisite experience that when you do take one down, it's, it's not a brand new experience for you.   [00:07:30] Samuel Sells: Right, that's, that's it, we learned a ton. And we've made a ton of mistakes. Now I know better. Like if I go back to my old self, I would stop myself based on examining you do and do it this way. So much better. And two is like go find a mentor coach, and I tried to find a mentor, 3d in 2018 and early 2018, I could not find a mentor who didn't want to charge me $35,000 even talk to me, right? And so now, you know, I offer coaching, a very, very reasonable price. And it's like, hey, let's start your own course, and see how you're gonna get there. And then don't do this. Don't do that. I mean, if you want to do it and learn the hard way, fine, that's on you. But I'm telling you don't do those things. Because that's going to cost you 150 grand, and you're never going to get back.    [00:08:19] Sam Wilson: Don't do that. There's your piece of advice. What are a couple of those things that come to mind initially that you saved me? And those were, those are some hard lessons we learned?   [00:08:30] Samuel Sells: Yeah, so twice, this has happened to me, both, you know, some time ago is, is allowing people who are supposedly experts in the field or in a location convinced me to something's worth more than I know it. Right. So once we pay too much for a property, way too much real property. Fortunately, there was no investors in that deal. But we did it as a favor to a person who had invested a lot with us. And it turned out that it was not at all what they said it was, and I lost money on that deal. I'm not afraid to say that I lost money on that deal. If you're investing with somebody who never lost money in any deal, either one, they're not telling you the truth or two, they just haven't been around long enough. Because real estate, if you spend too much money, you're going to lose money. So you make your money when you buy, particularly in value add and in this case, it was a place of its asset of our expertise. And we listen to him and we pay too much. Right. So the other time was, you know, same thing brokers, property managers, oh, this, this, this and this, and we went into the deal. We did our due diligence, they came back that this was not at all what was being advertised. And you know, we had gone into the deal. And I kept saying, Look, if we're going to go into this, I know this is going to be an issue. It's going to be an issue and we've got to make sure we get our earnest money back. And I allow them to talk me into signing a call on a track where we didn't get our earnest money back, and sure enough, we get in there with due to the diligence and the structure had so many issues, well over a million dollars worth of structural issues and I could see them when we were walking there. And denounce we walked away from that deal. I'm glad we didn't buy it. Somebody else bought the deal. Good luck. I hope they did the due diligence they're supposed to because we hired engineers to go there because I've been in construction long enough. I've built enough things. It's the foundation's fallen apart, and there's mold up in there and there's water we need the buildings, you're just a recipe for disaster. So somebody else's disaster sorry, good luck to them. Another syndicator bought that property. It's really pretty on the outside.   [00:10:36] Sam Wilson: It sounds like you lost your earnest money on that deal.   [00:10:40] Samuel Sells: We lost our earnest money we fought and got a bit of it back because it was so far from what they were telling us the sellers and everything else. And they just refused to work with us there where they weren't local. They were obviously in so they hate you know, look, I would have been embarrassed as a seller. If you came to me and said, Look at all these issues. I would have been embarrassed and would have worked them Nope. Yeah, they were. Yeah, they were not friendly.   [00:11:08] Sam Wilson:  Those are the painful lessons when you go oh, my gosh, my earnest money. There it goes. Like I could have had more fun just lighting a pile of money on fire and watching it burn.  [00:11:17] Samuel Sells: Yeah. And watching them for me. I should have bought new toilet seats for half of America with 150 grand right? That have been better, right? Throwing it down the drain?   [00:11:28] Sam Wilson:  Absolutely. Tell me when did you transition from a mobile home park, into an apartment community and why? [00:11:36] Samuel Sells: So in 2020, with all of COVID happened and everything slowed down. One of the things that happened was a supply chain for mobile homes, brand new mobile homes got stuck really, really bad. And so we had ordered a bunch of homes. And we just kept waiting and waiting and waiting. And they were creating homes for they're only building homes for the biggest mobile home park operators who are buying hundreds of homes at a time and they weren't even though we were way in front of them and the stack. We were too small, right? It's like, well, we want to buy 100 homes, but you got to deliver the first 20 Or we're not doing anything. Yes. And so that process killed us. So we had bought these properties. We've done a bunch of renovations but we had bought property when the tip to bring in all these new homes, and the prices were gone were skyrocketing, and death on mobile home parks became incredibly difficult. We had six refinances fall through with COVID and everything else that Marcus stopped all of our refinances just died and our lenders like well, we'll do apartments, we're not gonna do mobile home parks anymore. And so we shifted and 2021 Early in a t 2020. With buying apartment complexes. We bought one we saw really good turn on that one. Four months later, we bought another one. And it just kind of snowballed. And we bought eight apartment complex that said a year and two other properties. One of them was a property.   [00:13:02] Sam Wilson: That's amazing., And in that, you also transitioned and said, hey, you know what, I think we can do a self-storage development.   [00:13:09] Samuel Sells: Yeah, so we bought, we actually bought that in 2020 the storage development it was right next door to at a park a mobile home park. It was in Alaska, I was living in Alaska at the time, you have this huge space where there was no storage was right along the highway. And it was just an ideal location a guy had bought it had developed it into storage, like the ground and everything. And then his wife had gotten really sick, they moved out of Alaska and Alaska, you really need to be present. You got to understand that market is completely different. You're not going to gain appreciation if anyone comes says oh, we're gonna get you know, 2% per year appreciation, you're like wrong, that's not gonna happen. Cash flow is gonna be great. And so you're gonna bypass flow 100% And so we built this whole complex we moved I found another operator there who was local I could take over and he's gonna do a bang up job.    [00:14:01] Sam Wilson: Got it man, that's a lot of moving pieces, a lot of acquisitions in even a few different asset classes in a very short period of time. And it found it sounds like you found a way to efficiently scale into all of them, what have been or advice or what has been some of the keys you would say that you have used in order to do that.   [00:14:24] Samuel Sells: So mentorship coaching is vital. Finding somebody who can help you buy mobile home parks, the way that you create wealth and mobile home parks are the difference. It's very different. The numbers are different. Financing is different sourcing equity. The capital stack is different than it is in apartment complexes storage in general has really small returns. Now, because there are just so many entities and storage and the gravy train has ended, you can still find these little ones that are doing good. But mostly the gravy train has ended. Right. And so you need it to be a tie operator. And if you lie, if you love store and you really want to leave storage, you can make money in stores. It's just super, super difficult as a starting point. But we'll hold hearts you can start but you need to be present, you've got to be close to that place, or is going to be a disaster. Apartments is the easiest place to scale, it's the easiest place to secure debt, it's the easiest place to secure equity is the easiest place to transition from buying half a million-dollar property to buying a $ 10-million property. That gets easier as you get bigger. Right?   [00:15:34] Sam Wilson: That's really, really intriguing. So you guys have gone, you guys are still going long in apartments right now or as you said, at the beginning of the show you guys are more into the disposition side of your business.   [00:15:47] Samuel Sells: Yeah, so we're on the disposition side of our mobile home parks. We're selling up eight of the 10 mobile home parks were really focusing on some markets in Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma gets overlooked all the time. But the cash flow there is great. And so it's like why would you overlook this place college towns, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Stillwater and you get these places where they're Norman, Oklahoma, just financial, little gems that people overlook all the time. And so we love those markets, but you know, our focus really, Dallas Fort Worth, that's where we're buying right now. And one of the things that we also transition and very few syndicators ever make this transition is to move into working with institutional partners that close our last deal with an institutional partner what that is, it's not syndication, it's like the next level up, it's more complicated as more sophisticated, you've got to be able to operate at a certain level, but then they're gonna get all up in your gravy train, if you've been through the military, and you've entered maps, you know what I'm talking about. And I'm, I'll be polite here on the show, but there's a certain amount of sniffing that goes on and underwriting of you as a sponsor. I mean, they listen to all my podcasts or guys, why don't you listen to my podcasts? I mean, I think they're wonderful. My guests are fantastic. I'm an idiot. Don't listen to me, listen to these other people who are smart. But, you know, that model dramatically changes how your money operates. And so just from that single deal, will owe more than 12x Our money with our partners, institutional partners, and we can help other people know how to do that we can help place equity with everybody talks about family offices, family offices are wonderful but they're finicky, need to have a great relationship. And they promise you the world and they never ever deliver. I'm sure they do it just super difficult to get them to deliver institutions will deliver if you meet their criteria and a deal meets the criteria.    [00:17:43] Sam Wilson: I would love to have you come back on another episode. And we talk specifically about that, because there's so much nuance, I'm sure in to getting your first institutional capital partner to come on board and take down deals. I bet I bet we could have a conversation that you know, would go on quite quiet for a long time. That's absolutely cool. Sam, thanks for taking the time to come on the show today. I did have one maybe if you got 30 seconds, maybe about 30 seconds snippet here, if you can tell us what you mean when you say that you guys are creating wealth by making a difference?   [00:18:18] Samuel Sells: We have this concept of clean money. Whenever you get your money you invest. Let's say you buy bitcoin, where did that Bitcoin get produced? Right? Mafias, you know, these big drug cartels, they love bitcoins because they can produce it, they can mine it, they can sell it, it gets to come cash to them. And then they can use that cash to order a hit on a family that they don't like, right? So Did Jesus Buy Bitcoin from a cartel that mined it, and now he's using your money to kill people. You have no idea. You have no idea that your clean hard-earned money that you invested just got used for nefarious purposes, I believe and I know that we can use our money in a way that makes a difference. And you can tell when you invest in syndication when you invest in these deals, you know where your money is going. That's the difference. Right? And with us, we're buying ugly stuff and we're changing it and making a clean and safe and positive place for people to live and it's still affordable. We're not turning it into million-dollar little condos. We're turning it into, you know, homes that people can live and, and raise their kids.    [00:19:29] Sam Wilson: That's awesome. Absolutely. Love it. Sam. Thanks for taking the time to come on the show today. If our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you what is the best way to do that?   [00:19:36] Samuel Sells: Yeah, you can find me on Instagram @cleanmoneysam, you can find me on LinkedIn, Samuel Sells Facebook, please reach out to me. You can also send me an email at Sam@wildmountaincapital.com. And I would love to talk to you about what we do if you want to co-sponsor you want to learn more about how institutional and how to change or move into that space, or how to go from just raising capital to doing your own deals and being the lead sponsor. We're happy to have that discussion and help you make those transitions.   [00:20:05] Sam Wilson:  Fantastic. Thanks again, Sam. Appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day.    [00:20:09] Samuel Sells: Thanks, Sam. Appreciate it.

In this episode of Cash Flow Pro, we talk with Noel Walton, Founder of JCORE Partners. Noel enlisted in the air force at 18 and, after six years, decided to attend college and get his degree. After graduation, he went into the army and eventually learned to fly black hawks. Finally, once the time came, he realized that he wanted to create time and financial freedom for himself and his wife. His first start in real estate was with his VA loan, which he rented for some cash flow. Today, Noel sits with us to discuss all things real estate and how military members can start and benefit from investing in the market.    ‘Joint Chiefs of Real Estate or JCORE is a real estate investment team of active-duty military and veteran investors. They manage over $16 million in real estate assets and are dedicated to creating passive investment opportunities through commercial multi-family real estate in the Central Texas market from San Antonio to Dallas-Fort Worth, as well as Ohio. Investors.     In this episode, we discuss the following: VA Loans Avoiding capital gains  Scaling your income through multi-family  Networking for investors  Why coaching is worth it! Presenting deals to potential KP's Non-recourse loans   Tune in on this episode to find out more!   Find your flow,  Casey Brown   Resources mentioned in this podcast: www.jcoreinvestments.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/noel-walton-jcoreinvestments/ @jcore_investments