Podcast appearances and mentions of james i've

Daniel James joins the UTD Podcast this week, where the Manchester United winger revealed what advice compatriot Ryan Giggs gave him ahead of his move to Old Trafford, where he went on to have the dream goal-scoring debut against his boyhood team Chelsea. The Wales winger also talked about how close he was to signing for Man Utd's arch rivals Leeds, but how the move collapsed in the final moments of Deadline Day. We also hear about the numerous times Dan went viral on social media! Helen, Sam and Maysie also read out your emails at the end of the episode. If you'd like to write to the only official Manchester United Podcast then e-mail utdpodcast@manutd.co.uk We'd also love it if you could leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James:  Hey audience, this is James Kandasamy from Achieve Wealth Podcast. Today, we have Coach, Trevor McGregor from Vancouver, British Columbia. But you know, he's been seen all over in the US, in a lot of conferences giving keynote speeches. So Trevor is a real estate coach, a consultant, a keynote speaker and many other things. Trevor, why not you tell the audience what do you do and what are the things that I missed out?   Trevor: Oh, well, thank you very much, James. Great to be on your show. I love your show. And yeah, you know, predominantly, my background is in business. I worked in the Fortune, you know, Fortune 500 company; it wasn't a Fortune 500 company itself, but I worked in corporate. It felt like a Fortune 500 company because I did a little bit of everything as the director of operations. I was involved in everything from marketing to finance, HR, site selection; you name it, I did it. And at the same time, as I was working in corporate, I also became a real estate investor. So I started investing in condos, townhouses, duplexes, fourplexes, single family homes. And at the same time, I also really got into personal growth. I was studying the likes of Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn, a little bit of Napoleon Hill. And so, I had this trifecta going of corporate, of real estate, and a personal growth that eventually morphed into me doing a little bit of coaching in corporate and in real estate and in personal growth. I went on to start working with Tony Robbins. For those of you that know Tony Robbins, he's a business strategist and he loved that I had a background in business, a background in real estate and that I was big into personal growth. And so at some point in my career, I decided to just leave the corporate world and just end up doing coaching, consulting, keynote speaking and full-time real estate investing. And that's really what I do today. James: Very interesting. So I believe that success in anything that we do is 80% psychology mindset and personal growth, internally, right? So tell us about the steps that any real estate investor needs to achieve his dream or his or her dream to become a really successful real estate investor. I mean, you have coached a lot of people, so why not we go through the list of what are the most important things that any real estate investors should look at?   Trevor: Absolutely. I'll be happy to. And I guess it all starts with understanding that there are two things. So I'll share two things before we get to the list, James, because I'm telling you, I've coached real estate investors all over this beautiful blue planet. You know, the majority of them have been in the United States, some in Canada, some in Europe, some in Australia, New Zealand, even as far away as Asia. And after doing over 20,000 coaching calls, that's an actual statistic, I found that it really boils down to just two things. You know, the first thing is to really have what I call a high-performance mindset. You've got to get what's right between the ears before you can even go out there and do the second thing, which is modeling; modeling best practices. You know, learning from people like you, learning from reading great books, attending conferences. Because if you can show up with a powerful mindset and you can model best practices, you can really take your real estate portfolio through the roof. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So let's go to more things in how the journey can be started, right?   Trevor: Yeah. Well, absolutely. And I call it the seven simple steps to extraordinary real estate success. Because again, I've identified that if you do these seven things, you're going to be wildly successful in real estate. And if you miss one of these seven things, it can take you a long time to get to your ultimate outcome. So the very first thing that I always talk about, and it's always number one with people, whether you are new to real estate investing, maybe you are an expert at it, is that there's always something going on where we need to confirm with your mindset. Because we all have limiting beliefs, we all have doubts, we all have fears, we all have anxiety. And oftentimes we'll say things like, you know, it's tough to find great deals, right? Or maybe you've heard all the good deals are gone, or that it's hard to raise money nowadays because there's so much competition Or what if the market crashes?  And so those are all questions that if you don't get your head around those things, they can literally paralyze someone and stop them in their tracks. So what I come in is I come in as a coach and I take a look at things like, well, what are your beliefs? What are your values? What are your rules? How were you answering those questions? Because I'm telling you that there's a new way of thinking and behaving that you've got to really latch onto. Because if you don't, those limiting beliefs are going to hold you back. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah, that makes sense. But where do you think people get the limiting belief? I mean, it seems to be everybody having it, right? And how can they cure that limiting belief?   Trevor: Well, limiting beliefs come from what we perceive as being true, right? So if someone says, "Oh, it's hard to raise capital."  You've got to ask, "Is that really true?"  And the answer for some is, "Yeah, it is hard to raise capital."  And from others you go, "Well, other people have seemed to raise capital so I might just investigate how they're doing it."  Let's take James Kandasamy if we take a look at how much money you've raised in your time, I mean, there was a time where you had raised $0 and now you've gone on to raise tens of millions of dollars. So I always say to ask the question, is that really true? Is it hard to raise capital or do you maybe need to find a mentor or a coach like James or take James's program to really find out how other people are doing it? And that's the one thing that you've got to remember is for every problem that you've got or that you're facing, somebody does have the solution. But you can't sit there and think that it can't be solved. I mean, it's imperative that you really understand. That's why coaching and mentoring exists. And that's what I love about you, James, is you do all of this in your own real estate deals and you're an expert at it.   James: Yeah. It's very tricky, right? So there are so many reasons that even I was giving, sometimes I have self-talk and would say, Oh, that's no deal. Well, I really have to force myself to think that, okay, I need to be finding different ways to find deals. That's not like there are no deals, you just have to think differently and ask different questions.   Trevor: It's really true because today alone, I mean, if we take a look at today, somebody that owns an apartment building somewhere today is going to be diagnosed with heart disease or cancer, right? And they're gonna want to sell their property. Tomorrow, somebody's going to be getting divorced and they're going to need to sell their property. Tomorrow or the next day, someone's going to be going, man, it's too hot to live in Texas. My wife and I are ready to move to Florida and live on the coast where it's a little bit cooler. So you've got to believe that as the Baby Boomers age, and as people come up with real-life conditions like heart disease, cancer, divorce, moving, there's going to be more and more apartments for sale every day because that's what's happening to these apartment owners. So again, you've got to condition the belief system to believe that every day there are new great deals about to come online. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah. It's all about belief systems and I think it will appear, right? And I think you always have to think about how can you do things differently from everybody else. And a lot of times people are just want to be handholding. They want someone to hold their hand and show them...basically, they want to be fed by the spoon. Everything you want to be given just like that. It's not how it works. I mean, for example, when I started in multifamily in 2015, it was hard to find deals. Everybody say it's pricey. I used to buy deals, the deals and my market used to be like 55 a door and that was like expensive and I had to find different ways to buy deals at 35 a door. But the thing is it has been pricey since 2015. If you think the market is hot right now in 2019, I tell you it was really hot, even in 2013, 2014. It has always been hard. There was no such thing as it was easy last time. So, you know, it's going to be always difficult. You just have to find some different value proposition and do things differently from everybody else to get ahead. And that's what I did even in 2015. I used to start looking for direct to seller marketing, which nobody else was doing. I did find deals and that's how I penetrated the market. Otherwise, I would have been complaining and talking the same thing all over again.   Trevor: Well that's it. And people don't know what they don't know until they know. And I'll say that again: People don't know what they don't know until they know. And you have to absolutely start out by putting one foot in front of the other and starting to get some traction. Starting to look at, well, what are the different areas I could get a deal, find a deal, talk to a broker, go direct to seller? I mean for the committed, there's always a way; would you agree?   James: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for the committed and people who want to really, really be successful. A lot of people out there, like to be successful or they want to be, but there is no requirement for them to be successful. It's not like do or die. So it's not like breathing for air when you're underwater. When your head is pushed underwater, you want that air. That's how you should feel it when you want to be successful. So if you have that feeling then you will be successful. But if you want to be like, yeah, I mean, you know, if you are taking it lightly and if you want to be or you like to be successful, then, of course, you're not going to be successful.    Trevor: That's it.    James: Yeah, absolutely. So let's go for the second step after the mindset. What do you think is the next one that is very critical? Trevor: Well, I'll tell you, this is a big one too, James. And it really is what I call a lack of a strategic plan. And that means, as real estate investors, we've got to start with the end in mind. We've got to start with our outcome, we've got to get crystal clear on what it looks like. Are we going to invest in state or out of state? Are we going to invest with a partner or by ourselves? Are we going to look for properties that are in B class or C class? Are we going to look for things under a hundred doors or over a hundred doors? And so, I always remind people to sit down with a pen and a paper and get clarity on what their ultimate outcome looks like. And then from that place, we can reverse engineer it and start building the steps to move in that direction. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah. Yeah. Correct. And I think it also helps the person when they communicate with other people. So let's say when they're very, very specific with their goal, it helps them a lot. Like when they talk to a broker, if they say, I need a hundred unit in a C location with a C minus a property or B and a C location and I want this kind of expense ratio. Then that's definitely going to be very, very helpful for the broker to really, really give you the deal that you want. So what do you think?   Trevor: No, you're spot on. And again, you're going to start to really understand that the 80/20 rule applies; where 80% of people are just phoning up a broker and saying, what have you got for me? Whereas 20% of the people are going into that call with the broker with a lot of specificity like you would do: here's what I want, where I want it, what my budget is, here's my team. We've got capital ready to deploy and we're ready to take down a deal. Because let's face it, the world has sped up so fast and there's so much competition out there that if you can't speak intelligently to a broker and tell them what you really want and where you really want it, he's going to go give it to someone else who is specific. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah. Yeah. And I've seen brokers where I started talking to them for the first time, they call me immediately because even though they do not know who am I, but they said, well, your sentences tells me that you know what you're doing and you know exactly what you want, which is very important. Alright then, I want to buy a multifamily deal. I want to buy an apartment. So that's so high level.  But how do you think they should sentence it? I'm trying to think through this question here, how do you think a newbie or a new person who is trying to get into this business should phrase the requirement?   Trevor: Absolutely. So, it's a great question, James. And I think that today you can do it solo, but it's a lot easier to do it with a partner. Somebody like you where they might be able to say that my partners and I are looking for X, Y, Z. Because the first thing out of a broker's mouth is, do you have experience? Have you done a multiunit apartment deal before? And instead of saying, this is my first time and the broker going, Oh God, here we go again. It's literally, yes, my partners and I have done three deals or my partners and I have done seven deals or we currently own X number of doors. Even though the partner may own the doors and it's your first time kind of hanging onto the coattails of the partner, it's still credibility.  So you never want to lie to them but you do want to really take a look at, well, if I was to partner with someone who's already done what it is I'm trying to do, could I go faster? Because at the end of the day, and even as a master platinum coach, and again doing 20,000 coaching calls with real estate investors, I know that the whole goal is to turn decades into days. And it could take you years to break through with the broker on your own, where you partner with the right team and you can turn decades into days and really start putting yourself out there in a great way. Does that resonate?   James: Yeah, that resonated. So I'm trying to get your thoughts. Why do you think it's important to get a mentor rather than trying on your own?   Trevor: Well, again, I think that it's really, really intelligent to read books, listen to podcasts like yours, go to real estate events and really understand that if you could really turn those decades in today's, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to have a coach or a mentor or an accountability partner or somebody in your tribe that has already done what it is you're trying to do? Because my mentor and coach, Mr. Tony Robbins says, "Success leaves clues."  And again, if we take a look at your success and Shante success, I mean, you've gone on to do, you know, I don't even know what you're currently sitting at, James, you'll have to tell me.   James: I've got like 1300 units.    Trevor: Yeah. That's a lot of units, not to mention, you're also a coach, you're also a speaker, you're also an author. You've got great training programs. So if I could learn from a guy like James Kandasamy or not, I mean the choice is obvious. I want to absolutely take a sneak peek behind your curtain and see what you've learned so I can turn those decades into days.   James: Yeah. It's crazy. I've met people who are really, really smart and I've talked to them about coaching, but somehow, some people just do not want to do coaching. I don't know why they think it's a bad thing. Because I had a lot of coaches, a lot of mentors. And a lot of times these people want to try to come into the business and do the business on their own, but they're not very, very successful until now. Because they can do auxiliary work, they can do the ecosystem work, but they can't be the primary keepers. I mean, coaching itself takes a lot of time. I can teach you 'A', I can teach you G but I can't teach you A to Z unless you go through the entire program. And A to Z will take you to become a true person who knows everything. We're on the top of the food chain, that's what I would say as an operator.  So sometimes people learn how to raise money or sometimes people learn how to do asset management or how to underwrite, but nobody really learns everything. So a coach would be able to tell you what's the fastest way to go from A to Z and don't make the mistakes. I think they can avoid a lot of mistakes and in the commercial real estate industry, it's just multimillion-dollar business. You know, you're handling investor's money if you're doing syndication, it's very, very key that you get someone that you can trust and have gone through that path and can tell you what are the traps to avoid. So I think that's very important. Trevor: Yeah, well, that's the main thing. I mean you talk about people really having three different modalities. Some people want to go out there and be the guy that finds the deal or the gal that finds the deal. Some are underwriters and the real numbers people and they want to work with the numbers and make sure it's all the numbers jive. The third type of person who wants to run and manage the asset. Maybe the fourth type of person wants to raise capital.  So again, at the end of the day you've got all of these core modalities, but there's all these submodalities like contracts and due diligence and really legal and financial analysis. Like at the core, where you're really protecting your earnest money or protecting time. Because I think time and money are the two greatest commodities in this game we're playing, called multifamily real estate. So when you think of checklists, when you think of really understanding and appreciating where do people succeed and also where do people fall down, I think it's like absolutely paramount to you being able to go further faster. Would you agree?   James: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's go to number three. What do you think is number three?   Trevor: Yeah, number three. I know it's the following in, it's called systems for support. Yes. Systems for support. Because you can't just go out there and freestyle today, you've got to create systems.Systems that might include a team. Systems that might include who's responsible for what. Systems that might include technology. Systems that remind you, when are you supposed to reach out to that broker again? When are you supposed to drive neighborhoods? When are you supposed to go to meetups? I mean, most people get up on Monday morning and go, gosh, what should I do to move my real estate business forward this week? And James, I call that hopium. You know, that's hoping you're going to find a deal, hoping you're going to find an investor. And if you want to play in the upper echelon of real estate, you've got to have tried and true systems where all that stuff's laid out well in advanced Monday morning. And when Monday morning comes, you start working on the urgent and important activities. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah. Yeah. It's very important. I mean, I think when I was starting up, I'm just sharing my experience because you brought up things that bring back memories. So when I started up, I was doing Excel sheet, everything. I even invested in management and all that. But as I grew bigger, I knew time was very important. You don't want to waste a lot of time and some things you can use for you to scale. Like even like all my investment management right now, there's a tool that I use right now. So no more doing Excel. So yeah, I mean even in the past six months, I put in a lot of time into creating systems and processes and procedures on my vertically integrated company so that we can scale. So, yeah, absolutely agree. Are there any tools that you recommend to create this kind of system?   Trevor: Well, it can be simple tools. It could be Excel. For somebody who's starting out, there are other underwriting programs. If you want to be a little bit more sophisticated, you might need CRMs to keep track of your investors because you're not just reaching out to two or three people. I mean, oftentimes we say that going out there and raising capital is a lot like flipping over a card from a deck of cards. And James, I know you've heard this cause we worked together, but you might go out there to an investor group or you might go to a meetup or you might go to a conference and you might literally share a unique opportunity with somebody and see if they want to put some money in. And every time you ask someone whether they want to come in on a deal, I call it, it's almost like you're flipping over a card. And sometimes you're going to flip over that card and you're going to get a two or three and they're not going to invest. Then you get somebody that might be an eight or a nine and they were close to investing, but they don't want to come in. And you keep flipping over cards and keep flipping over cards until you find an ACE. And an ACE is where you get an investor that literally comes in and puts 50 or a hundred or 250 candy or deal. And then you got to keep going out there and flipping cards. But if you don't know when your next conference is, if you don't know when the next meetup is, if you don't know who you're going to be getting in front of in the local community or maybe other parents of your children's, you know, maybe your children's have friends who have parents or professionals or doctors or whatever, I'm telling you, you're really running a risk of finding a great deal and then not being able to fund it. And that would be a tragedy today. So, people will always say to you, would you rather find the deal and then the investor or find the investors and then the deal? And it's almost a chicken and an egg. I always say I'd love to have a pool of people that are ready to invest so that when I know I've got that deal that I can move quickly on it. How would you speak to that, James?   James: Yeah, so I think yeah, I did the same as well. I mean, I tried to add value to a lot of investors and get them wanting to be in my list. Because they get so much value, they want to know what's happening. They want to know like how does the tax benefit comes in? How does asset protection come in? So I do a lot of webinars. So I give a lot of values and build that database with my investors. And it's also building a trust system because a lot of times, I think investors really want to work with someone they already know. They know, like and trust. And I've seen many, many times people come and ask me out of the blue, you want to invest with me? I said I do not know you man so how am I going to invest? It's just so difficult. So, yeah, I would agree with you, you need to have a group of investors first, then you go and find the deal. At least give them hope that you're looking and always give value to the investors so that they know that you are really caring for them.   Trevor: That's it. It's really all about adding value, adding massive value, adding more value than your competitor adds. And I'm telling you that that's really what makes the world go round. We're all here for nothing more than to grow and to contribute. And if you want to grow, you've got to be ready to contribute. And if you want to grow, you also have to be ready to have others contribute.  And that really does lead to number four, which is what I call having pillars for support. And pillars for support or where you start assembling your team. Do you have the person that can sign on the deal? Do you have the lender? Do you have the investors? Do you have the appraisers? Do you have the underwriters? Do you have the property managers? Do you have the general contractors, the roofers, the plumbers, the landscapers? You know, the same thing with a really good attorney. Same thing with a really good CPA, who knows all the tax advantages of real estate. I mean, if you're not assembling your pillars of support, you're really gonna miss out on optimizing and maximizing the performance. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I would add more to that. It's like when you have pillars of support, if you have a mentor, the mentor can tell you exactly who you want. I mean, you can get a PPM lawyer, but who's the best out there? The mentor can tell you because they've already gone through that phases of trial and error. Same thing with lenders as well, who's the best lender to work with you? And that's a lot of nuances in each of these, which can change your deal dramatically. If you don't underwrite properly, it can change your deal. If you don't have the right lender, it can change your deal. It also gives you an edge in terms of a buying deal in this market. If you know somebody that other people do not know or there are some things in that one person, you know that no one else knows, it gives you an edge in terms of winning deals. And there are so many nuances and everybody has their own style and it's not written in any book. I probably need to write a book one day. There's just so much of a value proposition on specific lenders, specific lawyers, specific underwriting techniques that people have gone through this and would know that not many people know. So yeah, I would agree to get in all the team establish, but at the same time, if you have a mentor, you will absolutely know who's the best team out there for you.   Trevor: That's it. And that's a huge part of real estate today. And it's paramount. It's an absolute must and not a should. Otherwise, you face a lot of challenges and then those challenges end up costing you money and those challenges end up costing you time. And not just your money but again, if you're using OPM or other people's money, the last thing you want to do is have to go back and explain that you didn't hire the best of the best for capital preservation or to make sure they redline anything in the deal that doesn't work or whatever. So it's a huge, huge part of what people really need to consider when they go out there and start doing this in a major way.   James: Got it. Let's go to number five.   Trevor: You got it. Number five is my favorite category and it kind of speaks to the last two, but it's officially called poor time management. Because James, here's the truth. I can tell the quality of an investor's outcomes by where they spend their time. And I'm going to be just completely honest with you that we all have the same amount of time. We've got something called, The Rule of 168 and what does that mean? Well, it means we all have 168 hours a week. Now, wee sleep for a bunch of those. We eat, we pay the bills, we spend time with the wife, the kids, the husband, the kids. But what are you doing with the rest of your time? Because you've got to make sure that you're not just doing lower-value activities, but you're doing higher-value activities. Things that can get you deals, things that can get you to meet different apartment owners, things that could get you in front of more brokers, things that can help you turn in more LOI, things that can help you really find a unique tribe of other investors. Where you're not just going out there and spending your time looking at individual investors but maybe you tap into someone who got a really nice big Rolodex so we can optimize and maximize our time.  Because at the end of the day, most people fall down here and they're not doing the things that they should be doing. They're doing busy work. For a lot of people, they think they're being productive but in an eight hour day, if you look at the statistics in America alone, people are only productive for about three hours of every eight hour day. And I'm certainly not saying that to you or me because I know how hard you work and you know how hard I work. But really, I would ask the listeners to really get crystal clear on, where am I spending my time and is there an opportunity to take it to a new level? Does that resonate? James: Yeah, it resonated very well. But let me give you some experience from time management. I used to work in one large company, the largest semiconductor company. And you know, after a few years I realize everybody's busy for nothing. There's so much of meetings and we are busy with meetings and when we're having meetings we are doing another work. So everybody in the meeting is on the laptop doing something else and the is still running. And there was another meeting to tackle too many meetings. There was a meeting, task force to reduce meeting. And the meeting task forces meeting too many times and at the end of the day, they got killed. So I mean, I left the company, I went to another much more smaller company, which is much higher efficiency and they don't have...they have half an hour meeting, nobody does work during the meeting, it's so much efficient. And I realized, wow, I missed so much of my time, you know, many, many years working in the first company and it's just ridiculous. You're a W2 employee, you are working on this big corporate bureaucratic company and you realize, half of your life is gone in meetings. You get paid and all that but what's the point? I mean, you are losing time throughout your life. And it's just so much of difference between a large company and small company, which runs much more efficiently. And yeah, time is something that is like a bank account where you deposit 24 hours everyday, but you're losing every day as well. You're losing all the money. You can't take it back. So imagine that kind of every day you start back early morning, you put back 24 hours and you can't really take it out again because it disappears at the end of the day. So either you use that whole 24 hours or it disappears at the end of the day.   Trevor: I think that's it. And really what I would say to the listener there, James is really, check-in with yourself, whether you're being outcome-focused or whether you're being task-focused because there's a big difference. If you're outcome-focused, you're really going, okay, what is the outcome for this meeting I'm about to go into? What do I need to achieve? Or if you're picking up the phone, you've got to start with, what's the outcome of me making this call? What am I really trying to get? Or what's the outcome of going to this meetup? Or what's the outcome of sending in this LOI? Or what's the outcome?  Whereas task-based people are just busy working off of a to-do list. They're just trying to get things done rather than really focus on, does this really help me go further faster? So I encourage everybody to get crystal clear on becoming an outcome-based thinker rather than a task-based thinker. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah, that makes sense. So can you give some example? Let's say if someone go to a conference, what are the outcomes that they can plan to get from the conference?   Trevor: I think that's a great question. Maybe you want to come out of there with 10 new contacts, 10 high-level contacts. Maybe you want to learn the next greatest thing about what's going on in the market. Maybe there's someone from Marcus and Millichap who's presenting there that puts up all these graphs and you start to see where millennials are not moving into and places where millennials are moving into. Maybe it's something about cap rates. Maybe it's something about legal or financial analysis or my favorite one, how to keep more money out of Uncle Sam's hand and put it into yours. Because I think real estate is the greatest wealth vehicle on the planet and there's so many tax advantages. But if you don't go a conference going, I'm going to come home with one or two new things about how to really optimize my taxes, you could be missing out. Versus just going to a conference to go to a conference and thinking, well, I'll just soak up whatever I can soak up here and that's it. Does that make sense?   James: Yeah. Yeah. I'm guilty of that. Sometimes I go somewhere and I don't really think about what outcome do I want. So I need to improve on that too. But that's really good advice because I think, as you said, time is very limited. You want to make sure you get outcomes for any action that you spend time on. Especially when you are getting away from your family.   Trevor: Especially if you're on a weekend conference or you going to fly to a different city or if you're spending a lot of money. I mean, the money's important, but you can always make more money, James, you can't get your time back as you alluded to.   James: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to ask you a dangerous question. You have been to many, many conferences for real estate. So without naming names, I mean, what kind of real estate conference that you think is the most beneficial for a newbie to start up in this syndication?   Trevor: Oh, that's a great question. I think you want to find somebody who has got, what I would say as a heart-centered tribe and what do I mean by that? Well, it's somebody that isn't just putting on a conference to make money, but somebody who's putting on a conference to really teach, to really coach, to really train, to really mentor, to really facilitate. And it's not where the speakers stand on stage and just pound you with information, information, information, information. Because I like those events where the newbie can go and do a lot of networking; have lunch, have dinner, ride in an Uber with somebody else because it's really, first of all, the human experience. And I think real estate is really not about being in the real estate business, it's about being in the relationship business. But secondly, I find that the events where you can go and have some networking time or break into small groups or do some focus groups or really have panels that talk about best practices, those are the types of events where I see newbies going into and coming out of there going, Oh my God, that was worth it  and more. Because it's not just the information they got, it's the transformation that they see in other people who have already started to do what it is they want to do. And they get inspired, they get engaged, they get enrolled, they get compelled and say, well, if they could do it, is it possible that I could do it? And those are the best types of events for people to go to.   James: Got it. Got it. Awesome. Okay, let's go to number six.   Trevor: You bet. Number six is all about leverage. It's all about outsourcing. It's all about that old model being broken of try to be everything to everyone. So what do I mean by that? Well, if my passion is going out there and finding great deals, and that's what I'm really good at and that's what I love spending my time doing, then that's what I should do. And that means I might give the outsourcing to someone else. That means I might give the underwriting to someone else. That means I might give the asset management to someone that's maybe really good at managing the asset.  So I'm a big believer that if you try to do every single thing yourself...I think it's good to understand it and have a taste of it but at the end of the day, what are you really good at and what do you love doing? And then are you able to outsource or delegate some things to other people who are passionate about what they do? What do you think of that?   James: Yeah. I mean, I was doing a lot of things on my own and actually we got really, really busy. I mean managing almost a hundred million dollars in assets and what I've learned for the past one year, I think well maybe one and a half years I've started outsourcing. I have like three VA's right now helping me all the way all over the world and they're really good. It takes time to train them, but once they're trained, they are really, really helpful. And I'm trying to focus a lot more on the most important stuff that can play to my strength and that's really good advice. Got it. So let's go to number seven.   Trevor: Yeah. The final one, number seven, is really all about taking massive action. It's where the rubber meets the road. Because you can get rid of limiting beliefs and you can create a plan and you can create systems for support and you can literally figure out what you're going to do with your time, you can leverage things to other people. But if you're not out there driving neighborhoods, talking to brokers, go into conferences, hiring a coach, learning the tax advantages, you're really fooling yourself.  Because when I say take massive action, notice I'm throwing in the word 'massive', right? It's not like, do a little bit and then stop and then do a little bit and then stop. I believe that momentum breeds momentum and the more you get excited about it and fired up about it and you go out there and do it, it's amazing to see how  investors, whether they're new, intermediate, or even veterans can really put the ball in the hoop and really find some great deals out there. The other thing that's kind of an extension of that is to have some sort of accountability. Whether that is a partner, whether that is a coach, whether that's a mentor. I mean, most people find that they get excited for a little while and then the going gets tough, James and then the path of least resistance kicks in and they find themselves watching Netflix every night instead of going out there and going to the meetups, going out there and driving neighborhoods. So you've gotta be very, very careful that it takes massive action, course-correct as you go. And then make sure you've got some system of accountability so that you stay on track.   James: Yeah. That's why I like a grant Cardone's 10 X, right? Because it's just a representation of taking massive action. Why are you looking at 1X or 2X 3X and that drives a lot of action, a lot of effort from your side. So I think that's what it means. A 10 X is not really, you know, he's asking you to really hit 10 X. Because it's not like not realistic. Of course, it's possible but I think the thing is, your thought process and the amount of work that you put in to go to that 10X, represent massive action. And I think that's important. I think mentors and coaches are very important because they hold them accountable. When someone is holding you accountable, you are like answerable to someone.  If you're on your own, you are like, okay, I can do whatever I want. So that's what happened. Even when I was doing my single-family, because single-family, you own everything. And sometimes we don't even look at financials, money come in, sometimes we lose money in cashflow. We don't really care. But when you have passive investors with you in multifamily, we are like looking at finances every day because now we feel very accountable to everybody. Because we are syndicating and holding passive investors and people trusting you. So that accountability factor is very, very key to have in yourself to be successful.   Trevor: That's it. That's it. And if you follow these seven simple steps and you really maybe go back and rate yourself on a scale of one to 10, where are you with your beliefs? Where are you with knowing your outcome? Where are you as systems for support and on and on and on. If you rate that out of 70, it's going to give you a score and then you're going to be able to start to take a look at how to close that gap. Because we're all humans and we all want more. We want more deals, we want more money, we want more fun, we want more love, we want more experience and travel. And I really do believe that you can have it all in real estate, but you're gonna need to really own those seven simple steps. And not just that one time, you've got to check in with them at least once a week or once a month. And then keep moving forward with what it is that you want to achieve.   James: Awesome. Awesome. That's absolutely a lot of value, Trevor. So why not tell our audience how to get hold of you?   Trevor: Absolutely. Thank you. It's really simple to reach out. There are two ways you can do it. You can simply go to my website, which is trevormcgregor.com. Or if you ever want to have a call and you're somebody who is serious about scaling your real estate and taking it through the roof. And right now, James, my clients collectively that I have in front of me right now, own $1 billion worth of real estate. So they're really serious about growing their portfolio and having a big impact. Anyone who's interested in playing at the next level and needs a high-level coach to help support that, you can simply go to www.coachwithtrevor.com. You can fill in your details, click the send button and we can set up a complimentary 45-minute call where I can hear more about what's working for you, what's not working for you, and we'll show you how to close that gap. And at that time, if you want to hear more about my coaching, I'd be happy to share it with you. But my main intention is to give you massive value on that call.   James: Awesome. Awesome. All right, Trevor, thanks for coming in on the show. I'm sure you added a lot of value to our listeners and audience and happy to have you here. Thank you.   Trevor: Thank you for having me on, James. And the final thing I'll say is, you know what? Have passion and have hunger. Because if you're passionate about real estate and you're hungry to go to the next level, that's where possibility lives. So thanks for having me on.    James: Awesome. Thank you.

Click here to get James' new book, What the Quran Really Teaches About Jesus. Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: And I am Joe Fontenot. Gary: We're the hosts of the Answering the Call Podcast. Joe: This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Gary: Today our guest is James Walker. Joe Fontenot: James has a new book out on the Quran but specifically on using the Quran to show that Jesus is who Jesus is- Gary: Wow. Joe: Yeah, it's very interesting. Marilyn interviewed him in this one and I sat in and listened and I really can't wait to read this book because the Quran essentially says Jesus is God without saying Jesus is God, and if you read carefully you can use it as its own apologetic for Christianity. Gary: That's great. I caught his evening session at Defend and he spoke about the book there and it's an exciting book. Can't wait to read it. Joe: Yeah. And he's also got an atheist Christian book club which he talks about, which I thought was pretty interesting as well. Gary: Very interesting. Well, let's hear from James. Marilyn Stewart: James, you are involved in some very interesting ministries and I want to talk to you about two of those. You do spend a lot of time talking to Muslims and also to atheists, but you have a brand new book What the Quran Really Teaches about Jesus prophet of Allah or Savior of the world. So, I want to start there and give you a chance to tell us a little bit about that book. But the title says the Quran Teaches about Jesus. I suspect that many Christians don't realize this. So, what does it say about Jesus? James Walker: Well, it is a surprise that the Quran has a lot to say about Jesus even more than Mohammed, and there are some things that actually that we would agree with that it agrees with the Bible in some places. Now, I think it's important to understand that it's not the same Jesus that we're talking about. But for one thing, the Quran affirms that Jesus was born of a virgin and no other Prophet, according to Islam was ever born of a virgin. Marilyn: And there are a lot of profits that Islam recognizes. James: They recognize any prophet of God. So, the prophets mentioned in the Bible, Isaiah, Ezekiel, talk about King David and Abraham. Yeah, all these are prophets, and Jesus also was one of the prophets. That's another affirmation that you have. In the book I have the transcript of a debate I did with a Muslim apologist Khalil Meek, and that's where the subtitle of the book comes from Prophet of Allah or Savior of the World. So, basically we started off in the debate with the point of agreement. We're both religions, both scriptures, the Bible and the Quran, both affirm Jesus as being a prophet. Now, we're I took it from there is you have to ask the question, what did Jesus prophesy? There is not one prophecy of Jesus recorded in the Quran. Marilyn: I believe you mentioned this when you were speaking at Defend about a Muslim who went to other authorities to check. Tell us a little bit about that. James: Yeah, one of the things that I'm trying to do in the book is encourage Christians to just engage. You'd be surprised most Christians if they think about it a while, they know a Muslim. It could be their doctor, or it could be a pharmacist, it could be a classmate at the university, it could be a convenience store clerk, a neighbor, but they know someone who's a Muslim. And there's, I think we have this kind of built in fear. I don't maybe want to start a conversation. What if they ask a difficult question, or maybe they would be offended if I ask a question about that. So, What I'm trying to do and what the Quran really teaches about Jesus is in the book, be able to have some great questions to ask or a verse in the Quran that you can ask them to explain to you and kind of start this gospel conversation. So, this particular example I gave, I was at a coffee shop and this guy comes in and I had seen him before but not really talked with him anything, but I noticed this time when he came in he actually had an Islamic dictionary in his hand. And I thought, "Okay, I know ... he's Muslim, but he also, I noticed there was only one seat open in the entire coffee shop. So, basically when I saw him headed toward my seat, I had been reading on my tablet, I'd been reading the Bible, but I just switched to the Quran. So, he sat down next to me and I didn't say anything but I thought this might happen. He must have looked over because he taps me on the shoulder he's big smile and he says, "Oh, you're reading Quran?" I said, "Yes I am." He said, "Oh, you must be Muslim." And I said, No, I'm actually Christian. He said, "huh." And it was like, it was a little bit disorienting to him. He didn't know what to make of it, but I said, "Listen, I'm a Christian, but I want to understand other religions and I want to know what the differences are, and I recognize if 1.8 billion people believe the Quran, this is an important book that I should be able to know. And I was reading in the Quran and I was having difficulty understanding a passage." He said, "I'm Muslim, let me help you." And so I showed him Surah 350 where the Quran ... Jesus is speaking actually. Here's another thing you have the saying of Jesus and Jesus says that you must fear Allah and obey me. So, you fear God, but you also have to obey Jesus. And he said, "But that's true, my friend, you must obey Jesus." I said, "Well, here's my question. I cannot anywhere in the Quran, find the commands of Jesus. If we're to obey Him, where can we find His commands?" Well, that ended up being like several conversations like that one and like two more times were talking about this and he was unable to find any of the commands of Jesus and so I said, "Well, this obviously you can only find them in the gospels like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." He was a little bit hesitant to go that way but I finally convinced him if he would read Matthew's Gospel with me and see if we can find anything. He would say, "Oh, but the Gospels have been corrupted." I said, "But is there anything remaining of value there?" Well, he hadn't thought. "Well, there could still be something good let's go look and see." So, this is again, a way that just knowing a little bit about the Quran maybe a good verse, know the right kind of questions to ask. Yeah. And it ended up being for better part of probably six or eight months, we had off and on conversations. Marilyn: Now, so, he didn't know any commands in the Quran from Jesus and also prophecies? There were no prophesies in the Quran? James: Yeah, you can take the same approach with the prophecies. Nowhere in the New Testament. In my debate with Khalil Meek, when we both agreed at the very outset, okay premise one, is Jesus a prophet of God? Both affirm. So, my question which is a good question to ask any Muslim, what did Jesus prophesy? Marilyn: What do they say when- James: Well, they assume he must have prophesied what the Quran teachers. There's the idea that in Jesus' original writings that may be he must have taught Islam. Now, we don't have any of these writings because you don't find any of that in the four gospels or in the New Testament or anything like that, but there's this assumption, well, he must have taught the five pillars of Islam. Like any good Muslim and so I asked Khalil on that, "Can you show me the documents?" Now, when I'm going to say that Jesus made a prophecy I'm going to point to ancient documents very close to the time that Jesus lived. The best he could do was to say that those were corrupted and need to be superseded by the Quran. Marilyn: ... Now, that's interesting. So, let me make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Because the Quran does not list any commands or prophecies of Jesus, that presents a problem, but they can't feel comfortable accepting the Bible because they feel the New Testament is corrupted. James: Well, it's what Jesus prophesied. He prophesied that He would be crucified, that He would die, that He would rise three days later from the grave. These are things that not only are not in the Quran, the Quran mentions them and says that they're not true. Marilyn: Yes. Okay. James: But you don't have a prophecy of Jesus saying this. So, if someone is going to be a prophet, is he a true prophet or a false prophet? Of course, I mentioned in the book that, and the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally complains that the New Testament is not trustworthy because the Gospels may have been written several decades after the events they describe. Well, that doesn't mean they're not true, but ironically he's complaining about several decades when the Quran is trying to comment on something 600 years later, 800 miles away. Marilyn: Interesting. So, they then do say some at least that this corruption that took place with the New Testament they assume that these five pillars that's what's been taken out. James: Right. So, he must have taught Shahada, he must have taught everything that we find. So, it's kind of like the ultimate conspiracy theory is the idea that all of Jesus' original disciples were all Muslim, Jesus was Muslim, all his disciples are Muslim. They believe Islam, they believe what you now can find in the Quran and they wrote them down in what they call the Injil, the gospel, but none of the copies remain. Every copy that we have, very early copies that we have match what we have in our New Testament. So, one of the examples was that in the, there's a fragment of John's gospel, the Ryland P52 fragment, which is the oldest extent part of the New Testament that we have. It dates traditionally between 100 and 150 AD. Way before Mohammed. Ironically that little piece of fragment is actually citing a prophecy where Jesus speaks of his death and his resurrection. Marilyn: Yeah, the manuscript evidence for the New Testament just in Greek is around 5,000 manuscripts. And then of course we have other copies and other languages. So, we do have good evidence how the New Testament came to us. James: Right, and if you want to claim that there was another earlier uncorrupted New Testament, I mean, that's an interesting theory but I'd like to see some documents. Where's any proof on this? Marilyn: Sure. Let's go back to where else the Quran says some things about Jesus that we could affirm that do match up with what the New Testament says. James: Well, that Jesus was a prophet of God. We mentioned that His birth, His coming was predicted by the other prophets. They even say in the Quran that Jesus is Messiah. Now, they mean something very different by that than what we do. So, they're not trying to say Jesus was Christ or savior. That is not what they believe. But they do have the title Messiah. So, that would be something that we would affirm. To me, one of the most remarkable affirmations though is that the Quran teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. And there's a whole chapter about Mary and about the virgin birth of Jesus in the Quran. I'd like to say, in fact, it's kind of the opposite of the Gospels. The Gospels is, 80% of it deals with Jesus' life and then rather, 20%, 25% and then the vast majority deals with those last two weeks. While in the Quran it talks a lot about Jesus but the vast majority talks about His birth and the early years and not so much about the later part of his ministry. But yeah, there's a passage in the Quran where it says that we honor and believe all of the prophets of God. And it lists several, including Jesus, and we make no differentiation between them. A great question to ask a Muslim is, "Hey, we have something in common. You believe in the virgin birth and that's what our scripture says, that Jesus was born of a virgin. Here's the question, tell me what other prophets were born of a virgin?" Marilyn: That's a good question. James: Well, there has been no other prophet. Not Abraham, not Ishmael or Isaac, or they would talk a lot about King David, none of them. So, even Mohammed. Mohammed was not born of a virgin. Marilyn: So, Jesus had this miraculous birth that no other prophet in the Quran has had. James: Yes. And would you have to agree with me then that Jesus is unique among the prophets if no other prophet has this kind of birth. Marilyn: Now, how is it that they see Jesus differently? Where do we disagree on Jesus? James: Well, unfortunately the disagreement on the essentials of Christian faith and the very core of the gospel. So, they're first of all going to say that while Jesus was a prophet He was not the Son of God. In Islamic thinking, and in the Quran actually, is pretty clear on this. The idea of God having a son is reprehensible to them because it implies if you're the Son of God that ... and I would agree it does. Some level, there's a quality there. You're the same type of being the father and the son. And in Islamic monotheism, only one person can be God, Allah and not any other person. If you ascribe the attributes of God to any other person, even Jesus, it is tantamount to the unpardonable sin. It's what they call the sin of shirk. Marilyn: And this is unforgivable, unpardonable, it is a major problem for Muslims. James: Yeah there's some Muslim folklore that's not explicitly said certainly in the Quran and not even really explicitly taught in the Hadith, but the idea is if you're a Muslim on the day of judgment and your bad deeds outweigh your good deeds, the Muslims all agree, you go to hell. But there's a caveat there, this idea that if you did not commit shirk and you were Muslim, that you potentially can get out of hell later. Marilyn: Okay. So, there's a way out. James: Again, that's not in the Quran. I asked a friend, one of my Muslim friends I was talking to, "I cannot find anywhere in the Quran where you get out of hell tell me where this comes from." And he, "Oh, it's not in the Quran it's in the Hadith." And I say, "Well, you know my Imam friend told me that Hadith is not totally reliable." And he's, "Well, it's not totally reliable." What if the part about getting out of hell is in the unreliable part? Marilyn: Gosh, that would be a bad situation. James: It would. Marilyn: Now, the Hadith, explain what that is and how it's different from the Quran. Just a brief explanation. James: Well, when Mohammed dies, and this is actually like a century or two after the death of Mohammed. The collection of the Hadith begins. And this is where you're trying to gather together a corpus of data on what Mohammed did and said, is extremely important in Islam because Islam is very much focused on orthopraxy, doing things the right way. I mean, everything. Every aspect of life, there's a right way to do it. It's based on the pattern of what Mohammed did. Well, that's based on Hadith. So in Hadith what they're doing is, they're trying to gather these statements, these sayings or deeds and they're trying to build a chain of custody on them. So, you have this saying, the story, and how do we know it happened? Well, this particular person said that he talked with someone who was one of the Friends of a companion of Mohammed. And so, they they connect the dots, try to get it back to the life of Mohammed, and there are several collections of Hadith. Many, many volumes of work. So, the idea is the Muslims will try to weigh how reliable that Hadith is. Is it highly reliable, is it somewhat reliable, and they base that on that chain of Custody. But I would say in a practical sense that what Islam is today is based at least as much if not more on Hadith than it is on Quran. Marilyn: Oh, is that right? James: Yes. Marilyn: And so, this shows some, it shows how important their thinking is on following a certain, I don't know if works is the right way to say it, but there is a path laid out for them that they must follow. James: Yeah, even the five pillars you don't find it at all clearly in the Quran. There's implication and stuff, but that you're to pray five times not six or seven, that's Hadith, you don't get that in the Quran. Marilyn: Very precise. James: Exactly. And so that's, on a practical level, extremely important in day to day Islamic life. Marilyn: So, it lays out a step by step thing that they must do in order to be right with Allah. James: Yes. Marilyn: So, there is no savior in Islam, is that correct? James: Yeah, and that was, we included as a chapter the entire transcript of my most recent debate with Khalil Meek and the title Jesus Christ prophet of Allah our Savior of the World, and Khalil is adamant that Jesus is not the Savior. But one of the debate issues that came up, if Jesus is not the Savior, who is? Who's the Savior then? And the tragic part of Islamic theology is, it's not just that Jesus isn't the Savior, there is no savior. Marilyn: Do they realize that they need a savior? Do you find that longing in their heart to this understanding that they are not quite good enough, that they haven't followed that path as closely as they need to? Do you get the sense that they have that desire to have a savior? James: I think not so much initially. Part of what I'm trying to do is get that Muslim friend with me into the Bible. So, I'm going to start with the Quran, but I'm trying to shift over, "Can we see what the gospel say about this." And try to get them to hear the stories of Jesus and you get a very different picture of God in the New Testament. You get a God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Well, in Islam Jesus can't be the begotten son. It says in the Quran, "Allah neither begets nor has he begotten, but even more disturbing you don't have a God that's love. You have a God, Allah is merciful, but there's a big difference between merciful and loving. In the same way the God in Islam cannot partner with or share His attributes with, He can't have a son or He can't be a son. This idea imply that He can't have that love relationship either because he's separate and distinct and totally apart from creation. Marilyn: And so, they do not think of God as a heavenly father as Christians see Him? James: Not father at all that's anathema to call Jesus father. And even in the doctrine of the Trinity, there are several places in the Quran where it says, stop saying, seize saying God is three. And in parentheses Trinity, sometimes they'll put the parenthetical in case you don't know what we're talking about. We don't believe in the Trinity doctrine. So, technically, is a monotheistic religion and it does cause confusion with Christians. We hear from our news media, we hear from some of our politicians even. Oh well, Christianity and Islam they're both monotheistic religions, they are both religions of Abraham, they put their roots back in Abraham. So, they believe in one God, they believe in the same God. Well, I would beg to differ on that. The believe in one God doesn't mean that we're talking about the same God. I've never met any Muslim, any Imam, any cleric, any even rank-and-file Muslim who would ever say that God is the father of Jesus Christ, you can't say that. Marilyn: So, we do worship different gods. James: I would say so. Marilyn: And we can start with the things that we do affirm about Jesus but it is important to lead them to the Gospels and finding out who Jesus really is. James: I do find some parallels ain how the Apostle Paul dealt with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. So, the Areopagus, and Athens, and Mars Hill. When He is talking to them and when he's confronted by them and he's trying to explain the gospel, it's interesting he never quotes any scripture. If he had quoted it, those guys wouldn't have known what he was talking about anyway. He does elsewhere quote their philosophers. And so what he does is he finds a point in common. There was a shrine to this unknown God. And I think, Paul, thinks, "Hey, I don't believe in Greek mythology, but this is too easy to use. Even they've acknowledged there might be a God they don't know about. This is the one I want to tell them about." Marilyn: And this is why your book is so helpful because you pull out some passages from the Quran that is a great place for Christians to start as they're talking to a Muslim. Some of those passages about Jesus and how He is, the things they agree with about Jesus and where it is different. So, your book came out this year? James: Well, late last year, it's already a new year now. Marilyn: Well, that's true. We're in 2019. James: Less than a year ago. We can say it that way. It seems like, and I tell you, I do not really embrace and enjoy the writing process. I do it. I am not happy to write, I'm happy to have written. Marilyn: And you are a good writer. It's very clear. James: Well, thanks. But it's, sometimes I think that writing a book is the closest a man can ever know to what it's like to give birth. So, it's like the labor pain. Marilyn: No, giving birth is worse. James: You've done both so you would know, but yeah, I don't enjoy the process but I'm glad that it's done. I like the product, had a lot of people helping me. I had our editor at Watchman Fellowship at my ministry did a lot of work to help, and then at Harvest House, the senior editor there, Steve, he's just so good at what he does. Marilyn: Excellent. Before we leave Islam, I want to give you a chance to talk about tips. You've mentioned a couple of things, but for Christians that want to make a friend of a Muslim and lead that Muslim to Jesus, to a loving God, you mentioned several tips at Defend, and I know you use the word task that this is our task, I just wanted to give you a chance to explain that to us, give us any other tips for getting to know Muslims, how we get to know them, how we approach them, anything like that you'd like to say. James: Yeah, I would just say just in general, and this is not just Muslim, this is really trying to build relationship with anyone for the gospel. I have a Mormon back, I used to be Mormon before I became a Christian, and when I first became a Christian I kind of did it all wrong with my Mormon friends. I could prove them wrong and I have all this evidence I want to hit them over the head with and looking back on it I should have known better because nobody responds well to when somebody says, I can prove you're wrong 10 different ways or something like that. So, over time, what I, here's what I've learned. It's really all about relationship. What did they say. No one cares what you know till they know that you care. And so, on the building on the back of relationship, you earn the right ... first of all, you know the person and you spent time with them that they can see that there's something different about you. They can see Christ in you, hopefully. And also you earn the right to ask the question. And there's a feeling of safety that, they know that I'm going to be their friend whether they're Muslim or not. And so it's not about if you convert to Christianity, then we can be friends. No, we're friends. If you convert to Christianity, I'd be thrilled. But we're friends either way. Marilyn: That's a good point. James: And building that relationship. So, it's all about that and asking the right questions. At the end of most of the chapters, we have a series of good questions that would help further that gospel conversation and gospel discussion. The other thing I would encourage people to do, I thought, many, many years ago, I had been dealing with reaching Jehovah's Witnesses, reaching people involved in the occult and I'll put in this Muslim thing. It's just like, I have this kind of fear. If I start talking to the Muslim, they're going to say, "I'm Muslim, I'm not interested" or something. And I found the exact opposite. What I found was, "I'm Muslim. I'm very interested." Marilyn: And this is fascinating. I think a lot of Americans felt that way, still feel that way. A little afraid to speak to a Muslim. James: Well, you know, we were the generation that lived through 911 and we see the terrorism and it's connected with radical Islam and sometimes there's an actual fear, every Muslim that you see, is there a bomb involved or something like that. I'm not going to minimize that that's not a bad problem. The vast majority of Muslims do not interpret the sword versus, when the Quran says that you're to smite the infidel and strike their necks and stuff, my friend Khalil that I did the debate with, he would tell me, "James, when it says to kill the infidel it's about the infidels on the Arabian Peninsula during the time of Mohammed and the warfare that was going on. It doesn't mean kill all infidels everywhere all times. It's a specific." He'd make a comparison to the Canaanites and the Exodus. Marilyn: In the old testament. James: It doesn't mean we're to go conquer every land and kill all the inhabitants and drive them out. So, if that's what most Muslims believe it's probably not my best strategy to talk them out of that. "Oh, no, right here you're supposed to smite infidel, that's me, you're supposed." No. If that's what they interpreted, it is what it is. There are Muslims that do interpreted it in a terroristic fashion. So, I'm so appreciative of our military, our first responders, and those politicians who make the right decisions to help protect us from all dangers, foreign and domestic, including religious terrorism, but my job as a Christian, I'm not the Air Force or the army, I'm not Homeland Defense, I'm part of the church. So, I feel like my job is the gospel, not so much to be involved in military or political solution. I really kind of feel we may be beyond, on the case of radical Islam, we may be beyond a political or military solution at this point. The only real solution I think might be the gospel of Jesus Christ. Marilyn: And it is a great opportunity. We say we are people of the Great Commission and God does seem to be bringing the nation's to us even from nations that we can't get into as missionaries. So, this is great. James: I've noticed a lot of pushback from people who, they're disturbed by there's so many Muslims moved to America in a 10 year period according to our most recent census, Islam is growing by 160% in just 10 years in America. But we have to say, well, you look at the other side, these people, a lot of them are coming from countries where it is illegal to share the gospel. Now that the Muslim is your next door neighbor or is your classmate at school at the college or something, you don't have to get on an airplane, you don't have to go through the red tape, is a mission field that comes to us let's see if we can take advantage of that. Marilyn: So, what are the things that we have in common with Muslims in terms of, they are people that love their families, love their children. And in terms of developing relationships, surely they are things like that, that we can connect to. What would you say to that? James: Well, one of the things, you're dealing a little differently if you're dealing with a Muslim, from Saudi Arabia, or even from Pakistan or Indonesia, Muslim country, Sharia law, you're dealing with a little bit different mindset when they come to America versus an American Muslim, but just understand that a lot of Muslims are confused when they get here because they assume that America is a Christian nation and everything that they see, everything that they see on the internet, everything that they see on TV and the movies, they think, "Oh,, this is Christianity." And to help them to see that not everything American means Christian. A great question to ask is, when you've built that relationship with the Muslim is say, "Let me ask you my friend, have you ever came to the place where I share with you how I became a Christian?" And sometimes there's this confused look, "Well, you were born in America." Marilyn: Sure. James: "Well, yes I was, but to be born in America makes you an American, but to become a Christian you have to be born a second time." And it's almost like John chapter three. Is usually like, "What do you mean to be born again?" It's just like, they've never heard this before. Marilyn: That's great. James: And this was my life before you should be able to do this in 90 seconds, but I wanted to please God, but I was concerned that perhaps I had sinned against God and there may be a day of judgment where I would stand before God and what if I fail what would happen to me? and I realized at a point in my life I needed help, I needed a savior. And that's when I realized that Jesus was more than a prophet. That He actually came to be my substitute, to offer me eternal life. Just that little kind of communication and it's almost you can see, I can remember vividly seeing it's like childlike like, this is they've never heard this story before. Marilyn: Interesting. Well, the gospel of course is a great message and He is a God of love so I could see where this could draw Muslim very easily if we are genuine in our faith and in our walk. I do want to change the subject now and kind of shift gears and go to something that you do that is also very fascinating. That's the Atheist Book Club. So, how in the world did you get into an Atheistic Book Club? What does that look like? And whose idea was that? James: Not mine. The actual title is the Atheist Christian Book Club. So, it's atheistschristianbookclub.com, and this is something an atheist friend of mine kept bugging me to do. It's a long story how I got invited to this atheist gathering that they have like a fellowship. And just out of curiosity I went and they were actually kind of really nice and had a lot of questions. And I would try to go at least maybe once a month or something. And we got into all kinds of great discussions about everything from, Big Bang cosmology to the source of ethics, and intelligent design, and the Dallas Cowboys and I mean, all kinds of things, but over time I-

In this episode of the Houston Home Talk, Mike Wall of Love Ohio Living and James talk about the detailed roadmap for changing business over to EXP, consistency, and branding.Quotes : " If we do get somebody to say yes, then we got a shot at a six-figure income."" You'll get what you want if you can help other people get what they want. "Mentions:Website: http://loveohioliving.comShownotes: 1:04: Response from other people to the interviews2:07 Mike started real state business04:45 Mike talking about consistency08:45 - Mike talks about branding 19:24 - Team Structure 20: 48 - Mike's favorite books and podcasts.Full Transcript:[00:03] INTRO: Welcome to Houston home talk featuring all things real estate in the Houston area. We'll interview real estate professionals, local business owners, and special guests from right here in the Houston community. This is where you get the inside scoop about what's new in real estate, new community openings and business openings and much more. The Houston Home Talk Show starts right now.[00:32] JAMES: All right guys welcome. What's up? This is James J. Welcome to Houston Home Talk. I am excited today to have my man Mike Wall from Dayton, Ohio. What's up Mike? How are you today?[00:43] MIKE: Yes sir. Baby, I'm so happy to be here, man. I'm so happy to help. We'll be able to drop some value on your audience today, brother.[00:50] JAMES: Yeah. Listen, I have been watching you now for several months as you have been doing a lot of interviews with a lot of the new people that have been moving over to EXP Realty. I want to say thank you because a lot of the content that you've been providing, I know I've used, I forwarded it to people and I know that the value that you're providing is helpful to a lot of people. You and I met in New Orleans last month. I've been watching you for several months. As soon as we met, there was several people that came up to you and said, hey, thanks Mike. I know you're reaching people. [01:21] MIKE: Yeah.[01:22] JAMES: You're helping people because a lot of people can't do what you're doing in the way that you do it so thank you for that. I wanted to ask you so I want to just start, so you've been doing a lot of these interviews, a lot of Facebook Live interviews. I want to get people introduced you. I want to ask you real quick, what's been the response from other people to the interviews that you've been doing with the new people that have joining EXP?[01:42] MIKE: Yeah. No, it's a great question man. It's really been overwhelming more than I even thought and really the whole reason if I back up and just telling you the reason why I started doing the podcast… [01:52] JAMES: Right.[01:53] MIKE:…is because I knew that we were building something special. I also knew that changes is big. Change is big for everybody involved and especially the for those people who are team leaders in running a business. I wanted to give those people a platform to be able to share their unique story with the world and in hopes that somebody out there might identify with them and be able to make an intelligent decision about where their business went and then also providing a detailed roadmap for change if they decided to move their business over to EXP. Then also kind of lastly is just to provide insight on people curious about learning more about EXP.[02:34] JAMES: Right? Yeah. Let's get to know a little bit about you because I know you have been in the business. You've been licensed for about 16 years or so. You started full time…was it 2014 when you were officially started full time? [02:45] MIKE: I did it. I got a unique story. I've had my license since 2002. I actually got into the business just as a buyer specialist for one of the top agents here in our marketplace. A guy named Phil Herman who worked for Remax is a big deal man. The guy was selling like 300 properties back like when nobody knew about teams. When I got into the business I just thought, man, I don't want to try to learn all this on my own. What I'll do is I'll take a little bit less of a commission split to go under somebody who actually has all the knowledge for what I want to do, right? I worked with Phil 2002 to 2009 and we all know what happened in 2008-2009. The market just completely crashed.I actually got out of real estate. I kept my license but I went to work back in corporate America and I did that for five years. I was working for a company that was based out of Blue Ash, which is a suburb of Cincinnati and I was selling copiers, man. It is a grind doing that. I did that for five years. I knew I wouldn't do that long term and I knew I would get into real estate. [03:43] JAMES: Right. [03:44] MIKE: In 2013 in about October, I started calling the expires in 2013. In 2014 May I had 44 listings and I went to my wife and I said, honey, it's costing me more to be at my corporate job than it is to be here in real estate. She said, you know what? She said, do your thing man. That first year went out and sold 57 houses. Second year in the business, sold 104 houses, third year sold 187 houses and then fourth year I sold 309 houses. I just haven't looked back, man. There's so much obviously that goes in between there because now you know, I'm operating as a team. I've got some great team members. I got a great business partner now. We've opened up a whole world with investing and so forth.[04:30] JAMES: Now let me touch on this because it seems pretty simple. One of the things that I love about you is the consistency. I know you've been doing a lot of live coaching calls. Obviously you've been doing this for several years, calling the expires. [04:41] MIKE: Yup.[04:43] JAMES: One of the things that I tell a lot of new agents is what you think, because everybody just assumes everybody's calling the expires. I've heard you mentioned this in the video, a lot of people will stop calling after the fourth time or even a third time in a lot of cases. Obviously you were consistent. What made you focus on the expires? Because as a new agent, that's one of the things that I always tell people to do. Focus on expires. You can get that information and just keep consistent, stay consistent with it. What made you start? What was the thing that kind of got you to focus on the expires when you first started?[05:17] MIKE: Yeah. No man. That's a legitimate question because if you think about it, I mean everybody's good at something, right? Everybody can always make up the excuse that I'm not good at something and typically it's because they either don't have the experience or they're just not willing to try. For me, when I moved here, I went to high school and was raised mostly in to Dallas, Fort Worth area. I moved to Ohio and went to college at Ohio State. Go Bucks. I met my wife there and my wife was from this small town, which is a Northern Cincinnati, Southern Dayton suburb called Springboro. I didn't have a personal network. I didn't have a lot of people that I could tap into. I just thought, well, what is the next best thing? I knew I could grind it out on the phones because I had done in B to B sales selling copiers, right?[06:03] JAMES: Right. [06:05] MIKE: There's no science behind it, man. I just did it. You talked about consistency and that's, that's really what it was. It's just doing it. It's repetitions in the gym, right? It's like every day you show up. You put in your reps. You work hard, and then the magic starts to happen, man.[06:20] JAMES: Right. Yeah. That consistency thing is very difficult, especially for us because there's no one to tell us to do anything.[06:27] MIKE: Right.[06:29] JAMES: Everyone wants to get in the business, but then lacking the discipline to do what you did for three years and still continue to do to this day with the Expires. It's something tells you is you have a schedule and you got to work. It's hard to do. It is hard because stuff comes up. It's hard to stay consistent. If you really want to make it and you're a prime example, everybody that's calling these Expires, they're not doing it consistently. They just don't. I know it. In Houston, it's the same thing. We've got 30,000 agents here. We've got a lot of expires but of that 30,000 there's only a handful of people that are actually consistent with it. As a matter of fact you knew that and you stuck with it and clearly it works.[07:09] MIKE: I want your audience to understand something too James is that the great thing about calling the Expires is not everyone's is going to say yes, right? We are fortunate enough to work in an industry where the margins, if you do get a yes, are very large, and I always tell my team this, right? We live in a market in southwest Ohio here where the average price point is not really high, right? Our team average sale price is $178,000. Our market. Average sale price is $130,000 but you can still make a six figure income here if you just get one yes, every week because our agents average commission check is 25.50 and if you take 25.50 and divide that out over 50 weeks, you've got a nice income, right?[07:48] JAMES: Absolutely, yeah.[07:50] MIKE: Really we just focus…we have our team focus on that one yes per week, right? We understand when we pick up the phone that the odds are against us, right? We understand that most people are not going to answer the phone and if they answer, most people are not going to set an appointment. We understand also that if we do get somebody to answer it, if we do get somebody to say yes, then we got a shot at a six figure income.[08:10] JAMES: Absolutely. Yeah, and you know there's a couple of books I've got but the go for no is one. Darren Hardy, I love Darren Hardy. December is going to be here tomorrow and I bring this up because his book talks about the format. There's this habit, habit, habit, habit and what he used to do when he was in real estate back in the day, he would just look for no's. The more no's you get, you're just closer to that yes. At some point somebody is going to say yes and I'm a huge Darren…the compound effect. That's what that's saying in the book, compound effect. I love that book. Usually we'll bring it up every single year around this time of year and I go through it and I'll operates during the year because it's a great book about the discipline of habits. In this business. it is key to everything is self-discipline to be able to, to continue to do that. Props to you on that. Now I wanted to ask you, so I heard in the interview that you had mentioned that you had back when you started full time back '04, 2014-2015. I guess a couple of years into it. You switch from the wall group over to love Ohio living, LOL team.[09:05] MIKE: I did. I did.[09:07] JAMES: Explain why did you did that? I think I know the answer. I wanted my audience to understand why did you do that? Why did you think that was important to get your name off the brand and brand it to level high live in which you did.[09:18] MIKE: Yeah. No, that's a great question. There's arguments for both sides.For me personally, I thought it was more sustainable to build a business that didn't have my name on it. I didn't think people would sustainably work to build my business. I thought that together, if we formed something that we could all believe in and all row the same direction, that didn't have my name on it. In another words, it's like a football team, right? If you think of the Dallas cowboys, right? Who did beat the Saints last night which…[09:50] JAMES: Yes, they did. Yeah.[09:51] MIKE: if you think of the Dallas Cowboys, they're not called the Jerry Jones, right? They're called the Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones owns the cowboys, but everybody has their respective position for the Dallas cowboys. When they come together, they make a team, right? I wanted to do is I wanted to take the level how living team and I wanted to galvanize everybody around that.What that stood for was elite level agents being able to plug their businesses in to our tool systems and resources to go out and sell as many houses as they want. Not, they plugged into Mike Wall and just took every, all my leftovers, right? Because there is a team model that works that way and I just don't believe it's sustainable. The statistics show, I mean, the shelf life on those type of a team, the shelf life of the agent is much lower, right? Because what happens is they come in, in most cases and they build them up and then those agents, they want to go do the same thing whereas now we have an agent on our team. It's like Natalie Rose, right? Is an agent on our team? It's Natalie Rose with the level higher living team at a power broker by EXP Realty, right? Her name goes on the sign. We just have our LOL logo. Frankly, it's not that I would ever sell my business, but if you think of it like this, James who's going to buy Mike Wall real estate without Mike Wall.[11:09] JAMES: Yeah. [11:10] MIKE: You know what I mean? [11:11] JAMES: Now you're, you're right on. That's a key when we talk about marketing branding because I f struggled with that as well earlier and having my name. I agree with you completely. I think the buy in from your team is much more when you have LOL Level Higher Living. I love that you did that. That's a key. That's a nugget for people to really look at that because like you say there's arguments both ways. I'm actually on board with you as far as the branding and not having your name attached to it for the long term, long term that's a great idea. Good information there. Let me ask you, so from all the interviews that you've been doing with a lot of the EXP Agents that have been mourning, it's been absolutely crazy the growth that we've had. You joined back, was it February of this year is when you guys moved over? [11:55] MIKE: Yes sir, it'd be a year. [11:58] JAMES: Montel Williams, you moved over. What's been the best or the most surprising thing, specifically from the people that you have interviewed? Because I don't know if you've got to off the top of your head how many people you've interviewed since you started the show.[12:10] MIKE: Probably around 20, 25 at this point.[12:13] JAMES: Okay. Okay. What's been maybe one of the biggest surprises or maybe common similarities? Because everybody's story's a little different. I probably have watched virtually every video interview that you've done. Everybody's story just a little bit different. What have you found that maybe something that's maybe been similar from a lot of the people that you've spoken to? [12:30] MIKE: Yeah. I have them. Something instantly pops to mind and because it really not only has it surprised me that this is what I've learned from them. It is something that we never expected when we came over. I'm learning now when I talked to people in those interviews is that it's the same thing for them, right? What I'm learning is that the community. It's the community that we've created. It's the people that now we're able to tap into, right? Because like Jay Kinder and Mike Reese, the NEA group, right? They used to run this mastermind that was like a $25,000 buy in, right? Now they're doing that mastermind for free. [13:09] JAMES: Yeah. [13:10] MIKE: Right? We're talking about Kinder was the number one, number two guy for COA banker in the world at one time, right? He's one of the smartest guys in real estate. When you're able to plug in to those guys like I could shoot him a text right now and get a response from him, right? The same thing with Kyle Whistle, the same thing with Dan Beer. I mean we're talking about some of the biggest real estate teams and smartest real estate minds in the business.For me that was the biggest surprise man, is the fact that now we've created this fantastic community of learning and sharing and just growth and excitement, man. That's an easy answer for me. [13:50] JAMES: Yeah, you and I, we've got a lot of similar circles as far as NEA. I've been with NEA probably since 2011. Actually, back then it was just Kinder-Reese. I've been following Jay for years. He's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Yes, I also coached with them him well. You're right. When now you've gotten to exponential growth summit back in the day. [14:06] MIKE: I never did go to that believe it or not. Yeah, I never went.[14:12] JAMES: Okay.[14:13] MIKE: I coached with NEA. I didn't exponential growth. [14:17] JAMES: Right. The funny thing now is that with EXP, with all these big name ages moving over, and you're right, the community and the collaboration. I know we keep using these words over. It's true. When you're in it and you and I were here where we both are at EXPN. We've been able to see it. The fact that you're right that I could call Jay right now. I've paid thousands and thousands of dollars to Jay to coach me. Now that same information, I could still get it and get access to him with literally just picking up the phone right now. That's been one of the biggest, pleasant things that I've seen as well. For a lot of people that are not, or maybe looking at the opportunity right now other than the collaboration, what else is maybe been one of the things that's been a plus for you? [15:03] MIKE: What I want to add to that real quick is that I don't want people to take that for granted because a lot of people I think represent EXP the wrong way. You're trying to get people, you're calling people that you don't know and you're trying to get them to move for revenue share or stock. That's not enough to get people to move. It's like you need to figure out what if we understand at the end of the day, right? That map is more valuable than the treasure. Then you understand that that knowledge that you can get through collaboration, that's where the treasure is, right?That's the map to the treasure. To be able to collaborate with those guys in a mastermind group. These guys are doing stuff at a level that we just haven't thought of or haven't gotten to in our businesses yet. For that person out there who's doing $10 million or $20 million a year that wants to get to 20 million or 40 million or a 100 million, right. The difference between them, where they're at right now and where they want to be is that roadmap, right? When you join EXP, you're able to tap into that right away, right, through the collaboration and relationships that you'll build here. I wanted to make sure that your audience was crystal clear on that because although revenue share is fantastic and the opportunity to be an owner through stock is fantastic. It's not the only reason you should join EXP, right?[16:28] JAMES: Yeah. No question about it. Yeah. I think the excitement around it is just because it hasn't been done this way before. [16:33] MIKE: Yeah. [16:37] JAMES: You start looking at the opportunity down the road. I could not agree with you more, Mike. That component of EXP has gotten a lot of publicity. I think as far as representing EXP, a lot of people would probably get a little turned off because everybody's talking about the revenue shift. You are right. That's not really for me the number one reason. It is the fact that you get to collaborate. You and I would not be talking right now. We aren't talking right now if it wasn’t for EXP. I wouldn't be able to call collar or anybody for that matter. It's genuine. When we went to the EXP con last month it's genuine. People are just really willing to help you with whatever because it does benefit us all when we all succeed. Where it used to be you have freinemies and you interviewed with Tammy yesterday?[17:25] MIKE: Tammy was day before. You're talking about Mary Simons Malone. I love them so much. Yes, she was frienemies with Kyle Whistle, right? They worked at competing brokerages in San Diego. She talked about that too with the collaboration now with Dan and Kyle who were formerly her biggest competition, right?[17:44] JAMES: Yeah, Yeah. Huge, huge, huge, huge. That's awesome. Couple more questions for you Mike, before I let you get on out of here. Again, you said the response from people because I saw people coming up to you and we're at the EXP last month which is pretty cool. As we were in the middle of talking,[17:59] MIKE: Let me one more thing James before because I know you asked me and I'll try not to be too long winded here. I want to make sure that people understand the value of what the model at EXP has to offer no matter where you're at in your business because you asked also what was another thing that I had learned or what was another reason that we moved and what we learned through our move, and I'm hearing back from obviously a lot of these team leaders in our interviews is the fact that I had a decision to make personally when I moved. We were opening up our own market center. We had approval through KWRI. We were opening. In fact, that market center has now opened without me. Right? [18:34] JAMES: Okay. [18:35] MIKE: Some other person or group came in and took my place. I was supposed to be an owner at that market center and EXP was put into my lap, right? We had a decision to make right away and that decision was, do I move forward with my plans with Keller Williams to open this market center, right? Or do I move my team to EXP? I'll tell you what it came down to. It came down to what was better for my team, right? Ultimately the reason why EXP want one out is because the move to Keller Williams would have been a lateral move. Actually it would have been a worst move for them because the CAP was going up at the new office. It would have only been a win for me, right? I could have been an owner at that office and that would have been great, right? Our Ego loves that, right? I'm an owner. Ultimately if I knew I wanted it to be successful through my team. That's what I want and ultimately to be able to provide them the best platform for success, right? I knew that I had to make the decision to move to EXP because now I can offer them things that I never could before. That is through revenue share and that is through who stocks, right? Now, they can become owners. They have a vested interest after three years. They have two exceptional wealth building tools that they never had access to before.[19:46] JAMES: Absolutely, yeah. That same message as I go around talking with agents in my market, same message. My team is definitely not structured because your team structure right now is, consists of what? How is your team set up right now?[19:57] MIKE: We serve two markets. We serve Dayton-Ohio market and also the Cincinnati-Ohio market. [20:02] JAMES: Okay. [20:03] MIKE: We have 25 agents. We also have a listing manager and a contract manager and then an office manager as well. [20:10] JAMES: Right. [20:11] MIKE: I have Director of operations/ co-owner and a guy named Jump Welski.[20:16] JAMES: Yeah. You've got a pretty big a machine going up there and a lot of people being affected by your decision, all tweets and make that move over to the EXP, which is not something to be taken lightly by any means. I've spoken to a lot of other agents. I don't know. I've watched a lot of your interviews with people. It's a tough decision because it's not just you that you're affecting here. It's a ton of people that are affected by your decision, good or bad one way or the other. I don't think there's really any downside to EXP. I'm going to be a little biased, but the other revenue models or other revenue streams that we have available is great. The fact that we can collaborate with people all over the country at this point and soon it'd be international, 2019-2020 which is a pretty exciting where the company's. I compare what we're doing now with EXP and how Glenn has set this up and the fact that you are not going to have a conversation. You and I could talk to each day. Three quick questions I want to ask you. First question is what are you reading right now? I know you're always seeking knowledge. I know. Are you reading anything right now that…[21:20] MIKE: Let me make it up for you man. I'll tell you right now. I usually have a couple of different books going on. I do love to read and I do love to listen to podcasts. I'm listening to… this is not a business book but its called sleep smart. I don't do fitness coaching, but I have a fitness coach too. He sends me books. I'm also listening to the Perfect Day Formula and that's by Craig Valentine. I'm listening to it another book called The Swerve. That's a good book. It's funny man, because if you do a lot of reading or if you listen to podcasts, you always get ideas about books from other people, right? It seems like one book leads to another write. One book mentions another and then you pop that in audible and you read that. I think one really good nugget and you and your audience should write this down if you haven't heard it already is listen to that recent, the most recent Maxout podcast with Ed Mylett, where he talks to you. UOP baseball team. That is so good, man. It is so powerful. I've shared that with my entire team. I listened to it probably every other morning because it just so resonates with me, especially as you transitioned into 2019. If you need something to get you up and light a fire under your butt and it is great, great material, man. [22:26] JAMES: Yeah, I have my last. He's awesome. He is awesome. That's the beauty of a podcast is or an audio book for that matter just to be able to listen to it at any point of your day, at any time. It really doesn't matter where you're at nowadays. You can just pop that in and listen to us. I have not heard that one. I will make sure that I listened to it. I'm actually post the links so people can get just click where and go right into it. [22:46] MIKE: Awesome. [22:47] JAMES: I'm an avid, avid reader as well. There's always something that I pick up. The knowledge that it's that compound effect. One compounds on top of you, the next thing. Another last, last two questions here. What's your favorite quote? Favorite quote.[23:02] MIKE: Man, that's a good one. I think it's probably changed throughout time. I think my favorite quote is probably really cliché at this point, but it just so resonates with me is the old Zig Ziglar quote is that "you'll get what you want. If you can help enough other people get what they want." That has not always been true for me. I've grown in my business, I've learned that my success will ultimately be a product of the success that I help others have.[23:28] JAMES: Yeah, no, that's awesome. Zig Ziglar Fan, goodness gracious as well. I one that was one of my favorite of course. The other one is then you're going to be a meaningful specific or a wandering generality. It's huge and especially for realtors because most realtors are not meaningful specifics.[23:45] MIKE: Right. Right. We know that.[23:46] JAMES: Great, great quote there. The last thing I want to ask you, so what's something that you want to do in 2019 that you've never done before? Whether it be business related obviously EXP is an explosion in growth mode right now. What's something that maybe you've got want to do a 2019 that you've never done before?[24:04] MIKE: That question comes at a really opportune time for me because we're actually in the middle of opening up our own mortgage company, the P and L model. I'm actually really excited to play around with that a little bit. I think there's a huge opportunity, not only to add more money to the bottom line but to also provide a level of service that most of the real estate agents can't provide because this is going to be set ups just so especially at first just so this person is servicing our team.[24:29] JAMES: That's great. I've had a sin as a, as a loan officer. There's no better mortgage advisor like yourself because you are on that side and you speak to what your clients are really wanting and really be able to direct if it's going to be your mortgage company or whoever you're working or partnering with on the mortgage side to really provide a really, really good value for people because I know you've experienced it. I've experienced it with a mortgage companies that it amazes me that some of these mortgage companies exist or lenders should I say. I've had people just completely disappear during the process. This is amazing to me. It's amazing. That's a great opportunity and I think with your background there's no way that you would not be successful with that or anything else that you do. [25:19] MIKE: Thank you sir.[25:20] JAMES: That'd be great. Again, I am a huge fan. I admire everything you've been doing. You're one of those people when you meet him, you just like of like literally I met you. We shook hands on. My God, I just liked this guy. [25:29] MIKE: Likewise my man, likewise.[25:34] JAMES: I've got to get up to and actually one more thing we got to talk about real quick, the most important thing will Ohio State be in the playoffs or not.[25:42] MIKE: Man, at this point, does it even matter? It's whoever's going to play Bama and lose, right?[25:45] JAMES: Right. Right. That’s true. [25:50] MIKE: I love my Buck guys I'm also a realist man. [25:52] JAMES: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's got to be quiet if you you say well. Anyway, when I appreciate your time, Mike. Thank you so much man. Thank you. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. I will continue to promote you as much as I can. If there's anything I can help you with, let me know and appreciate your time, man. You have a great one and we'll catch up. [26:07] MIKE: Likewise and if anybody's interested in that free coaching that you mentioned they could go to liverealestatecoaching.com and sign up there. I'd be happy to take on anybody for 30 to 40 minutes and just really dive deep into any area of your business you're looking to improve. [26:24] JAMES: I will post the link on the podcast. Actually let me put it on here so people can get that link and access what you're offering there. Yeah, can't go wrong. Free strategy call with Mike, reach out to them. He's an awesome agent, great example a lot of consistency and professionalism. I really appreciate what you do on Mike, We'll catch up soon brother. You take care.[26:43] MIKE: All right man. Thanks so much, James. I appreciate it. [26:46] JAMES: Okay. All right, bye-bye.[26:47] MIKE: Good luck.If you like this episode of the Houston Home Talk podcast, please don't forget to like, share, and comment! We appreciate your support and feedback! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James and his wife Stacy are the parents of one-year-old Ozzy, and are about ready to give birth to another child any day. James is true punk rock - eight-inch purple mohawk, ear stretchers, he has played in a band, and his career is working at a high-end guitar factory. We talk all about peoples perceptions of him - with and without his daughter - and how people go from scared to infatuated when he's out playing with his kid. We also talk about work/life balance, and what it's like to be on the phone with someone in the world of rock n' roll while your kid is playing on the floor. 

In episode 6, we finish the story of the Rosewood Unicorn, along with meeting Theresa who runs a comforting bookshop, and seeing what happens when the Dean Drops In. Music: Creepy – Bensound.com.   James: Here are some totally made-up tales brought to you by the magic of the internet.     We start with the Dean Drops In.   Andrew: The head librarian looked up from her desk at the sound of a knock of the door of her wood panelled office.   James: Perhaps, she thought, it was her assistant with the soup for lunch. But, no, standing in the doorway was the Dean of the University.   Andrew: "May, I come in?" he said in his patrician drawl that he had spent years perfecting.   James: "Of course, Dean," she said drawing a chair for him on the other side of her immense desk.   Andrew: "I wondered if I might speak to you about the little subject of books?" He said.   James: "Ah, yes, books," said the head librarian, "they are indeed in my remit."   Andrew: "Yes," he said, "I was wondering if that is really the most efficient way for us to work? Do you think we might re-visit the whole topic?"   James: The head librarian thought for a moment. This was a familiar pattern with the Dean, walking in and sparring with members of his faculty, threatening to take away certain responsibilities or authority. But this, she felt, was going further.   Andrew: Books had always been at the heart of University life and at the heart life and at the heart of learning and culture and damn if she was going to lose them.   James: Although the library contained a large number of things that were not by any stretch of the imagination books, she felt that reducing herself to only looking after those would inevitably see the library become part of some other faculty, such as languages or perhaps the modern hearts.   Andrew: She turned over in her mind the best way to conquer this threat to her domain. What could she do?   James: Smiling gently at the Dean, she walked around the large desk flicking open a small drawer as she went and withdrawing a jewel-encrusted dagger.   Andrew: This she delicately plunged into his back behind the middle of the rib cage, up into his heart and withdrew it wiping it on her handkerchief.   James: "Chelsea," she called for her assistant, "file this under D for dead things."     And now: Part II of the Rosewood Unicorn.   Andrew: The day dawned bright and fair. There was not a cloud in the sky. It was the 17th birthday of the Princess Caroline.   James: She rose early and was dressed in the most sumptuous clothes by her maids and prepared for the full day of celebration before her.   Andrew: In the morning she toured around the capital city meeting, greeting, receiving birthday wishes from the loyal subjects of the king among whom she was so popular.   James: At lunch there was a great banquet with many of the princes from surrounding kingdoms vying for her hand in marriage, not knowing, for the king had never disclosed to anyone the deal he had made with the Man in Black.   Andrew: The afternoon she had for recreation, for it was her birthday after all. She went for a pleasant walk in the gardens and played a game of tennis.   James: And just before the evening meal, as she had for so many years, she played briefly with the unicorn toy that she had been given so many years ago. Although it was no longer alive, she still loved it with a strange passion from her past.   Andrew: After a busy day, her birthday ended with a simple meal for the most immediate members of the royal family in their private dining room. They had a delicious, but not extravagant meal, and had come to the end of it.   James: There was a knock at the door to the royal suit.   Andrew: "Who could that be?" said the Queen. "This is a very late hour for us to be interrupted by an urgent message or an embassy from a foreign power."   James: The King signalled to one of the servants to open the door and inquire who it was at this late hour.   Andrew: The double doors were flung open and framed in silhouette against the flickering candlelight from the corridor behind, was the Man in Black.   James: "I have come," he said, "as we agreed."   Andrew: Well, there ensued a rather complicated conversation. The King had a great deal of explaining to do. The Queen was unhappy. Princess Caroline was unhappy. Tears were shed, voices were raised, but the Man in Black was implacable and the King was a man of his word. There was no way around it other than Princess Caroline should immediately pack her things and leave.   James: Tearfully she looked around her rooms deciding what she would take with her. There was no need, perhaps, for many of the things that she normally liked to wear or many of the books that she usually read from. She packed a small bag, taking with her only a couple changes of clothing and the unicorn.   Andrew: The Man in Black had a fine black horse, strong and sturdy waiting in the courtyard, steam rising from his nostrils as it stamped its hooves and shook its head. "Climb aboard," he said.   James: She swing herself up behind him. The bag pressed between the two of them. Almost as a wall between her and, as she thought of him, her captor.   Andrew: They rode through the night. Across lands that the princess had never seen before and had barely known existed. Across forests and fields, mountains, valleys, they forded rivers, until at length they came to the far off land where the Man in Black ruled.   James: A dark, sinister castle thrust itself out of the naked rock. Towers twisting towards the sky. Around it a dark and menacing forest stretched as far as the eyes could see. As the Man rode his horse, Caroline behind him, down the single, narrow path through the forest, she, tired from their journey, gradually slipped off to sleep.   Andrew: The next day, the princes awoke. At first, she was aware of being in a comfortable bed so familiar to the one that she had slept in for many years. But soon she realised that, no, she was not in the bed chamber that she had grown up in, but she was in a different castle in a different land starting a new life.   James: She crept out of her bedroom and started to explore around the castle very soon finding the main hall where the Man in Black was taking breakfast.   Andrew: "Ha-ha, my dear, you are awake," he said with great charm and courtesy. "We'll you join me for breakfast? I have all the goods that one could possibly want to eat."   James: As he spoke, she realised that she was hungry and sat down to eat some of the most delicious fruits and meats that she had ever tasted.   Andrew: The spread was vast and she ate her fill and was sitting in quiet contentment when her husband spoke.   James: "Now you have come to live here you will, of course, have all of the benefits of my country. The best food, the most delicious wine, the most compliant servants; however, I do regret that you will never be able to go back and see your family again. That is just the way that these things work, I'm afraid."   Andrew: The princess was heartbroken. She said nothing and left the table and returned to her room, tears brimming in her eyes.   James: She threw herself down upon the bed attempting to smother her tears in the pillow. Before long she felt a touch on her arm. She started, looking down her arm she noticed the unicorn and it tossed its head.   Andrew: "What on earth," she exclaimed looking down at the toy from her childhood. "But all those years ago you, surely you, I remember ..."   James: It nudged her with its horn gently and then cantered up to her face.   Andrew: "Oh, you've come back to me just at the moment which I needed a friend. Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said, kissing it on its back.   James: That night Caroline waited until she was certain that all in the castle were asleep before taking the unicorn in her pocket and creeping down to the great hall.   Andrew: There, she gathered up the things that she would need for a long journey and made her way outside through the kitchens.   James: The circle of the trees of the dark forest surrounded the castle and she could not see the path. So thinking that any direction was as good as any other, she picked one and started walking.   Andrew: The forest at night was strange and eerie but she was a confident young woman and with her trusty unicorn and her provisions, she strolled ahead without fear.   James: She walked through the night and as the first hints of dawn started to be visible through the dark trees, she finally came across a clearing and in the centre of the clearing was the castle.   Andrew: She was bitterly disappointed. "Oh, I must have taken a wrong turning somewhere or followed a path that came around. What a foolish mistake to make." But she realised that it would be futile to try and leave again during the daytime when she could be seen by everyone in the castle and she returned to the great hall for breakfast.   James: The following night she tried again. Once more as dawn started to creep across the land, she found herself back at the castle.   Andrew: She made several attempts over the following nights to escape. Each time taking a different path, recording the path that she had gone down by making a mark on the barks of the trees, but each time it brought her back to the castle at daybreak. Then while sitting down to breakfast the Man in Black addressed her.   James: "I told you, but you did not believe me. There is no way that you can leave this place and see your family again."   Andrew: "And indeed why would you want to? Here you will have a life of complete contentment. We have a peaceful land where we are unchallenged in our rule. You will have a life of ease and joy. You should accustom yourself to it and not seek to escape."   James: Caroline ran from the table up to her room and threw herself down on the bed in despair.   Andrew: "Oh, what shall I do?" she said to the unicorn as they played together. "What shall I do? It is comfortable here and life could be easy and it is impossible to escape, but I oh I miss my family so. What shall I do?"   James: That night she did not try to escape and as she lay sleeping the unicorn thought.   Andrew: The unicorn was a sensitive beast and hated to see the mistress who it loved in so much pain and discomfort. "How can I help?" it thought. "How can I help her to escape?"   James: The unicorn understood the magic that controlled the forest and the routes through it. The unicorn made of rosewood from the great tree that stood at the centre of the forest, was well aware of exactly how the Man in Black's magic constrained the Princes Caroline. The unicorn knew that this particular spell was powerful and woven through the very fabric of the castle and the forest itself and that only one thing could cause it to fail.   Andrew: The unicorn, a magical animal, understood the ways of the occult and knew that the only way to break the spell and to transport the princess back to her childhood home where she so longed to go, was to burn a part of the magical forest that formed that the impenetrable boundary around the castle along with an item from the desired destination of the traveler. The unicorn rooted around through the possessions that the princess had brought with her from her home and found one of the scarves that had been given to her in her childhood.   James: Now all of the unicorn had to do was to burn this with part of the rosewood heart of the forest. But now the Princess Caroline never went outside. She always wanted to stay within her room and play and the unicorn could not deny her that.   Andrew: Although it bided its time hoping for an opportunity to be taken outside so that it could collect something from the forest, the days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months and the princess was beginning to waste away with sadness and despair.   James: Seeing her condition, the unicorn knew that it could not wait and that its chance to get outside into the forest might never appear. It took the scarf, wrapped it around itself and when the princess was not looking, cantered into the fireplace where it burned completely.   Andrew: The day dawned bright and fair. There was not a cloud in the sky. It was the seventh birthday of the Princess Caroline.   James: She woke excited for the day's festivities ahead and as she always did, she started her day by playing with the delicate and beautiful swan that she had been given for Christmas. Made by the finest toy maker in the land.   Andrew: The door of her bedroom opened and her kindly aunt and uncle beamed down on her. "Come my child, let us have a celebratory breakfast on this your special day. A happy birthday to our beloved child and the most special girl in all the land."   Alternating: Theresa was a pleasant lady who ran the bookshop in town. Every time she wanted a breath of fresh air, she would walk outside into the square and sit on a stone bench beside the fountain. One day while perambulating, she encountered a small boy who was without his parents. He looked lost and sad. "Are you okay?" she asked. "No," he said, "I've lost my mummy." Theresa took him by the hand and went inside the bookshop. She picked him a book to read and made some tea. As he read to himself, she patted him on the head. He sighed contentedly. "I'm not scared any more."   James: I've been James and I'm here with Andrew. These stories were recorded without advanced planning and lightly edited for the discerning listener. Join us next time for more totally made up tales.  

Welcome to the third episode of Totally Made Up Tales, an experiment in improvised storytelling in the digital age. We hope you enjoy our tales of wonder and mystery. Let us know what you think! Music: Creepy – Bensound.com.   James: Here are some totally made up tales brought to you by the magic of the internet. Andrew / James (alternating words): Modern life is tricksy. It twists and turns when you least expect it. If you discover that you're gay, what do you do? In olden times, you would have been sent to Los Angeles.   These days, gays are everywhere and many have to deal with that. Why can't you be gay? Why is gay such a challenging thing for so many people who are or are not gay? Let's find out by looking at a gay story together from history.   Julius Caesar was a Roman gay. He would rise in the morning and sleep with many other prominent Roman people in the afternoon. Before lunch, he governed. After lunch, he made love like the hero he was. Men, women, whatever. Basically, he was everything.   This confused many of his contemporaries who chose to be in monogamous relationships with people either of the opposite sex or the same. Julius lived broader and loved broader. When he left politics, he died and was honoured with no fewer than five thousand state banquets, each remembering a different lover. The end. James: Now, The Well Endowed Witch.   Andrew / James (alternating words): A witch who was well endowed in the chest went to market and sold her potions to a young couple who wanted a child. "Simply sprinkle this over your wedding bed and your child will be born beautiful, intelligent, and strong."   The couple raced home, sprinkled the potion, and went at it like bunnies. Nine months later, out of the blue, the witch appeared at their door.   "Hello dearies," she said. "There is one more thing I should tell you. Your child will be beautiful, intelligent, and strong, but will live with you for 18 years of joy and happiness, and then you both will die suddenly at his hands."   The two looked at each other in horror and asked, "What can we possibly do?" "Well," said the witch, "there is another potion I can administer now, before the child is born which will prevent it from growing into this assassin."   "What is the cost?" the woman asked.   "Ahh, that is unusual. Alas, mere money will not suffice for this potion. This requires a child. Your child."   The parents huddled and attempted to decide, debating the two impossible options. At length they turned to the witch and asked, "Will you look kindly after our son when you take him from us?"   "Of course," said the witch.   Many years later, the witch was happy with the strapping handsome man who adored her as his mother and often reflected on her good fortune. Meanwhile, the couple had had another child who had grown into a plain but cunning and fleet young woman. She would often wander around the fields and forests surrounding the village, thinking and taking time to herself. Her parents never worried because she was so cunning. Dependably reliable, she would come home with new ideas and flowers.   One day, while wandering across the beautiful meadows, she chanced upon a young man who was sitting by a stream, and they got talking.   "Hello," said the young man.   "Hello," she replied.   The conversation petered out into long, not too awkward pauses and significant gazes. Comfortable in their presence, they strolled though the meadows, and at length, fell in love. They parted and the girl returned to her home, while the boy went through the forest to the witch's house.   Upon hearing him return, the witch poked her head out of the window and said, "Where have you been?"   "I have been strolling through the fields with my sweetheart," he said.   "No," said the witch. "You have no sweetheart. You cannot have a sweetheart, you must not."   Chastened, the boy did his chores and went to sleep. He did as he was told because he had huge respect and loyalty to his adoptive mother. He never returned to the same meadows and wandered lonely through the forest.   One day, the path took him towards an open clearing in the forest. Lying in the patch of sunlight, there was the girl. "I must not talk to her," he thought, "but my heart tells me that I must."   While he was debating, she looked straight at him and leapt to her feet. "I have found you!" she cried. "I've looked all over the forests, and yet only now have I found you again." She embraced him and kissed him, and he felt the profound yearning for her and forgot his mother's words.   When he returned home that evening, the witch once more asked him what he had been doing. He knew that he must tell her, but he also dreaded to disappoint her. "You've been with her again," she said, using magic to read his mind.   "I love her," he said.   "No! You love only me!" said the witch, and locked him in his room.   The witch stormed from the hut and ran through the forest. She cursed the girl and screamed at the heavens, summoning thunder and rain. Meanwhile, in the village, at the home of the couple, the young girl felt a quiver go through her. Soon, she heard the thunder and saw the lightning and felt deep within her that this was somehow a sign. Her lover must be in danger, and she was going to save him.   Knowing her parents would not allow her out after dark, she crept out her window, wrapped herself in a heavy cloak, and set off into the heart of the forest. Dark, dripping with rain, sinister shadows from the bolts of lightning flickering all around her. She returned to the spot where they had met that day and looked for any tracks or indication of where he had been.   Spying a footprint on the ground, she followed the trail into the forest. A flash of lightning illuminated the crooked cottage suddenly in front of her. She peered in through the window and saw the witch rocking back and forth in her chair by candlelight and mixing a potion in a bowl. Creeping round the house, she spied another, smaller window with a flickering candle on the ledge. Looking around, she saw a tree and climbed up it swiftly to spy through the glass. She saw little, but could make out a figure lying on a bed of straw. She tapped lightly on the window and he stirred. Padding over to the window, he reached up to open it and looked up at her.   "What are you doing here?" he asked.   "I've come to rescue you," she replied.   "How did you know?"   "Never mind that. Here," she reached out to him. "Give me your hand. I'll pull you onto this branch." So he did, and they did, and climbing down the tree, she whispered, "I love you."   Landing softly at the bottom of the tree, she looked at her lover, who was ham-fistedly climbing down the tree, making a real racket.   "Sshh," she called urgently, causing him to fall, crashing down to the ground. The door of the cottage opened suddenly, the witch silhouetted against the light within.   "Whaattt?"   "Run!" said the girl, and away they ran. The boy, the girl, and the witch behind.   Coming upon the clearing, the boy had to catch his breath. They stopped and the witch was about to reach them when a bolt of lightning slashed straight into the witch's head, frying her. The boy cried and collapsed onto the floor, sobbing.   "Come," said the young girl. "We must get home."   Her parents were shocked that she had been out in the storm, but recognized her courage and forgave her, welcoming the young man into the family, not knowing who he was. James: I've been James, and I'm here with Andrew. These stories were recorded without advance planning, and lightly edited for the discerning listener. Join us next time for more totally made up tales.