Podcasts about so tom

Paul Moore from Wellings Capital is back with us to talk about how to get started in the multifamily rental space. We discuss Paul's transition into the multifamily strategy, how to evaluate the trustworthiness of potential syndicators, different forms of multifamily investments, how to make the SFR to MFR transition yourself, common mistakes investors make, and taking action. Visit Paul's site: wellingscapital.com     --- Transcript   Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by my co host,   Tom: Tom Schneider.   Michael: And with us today, we have a repeat very special guest, Paul Moore of Wellings Capital. And Paul is going to be talking to us today about the transition going from single family into multifamily and then into massive multifamily syndication. So let's get into it.   Paul Moore, thank you so much again, for coming back on man. Really appreciate you taking the time.   Paul: I's great to be here, Michael. Thank you.   Michael: So Paul, what I wanted to chat with you about today is multifamily? Because I know that you are a big, big, big player in the space. And so maybe you can just start off by sharing with folks. What are some of the benefits of multifamily versus single family that in your opinion you've seen?   Paul: Yeah, so I just for a quick history, I flipped single family homes for years. You know, we did dozens and dozens and dozens of homes. And we also did waterfront lots, I did some ground up single family. And I wasn't sure how to get into the commercial real estate realm. And actually a friend of mine and I found this huge glut in or the shortage actually what am I saying a glut? An anti-glut and housing in North Dakota for the oil boom that was going on there during the Balkan years in late 2010 and on.   And so we built a multifamily facility sort of a quasi hotel and then we build another one next door then we ended up building a Hyatt Hotel and found out that man, I really like commercial multifamily. I like having all these doors under one roof. I like one parking lot. I like one, you know place where all the toilets are and everything. So we really we jumped into multifamily. And we really never looked back from that point on. And so that's how I got into it.   Multifamily is interesting because the government cau… helped cause a huge supply and demand imbalance in multifamily. So in the mid 90s, in the mid 1990s. The government and its great wisdom decided that everybody who could fog a mirror should own a house. And so they actually pass laws and they forced those laws down on the bankers. There's different opinions on how this really happened. But basically saying, you know, like starting this massive subprime mortgage boom.   And basically they said, Look, you don't have to have a good income, you don't even have to tell us your income. You can just do stated income or you can even do no doc and you guys remember that. And so lots and lots and lots of people were able to buy a home I have a friend who was making about 40 or $45,000 a year, he had a house and he bought a I think was a $500,000 second home in this town he grew up in and it was actually a little castle. It was in, you know this town that was actually in decline in West Virginia. And he bought that as a second home.   And you know, he didn't even have a really good plan. It was years and years before Airbnb. And so he lost it back to the bank and a lot of people lost their homes. But what happened is homeownership went up from its historical norm of about 63% to 69.2% by 2005. And so from ‘95 to ‘05 and went up a whole lot and so single family home ownership was in multifamily was not so much and then of course we have the crash that you know the cracks that started in ‘06 and ‘07 and then the crash that happened from really ‘07 to ‘10 and there was a lot of people who lost their homes. And a lot of people who said you know what? The American dream of having a home having my own house is not such a great dream as they watch their some of their parents and their friends and themselves, lose a home and lose all this massive amount of equity.   I know a guy named Rod Cleef who you guys might have heard of in Florida he had his net worth went up by I think $30 million in in Florida in single family homes between like ‘05 and ‘07 and then it dropped like fifth million dollars after that, and he lost all his single family and his multifamily because they were tied together on loans, you know that we're kind of cross collateralized. But at any rate, single family home ownership dropped back down to around 63%. And every 1% drop from 69.2 to 63 ish was represent a million people coming into multifamily.   But they came in at a time, when there wasn't a lot of multifamily being built, you know, like,'07 - 09 10-11. And so there's became this pretty significant supply and demand imbalance. And the four types of people who are coming in and at the time, especially right after the Great Recession, but even to now are coming in, number one, baby boomers, people my age, it's the smallest number of multifamily tenants, but it's actually the fastest growing. And statistics say when someone goes from a single family home that they own to multifamily, they typically never go back to owning their own home.   Second group is millennials now millennials in general, not you guys, but a lot of people, you know, a lot of them don't see the point in tying themselves down to a 30 year contract on a seemingly overpriced home, when they might have new opportunities, new friends, new jobs, you know, something across town or across America or around the world next year. And a lot of them historically have had a lot of debt. And with the new rules that came in after the crash, you know, a little over a decade ago, it's harder to qualify for a loan. And so millennials on average rent more than buying compared to other generations.   You've also got Gen Z, it's hard to say where they're going to land, but at this time, Gen Z, which is about as large as the millennial group at 77 to 82 million strong in America, they are also renters. And then the fourth group is immigrants. Now people who weren't born in the US, on average, rent more often and rent for longer than people born in the US. And so the question is, are we going to end up going more trending more toward Detroit, whether it's over 70% homeownership, or more toward Dallas, where homeownership is down around 50%? It's hard to say, but my money is on Dallas.   Tom: You know, it's funny, that inverse relationship of in Europe, it's there's some studies out where you have countries, some Scandinavian countries where maybe homeownership is left, but the economy is a lot more dynamic versus country where homeownership is very high, Spain and Greece, and usually the economy is a little sluggish. I think a lot of it has to do with what you're talking about where you have that mobility, you aren't necessarily locked in here. And you can, you know, move around. I think that's, that's part of it.   I love that story related to The Big Short, you know, talking about the run of the economy, I love to hear how your business evolved throughout that. So like you said, you initially were in single family was that in this run of time? Or had you already transitioned? I'd love to hear kind of the confluence of you through that whole, you know, through that market dynamic change?   Paul: Yeah, I'd like to say I thought through it. And some intelligent decisions based…   Michael: Crystal ball.   Paul: Yeah, just didn't work for me. But no, I had a public I sold a company to a publicly traded firm when I was 33, in Detroit, and that was in 1997. At 34, I found myself pretty bored. And so I started seeing flipping single family homes in 2000. And we did that and then we built some ground up like homes, and then we did a small subdivision. And like I said, I did I got into land and lots for a while. But I also set up a website that sold leads to realtors, and I still have that running in the background 17 years later, and it's still going pretty well. That's a regional thing right here in the southern part of Virginia here.   But at any rate, during that time I was I just I didn't know how to get into commercial, like I didn't know, like, how would I get into large scale multifamily, I didn't have $10 million. And I didn't know to trust where to start syndication was a thing we didn't really know much about. I mean, we knew that there was a thing called syndication where you can pull together a whole bunch of few active and then a whole bunch of passive investors. But we really didn't know how to do that. And we were sort of thrown into that when we started building, you know, much larger assets, you know, then we had the money for ourselves. And that was in 2011.   And, you know, when when single family and small multifamily around the country within the tank, we found that the opportunity in the Balkan region of North Dakota with the oil boom made, you know, was made a lot of sets. And so we, and we've kind of fell into that, Tom. I mean, we actually we then we had a failed oil and gas investment in North Dakota. But that's how we learned about the housing shortage there when we drove up there and saw people sleeping in their pickup trucks along the side of the road, in rest stops in a Walmart parking lot.   Tom: There's so many interested, interesting, successful businesses like that, where you went to the gold mine, you know, searching for gold, you know, the analogy of oil. But then you found the money was in the picks and the axes. And in that analogy, that would be the actual housing for it. So that's, and that's such a common, successful entrepreneur story of just kind of having eyes wide open. And, you know, pivoting as it makes sense.   Paul: Yeah. So which is more exciting. Hitting oil? or building a multifamily property? The Healthy oil workers? No, seriously, there's a thing called like, I'm trying to I'm working on a book, I'm just kind of in the early stages, the joys of boring investing, or possibly the boring investor. Boring investing is powerful. I don't know if you guys heard of the coffee house investor, but it's basically saying this look, why should we actively trade stocks, and Bitcoin and all these things that are so exciting? Sure, throw a little bit of that, but why are we spending our life's energy, when we could be hanging out with our families or friends are having a better marriage or whatever those things can be and make more money and ETF, you know, ETFs.   And so I, the thought there are not a stock guy. But the similar thing in real estate is this, would you rather give your let's say, your professional, let's say you're a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, an IT person, you're making hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year, and you're trying to flip a house on the side does that it doesn't always make as much sense to do that when you can have somebody else do it for you. And so I think companies like Roofstock, and my company, we, you know, we provide opportunities for people to get involved passively, still get the profit still get the appreciation of real estate. But at the same time, they don't have to give every waking moment of their free time to this. And that's one thing I love about it.   And that's sort of similar to what you said, Tom, and I mean, you know, you can either go out there and try to mine, you know, try to be out in the caves and you know, in 19-1849, trying to mine for gold, or you can just sit comfortably in your hardware store and sell all the equipment to them, you know, or you could be Amazon and shipping equipment. Anyway.   Tom: I love that concept of a book, The urge, you know, just kind of going into the the boringness as like the winning strategy. And I mean, just in talking with friends, I think a lot of it is FOMO it's a lot of it the psychology, you know, maybe you have some, you know, of some guy who got in Bitcoin really early. And it's like, oh, maybe I should do that. But it's like, having a kind of a balanced approach at looking at the, the, you know, the variability of it, right, the beta versus some some boring ETF strategy.   Michael: I agree with you both, because I think it's not sexy to talk about at dinner parties, you invested your money in something and it's just sitting there, earning you a great return. And like, everybody wants to hear the big win stories where you swung for the fences and knocked out of the park or it didn't go so well. I mean, that's, that's the stuff people want to talk about. But I couldn't agree more the passive stuff is, is really great.   And Paul I was hoping to kind of get your your take on this about how folks you touched on it a little bit about syndication, but I think so many folks can't fathom investing in commercial real estate, multifamily real estate. And for those of you that don't know, that's five units and up residential is four units and below. So how can people start investing in 100 units, 200 units, 500 units, you know, what, what's the path to get there? And then we'll come back to it and talk about how people can go from four to five.   Paul: Yeah, that's great. So if they want to invest in larger, you know, like, let's say, so I have some money in an IRA and I can't invest in my own company, because it's an IRA and I it has to be, you know, like arm's length. And so I look for other opportunities there. And I'm looking for something really passive and really boring. Now, recently, my friend told me how he was getting a 60% return on setting up this amazing log cabin, Airbnb in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. And I was like, Wait 60% annual return. He's like, yeah, I bought a million dollar house, I financed 900,000 of it. So I have 100,000 in it. And I'm getting 60 to 70,000 free cash flow a year.   And he's actually done this over and over. And he's helping other people do it now. So I got really excited about this in June. And then I thought about through July, and I thought about it through August. And I thought, Wait a minute, you know what that will be so exciting, because I love Gatlinburg, that will be exciting. And that will make a lot of money. But that'll be another thing to think about. That's gonna be another thing I have to worry about. That's going to be some call, you know, from even if there's a third party manager, I'm going to get calls, you know, about some toilet overflowing or some insurance or something. And I'm making pretty good money in our company. And I don't want to have to think about that. And that's the path. That's my passion, to tell people, you know, to be a boring investor and to do it through like syndication, for example, do I mean, do any of us really think we're gonna go out and find a two or three or 500 unit apartment and somehow find a deal that nobody who's given their whole life to it, you know, these hundreds and hundreds of companies who are pursuing these night and day with a team of people? Do we really think we're gonna find a deal, it's probably not going to happen in the real estate realm at that size.   And so why not align yourself with the people who know how to find those deals, and just invest in their deals. And so that's what I recommend I I talk about my new book has a section like 50 pages of seven paths to get into large scale commercial real estate, but the path I'm recommending for this podcast for this discussion would definitely be invest passively with somebody who is an expert.   Tom: So this is a, this is probably a common question.   I think this all sounds great. But, you know, how do you build trust with someone where you're going to give them a bunch of your money? How do you cross that chasm cross that bridge to get uncomfortable, especially for doing it for the very first time putting funds into a syndication?   Paul: So Tom, before I answer that, I just want to make sure are you saying, How do I build trust as a syndicator? to get people to give me money or vice versa? How do I price it versus…   Tom: Vice versa? I'm evaluating Yeah, sure. You know, the log cabins in Gatlinburg sounds super fun, but I you know, passive income, let's let's do that. Okay, how do I sort of vet a potential syndication to put funds into what would you be out around that?   Paul: Yeah, so a couple things I would do. There's a book called The Hands Off Investor, by Brian Burke. And this book is, it's a wonderful book by a guy who was a syndication expert. He's done 1000s and 1000s of apartment units. And it's published by BiggerPockets publishing, so I'd highly recommend The Hands Off Investor, it's about 300 page Guide, which will tell you how to evaluate a syndicator before you invest. Secondly, I would go to the real estate crowdfunding review. And it's not just for crowdfunding, it's for syndication in general. And it gives a tremendous amount of information and education about how to vet operators, fund managers, syndicators, etc. And it basically helps people figure out, you know, the, what they need to know before they invest, there's a lot of other investors on there, and they give very honest reviews. And there's no syndicators or fund managers allowed in their group at all. And so I could never see what people are saying about me there. So they probably feel a lot more willing to, you know, willing to be honest, good and bad.   Tom: I love how self serving these episodes are. This is this is incredible. Yeah, I love it. I have my Amazon cue the hands off investor in my that link to that site up right now.   Paul: Yeah, you know what, I didn't really answer your question that Well, those are two resources. I'll just tell you real quick. I want to actually see how much skin they have in the game, how long their track record is, do they have a cohesive team? How do they treat their staff? How do they talk about their other investors? What do other investors that they refer but also that you find yourself, what do they say about them? What kind of risks are they taking? What kind of cap rate are they assuming on exit, which in other words How much do they assume that the market will go up or down on exit? What kind of occupancy? assumptions are they making? What kind of rate increases rental rate increases in cost increases of a assuming there's a lot to know? And that's why it's so important to lean on things like you know, other people's reviews, which you get especially That real estate crowdfunding review site.   Michael: Paul, I agree with everything you just said. taking it a step further and allow your deeper if someone is brand new to the multifamily space and brand new syndications, how can someone know if the cap rate that's being projected on the exit is reasonable, or the vacancy that they're projecting is reasonable, their costs are reasonable.   Paul: That's really tough. I was just talking about this to an investor about an hour ago, and he was asking me, he said, If I invest with you, what kind of quarterly reporting will I get? And I said, Well, you know, the problem is, you're gonna have to really trust us, honestly. And you're gonna have to trust the people we invest with, because the quarterly reporting will not it might like make you feel good to see a big page of numbers. But first of all, if there's one mistake in their Excel spreadsheet, it can throw off the whole sheet, you know, that's   Michael: It's all garbage. Yeah,   Paul: It's all garbage. But also, you won't really understand, I mean, you won't really, really know. And so this is, again, going back to trust. And this is why I like the educational model, which is what you guys do so well, you're educating your audience, you're telling them about, you know, the different reasons people should look at a real estate investment with Roofstock, and other people on podcasts are telling you about theirs. That's why I think education is so important. And building a loyal group of people over many, many years.   There's a lot of newbies who are doing this now. There's some of them, say stuff like, hey, the real estate market will never go down again. You know, people always need a place to live. That's not true. And history tells us it's not true. And so my money is again, on people that have been around like Buffett, you know, 91 years. And he has some things to say even though he's not a real estate investor. He has some really, really important principles for real estate investors, and I love to study this stuff.   Michael: Yeah. It's such a good point. I've been to several multifamily workshops and syndication workshops, and they're talking about how, you know, it's really important to evaluate not just the deal, but just to your point, the sponsors, who's putting this deal together, why is it that they're asking for money? You know, what is their track record look like? So I think if, if the numbers you can't read the numbers, or you can't tell the story between the numbers, look to the folks who are behind the numbers to get a good understanding of what how that deal is going to perform.   Paul: Yeah, that's true.   Michael: So wondering if we can shift gears here a little bit, Paul, and if you could share with us a little bit on what you've seen folks do really well. Or maybe you personally how you went from single family into small commercial multifamily, because I think that there's this chasm, Tom, to use your word, that people can't make this mental shift, that there's this commercial real estate in the multifamily space is so different than residential or than single family. So what have you seen folks do to be successful to make that leap?   Paul: Yeah, I think it's just actually doing it. I mean, getting some education. There's a lot of great podcasts out there these days. There's books, there's mentoring, there's coaching of the path, you know, that I mentioned earlier, I really highly recommend, you know, getting paid coaching, or even unpaid mentoring and learning from somebody who's been before you.   One thing I mean, I hate to sound like rude, but I'll be on a, you know, I'll be on a BiggerPockets forum answering a question. And if somebody says, I'm trying to make a decision on how much to offer on a single family house, great. That's great. That's no problem. I understand that. But when somebody is on there, saying, I'm trying to buy a two or $3 million mobile home park, or self storage facility, or you know, even a 20 unit apartment, and they don't even know really basic stuff, like what does cap rate mean, or whatever. I'm like, Don't do this.   Michael: What are you doing?   Paul: You're risking your family's money and your friends money, and it's almost sure to be a failure. I mean, the money. The big money in commercial real estate is buying from a mom and pop operator and improving it. And we've seen people double or triple. I'm doing a case study this week with somebody you know, somebody who was able to quadruple their investors joint, you know, the group of investors equity quadrupling, in two years. It was from buying a $10 million Self Storage Facility from a total mom and pop operator who didn't know what he was doing.   And so don't be one of those. And the way to not be one of those is go get a paid coach, or an potentially an unpaid or semi paid mentorship with somebody who's way ahead of you. And then like I said, books, podcasts. cetera is really helpful.   Michael: Yeah, that's such a great tip. I do a lot of coaching inside the Roofstock Academy. And I'll get folks in there sometimes say, Oh, I want to go big for my first one. And I said, Well, why? Well, because I want to do this and everything. And I said, Look, I can almost guarantee you, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to learn lessons. Would you rather learn those lessons on a big, big property with a lot of risk or on a smaller property with a whole lot less risk? and 90% of the time? That's so let's go learn. Let's go learn with training wheels, and then we can go ride our bikes.   Paul: Yeah, I agree. It's so true. And I wish I didn't know that years ago. I mean, I made so many mistakes like this. And, you know, I love what the first Nobel Peace Prize winner Paul Samuelson, in economics from the US. He said, investing should be boring. It should be like watching paint dry are watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go Las Vegas. You know, it's it's so people wanting to be part of the excitement is going big, go big or go home. Right. But, you know, life doesn't work that way very often. And when it does, it's such an exception, that, you know, they write books and tell stories about people. I mean, people think, you know, Jeff Bezos was an overnight success. He has massive pain and failure in his background before he got to where he got, you know,   Michael: Yeah, it's so true. People only talk about the highlight reels no one talks about the other 99% that fail or don't make it or that, you know, go home crying,   Paul: Right.   Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Curious.   Paul: That's true.   Michael: Curious, Paul, what is one of you know, a couple of the big mistakes that you see newer investors make as they make the transition to multifamily?   Paul: That's good. One would be just assuming that rent, you can increase rents, like 6% a year every year, but costs are only going to go up 2% make a ton of sense. Although it could happen, you know, it could happen if you can find some efficiencies and things like that.   Another one is not aligning with a great property management team. You know, I mean, if you, I mean, I think finding a property manager is critical. I know a guy who's a medical professional, I met him recently, and he had 42 units. And he was man… He was managing it himself, trying to run his medical practice and managing 42 units. He's like, well, the cash flow will be destroyed if I got a property manager. And I'm like, Yeah, but your life destroyed. Now, you know, like, he was telling me how a tenant had just moved into a place on Monday and on Wednesday, set it on fire. I mean, that was like three days before I met him.   And I'm like, okay, so if you just own that, and you weren't the property manager, you'd still have a ton of hassle here. But as the property manager, and the owner and asset manager, you've got, like, 10 times more. And so I think that is one big mistake people make, assuming they can do it on them on the side. And assuming it won't be that much hassle. And assuming that there won't be any vacancy, things like that.   Tom: Pennywise pound foolish, I guess, Penny penny wise, sanity foolish.   Paul: Yeah right. Yeah, sure.   Michael: One big one that I see is when folks start to make bridge this gap, and it could even be in residential multifamily, but they'll look at a single family house that rents for 1000 bucks a month, and they'll look at a duplex that rents for 1000 bucks a month gross, you know each side for 500 bucks a month, and they'll evaluate those two properties as the same. And I would say that they're not because the folks renting that single family are going to be a different tenant class in the folks renting the duplexes. So don't you've got to go beyond the numbers and don't live in the spreadsheets because it'll come back to bite you in the keister.   Paul: Yeah, sure. Well, that's great point. Appreciate that, Michael. That's good.   Tom: Paul, I think we're we're kind of in an interesting economic point right now where we've had this this wild run up on appreciation, and maybe it will continue. Maybe it won't. I'd love to hear kind of your crystal ball thoughts around the market, rent prices, just kind of a general musing on what to look look towards and coming up and 2021 and into 2022.   Paul: Yeah, well, I was sitting in airport, going in a tiny little airport in Belize city going to The Real Estate Guy's annual conference in June, and I was sitting next to a well dressed guy and I started a conversation with him. It turned out it was Doug Duncan, who was the chief economist for Fannie Mae. And I was like, Well, okay, what do you really think about inflation? I really think the same thing I'm saying publicly, I think it'll be in the fives this year. It'll be like 3.8% next year. I'm like, why do you think it'd be so low 3.8 as I said, they just injected 30% of cash that's ever been created in the US. It has been created in the last 17 months. So why won't inflation just go through the roof?   And he explained that it's not only the amount of cash, it's the velocity of spending. And he said, he thinks there's gonna be a lot of velocity this year, you know, kind of in this post, you know, like the year after 2020, where COVID was just reigning and ruling over all vacations and everything else. But he thinks there's gonna be a big spending spree this year, of course, we're seeing that tons of shortages. I mean, go try to buy a four wheeler or a four wheeler trailer right now you can tell I tried really hard to find anything or try to find a car. You know what the chip crisis, but it's the same in real estate.   And Doug Duncan went on to explain, he said, I think the shortage in the real estate market is real. He said, I started sounding a siren in 2014, saying, you know, seven years ago that there was this growing supply and demand imbalance, which is sort of what I was talking about earlier, that includes multifamily, and single family. And he said that the amount that in balance is going to take years to catch up. And so it really does seem like the price inflation in, you know, rents, and single family home prices and apartment prices, it seems like it's real, it is justified. And it seems to me that without some huge exogeneous shock to the economy, which, you know, we found out we could have, of course, with COVID and other things. Aside from that, which is kind of a black swan issue. It seems like the cap rates are going to continue to stay compressed, returns are going to continue to stay low, it's going to be hard to find single family or small multifamily that cash flows, and people are going to be relying on appreciation. But that's what we've been talking about earlier that that's really risky. Do we want to take risks like that?   Well, I'd say this, align yourself with people who have decades of experience if you're going to, because right now, if you're just coming in near that, what could be the top of the market, where the margins are razor thin, if existent at all. And you know, if there's a shock, or if there's a downturn, you could get, you know, in a lot of trouble getting a 97% loan, and then the value drops by 20 or 30%. It's I think it's a very risky time to get in, even though what I said a minute ago, it seems like the prices are justified, according to Doug Duncan's analysis, which made a lot of sense.   Tom: Thank you for that, that I feel very optimistic about, you know, in hearing that, and that makes a lot of sense. How would that how does that translate into, you know, your strategy and going into the next year? Is it you know, kind of cautiously continuing to deploy capital into the space? Or are you know, I know, there's a lot of other strategies, perhaps, you know, new builds or build to rent, new development. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, on translating that information into action.   Paul: Yeah. So Tom, you know, Warren Buffett, that sounds like I'm going to go on a bunny trail here, and I am, seriously, he bought, he hated tech stocks, and he was famous writing it. But when when Steve Jobs died, I think it was 2013 or so Apple just was really, really stagnant. And he saw a huge, he saw his grandkids, how they were addicted to all these Apple products. He saw the consumer behavior among a lot of, you know, Apple people that they just couldn't wait to get the next thing that they were basically addicted and chained to Apple. And he said, Look Apple's, like in the $20 per share range. And so he started quietly buying it. And he became the largest To my knowledge, the largest shareholder outside of apple in Apple stock.   And he did it because he saw intrinsic value. And that's where I'm going here. We need to find, I think at this point in the cycle with this much uncertainty, we need to find intrinsic value. And by the way, Buffett made massive, massive profits for Berkshire Hathaway, by his bet on Apple as it went up through the roof after that, and because people saw this something he saw something that people couldn't see before that this kind of crazy quote, Michelangelo said, I saw the angel in the piece of marble and I chipped away all the other stuff to get the angel to, free the angel.   And so the point of that is there's intrinsic value in certain real estate We've got to find that I told you the story about the guy I invested heavily with two years ago, who bought a $10 million self storage. And now he's quadrupled our equity in it. Because he saw intrinsic value. He saw stuff others didn't see. The guy in Gatlinburg I told you about, he has a way of unlocking intrinsic value in these cabins in to maximize the rental value. I know a guy in Minneapolis, he buys single family homes, and like for 400,000, but they only cashflow 1500 a month as to a single family renter. I'm like, how are you making that work?   He said, I furnish them and I rent them to students to beds per bedroom, to like for like five or $700 per bed. And the cashflow is massive because he's able to rent it to like eight students at like 600 a bed that's 4800 on a 44,000 excuse me, 400,000. home, he found intrinsic value. And that's what happens when we buy from a mom and pop, they don't have the knowledge, the desire or the resources to maximize the income and maximize the value of these commercial or residential assets. And so by buying from a mom and pop by seeing the intrinsic value, we have a chance to beat whatever happens in the realm of the market, the economy rents, all that stuff, we can beat it even if interest rates go way up from like where they are to 5,6, 7 range, which I doubt they will By the way, but even if they did a strategy like this can outfox that. And so I would just say that look for intrinsic value. Intrinsic value being the value that's not, that's hidden from the eye is what I meant.   Michael: Yeah. I love chatting with you, Paul. Because every time self doubt starts to creep in on this redevelopment project I'm working on it's taken longer. It's become more expensive than I initially anticipated. But I hear things like this. I'm like, Yes, I'm doing the right thing. This is the right call. So it's it's exciting to hear and it's definitely refreshing to hear and something that I talk a lot of out to investors that I speak with, it's Hey, you know, everybody can see the same set of facts. But it's those who have kind of can look through things at a different lens or through a different angle, that you'll see something different and allows you to see and perform or others can't.   Paul: That's great, man. Thanks for saying that. Michael. I'm glad to hear about your project. I'd love to hear more about it.   Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Tom, any final thoughts for Paul before we let him go?   Tom: No, this is uh, I love all the the Oracle from Omaha references, the Warren Buffett references and yeah, I love these conversations. Yeah. Thank you so much for for joining.   Paul: Yeah, you bet. Well, I'm actually working on the book called Warren Buffett's rules for real estate investors and really excited about it, because I'm, we're taking two friends of mine and me are taking his principles and applying them to real estate. So it's really fun.   Michael: When is that coming out, Paul?   Paul: Well, I've got a couple publishers talking about publishing it, we had it. We had it about I think 75% done a year ago. And then I just completely stalled on it. And so I just reopened all those Google Docs yesterday, hoping to get it done by the end of the year and come out maybe late 2022.   Michael: Awesome. Well, we'll definitely have to have you back on to talk about it. Cuz That sounds very interesting.   Paul: Thanks, I love to do that, man. It's great to be on here.   Michael: And for folks that are interested in learning more about what you do with syndications and learning more about you where should they go? How can I get a hold of you?   Paul: Yeah, you know, like I said earlier, I had a hard time figuring out how to get in, do commercial real estate. And so I've written a guide for people who want to get in, it's actually a quick, quite simple, five day little course they can get that at wellingscapital.com/resources. That's wellingscapital.com/resources.   Michael: Awesome. And that's a free download for folks.   Paul: Right.   Michael: Fantastic. Well, Paul, always a pleasure to have you on thank you again, for spending the time with us really appreciate it really insightful, and definitely look forward to continuing the conversation.   Paul: You bet, guys, thanks so much. Talk to you soon.   Tom: Thanks, Paul.   Michael: Alright, everybody, that was our episode a big, big, big thank you to Paul for coming on. Again. Always a pleasure to have you and definitely looking forward to having you back on and talking about your book. Paul's a wealth of knowledge, and feel free to go back and listen to that episode again. As always, if you'd liked the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever you listen to your podcast, and we'd love to hear your ideas about future episode topics. Happy investing. Happy investing.

My conversation with Dr. Tom Tonkin. We had a wide ranging conversation. He dropped a lot of knowledge on us including the following tidbits: Tom has a background in NLP. Here is a brief overview of the inputs that Tom spoke of. Tom's favorite British Statistician of the 1700s actually turns out is George E.P. Boxof the 1900s, but no matter. The quote is “All models are wrong but some are useful.” I mentioned the concept that it is not a lack of resources but rather a lack of resourcefulness that stops you attributed to Tony Robbins. This lead to a conversation about Self Directed Learning. Tom mentioned four components to self directed learning: 1) Being Resourceful 2) Having a Desire 3) Having Persistence and 4) Having Initiative. Tom introduced us to the conative, the third area of the brain. Ok, so the backpack review guy is Chase Reeves. And my backpack is the Pro Executive from Waterfield. Tom introduced us to the Google Ngram Viewer. I went down a rabbit hole playing with it. Tom mentioned one of my favorite reads of last year, Atomic Habits by James Clear and his exploration of habits as systems. We went back in TV history to L.A. Law and their opening scene each week. So Tom didn't give me much to go on with his next tidbit…Gail something from Dominican University. I found her (Dr. Gail Mathews) and the study about writing things down. Tom's Daily Ritual: Tom looks at his digital task list. His choice of digital task/idea manager is todoist. Tom uses fountain pens to hand write one page of tasks into an analog notebook and then works out of the notebook during the day. Tom's choice of notebooks is the Baronfig. At the end of the day, Tom transfers his notes from the day into his digital manager. You can find Dr. Tom Tonkin on most of the socials including an app I had not heard of before – VOXER where he invites you to send him a message or question and he will respond.

Once again, no Adam or Blake. So Tom, Cam and Ben check in to tackle the biggest topics in sports (3:14) Toronto Blue Jays make a splash at the deadline (21:30) Toronto Raptors say goodbye to Kyle Lowry and turn some heads with the Scottie Barns draft pick (32:25) The NBA Free Agency Guessing Game (42:35) NHL offseason talk (1:18:55) What continent are these Olympic countries on?

Hello Hyperion Adventurers. We wanted to let you know that something has occurred in our world that made us decide we will not be releasing a new episode today. However, since you are our Hyperion Adventures Family, we wanted to fill you in with what is going on with us. So Tom recorded this special message for you. Thank you so much for being a part of our family. We love you dearly. Tom & Michelle

Our focus is goals, and more importantly, actually making them happen. We all, me included, have goals and dreams and desires we want to achieve. However, every day, life happens. The urgent duties and demands we must tend to, then trying to rest and recover and have a break now and then. Those very important goals are never going to be as urgent. We listen to a two minute clip from Zig Ziglar on the issue, thenI polled our audience on some of their tactics and Tom Ziglar and I talk through the need for compassion with ourselves, but also some very real strategies we can use. And know this, there is no one best strategy, and your's can be as goofy as ever, as long as it produces results. So Tom and I share some of our own as well, and I'll admit mine often fall on the...not so conventional side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is an example of what the Roofstock Academy Mastermind sessions look like. Mastermind groups have long been a powerful tool that successful people use to support each other and advance their goals. Gathering a group of motivated individuals with a diverse range of skillsets to focus on one person at a time helps shine fresh light on challenges, uncover new solutions and provide accountability. The Mastermind group is just one of the many benefits we offer inside the Roofstock Academy. --- Transcript Tom: Greetings, and welcome to Roofstock Academy. My name is Tom Schneider. And I'm joined by Michael Albaum, Ryan Minekime and Dean West, and today we're going to be walking through a template of a mastermind group.   So this is a mastermind session that lasts about an hour. And we're going to be going through the regular activities where everyone is going to provide an update on their successes, their challenges. We're going to go into specific action items. And then we're going to put Ryan on the hot seat and talk about what he's working on. We're going to grill them, we're going to give them some feedback, all that good stuff. All right.   Dean: All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Dean West, a Roofstock Academy coach. And I have been investing in a couple markets now. Primarily Atlanta and Indianapolis. I believe I'm the the remotest real estate investor. I'm currently in Cape Town, South Africa, while investing in the US.   Ryan: Hello everyone, I'm Ryan Minekime. I'm also coach at the Roofstock Academy. I've been investing for about seven or eight years, I started out investing in California. And now I'm doing bur investing in the Indianapolis market as well. And I live in the Bay Area, California.   Tom: Hey, my name is Tom Schneider. I'm also a coach at Roofstock Academy. I have been investing for about 10 years, and I invest remotely in the southeast of the United States as well as the North East.   Michael: Hey, everybody, I'm Michael album, I'm also a coach at the Roofstock Academy. I like Ryan got my start investing in Southern California about a decade ago and do value add multifamily investing all over the country with a emphasis and focus on the Midwest on some of those Midwest markets.   Dean: Alright. So I'm really excited today to on behalf of rootstock Academy to be introducing mastermind groups. And a mastermind group is something that's actually quite near and dear to my heart. It's It's when I first started out several years back, I was in my own mastermind group with three other people. And that's the one thing that really spurred me to take action on my real estate investing and pushed me both professionally and personally.   So the mastermind group what it is, it's a accountability group of like minded people. So groups typically consist of three to five people. And there's certain roles within the group. And how it's broken down is it's broken into four major sections. And the sections talk about kind of the week overview, talking about, you know, some of the challenges and successes that you've had during the week goes then into talking about, you know, what, what your major or epic goal is that you're trying to achieve. And it doesn't just have to be in real estate, I actually I encourage people to talk about not just real estate, but also kind of personal if you're looking to lose 10 pounds or something like that, as well as invest in a property in Dallas, Texas. Great, put it out there. And I think it's something that's, that's really helpful for people to grow.   One of the big things we do in a mastermind group is what's called the hot seat, the hot seat is kind of a deep dive. So every week on a rotating basis, and the hot seat is chosen for one person and and that person talks about any challenge that they're having that they're trying to overcome. And they use the rest of the group as a sounding board, or as a way of soliciting feedback to try and overcome that challenge. And if you don't have challenges for the week, that's fine as well. You can talk about your, your kind of your roadmap to success and just see what what people have to say about, you know, the structure that you've put in place to achieve that epic goal.   And then the last section is is talking about what are you committing to? What are you committed to from next week? What are you going to achieve before the next mastermind group. And I think it's really important to to set a goal. But ultimately, if you like myself, we don't always follow through with it and mastermind groups, hey, I don't quote me on this here. But there was a study done when the University of California University is talking about how, you know, if you set a goal, that's great, but if you set a goal with in a mastermind group, you're 76% more likely to actually achieve that goal.   So I think that that resonates really well with me, just being my personal background of getting introduced to mastermind groups, and I really hope it's a success for all of you.   Michael: And I think it was something like 37% of statistics are made up on the spot, but that probably wasn't one of them.   Dean: Absolutely not. Not this one. Yeah, so I think what we're gonna do now is just give you a bit of a taste of a dry run of a mastermind group in action. So this is the first time we're meeting together as a formation of this, this mastermind group. So the first meeting is always a slightly different than the second, the third meeting, we have a template that will be going through the four roles, which I should touch on as well says the moderator, which I will be today, the moderator is typically in charge of setting up the meetings, and really just helping to facilitate the discussion move things along during the call.   The second piece is the timekeeper. So Michael will be our timekeeper for today, very important.They are the ones that are tracking minute by minute, you know that making sure we're on schedule. And if we are running off schedule, or someone's speaking a bit long, they will help gently remind them that they're going over their allotted time.   The third role is the the note taker. So Tom will be our note taker today. They will be the responsible for filling out the template, jotting down what people's commitments are epic goals, and then at the end of the mastermind group, they will, they will then share that document with the rest of the group.   And then fourth is the hot seat. So Ryan will be in our hot seat today. And that, again, is just talking about about half the time has spoken about just a challenge or a roadmap that they're trying to achieve. And they'll be walking through that.   Michael: And Dean do these positions rotate from meeting to meeting. Are they consistent throughout the life of the group?   Dean: Yeah, absolutely. So they do rotate to keep things you know, make sure everyone gets a fair a fair say throughout the sessions. So every week it typically rotates. And at the end of the meeting is typically when we decide on on the hot seat for next week who the facilitators timekeeper, etc.   Michael: Awesome.   Dean: Great. Awesome.   All right. So let's dive right in. Like I said, I'll be the moderator today. Tom, the note taker, Michael, the timekeeper, and then Ryan, the hot seat. And so kicking off is our overview section. So this in this section here, we talk about our, our challenges and successes, we typically don't want to talk for a second, I think for 5 minutes. So we only want to talk for about a minute or so about, you know, just some highlights some of the successes or the highs and lows of the week. And just to help inform the group.   Michael: Gentlemen, five minutes on the clock, start your engines.   Dean: Thank you, Michael.   So I can I can kick it off. So my my challenges and successes of the week. I guess I'll start off with my successes. I always like to start off on a high note. And is twofold. Actually, I last week, I rented out to my units that were vacant. So that is all taken care of now, which I'm very excited about. And then my second success is taxes cuz I like to cross donate and taxes. I've been pushed back a month. But that's didn't help me because I just pushed it my work back a month as well. So pretty much done to my taxes. And then one of my challenges for the week is just a personal challenge. Just the motivation to to work out on my side. Michael, you want to kick us off next?   Michael: Sure. So a high for me was I celebrated my two year wedding anniversary this past week, which was a lot of fun my wife and I did something really nice and special. My challenged that I had this week was I had a selling a six unit property that I bought as a buy and hold originally, but really turned it into a fix and flip over about a course of a year and a half. And that fill out a contract kind of went sideways due to a massive utility bill spiking and throwing off all of the valuations of the property. Because it's a multifamily commercial building, it trades based on cap rates and noi, and the noi got vastly decimated by this utility bill. So it's an estimated building, we're trying to figure out what to do with it, we're probably just going to take it off the market try to re stabilize it get the tenants in line, possibly even mass or sub meter everything or institute a rubs which is a ratio utility billing system and get the noi back in line and then bring it back on market at the end of the summer here.   Dean: Tom Do you want to go next?   Tom: I've been just dragging my feet like nobody's business on getting my insurance updated. I use the initial insurance that was provided to me and I, I knew that I wanted to change it and it's literally like years and years later. So I have officially bundled that with my personal through a big insurance broker. So kind of a big, big win for something that's just lasted way too long. And I'm also gonna I'm going to glob on to that success of getting taxes. That's something that I like to drag my feet on as well. But I have that submitted some challenges is I have a lot of balls in the air right now. With refinancing three properties, and it's a little bit ambiguous to me right now on where all of them sit, like I've been responding to emails as they come in, but I think it could be a little more proactive in reaching out to my lender. So I'd say the challenge is just being a little bit too passive in the process. Because, you know, I think there's there could be some timing considerations with, you know, making sure the loan rate lock and all that stuff. So, yeah, it's a challenge is just being a little bit more organized on some of these less organized than I should be on some of these refinances.   Michael: Is this all with the same lender, Tom or different lenders?   Tom: All the same lender.   Dean: Yeah. All right, Ryan.   Ryan: So I will start with challenges. And then we can end on a high note on my challenges. I think I've put in three offers over the past 10 days or so. And all of them got outbid by like, 40k on like, 150k purchase price. So just everything's getting taken very quickly. So that was a challenge is getting a little defeated there and putting in offers on the successes, I started looking at off market properties, which we'll jump into when I get in the hot seat. But I got two appointments that this week with potential sellers. So that was a positive note.   And then also my wife and I are said to have a baby on Thursday. And so this past weekend, we just did like everything as our last time before kids. So like we went to a brewery and we're like, Okay, this is the last time I'm going to burger for kids. We went to out to dinner, we're like this is our last date and like 18 years so. So we just, we went through and sort of did a bucket list of things we wanted to we wanted to do.   Tom: Just say Congrats. I joined the the dad club like a year and a half ago and the water's warm. It's It's It's awesome. My one my recommendation would be getting one of those giant yoga balls that you can sit on is one of the few things a dad can you know, to calm a baby like, you know, the bouncing up and down. Mom's got some special tools built right into her to help calm a baby. But yeah, I'd get one of those big yoga bouncy balls. But congratulations. That's really awesome.   Ryan: Yeah. Thank you exciting.   Dean: All right, Michael, how are we doing on time here?   Michael: We got nine seconds we crushed that guy's. Perfect,   Dean: Look at that. All right. So the next section is commitment. So we talk, this is about a 10 minute section roughly. And it's broken down to these three subsections. Again, the first one, this is our first mastermind group meeting, it will be slightly different.   But for this meeting, we'll be talking about our epic goals. Like I said, again, it doesn't just have to be real estate focus, think about you know, something in your personal life that you want to achieve, whether it be changing careers, or you know, losing weight, or whatever it is, and on top of your real estate goals as well.   So that's your your epic goal. We talked about also, it's what's called last week's commitment. Since we didn't have a commitment last week, we won't speak about it. And then if that commitment was completed, yes or no.   So I'll start off. Again, what's the timeline for the epic goals? It's it's pretty important like we talked about in restock Academy, setting your SMART goals and making sure it's realistic, timely, etc.   Ryan: What's the timeline for the epic goals?   Dean: You want to set a timeline around it, say epic goals typically, in your three to six month period is typically what you will try and shoot for. Alright, so starting off myself. So my first, it's not really an epic. I would call it more of a grand goal. And so one notch down from an epic goal. But you know, within the next three months, I do want to do a 401k Roth IRA conversion, as well as doing a cost segregation, potentially do a cost segregation study on my four Plex if the numbers make sense.   So what I'm trying to do as much as I can this year, as I'm shooting for my real estate, tax professional status, is I want to try and drive up as many expenses or deductions that I can this year in order to kind of offset my my wife's income. And number two is. So within the next three months, I also want to take over the management of my Indianapolis portfolio. And that's a couple of reasons but number one is an a bit underwhelmed with my PM at the moment, especially after doing my taxes just kind of seeing where things lie. And it also drive up my net operating income for my portfolio.   And then the third reason actually one of the more important ones is the reason I want to do this is because I need more hours for my tax professional status. I think we need 750 hours. And so I want to make sure that I reach that. My last goal and personal goal for me is that within the next three to four months, I want to be able to meditate everyday consistently for at least 15 minutes. And my mind is always on so many different places at once and I'd really like to kind of take a deep breath and kind of be able to focus. And I think meditation is a good aspect for that. So those are my epic goals, or grand goals.   Michael?   Michael: Awesome. So, by July 31, I would like to have my development projects completed, finished and started to get rented. So I've talked about this on a lot of other podcasts, a lot of other episodes, I'm redeveloping a 20,000 square foot commercial use, or mixed use building and creating 15 residential units and two commercial spaces out of that it has been a long, sweaty, bloody tear field road, that we're not quite done yet, but starting to get there. So I'm trying to get that over the finish line. By July 31. I'm going to speak that into reality.   Then I just got a flip property under contract, I'm doing a flip inside of my Roth IRA, something I wanted to try my hand at. So I just got a small property under contract, I'm looking at have that completed, that flip completed and marketed within the next 45 days, we're due to close in two weeks. So that's a pretty aggressive timeline, but I think it can be done.   And then on a more personal note, similar to Dean, I want to focus more on sleep, I've definitely noticed over time, my sleep has deteriorated, I think mostly to be me being in my own head. So many things like Tom and Dean, I've got a lot of balls up in the air and constantly thinking about that. And I need to really help separate for myself, the personal world, from the business world and the sleep world from the business world, which I find hard to do, I'm not really not good at condense or condensing is wrong word. But, boxing, if you will, different different aspects. And I'm always thinking and always switched on. So I need to really help focus on on switching off. So that's definitely a big focus of mine over the next three to six months.   Dean: Right. Awesome, Michael? Thank you, Tom?   Tom: Yeah, so in going through the reef eyes that I'm doing, I need to redeploy that capital on the cash that I'm getting back. So I'm expecting to have those funds in the bank sometime in early May. So I'd love to have it two to three properties in contract by the end of May. You know, I guess, being sequential about this, I've been an SFR guy for a long time. And I was thinking about doing a little bit of either small commercial or, or like a four Plex. I see. I see Michael, he's, he's excited about that. So I really need to sit down and kind of finalize that plan. So I might put some time on Michael's calendar and thinking through that.   So having those funds in when they hit the bank account like not, because I'm paying for that, right. But that debt is running, having a very locked in plan in place, they either continue to add a couple more SFR or go multifamily. And I think they're putting a date to that, I think by the mid May, so May 15. Like I have to have a very specific and I keep looking at you know, properties down like different strategies like looking at SFR and looking at commercial stuff. So I guess really locking that down and then executing that. So number one is going to fit Yep, building finalizing that, where I'm going to just tribute the new funds for these, this next round of acquisitions.   And my other goals that I have is just have my second vaccine coming up pretty excited about that. And just starting to reengage with some friends that I haven't seen in a while still, you know, wearing masks and doing doing all the right precautions, but after getting the second vaccine starting to, to re engage with some friends and some more outdoor stuff. So I love being specific about it. So all say having, you know, two events in a row of friends. Yes, that's gonna be my my non my my fun one. So.   Dean: That's very topical. And that's, that's Adam will go on a lot of us are dying to get out there again and re engage with the world like we used to back in the day. Right, Ryan? How about yourself?   Ryan: Yeah. So on a personal note, going back to being a dad on Thursday or sooner, just trying to be as supportive as possible in all of that was my wife. So taking care of the cooking and the cleaning and everything that I can do. Maybe some some midnight shifts, if I'm been tapped for that, but whatever, whatever it takes on that end, and then on the real estate side. So just working on getting this off market deal finding process up and running. So specifically, I want to put two properties under contract either buying holds or flips by we'll call it mid June. So get two properties under contract.   And then also I'm trying to figure out a way to monetize the leads that I don't want to keep. So what I've found is there's a lot of leads coming in that are probably good deals, but I just don't want them and so trying to figure out a way to monetize that without becoming like a wholesaler like very minimal touch way to at least break even on all my marketing spend for deals that I don't want to keep.   Dean: Awesome, you know, your, your your personal goal of cooking and waking up midnight. Now that you've said it in the mastermind group and as soon as Tom writes it down, it's a kind of set in stone. So you know, we're holding you to it, Ryan.   Ryan: Luckily, I'm not a great sleeper like all of you sounds like us some of that time and go do my midnight shift then.   Dean: Alright, excellent. So we set out epic goals. So what we can do so moving forward, once the group have set their epic goals, you typically use that as your kind of baseline that you kind of go against, and all your commitments that you commit to throughout the week should be committing to, you know, essentially a small version or a sprint goal that essentially leads to your epical eventually.   And since we didn't, like I said, do a mastermind group last week, we weren't we weren't talking about last week's commitment. And and hopefully next week, when we meet, we will say we've completed it and get together. All right, I think we're at time, Michael, how are we doing?   Michael: Yeah, we got two minutes left. So again, we did a nice job there.   Dean: Excellent. Okay. On to the deep dive the hot seat, Ryan. So again, this is just a challenge. Or if you don't have a challenge for the week, you're kind of your success or roadmap to success that you can kind of solicit feedback from from the group. So, Ryan, why don't we dive right in?   Ryan: Perfect. So like I mentioned, I'm trying to find off market deals. And I started this about a month and a half ago. And I think part of the issue right now is I'm just a little bit scattered. And so I have a cold caller that's basically cold, calling six hours a day to just find leads. And what I've found is that I'm running through my potential options pretty quickly. So again, I'm investing in Indianapolis. And my criteria is pretty narrow. It's like three bedroom, one and a half bath in certain neighborhoods. And there's only so many phone numbers that you can call. So I'm finding that I'm running through those leads pretty quickly. And I'm not finding the quality of leads that I wanted. And then now I've also started to try out direct mail campaigns as well.   And I think part of my issue is I'm just not quite focused, because I feel like I'm running out of leads in one spot or the other. So I'm just trying multiple things to see what sticks. But nothing, nothing is clicking as easily as I hoped it would or thought it would. And so I'm having a little bit of trouble there just like actually turning leads into appointments and getting the deal closed.   As I sort of mentioned in my epic goal, one of the pieces I'm trying to do is have this direct marketing source be sort of self funding. So if I can figure out a way to, if I get 10 leads, and maybe one or two look good for me, how do I get rid of the other eight without just throwing them away, like passes up someone that wants them, whether it's a relationship based thing, or actually sell them to someone. So I've been experimenting with a couple things on that end, for example, one I found someone local and IndY that can sort of track leads down. I've tested that out with a couple of them. Another one is I'm talking to the wholesaler that I normally use of actually selling him the leads, and then getting a commission on the downstream.   So those are the two approaches I've gone after. But it's just too early to tell right now if either of those will really work. So all of this, I would say I'm like early on in the game, but I don't know how people continue to do this year round and make it work because there's there just doesn't seem to be that many deals out there.   Dean: It's one of those things that inventory, not as Indianapolis I invest as well. So I noticed scarcity there, but just across the US is so scarce right now that people are going to cold calling and skip tracing, do all these other things that they can try and do to try and find some kind of deal out there. And so I can certainly empathize with your situation.   Ryan out of curiosity, what what um, what do you use for your cold calling? What's the I know, we spoke about deal machine, but I don't think it was that. What do you use right now?   Ryan: It's a company called scale and grow. And I think they're brand new, but I actually went to an investor meetup in Indianapolis last November, so and I happen to be sitting at a table with one of the guys who was just trying to kick that off the ground. And so it's very small right now. I think they have five or six school colors in the Philippines and they just sort of rotate those between they'll do the skip tracing for you and, and all that. So that's what I'm using right now. And I'm using prop stream. I mentioned I tried out one direct mailer. I'm using prop stream for that.   Michael: Ryan, I'm curious why your criteria just about your criteria that three, one and a half. Can you get into that a little bit and maybe we can try to figure out if we can't expand that a little expand the scope?   Ryan: Yeah, that's a good question. So honestly, I'm just a sucker for like three, one and a half brick building. So part of it is just personal preference. Like whenever I see those, I always jump on them.I really liked the one a half bathroom, it's more than one and a half bathroom than anything else. And so I feel like overall just attract a little bit better clientele of a renter, if I'm trying to keep that long term. And it's more attractive to sell if I want to flip it. So it's a little bit more the one and a half bathroom than anything else.   One thing I started to look at last week is expanding out to two beds, one and a half baths that are bigger in size. So 1000 square feet, so I can, if that's where you're going try and build a third bedroom on or maybe try to build a second bathroom on. But I almost feel like the building a third bedroom is probably easier than building a second half bath, just because of plumbing and everything else. But that's definitely an option or an opportunity to expand there.   Michael: That's exactly where I was going with that. And for everybody listening or watching, but Ryan's talking about is, is buying something that has enough square footage to add an additional bedroom, maybe it has a formal dining room or just a large living room that you can corner off or build some internal walls without changing the exterior footprints, because that's much easier to do is changing the interior footprint. And then adding a third or fourth or fifth bedroom, whatever size your heart desires. And that can add a tremendous amount of value both on the rental side and on the resale side of things.   So I think that's a really good way to expand the scope, I would not be shocked if your lead list doubled. As a result of that. I don't know what the housing stock looks like specifically in Indianapolis. But I said that weird Indianapolis. Indeed, but I think it could be could add a lot of names to your list.   Ryan: Yeah, just to give you a sense for the size, when I just did the three, one and a half. And I'm also doing over 25% equity. So people that aren't like leveraged up completely and would actually want to sell this at a discount. There was about 8000 people on that list. But given that 8000 people on cold calling, I actually don't even know the stats, I should notice that but a very small percent answer and then a very small percentage of that are willing to actually sell.   And so that's why I'm having trouble, like the 8000 actually run through pretty quickly with direct mail. I'm sure it lasts a little bit longer. But at least on cold calling, I'm running through that list pretty quickly.   Tom; That's a great segue into my comments, do you like so much of this business is like knowing your funnel and like what your conversion rates and like understanding what like baseline should be. Because I mean, you get to that point. And it's sort of just like an equation like, Okay, I know, if I do like, you know, a 10th of 1%, I need to put this many leads in or there's like, I think those metrics are super important to understand in this kind of a strategy, not only for like working backwards on hitting your goals, but also to monitor your partnerships that you're using, especially a newer company that's just kind of getting off the ground, I think it's really important to have kind of know what the industry baselines like of that type of either a cold call or a mailer. And then you can go back to talk to them and kind of see how they're performing against it.   Because I mean, there's so many different chains in the in the flow here, where there could be issues, where it's super important to have kind of a baseline of expectations on industry and kind of working working backwards. From there, I think that's also going to just add a lot of sanity of, of just being data driven about it instead of you know, just looking at the end of the day from the very start to the very end, but looking all those little like sub parts.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think I definitely need to investigate that. I asked the company themselves, but they didn't give a good answer on baselines, probably because they're new. And they don't do it that much yet. But I think that's a really good point. And another thing I've been trying to do a little bit is sort of a b test, at least with different neighborhoods to say like, Alright, this neighborhood, I'm going to try cold calling this neighborhood, I'm going to try direct mail and see what gives a better response. So kind of testing within the two strategies that way, but I think knowing the industry benchmarks.   Tom: And the different layers of the funnel, right, so like, okay, what's the pickup rate? What's the actual like, talk about rate, you know, you know, I'm saying like getting as granular as you can there. I think that's gonna help identify, you know, where there are issues, issues in the flow, where you, you know, get as granular as possible that we might be my feedback on.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a really good plan.   Dean: And Ryan, what about So you said right now you're, you're limited to kind of your buybox to specific area of India, East nd Have you looked at other regions like this, the South, the east is obviously a lot more affordable and then the South has also kind of one of the places we talked about Greenwood. Southport, I think you have a place there, that you're gonna have some affordability even the West, I know there's some really good neighborhoods that are somewhat affordable still. And have you thought about expanding your your markets or your different neighborhoods?   Ryan: Yeah. So the 1000 I mentioned before is all of Indianapolis, including the west side, one thing I did start doing recently is expanding cells, as we talked about a little bit. So going down to Greenwood, the, the constraint I was working with in there is trying to keep it within the neighborhoods that I know my property manager manages. And so I basically reach out to them, ask them, which neighborhoods they expand to. And I've tried to stay within that just because I didn't really want to go down the headache of finding a new property manager and a new contractor and all that good stuff. So I want to try and keep it within the system. To the extent possible.   Dean: If you did find a place outside of the zone of where your pm works, would you be open to just flipping it and then kind of passing it on for profit moving on?   Ryan: Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not necessarily sold on buying hold as a strategy for all these. It's more just an overall income stream. So I'm more than happy to, to flip, if I see an opportunity that comes up, or even potentially wholesale something, if it, if it works out, I'm trying to keep it sort of my overall goal is to not spend a lot of effort on this sort of keep systematize it as much as possible so I can sort of stay out of it, but just have extra leads coming in to myself as sort of a lead flow more than anything else.   Michael: This might be a bit of a naive question. But as someone who's never worked with cold callers, or hired a company like that, how much of this deal flow conversion rate do you think is a result of the physical person on the other end of that phone? Who's calling the lead?   Ryan: I'm sure it's a lot of it. Because I personally get cold callers, like calling me every day. And some of those almost all of them, I hang up immediately, but like some of them just something about, I mean, are you just like, Alright, well, what would you offer me and like, you just go a little bit further with them. And it's something about the person on the other side. So I think that's probably a big piece of it. And I think that back to Tom's point of like, knowing the industry benchmarks would probably add a lot of value there just to know if like, if this company is coming in at half the rate or if they're actually on par, and it's just a small funnel that you have to work with?   Dean: And what about the other thing, that from a personal experience, like yourself, I have to be hanging up on the cold callers and always get that call interested in selling my property? What about text messaging, you know, that's, that's less, it's a bit more formal, but it's, it's the only messages I've ever responded to on text. And that's definitely I don't like to speak to people, you know, potentially a precious situation of trying to sell my home. But if done via text, it's a bit more informal, that more relaxed, the seller could be the more relaxed by giving out information and being a bit more willing to speak to you.   Ryan: Yeah, I think that that's another good point. I actually have a friend who has sort of a text message business for a different industry. And so I was picking his brain a little bit on like how this might work for real estate, I just, I need to talk to him to see what the options are. I know, there are some legal things recently about texting that kind of made it a little bit tougher than it used to be.   But I definitely need to talk to him and talk to someone about this. I think overall, I should just talk to someone who does direct marketing, because I haven't necessarily done that. Like, I've watched a lot of YouTube videos, and I've read a lot of things about it. But I haven't talked to someone who's actually good at it that can probably like, help me skip over like two or three of the like learning steps that I'm going through and probably wasting money on right now.   Tom: I think that's a great like segue that kind of into like, another piece of advice is like, what, what parts of this do you want to be good at? And which parts do you want to outsource? You know, I think naturally like we're inclined to like to be sort of a jack of all trades and do everything but you know, this could be a good spot for you, right? And you don't want to spend too much time on it. Just find people that are already doing this, that already good at it. If the ultimate goal is deal flow, you know, let somebody else work, you know that you can vet and trust, like manage the sausage factory, where you just kind of be on the other side. Now, sure, you'll probably end up paying a little bit more for this, but I'd say for your time, it's probably worth it.   Ryan: Yeah. 100%. And the the piece that I'm trying to stay out of is like getting on the phone with potential sellers everyday like I have no business being in that I'm not good at it. And I don't want to be good at it. And so I've been trying to find someone that is willing to do sort of that piece of it. But it's just it's hard to find that when you don't have a track record of closing deals yet. You're like, hey, do you want to jump on the phone and talk to a bunch of random people that may or may not sell their house? And then maybe I'll give you a cut of it. So I think figuring out what that piece looks like and finding someone that I trust is definitely a big step in it.   And I've been trying to do that a little bit. I've talked to probably three or four people that are like local Indianapolis investors that are willing to jump on the phone and talk to people. But I think finalizing that piece of it is definitely worthwhile and definitely good plan.   Michael: Is this how wholesalers find their deals?   Ryan: It's basically wholesaling. But I'm trying not to do the work of wholesaling for like, I'm not trying to take it to fruition and actually sell the deal on the other side. Just take the lead and keep it for myself.   Michael: Right. Right. Well, so my guess is that the wholesaler that you buy from locally in India is probably not going to want to chat with you about how they source their deals. What about or do you think that they would? Would that be a good a good source to chat with?   Ryan: Well, so they're definitely not going to give me tips on how to get better at it. But what I think I mentioned this at the beginning, but one of the things I'm doing now is actually passing the lease that I don't want off to them, because I know they'll pretty much buy anything. And so we've actually worked out a deal, where they'll give me a cut on the back end of a deal that I've passed to them, and then they end up selling, which is a very low touch way to hopefully at least break even on this thing. But it's just too early to tell how many of those they're going to close.   Michael: So you're wholesaling to your wholesalers.   Ryan: Yeah, selling leads to my wholesaler. And then potentially buying it from them on the back end of   Michael: Full circle. Yeah, I I've got to imagine that there are wholesalers because I know that they're, you know, professional wholesalers in other markets, maybe on bigger pockets that you could try reaching out to just to see, kind of like Tom, the analogy, Tom uses the sausage factory, what components are they using, and they're a sausage factory, I've got imagine it's relatively homogeneous throughout the country, what that process looks like, I'm sure you're going to tailor it to slightly towards individuals and to different markets. But I think at the high level, just that the deal flow and the lead acquisition process, I would guess is is relatively done. And so trying to rather than trying to reinvent the wheel or build your own wheel, there's there have got to be folks out there that you can get on the phone to chat with.   Ryan: I think 100% I can and I read like a wholesaling book, which kind of got me there. But it's definitely more tailored to like how do you double close and all that kind of stuff? And so I think just the beginning of the process like that lead gen funnel, definitely worth talking to someone. And yes, that is exactly what they're doing. So I think that would probably be a good place to start. Probably someone not in Indianapolis, but I don't think I'm trying to steal their business.   Michael: Poach their deals. Yeah.   Ryan: Yeah, exactly.   Michael: And just people who don't know, Ryan, what's a double close?   Ryan: So the way I understand it on wholesaling, there's sort of two ways you can do it, you can either get the deal under contract and then assign it to someone else and have an assignment fee on there where it's very clear on the transaction that you are making 5k or 10k on this deal, or there's a double close where you technically close on the house, and then you immediately sell it to the end buyer. But you still don't need to bring any money to the table because they're sort of using the funds from the third transaction to from the first transaction. So there's sort of two ways to close on that from a wholesaling perspective.   Michael: Awesome.   Dean: This is a bit I kind of outside the box but I just remember listened to a podcast and I forgotten the name of the gentleman who does the study is quite an ingenious way you always have people flooding you with you know sell your house like speak to me like there's always people soliciting your business in the way do you want to stick out from the crowd right? You don't want to be just another one of the people asking do you want to sell your house and this one guy he used to send mail mail letter with often you know I want to buy your house etc. But he also left like a little Rubik's cube with it. And his tagline was, let's figure this out together. And I thought that was quite brilliant that they stuck out in his head and maybe like it they went into right now but when they are interested they will probably go back to that guy or left to like a weird little puzzle piece with their mail and just kind of makes you stick out from the crowd.   So I wouldn't say necessarily go down that route of mating off Rubik's Cubes or chess pieces but you know something similar can help you in the long term. Stick out from the from the card like that.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a great idea. My wife actually had a similar idea this weekend. She's like what if you just mail everyone cookies? I'm like I don't think we want to mail 8000 cookies to the city of Indianapolis.   Dean: Or candy!   Tom: Carmel, wrapped Carmel get like you know   Ryan: But yeah, no, I think something like that. So you're not just one other mailer and the 10 mailers they got this week is definitely, definitely a good idea.   Tom: I've got a sweet deal for you!   Dean: I know you're probably in Indianapolis. Aren't you heading to Indianapolis soon? Meet the buyer, at some point.   Ryan: Oh, I have an appointment set up. Yeah, but someone else is my product during the appointment.   Dean: Okay, I think the other thing is it's been more manual, but you know, highs, I'm driving for dollars, you know, driving past places where, you know, there's overgrown bushes, or you know, the grass is too long. And you can kind of see it, you know, just people who, you know, aren't picking off the place that may be on the verge of foreclosure, that you could potentially help them alleviate from a sticky situation.   So you could do a very targeted marketing that way as well, just to kind of another option.   Ryan: Yeah, I think there's a bunch of ways to do it. And it's just finding the right figuring out which one works for me. And then just sticking with that.   Michael: Wouldn't that be awesome if the grass front lawn grass link was public record, and you could search that?   Dean: I think it sounds like we have a few action items that you can work with. And then try and utilize to see what might be the best cold calling method or kind of wholesaling to wholesalers type of method that you can utilize for your for your investing.   Ryan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I'm gonna try and talk to a wholesaler gonna try and figure out what some of those industry benchmarks are. And just try to narrow in on some of the details, at least give myself some sanity on whether I'm actually just spinning here. Or if this is just the normal process.   Michael: With the industry benchmarking, I would push that company a little bit more on it, because I've got to imagine the whole reason they got into business in the first place was because they were trying to accomplish some goal, or they saw a niche in the marketplace that they could add value. So there's no way that they don't know what the industry benchmarks are like that just seems pretty naive to start a company and have no idea or not be able to give your clients a pretty straightforward answer of what's reasonable for the for the market.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a good point.   Dean: All right. Well, Ryan, you were speaking about some your your goals or what you plan to do. That segues well into our next topic, which is this coming week's commitment. So we'll kind of go around again in the same order. But working looking at your epic or grand goal, my case, you know, what you're committing to every week should be essentially biting away at the goal that you're trying to achieve eventually. So what you're trying to set for yourself, your commitments should kind of align with those, those epic goals.   So for my, for my commitments, I talked about my epic goals of doing the 401k, Roth IRA conversion and doing a cost seg. And I think, what I want to do next week, well, this coming week is run the numbers to see if cost segregation for my four plex would be worth spending the money to get it done. And so that's what I want to do this week to help achieve that goal.   And the second one is I want to read this is my second goal was to take over management about my portfolio is to read the first 30 pages of the book on managing rental properties. And so I have that collecting dust somewhere around here. And that I want to pick up and read.   The third one. I'm one meditate, set a commitment to meditating at least twice this week. And that's what I plan to do. And in terms of the next pieces is talking about your actionable next steps. So it's great to kind of set these these small goals. But let's go even further like how what do you need to do to achieve that commitment this week?   So like, what's that bite size or your most important next step to achieving that goal, or that commitment for next week. So kind of an auto just went down for my actionable next steps. Michael sent me a contact for a one of his people that helped him with the cost segregation study. And so I'm going to my actionable next step is to reach out to that contact, send them an email and introduce myself and kind of tell them what I'm trying to do the next actionable next step or most important next step about reading my book is to find the book. It's a crucial, crucial step in achieving that goal.   I just moved. Yes, I have boxes and boxes full of stuff I'm going to try find that book. And then my third one about meditating. I'm gonna set an alarm on my phone for two times this week to, to make sure I'm going to be meditating at that at that time so that I can't kind of back up. So that is my next week's commitment and my actionable next steps.   Michael?   Michael: Are you using any kind of assistance for to meditate any kind of app or book or music?   Dean: Yeah, yeah, I, I use an app. Right now. Actually, I download I used headspace last year, I tried to get into it. I wasn't really feeling it as much. So I downloaded Comm. app. It's another one of those very popular apps out there. And I part of my meditation rituals, I kind of set a little candle in front of me and just kind of focus on the breathing and look at the candle kind of zone out.   Tom: Love it and that when   Dean: I will livestream it as I'm meditating defeats the purpose. But anyway. Yeah. All right, Michael, what is your commitment this week?   Michael: So commitment this week is to make additional headway on the redevelopment projects going to push the contractor to make additional progress. And I'll talk about how to do that in my here in a minute. I want to get additional legwork done on the flip as well. And I'll talk about that in just a minute and then going to commit to watching some there's a TED talk or I think some YouTube videos on things you can do when you're having trouble sleeping. So I'm going to be watching some of those this week and trying to implement those.   So what I'm going to be doing stepwise actionable stepwise to get the contractor moving along. This whole time we've been on time and materials, he's been building me time and materials, which is basically how much time his crew spends, and whatever the materials cost. That's what he builds me, I'm gonna be moving to lump sum payments going forward. Because the longer they take, the more money they make, versus now when it's a lump sum, they are now incentivized to finish the project as quickly as possible, because that's when they get paid.   So for this whole time, there was just a lot of unknowns. So they said, Hey, we can't give you a lump sum number, we got to do TNM. So I said, Okay, and now we're past all of the major hurdles, knock on wood. So we should be able to, he should be able to give me a number. And that's really what I need.   Then I'm going to be getting a scope of work for the flip from the project manager out there, who's also the property manager and the agent. And so I said, Okay, I need you to commit to a number. Again, this is if it goes over, you're paying the bill. So I'm not playing these games anymore with these flips. So Ryan, off the chat with you offline about how the best way that you've done that with your burrs is and then yeah, I just watched those TED talks and YouTube videos on on things I can do to implement sleep, better sleep and then utilizing them throughout the week as needed.   Dean: Great. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate you walking us through that. Tom. How about you? What are you committing to this week?   Tom: I was just lastly on sleep. My goal, like I like breaking a sweat can be kind of helpful, like in the evening, like, like, sometimes I'll do like a night run. And I don't know, I find it helps a little bit. I don't know. Anyways.   Michael: Meditation is right.   Tom: Yeah. Meditation is a big is a big part of my spiel.   Michael: You can meditate in the sauna and do both for the price of one.   Tom: Oooh, meditate in the sauna, while running on a treadmill. Just defeat the purpose.   Dean: Yeah, but highly, highly interesting.   Tom: Alright, committing to this week, so I am committing to getting uber organized on my refinances that are going on right now. So like, I'm going to be able to say like exactly what the close date is set for. For those different and you know, they're all occupied units. So it's, you know, making sure that the right appraiser is is in contact is there just a clear date on closing, so getting very organized with my refinancing on knowing that capital is going to hit into the bank.   And the other I think kind of social one, right was like, scheduling a little, you know, safe little friendly outdoor thing with some friends. So I'm gonna get a little text, get set of dates. For my little outdoor, I'm typing my notes as well, outdoor, outdoor Hangout. So the specific actions I'm going to do to fulfill these next commitments is I'm going to call my lender and just walk through every single property and make sure that they have everything and that the, the appraisal has been scheduled.   And then for my actual step for a little social thing is I'm going to get a text thread going with my, my group of people, they're going to do a little, I don't know, either like wine tasting or some random outdoor thing. So get my get a text message thrown. So that'll be my text, spread text thread going with those friends. So, okay, done.   Dean: That's awesome, Tom. Now I have one of those things. And it's it's breaking down those bite sized chunks makes it so much more achievable as whenever you set a goal for yourself, even if it's small, you know, just taking that first step allows one to just be a bit more committed to kind of fulfilling it, you're a lot more likely. What do we say? 37%? More likely, if I'm making a random statistic now to be fulfilling that small goal.   Have you been vaccinated on that you have you gotten your vaccines yet?   Tom: I got my next one coming in the very beginning of May. I will say putting in the, you know, commitments to doing like fun things is pretty fun. I like that.   Dean: It's important as well. I mean, we totally we get sometimes it's not it's not just about work and try to get as much money as possible. It's, it's also about you know, what, you know, what your personal life is, and trying to kind of focus on taking a step back and focus on that as well. So that you feel that way.   Ryan? How about yourself?   Ryan: Yeah. So on my personal goal of becoming a father, I don't think there's really anything I need to do that's actionable to make that happen. Yeah, go to the hospital, pack the bags. On the on the real estate one, I think my goal is to talk to two leads and schedule one appointment in the next week. And then also just understand some of the benchmarks and everything a little bit more. And so I think my actionable steps are, I'm going to network with at least one wholesaler, or someone who's done lead generation through cold calling. So I'm going to just network with one person that's done that.   And then on the benchmark side, Michael, I'm just going to follow up and ask him again and say like, how do you not know this, like you should know this. So reach out to the company directly, as well as figure out, find another way to get industry benchmarks for that. So that I can compare it against something.   Tom: I might have a contact for you on on some industry benchmarks I went to, there was another mastermind I went to last year and actually just reached out randomly about being on the on the podcast. So I've got another contact for you who I'm sure has a pretty good handle on wholesaling benchmarks.   Ryan: That'd be awesome.   Dean: Real time feedback. This is one of the benefits of mastermind groups.   Ryan: That'd be awesome, Tom, thanks.   Dean: All right. So I think my problem better we're ahead of schedule. We're on time, right?   Michael: Yep. Still on time.   Dean: Excellent. So the last, the last thing we like to do is the last minute or two is just to talk about setting the next meeting date and time, I would typically recommend you sticking just to one, like weekly occurrence at at a specific time. Because if everyone's like, oh, let me check my calendar and try and figure it out, then it's not going to get done. We're all busy. And it's the way to getting this done and without fizzling out is setting a specific weekly, date and time every week. And then the other thing we do in this section is speak about who's going to be the next week's rolls. So I typically just kind of rotate it based on the attendee order.   And so we can, we can do that now. And for so for next week. We can commit to the same date and time. And then Ryan barring any kind of hospital occurrence at that time, but for the roles. Let's let's do Michael as the as the moderator, Tom, let's put you in the hot seat. Ryan, you can be the timekeeper. And I'll be the note keeper. Note Taker.   Michael: Perfect. Sounds good.   Dean: That's it. That is how you run a mastermind group session.   Tom: Beautiful.   Ryan: Great.   Dean: And I was just gonna say mastermind like I said it's it kind of resonates personally for me just because this was one thing that really pushed me to be more specific. I literally committed to booking a flight to Dallas, Texas, to check out real estate in that area when I was touring that back in the day and I pulled theTrigger because I had my meeting coming up, and I'm like, Alright, I better commit to this, I'm going to do it. And I booked my ticket and met a couple real estate agents there and did all the stuff. And so that's kind of my first step I took towards real estate investing with mastermind group.   So to me, it kind of resonates Well, it's, it's, I think it's a really important way to, to challenge yourself and to be held accountable to those challenges.   Michael: Absolutely. I think I've never participated in a formal mastermind, I have a couple of accountability buddies that I have calls with standing calls on a weekly basis. And if somebody misses a call, they got to pay the person 10 bucks. And we just talked about what the goals are for the week and what you know whether or not we accomplish them and why we didn't, did or did not accomplish them.   So just to piggyback off your point, the and I think that the localization of what your goals are, I think that there's a lot of science behind that just speaking them to yourself, but then even more, so speaking them to somebody else. Now, I'm not just letting myself down. I'm letting down my accountabilibuddy, who is holding me to an expectation so i think it's it's huge.   Dean: I like that, uh, that the accountabilibuddy, that's a very catchy.   Michael: That's great. It's great. Ryan, I'm curious, just doing like a live quick post mortem. On the session? Was that feedback helpful? Was that were those things that you hadn't thought of? On your own yet?   Ryan: Yeah, um, some of them. So there were things that I hadn't thought of. And then there were other things that I had thought of, but I kind of like wrote off in my mind, I was like, ads, probably not gonna go anywhere. But like hearing you guys say him again. I was like, Okay, I probably should go investigate that. I probably should, like industry benchmarks. I was like, I should know that. But like, whatever. If it's working at the end of the day, it's working, but like just understanding that knowing that, so I think it was really helpful. Yeah.   Dean: Don't forget that Rubik's Cube, you know, fundamental.   Ryan: Yeah. Got your sweet deal.   Dean: That's right. That's right. And one of the important things as well, mastermind groups just being able to people showing up in time, being held accountable to just speak in that time, and then it kind of ending on time as well. I think it's also it's one of the things that's really important. You know, one of the toughest things with mastermind group is just keeping people going and making sure people that doesn't fizzle out and the by kind of cutting the chit chatter a bit or just kind of sticking to the script or the the the template really helps keep people focused and keeps people coming back.   And so yeah, that is a first session. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Appreciate your time.   Michael: Alrighty, everybody, that was our episode, a big thank you to coach Ryan, Tom and Dean, that was a lot a lot of fun. I know I got a lot of value out of it sounds like Ryan did as well. We're going to be hopefully doing these continuously going forward. probably not going to be recording them, but we're still gonna be participating in the mastermind groups. Again, at this summit. You're interested in being a part of come check us out at rootstock. academy.com and we look forward to seeing you in the next one. Happy investing.

There are tons of videos floating around about getting rich quickly with real estate. But let's be real, real estate is a long game. In this episode, we use a model from the Roofstock Academy Playbook to project exactly how long it would take you to get to $100K per year in passive income based on 3 different sets of assumptions. This episode shows how you can set realistic, time-bound goals for your financial freedom.  --- Transcript Tom: Greetings, and welcome to the Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Tom Schneider. And I'm joined today by   Emil: Emil Shour   Michael: and Michael Albaum.   Tom: And today we've got a fun episode. So there's lots of content out there that talks about how to become a millionaire and you know how to become rich with real estate and in today's episode, we're going to go through some specifics year by year to meeting some specific goals. So both Emil, Michael and myself, I guess all three of us are going to come up with some scenarios. And we're going to use this tool from Roofstock Academy to see how long it takes to meet our goals. All right, let's do it.   Emil and Michael, what is going on?   Emil: Hey guys,   Michael: Not too much. I'm just getting ready to take off in my van again, we had some solar issues around the road for a week so we came back to home base to get those squared away. So got brand new solar installed brand new batteries, did some plumbing customisations and ready to rip and roar in the next couple days. So we're stoked.   Tom: Very cool, Emil What's going on?   Emil: You know following Michael really sucks because I'm just a guy living in his home just doing normal boring stuff every week. So Michael I'm just gonna vicariously live through you in your van now everything's good. Nothing crazy going on. Yeah, just happy. It's it's summer the waters warming up. So it's been it's been more fun to go surfing in the morning. Don't have to wear booties, feet don't get cold. So that's been nice.   Tom: Nice. Nice. Nice.   Michael: What about you Tom, how comes the construction on the house and the refinances?   Tom: It's coming. Oh, closing on the refi is on Thursday, which is exciting.   Michael: Awesome.   Emil: Nooice!   Tom: Some ammunition for some acquisitions. But yeah, yeah. And the construction is cruising along, almost done. It's like stop and go, you know, like there's like certain dependencies on certain parts of the project and takes a while to get done. And then a bunch of stuff gets done. And then it kind of goes back to a little bit of a halt. But Fingers crossed, we're moving some things back into the kitchen. over the holiday weekend that is coming up. So fingers crossed.   Awesome, guys. So we got a fun episode. This is also going to be on YouTube,I encourage you to check our YouTube station out, just search Roofstock.   What we have here is we have this tool that was built within Roofstock Academy, it's not an over complicated model that just goes year by year. And what it does is, you take some baseline assumptions of your investment, kind of by box right on what type of returns you're getting, what is the cost, and then you extrapolate that over years. And what the model does is it assumes that you're reinvesting all of the cash flow that you're collecting into your acquisitions into the following year. So that way, you know, when you're buying into year two, you're using the income from year one, when you're into year three, using the income from year 2. The model accounts for a little bit of rental appreciation. What the model does not account for which is a benefit in real life, and perhaps we'll work this into the model at some point is doing 1031 exchanges or cash out refi. So, you know, there is ability to move a little bit faster when you're having some appreciation. Emil, Michael, before we get into the specific examples, go ahead.   Michael: I was gonna say I just wanted to take a moment to pause here and highlight and talk about one of the benefits of real estate that totally took me, I had an aha moment when I realized it. So you just said that the income from year one is going to go into acquisitions from year two. So what that actually means is that you're getting paid every single year for the work that you did previously. So if you have a W two job or self employed, are you going to get paid next year for the work you do this year? Probably not. Real Estate totally doesn't work that way.   So all the work and hard, you know, grit that you're putting in right now is going to pay you year after year after year. And you should actually increase over time. So you get to give yourself raises, hopefully every single year for work that you did today or yesterday, or you're going to do this year. So stop and let that sink in for a minute. It totally blew my mind when it it kind of slapped me upside the head.   Tom: Yeah. And your cost basis is like pretty much effectively flat. I mean, there might be some increases in property taxes.   Alright guys. So before we jump into our specific examples that we're going to come up with, to determine how long it takes to reach our goals. I'd love to hear both you guys just a little bit of input on the model and thoughts, all that good stuff. So Michael, why don't you go ahead and go first?   Michael: Yeah, so I think it's really important to model out and forecast what your portfolio might look like going down the road based on your current day assumptions and goals. And working backwards is so important, I think in real estate because it dictates and helps us to find what makes an ideal investment for you or for me or for for yourself as an individual investor, so the three of us might have very different investing end goals. And so that is then going to determine that we are likely going to be purchasing different types of properties along the way to our end goal.   So this is a tool that allows you to do that. And really reverse engineer Okay, what types of returns should I be targeting? Where should my cash flow assumptions and targets be such so that I can get to my goal at a desired timeframe. And again, putting a goal that's timed bound I think is really important. We talk a lot about in the academy, using the acronym smart, and the T and smart stands for timely or time bound. And so being able to measure that and see how you're doing against your goal, and from a time perspective, I think is really, really critical.   Tom: Love it. Emil?   Emil: Totally agree with what Michael said, I will be blatantly honest, I have actually never gone through this exercise. But I love it. I think it's a good way to kind of just see like, what are you in for right is your goal, let's say I know so many real estate investors who are looking for cash flow, a lot of the goalpost is how do we get to 100k per year basically, like, how does your your passive income, replace your job, take care of all your expenses, things like that.   So it's, it's, I think it's cool to at least have a goalpost and be like, Alright, if I invest this amount per year, it'll take me 12 years. Well, what if I accelerate that? What if I go earn more? What if I am able to save more generate more cash flow? What if instead of a 7% return, what if I can generate a 10% return on all the properties I buy? How does that change all these assumptions? So I've never done this, but I think it is such an insanely valuable exercise to do. I'm hoping that us just doing a right here is gonna give me a much better picture of what my goalpost will look like.     Tom: Awesome.   Michael: Goal posts!   Tom: Alright, so let's jump into it. So I'm going to go ahead and go first. And since I'm going first, I'll define the rules for myself. So my goal in this little game, this little model is to get to $100,000 of passive income, the rules are, in the first five years, I cannot exceed adding an additional $25,000 a year. And practically speaking, that means basically, throughout the year, I can save roughly 25,000 bucks a year to go to, to buying real estate. And in this model, I'm also going to use the cash from my rental from previous year to do and add new acquisitions. What I'm going to do to increase my buying power is in year five, I'm going to increase that to not exceed $50,000 a year. It's it's a bigger jump. But I am just kind of curious to model that out.   So okay, so I'm looking at the sheet right now, which on YouTube, you can see it here. I have my acquisitions that I cannot exceed 25, the first year. So I'm starting with 15 was, you know, let's Yeah, well, let's make it 25. We'll start with 25, just to be consistent with this exercise in year five. So that's five single acquisitions at with a down five of them 25% down of $100,000 for the first five years, first five years. That's one house each year for five years. And that gets me to a cash flow of $15,000. So still quite a bit of way to get there.   Starting in year five, I'm going to increase my cash that I can put in, which is this red number here, up to $50,000. So this example, I'm going to move this up to two, two, by year six. I'm up to 31,000 exceeded it.   Emil: Tom, can you highlight where you're looking at your cash flow yearly number?   Tom: Yep. So my cash flow year not yearly number is down here, which is portfolio levered income. And my new acquisitions for that year is this row, row 22. That's going across. And my acquisition cost is this row 23. But the down payment is this row 24 is this red number and this red numbers is taking off taking out your cash flow from the previous year to be applied to your new acquisitions.   So year five I'm bought now buying two houses a year with a cash flow of 18,000. Let's see in by year seven. But not quite yet. A year seven I thought I could move up to three houses a year or three units. This also could be used for multifamily. But it actually be year eight I can move up to three houses per year and by year 10. I'm at 60,000, just just below 60,000 of passive income at three houses, three houses or three units, and then year 11. That takes me to four.     Emil: So the red Tom, just to clarify, that is the amount out of pocket you're putting. So you're using some cash flow, and then the red amount is how much am I coming out of additional savings from work or whatever to be able to buy the number of additional homes you have there?   Tom: Exactly. And so here we are, based on these constraints in year 14, is where I hit that my magic number of $100,000 of passive income a year based on these assumptions up here. So that's 37 total units. That is a total sum of assets owned a little bit under $4 million. And that would make for $113,000 a year. So those are my assumptions. My I ended up in year 14. So who wants to go next.   Michael: I'll go next.   Emil: Tom, a couple more questions. For you For you take over Michael, couple questions here. What, uh, what is your assumption for a cash flow? Can you fill in our viewers on that one?   Tom: Yep, you got it. So cash flow, you know, there's a lot of cash flow is, is basically you know, what you're walking away of profit at the end of the day after you collect rent and pay all your expenses. And we use just a blanket number for cash flow, a $250 per month, at the end of the day, so you know, there's a lot of variables that are not implicit within the model, like, what the rent is, what the repairs and maintenance are, what the property management costs.   But within this model, what it does is it just, it just comes out on the other side of what that number that a heart that actual number is, it's sort of peanut, peanut butter spreads your portfolio. So if I wanted to be, you know, more conservative, I could take this down to $200 a year. And you know, and that takes for just below a 10% yield of cash on cash, which I feel comfortable in being able to achieve. So yeah, it's just a straight number that you're plugging in at a monthly basis on what that cash flow is going to be.   Emil; Can you go back to 200? I'm curious how the how your model changes, if you do a 10%, just under 10% cash on cash return assumption versus the 12. So it only takes pushes it out a year, an additional year?   Tom: Yeah. Yeah.   Emil: Yep. So I'm just good to see.   Tom: Well, actually, no, I think it pushes it out and might push it up two years. So you're 16. Now is, is that year, so pushes it out two years, by changing that assumption, I think it's better and generally speaking to be more conservative with those assumptions. But what I did there is, since I changed the, these, you know, key assumptions at the top, it changed all the cash flow that runs through each year. So each year, there's less, you know, income. And what when I moved it down, there wasn't enough income from the previous year, or one of the years I had to, I missed an acquisition. And that kind of cascaded down year, year year, which pushed me out, I think, to two additional years to get that $100,000 goal to year 16 here.   Emil: Nice. It's, it's at least interesting to see, like a two and a half percent swing in cash on cash. Like it doesn't have an insanely dramatic change on getting to your 100k mark.   Tom: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, as we said, like this model, like, you know, it doesn't include cash out refinance, it doesn't include, like 1031 exchanges, it also doesn't include the the tax benefits that you're having here. So there's anything it's really helpful and kind of directionally and thinking about acquisitions that you need to make based on some return assumptions on where you want to go. But it is, there are some benefits that this doesn't even necessarily account for.   Michael: Yeah, great point. So Tom, why don't we walk through a scenario where maybe somebody is starting from a stronger position with a bit more capital, and they're actually able to make all cash purchases. So let's just assume that somebody's got a, you know, a very high paying job or is able to start from a really strong capital position, and they're gonna make one purchase a year.   Let's just say one purchase a year, how many years does it take to hit your cash flow goal of $100,000. So if we change this model, we wonder out the first couple of years, and let's just see for $100,000 purchases at a 7.8% return from a cash on cash perspective. How many Here's his take the hit $100,000.   So it looks like in your five, we're almost at 40,000. No, let's actually let's one it out, let's just say if you made one purchase every single year independent of cash flow from the years prior, yeah. How long does it take you…   Tom: On it.   Michael: And so it looks like we crossed the $100,000 threshold that year 13 with 13 properties, which is?   Tom: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And then the following year, that single purchase is, is being made on its own by the $100,000. That is in place. Yeah. So 13 years,   Michael: 13 years, 13 houses to $100,000 at an average purchase price of 100 grand at an average return of 7.8%. So another way to piece this together.   Tom: That's cool. I yeah, I've never done them this model this this way. And I'm 13 years kind of goes back on a quick I mean that that's that's a tremendous amount to pay each year, you know, in buying an all cash. But..   Emil: Let's do one more scenario then here. Let's do I like Michael's, you have a little bit more cash to work with, right? You have a high paying job, maybe you have a side business, or you have a full time business, whatever you're able to just generate, basically 100k out of pocket every year. But what if instead of you're doing all cash, what if we go back to the 25% down model, but you have more money here? Let's see how quickly we can get there.   Tom: Alright, so I'm going to change this to 250. And the cash down 25, Cash on cash of 12%.   Emil: Let's, let's go 200. Let's go a little more conservative than 12% cash on cash.   Tom: I like it Emil just under 10%. Okay, so how much money do we have each year to spend?   Emil: We have 100k to spend out of pocket.   Tom: Love it.   Michael: Cuz maybe someone right is thinking about selling off some equities because they've done really well in this in this run up market. And now they're wanting to transition it over to real estate.   Tom: Yep. So by year five, you're already at 53,000 in your first three years, or at four houses or units and an extra five, and then it gets to a point where every year you're adding Yeah, we hit it. Or a year six, you can just start adding. Yeah, it's just 7,8,9.     Emil: Yes, you hit it by basically by year 8 you're at 99,914.   Okay, what about what Let's do this again, but you only have 50k. Right? So you're you're in the middle of our first example, and the most recent example, you can put 50k out of pocket. How long will that take?   Tom: So we're in year five we're at? We're still doing two acquisitions per year. I'm gonna give us a little bit of your six an extra 700 bucks. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. So you're eight, you're still at? Let's see, by year 10, you're up to four acquisitions per year. And then your 13. Five.   Emil: At year 12. You could squeeze in another?   Tom: Yeah. Oh, year 12?   Emil: We'll try your 12. Yeah, year 13 year 14?   Tom: That's kind of a magic number and doing this exercise, it's hit your 13 twice now.   Emil: Interesting, Why would it be the same amount of time is your first? Is it because I took a lower cash flow per House of 200 verse 250.   Tom: Possibly, I mean, you're putting a lot less money forward. Right. So like, you're no, it's like in this example. You know, they're both are your 13. But this one, you're only spending $50,000 a year?   Michael: Yeah, I think your total your total   Emil: In yourexample you were doing 25k or less?   Michael: Yeah. So like in the in the all cash model. At this point in time, we had spent 1.3 million in cash to generate $100,000 in income and a meal in this example, you spent 533 533,000. And you're generating $100,000 until I don't remember Tom, what was what was your years must have been less because you're getting a better return.   Tom: Right? Yeah. Michael: So I mean…   Emil: I think it's what I was wondering, why was Tom able to hit the same amount in year 13? I guess it was because that extra 50 bucks, 12% cash on cash versus a 9.6. Right, exactly.   Michael: And so this is like a perfect example of how this model works based on all the different assumptions and inputs. And I think it's so cool that we are finding, you know, fairly similar conclusions based on the different ways to get there.   And so building this out for yourself or, you know, checking out the Roofstock Academy and using this model, exactly. We'll give you an idea of, Okay, how do I get there, what's the most efficient way to get there, and what's going to work for me, because again, depending on where you're starting from and where you're trying to go, You're gonna have a very different path. And then somebody else who's maybe has the same end goal, but starting from a different point.   Tom: Definitely. Yeah, it's, it's, it's flexible. I mean, everyone's path is unique. And it could be a bumper year for whatever reason, you have some extra money. And instead of having that limitation of 20,000, or 10,000, or whatever that number of how much extra cash you put in, perhaps that year, you could have 100,000. And like, if you do that, it plays a major difference of being able to hit that goal, your earlier.   Emil: Plus every year that you're gaining, you're acquiring more properties, you have more deductions, you have more depreciation, you can take meaning more money in your pocket at the end of the year, a couple years ago, the switch finally happened where instead of paying taxes in the year, I started getting refunds because of all the awesome depreciation we were taking. So that also puts more money in your pocket that you can keep steamroll and into acquisitions.   Michael: Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, this model only takes into account the appreciation side of things in terms of value. And then also the cash flow side of things. When in reality, real estate generates wealth in four different capacities. One is the cash flow. One is the appreciation. The other is via loan pay down or leverage because you're actually buying equity every single month in the property, or rather, your tenants are buying equity in the property every single month.   And the last is tax benefits. And tax benefits are just really squirrely to nail down because based on what tax bracket you're in, and where you live, and how much income you earned versus Active Passive mean, all these things can change how the tax benefits are going to likely help your tax situation.   So definitely check with a tax professional about looking to nail that number down to get an idea of how they might help you as an individual. But also keep in mind that Hey there, the return goes beyond the cash flow and the expected appreciation. There are all these other things that to add on and incorporate into that return as you're calculating it. So you're in you know, 9.6% cash on cash is likely going to be a whole lot better when you factor in those other those other factors. Factor those other factors. Don't use the word in the definition. But then also, I think this is a great depiction of real estate is not a get rich quick scheme.   Tom: Sorry, guys, I need to step out for a minute.   Michael; Yeah. Real estate is not a get rich quick scheme. It's not an overnight success scheme. This is a 13 year plan to generating $100,000 in passive income. And so a lot of people might be hearing that or seeing this and thinking all 13 years, that's way too long. But do you have a 13 year plan? Do you have a plan that'll make you $100,000 passively in sooner than that? If so awesome, like run with that. But also make sure that it's a legitimate plan.   I think real estate is one of those things, it's a slow burn. And then as you go further and further down in time, you see those returns start to take off semi exponentially. And so just be thinking about that and be long term greedy like Tom always says,   Emil: That's right. Get Rich, slow!   Michael: Get Rich, slow!   Thanks, everybody for listening for watching. If you're on YouTube, hope this was helpful. Again, this is available at the RooFstock Academy. For those members that are enrolling, come check us out at Roofstock Academy comm if that's not a good fit for you, definitely I'd recommend either looking up a model that exists or making your own model because again, these are really really powerful tools to help you forecast and reverse engineer what type of properties you need to be purchasing or looking to purchase. So with that, let's get out of here. And we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Happy investing.   Emil: Happy investing

I am a mentor for the Notion Advanced track of Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain, Cohort 12. This is the cleaned up audio of the first of 5 mentorship sessions with Q&A at the end. Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yY46bq527SyDCI3IgzMNrkumOnrhYwI9VeuhdGqr3Dg/edit?usp=sharingTimestamps Intro [00:00:28] Why Build A Second Brain [00:07:58] Content Recap [00:09:32] Breakout Session [00:11:53] The CODE methodology [00:15:44] Q&A: Work vs Personal Capture Apps? [00:18:11] Q&A: Should I Capture Googlable Stuff? [00:19:55]  Q&A: Physical Book notes? [00:22:48] Q&A: Starting for the first time [00:24:23] Q&A: How to turn notes to action? [00:25:53] Q&A: Processing Notion vs SimpleNote [00:28:36] Capture Thinking [00:31:47] Q&A: Podcast Notes? [00:33:41]  Q&A: Grabbing notes on the go [00:37:06] Q&A: I dont like any of my apps, what do I do? [00:43:46] Q&A: Security & Privacy [00:46:31] Q&A: Triaging Information to be Productive [00:49:35] Q&A: Outdated content [00:51:46] Question: Defining Dealbreakers [00:53:25]  Transcript swyx: [00:00:00] So we're here for BASB week one capture and I'm Shawn also known as Swyx. And I was part of cohort 10 and I'm back again to try to go through the new content. I know that Tiago has re-recorded a bunch of this stuff. Some of the content has changed and also just meet people. I think that you know something best when you teach it. So I do encourage you,  as you go through this journey to try to teach it to your friends or family members and you retain that much better as well.  Intro [00:00:28] Okay. A little bit of self intro, and then we'll go into the specifics. I'm going to basically try to recap the stuff that we covered this week, and then try to get some feedback from you and get you talking amongst yourself. On some of the questions that were raised this week.  So hey, I'm Swyx I blog at swyx.io, I am a finance guy, turned developer. That's a long story. I just compressed there. We used to work at Netlify AWS, that's Amazon web services for the non-technical people. And now I'm currently head of developer experience at Temporal dot IO. I helped to run the React-TypeScript CheatSheet, which is one of the ways in which I build a second brain which is very specific for developers. Probably a bunch of you here are developers. I see Glenn is using reveal dot JS and I also wrote the coding career handbook as my capstone for building a second brain last year. So, part of the reason why this is a notion advanced course, even though I'm like not a huge notion expert is because we are very focused on trying to get people to produce output. So not just getting comfortable with the habits but also producing by blogging, speaking, and writing and hopefully making money. I'm very keen on helping people to make money with their second brains. Okay. So, I'm from Singapore. These are the pictures that I, I tweeted this once basically saying Singapore's that would kind of Asia. It's not usually so super overexposed like this, so don't come here and be super disappointed. But it does look pretty great. It does have a lot of manmade slash nature blended with it. And it is home for me. So, happy to answer any questions about Singapore. Alright. So here's a brief history of my blogging. This is me in 2016. Nobody knows about this.  I never talked about this. This is me on medium writing, trying to get into the whole content creation game and not really having much results. So this is my attempt at thought leadership and not really, and just engaging with stuff that I thought was interesting.  I was very into voice user interfaces because I coded an Alexa skill and at the time Alexa was going to be this huge thing is going to take over the planet. Yeah. And then just kept blogging and then just like fell off. And I think a lot of people here probably have some experience of this where like you tried to get started, didn't go anywhere and then you just stopped. And I think it's very authentic and original And I'm here to say that I'm one of you, I've definitely been there. The first real hit was when, because I started reading and listening to Ben Thompson got a bit lost in Ben Thompson's universe. And so decided to make a map. And so I applied some of my data analysis skills.  this was my first hit because it focused on a person and a prominent person at that, and it solves a problem for myself that other people had. And that was my first real breakthrough, like all these previous ideas were just things I had in my head that nobody cared about. And then. When you focus on such a small, specific topic as one person. And it's such a small specific question as how do you rank things? You perform a service that other people are interested in because I also had that same problem. So I think that was the beginning of my journey as to how do I productionize this second brain or like writing system towards building a network, towards building a reputation for myself, and then just making things that people want to read. So since then I have become a reasonable React/TypeScript/ JavaScript developer, happy to talk about tech stuff after the one hour, because we try to keep this general and inclusive. But this has probably been one of my major projects, which essentially running the community documentation for React and TypeScript developers. I teach a thousand people a day, React and TypeScript off of this thing. And it's literally my second brain of how to react and TypeScript and people from Uber, Microsoft, Airbnb, you name it, they've all contributed and taught me stuff as I have taught them. It's just really great when you start to do these advanced forms of second braining I call this open source knowledge in the way that people can give back. So second brain is, is often very one way. And when you can open source your knowledge it can be very powerful. So happy to talk about that as well, but I'm just giving you a brief overview of like what I do. I also have been focusing a lot on marketing, right? Every time you do something, you should also tell people that you've done it otherwise does it really exist. So framing it in things in ways in which people understand, and then tagging people who have had the exact pain points really starts to accelerate your growth as someone who learns in public.   I also have been getting pretty steadily into the personal blogging. This is me getting serious last year in January, and then going from 20,000 uniques to 35,000 and now 40 ish. This is April. But with occasional, really big spikes, I think something you suddenly everyone should understand about blogging is that. It's a very hits driven business, and you put out your it's a very common phenomenon to put out all your effort into something and then have it fall completely flat and then spend two hours on a rant and then just see that go viral. The effort is completely disconnected with the results and you should be okay with that because ultimately you're working through something. You're trying to log something for yourself. And it's it's always a side benefit or side effects if other people feel the same way too. I do definitely preach the idea of having a  public second brain as something that is a single-player game that can optionally become multiplayer. But if you start off only evaluating it as a multiplayer game that where nobody plays with you, then you're likely to not continue playing that game.   And then finally I also started writing for money, right? So I as part of my BSB cohort, 10 capstone, I decided to write a book. I launched it after BSB ended. I gave myself two weeks, it took her two months to write. And then it started making money. By launch day. Cause I did some pre-sales and made 25 K, after about a couple months and got to 50 K across the a hundred K a few months ago. And it's still going and I'm still doing a fair amount of marketing on that. So if anyone here is interested in writing a book and self publishing this is the place for you as well.   Finally the, my new project this year has been audio notes which is, I think a pain point of a lot of people going through BSB. They're like I listen to a lot of podcasts and there are no good tools to do podcasting notes. I am not here to say that I have the right answer, but I have a answer and I'm trying to make it work. It is a personal podcast where I clip selections and share it with friends and publish it. And sometimes it gets picked up by the people who are in the podcasts and that is a very rewarding way to do audio notes as well. So happy to talk about that.  Great. So a couple of ground rules here. So I don't like this idea that people say, there are no stupid questions there obviously are if you just it's enough people people ask really weird shit, but it's okay. It's okay to ask them here. We are all learning and sometimes if you have them on your mind other people do as well. And what's important is that there are no consequences and you're not judged. And you really genuinely have them. And that's fine. I have them too.  Rule number one. People do this a lot with BASB. You paid a lot for this course. Tiago is a very organized and smooth presenter. And you might think that you might have to do it. Perfect. Don't because you will fail. I don't do it perfect. I don't even use notion very well. But try to do it often, it's more about the habit rather than having like clean and, perfectly organized notes. Rule number two which is the third rule. I'm not an expert here, I'm just the facilitator, right? Like, so I'm just trying to help you in your journey. I've been on this journey as well. And I can't speak to everything. I will say "I don't know" a lot and that's okay. Because someone else here in this group might know the answer and I just here to connect with people. Why Build A Second Brain [00:07:58] Okay. So a little bit of a survey question. I just want to see where people are at. We have about 86 -Oh my God. 86 people here. Why do you want to build a second brain? That's let's see it in the chat. That's see see a bunch of Zoom chat responses. We'll do a couple of breakout sessions later as well. Just based on the assignments that you've been given, but I just want to see why people are here. Why did you do this course? If you're a second time person here, a lot of the advanced people are second timers, why did you do it again?  Okay. Jose says get peace of mind. Glen says to put things out there, Peter says manage the flood of incoming information. I don't know if you can see this. If I put the chat on the screen, I think you can't because the zoom doesn't work like that. Elaine says to sharpen the saw that's a reference to the seven habits of highly effective people. Thi says, create a point of view, which is very, very good. That's something that we picked up this week on the perspective economy.  John Harkness, I want to start producing more instead of endlessly learning new and cool things. Yes. We're done with this whole information overload and we need to productionize ourselves. Exactly.  Emma a says, I have a lot of interesting projects that I never finished and never show anyone else.  Ian says, how does the newsreel for explorations and rabbit holes?  There's a lot here and it's, I'm sorry. I can read out every ones. But yeah, these are all, these are like really great lessons. Sometimes I think Building a Second Brain is very much like the behind the scenes process of productionizing. But you start from abundance when you do this. You start from a bank of knowledge. So when you want to productionize you can really pull things together very, very quickly, and that's how I blog as well and write stuff.  Content Recap [00:09:32]  I'm going to briefly recap I don't know if this is useful for people so let me know. If like I view this as like a TA being part of the, this little mentor group, which is that let's recap what we learned this week.  I really liked this phrase, the prospective era that Tiago had where he recapped where we came from, we used to have a space economy where we were trading on physical resources. And then we had a time economy. Then we had an attention economy. And now that every spare second of our attention has been gobbled up. We're in a Perspective economy where the more important thing is that. Because we're flooded with information all the time. And I love this analogy because we're flooded. What do you do in a flood? You seek the high ground. And for us seeking the high ground is having a point of view from which you can look down and see everything in perspective rather than being overwhelmed by all the water around us.   Okay. So that's the first part, which I really like which is a little bit of the why. Why a second brain. But that's just a toggles perspective. And I think part of the reason why I want to hear about your perspectives is that we all have different approaches when we come to this thing and we all have different perspectives. It's a very personal point of view. So I really liked this quote as well, point of view is that is essentially a human solution to information overload in a world of hyper abundant content point of view will become the scarcest of resources which is very meta because you're going to have to develop a point of view on building a second brain. There is 30 mentor sessions and like two thousands, I don't know, little information, bits and items on the forums. You're getting information overload here. So, that's why I want you to have a point of view on building a second brain as well.  The other thing that we're going to cover is the 12 favorite problems. This is something I like a lot as well. I covered this in my own book, which is the Richard Feynman quote. If you already did this then great. I know that I actually did not do the whole exercise when I when I went through BSB the first time. But just a reminder too, to Chuck them here. This is your assignment for this week. Go onto building a secondary, not circle that. So, and throwing your toffee reforms. I would say that, in keeping with rule number one, which is don't try to do it perfect, do it often. You don't need 12, right? Three is good. Eight's good. You don't need 12. But you should have some amount of problems that you revisit time and time again, and you slot information into those problems. Cool. This a little workshop session now. So what I'm going to do is to break y'all into working groups and you can share with each other on your 12 favorite problems, we have 86 people here. Breakout Session [00:11:53] So we're going to try to make this I'm going to try to make this small, so I'm going to try to break people into 10 groups. Should we do that? And then  let's talk about, let's talk about what our top favorite phones are and share them. All right. And then we'll meet back in about three minutes.  I'll share one of mine, which is something I've been collecting for a long time. Maybe I should share this after people come back as well, but how do I ask better questions? That's my one, that's one of my favorite problems. It's I've been pursuing this for a long time.  Frank Amaya: [00:12:20] There's a few books around that, right? Like the power of questions. Yeah. There's a Tony Robbins talks a lot about how the quality, like he has a lot of really cool stuff on question asking  and the whole of the NLP work is on question asking and the idea that everything we think every thought is a question. So that's the question, but you can't not answer your question when you ask it. Yeah, it's kinda cool.   swyx: [00:12:42] Yeah, I don't even know what books there are on this topic. I've just been collecting other people's questions essentially.  Okay. Does anyone hanging out here have questions on this week's material? Or just want to say hi, you can unmute yourself  Okay. This is Ted smiley. How are you doing? Hey,  Speaker 1: [00:12:56] dad just saw I'm a student and I'm trying to become a data scientist. And I thought that that second brain would actually be a great tool for helping me to become, helped me to get my hands around all the information that's coming at me at one time and to be able to. In the future, it'd be able to answer questions and help with programming, setting things up, setting up my GitHub and other things like that. What are key things for a second brain in that area?  Well GitHub's pretty good. I think a personal blog, you're a developer you figure out how to put everything on a single domain and start publishing, small things that you learned. I can show you Ted. This guy, Josh Bradshaw has this as his repo where he has all his TILs, like Today I learned. When you learn something, when you learn some new snippet of code stick it somewhere. So if you are someone who codes and you're going to put together a second brain, you might as well make it public and you can categorize it according to CSS, elixir, dev ops Python. You probably do a lot of Python or R whatever. And just put in on your TILs. It doesn't have to be huge. It can just be a little code snippet like that. And that makes it reusable for you. But also it's extremely valuable to other people. And there's 10,000 people who've starred this repo.   Frank Amaya: [00:14:07] What you're doing is great. I think people just love seeing different approaches, so there's no right way, like you said, right? They're just your way.  swyx: [00:14:14] So people are falling back. We've got 10 more seconds for those who were away, I hope you had a good discussion on what your favorite problems are. I certainly would love to hear them and I will be seeing them on the circle forum. So, we don't have to go over there more here. I just want to, for those  during the break, I shared a little bit about one of my favorite problems, which is how do I ask a better question? I think that you asked the poor question and you get a poor answer. And I think a lot of the systems that we have set up for ourselves today are set up to give us very good answers right away to the questions that we ask. But sometimes it's limited by the quality of the question. It's a little bit like the Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy when  the aliens built earth to find the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything and they found the answer was 42. But then they were like, okay, but what's the question to that. And, and so I think that's very much what I'm seeking to, to build here. I'm finding the question to life, the universe and everything.  Okay. Christopher Horn says, how do we expand beyond our ability to ask questions? In other words, have the second brain ask the question. Wow. That is, that is deep. Christopher. I have no idea work on it, let us know.    So I'm going to keep going. We're still recapping a little bit about this week. I've been told that actually a lot of people, a lot of you might have already done a mentor sessions during the week. And so this may be a bit redundant which throws my plan off a little bit, but we'll just keep going. And we'll share a bit more and if you want to know more about how I do stuff feel free to just throw the question in the chat as well. And I can answer as well. The CODE methodology [00:15:44] Okay. A lot of the course is structured around code. And this is a little bit of my recap for you. And I think it's very easy and it's very common for people getting into the second brain movement to start devolving into discussion about tools like, Oh, what's your setup? What's your stack, if you're a developer. And a lot of what Tiago does is he doesn't, he talks about workflow rather than tool for the developers in the room. I think it's very comparable to Hashi Corp, which is this idea that you have, you don't try to port over everything. You just have a portable workflow pretty similar to the react native as well. If you if you tried to write once, run anywhere, you end up with Java. If you try to learn principles once, and then be able to write them anywhere, then you end up with react native, which is a lot more portable in terms of programming paradigm. Basically the tools will come and go. But the creative process is timeless and he's trying to teach the creative process. And so it's captured, organized, distill, and express. We're going to write things down and this, this week we're focusing on writing things down, right? Really just the capture habit, which I think a lot of people apart from Tiago, but also  a lot of other productivity authors focus a lot on then we're going to go into organized, distill and express. I think express is something that we're. In this group going to focus a lot on, because I want you all of you to produce, I'll put right to blog, to speak, to draw, produce videos and to write a book or something like that. Make a podcast, whatever. I really like these, this image as well that, like, this is a little bit about why we do things. I, I realize now that a lot of you have already covered these concepts, so I don't need to TA this as much as I was planning. I do like the point of what to capture because it's also very tempting and I'm an infovore just like you are it's very tempting to capture everything, right? There's this concept of like, what if I could track every single website I've ever visited and store them somewhere. And a lot of them are crap and you never really wants to see them again. So I think having a point of view on what to capture, make sense and for Tiago it's:  is it inspiring? Is it useful? Is it surprising? Is it personal?  And you have some sort of filter to a first degree of what you don't capture, which is things that are not useful, not surprising, not inspiring, so on and so forth. So having those rules makes a lot of sense. And but also I think it makes you have a trigger, right . Every habit needs a trigger, like when X happens, then Y so the moment you have the aha feeling, that's inspiring. Write it down, right. The moment you're like, I wish I knew this that's useful. Write it down. Especially when you're wrong, that's a point of opportunity to learn. And if you don't learn when you're wrong, then you're going to repeat it again.  Q&A: Work vs Personal Capture Apps? [00:18:11]  Okay. You know what, let's just stay  in this room. And have someone speak on has anyone tried to capture stuff? What have you been capturing and what's your pain points? And  share our experiences in this big room. Speaker 1: [00:18:21] Hi I can quickly go. So one of the pain points I've seen is that  I've tried oxygen and all of these other apps narrow down to a markdown- based app or plan. But the problem is that I find that I can switch over to Evernote, which fixes a lot of the gaps for me. And I am genuinely going to give it a shot, but the problem or the concern I have with Evernote is that I also have a lot of journal personal stuff that I write down, which I feel comfortable doing in a day one or a note plan Canada, which has all been stored locally.  And that's where I feel like, okay, now I have two apps and now how do I bring all of these thoughts together without losing my privacy? I want to give Evernote a shot, but I don't know if I ever feel comfortable enough to get my personal thoughts, raw thoughts into Evernote.  swyx: [00:19:02] So I'm curious what other people do with their journals versus their note taking. I have two apps. I do my journaling in one notes where there's a password feature and nothing else goes in there. And so even if someone, pwns my Notion, or like I leave it unlocked and someone accesses it and they don't find my journal, the best unit of isolation is just at the app boundary. Yeah.  Speaker 1: [00:19:22] But then do you ever worry that you may have some thoughts that may eventually lead to a blog post or an article that you've been thinking about? Like those things are getting lost. Do we ever worry about that since it's not part of your quote unquote second brain?  swyx: [00:19:34] Well, I mean, it's not hard to run a search twice. So no if you're recording anything that could potentially be public and future, that should go in  your public ish second brain, that you wouldn't mind anyone coming across and seeing it. And then the journal is private and will probably never, you'll never publish. That's fine. But you, do you want search on all of them in case you do need something in the future? For what's?  Q&A: Should I Capture Googlable Stuff? [00:19:55] Who else has like capture pinpoints or just want to talk about the stuff that you've been capturing? Speaker 3: [00:19:59] I can go Shawn, I've been thinking what to do when there is a specific piece of information that is easily Googleable. Like you can search and find it perfect for offers the usual with stack overflow type of question. Yeah. I feel really bad when I have to research it. Instead of in my personal second brain, I have to go into Google again and get the same thing. I was wondering how you personally deal with that. And if there is value in the first time you search it, you capture it.   swyx: [00:20:33] This is an important problem, I think. So the my quick answer is if you captured the first time you search it, that's probably too high fidelity. It's going to be very noisy and there's gonna be a lot of stuff that you only look up once and  you never need again. So I have this rule, which I call these three strikes rule for blogging. Where basically, I just tell you to wait for three strikes. Because the first time is like, you just heard about this idea and the second time you're like still trying to evaluate its usefulness and you're explaining it. And the third time you're like it's increasing probability every single time you refer to this idea or you look it up that you're really going to need it again in the future. So then you should start writing it and you should share your own authoritative link on it. And even if it's a pretty easy Googleable piece of information. You definitely have your own perspective on it. And there's a nice cleanness to just Googling, like your take on something. So, so, you can use the Google thing on like site colon. This is like a Google filter. Right. And it just only searches your site. Right. So when I, when I need to add Monaco editor, I just go to my source. Cause I wrote it. I had explained things that would make sense to me, even though I forgot how to do any of this. It would just lay it out in exactly the way that I would want it. And that's useful to someone because that's. People are going to find it because of you. So the way I, the way I phrase it for developers again, is to proxy the top stack overflow answer. And then the other usefulness is to have them indexed in some kind of central fashion, right? So, when I need anything related to TypeScript, I go here and I go like, Hey, what is a useful use case for passing both props? I could Google this, but because it's all organized in the way that I see fit it's useful to me and it's probably useful to others as well. So, marketers actually have a term for this. They call it a swipe file. So if you, you also see this for design and marketing and it's all the same concepts, right? Good marketing HQ. There we go. So this is a swipe file. Anytime I need something on referral marketing, I can go here and I can just say how did Hilton DoubleTree do referral marketing for word of mouth? And that, that gives me an idea of how to do my stuff. Right. So if you collect a swipe file of like just resources, you can look up any of these individually, but because they all, they're all in one place and they're all things that you've personally approved and written up. You not only remember them better, but people can find it as well  Q&A: Physical Book notes? [00:22:48]  do people have other thoughts on like capturing I I'm trying to focus it on the topic of the week, but also you can just ask me stuff about what I do for VSB. Speaker 4: [00:22:57] Yeah. I have a question. So yeah, I like to read physical books. I'm sure there's other people here who also like to read physical books and the difficulty with that is that when I'm reading, like in bed, like before I go to bed, I'll like highlight stuff. I'll, write notes and comments on the side of the book, but then like what's a good time to capture that into my second brain, should I do it like after I finished entire book. Or should I do it like right away, but I would prefer not to like take out my phone and, lose sorta like my context in the book. So I'm trying to figure out that for myself.  swyx: [00:23:31] So I have a confession, which is, I don't read much physical books.  I do prefer  the PDF in the minimalism of  not having to decide what to do with the book after I'm done with it. What do people do? Let's, let's throw it out to the group here. What do people do for a physical book note taking read wise, someone says, okay. I don't read physical books. We're in a post paper economy.  Frank Amaya: [00:23:50] Shawn Joyce has her hand up  swyx: [00:23:53] Joyce.  Speaker 3: [00:23:53] Yeah, no, I read physical books all the time and I have that exact problem is I'll be in a place where I'm comfortable and I'm not going to disturb my my train of process. And I'm just marking things down in the light or using post-its and I use the review process. So if I'm doing it at night and I'm, don't want to disturb what's going on when I get up in the morning and  I'll do a review and  they stay with me for it. They'll stay with me for a couple days. That's how I do it. Thank you. Thanks SREs. Yeah. Thanks.  Q&A: Starting for the first time [00:24:23] swyx: [00:24:23] Leslie also has something to say  Speaker 2: [00:24:25] Hi! Yes. I had a question about, basically I'm starting this for the first time. I'm very excited. I'm getting tons of tips about how to organize the things I'm consuming from now on. But I have so much information from that I've already been collecting from over the years. I'm just wondering what you would recommend for organizing what we already have.  swyx: [00:24:49] I mean this is the start of your capture habit,  I know you're fresh to this and  there can be a lot. Again, rule number two, don't try to capture everything, right. Just have a repeated process of it and look at this as an infinite game, rather than a finite one. Fortunately all of you are in the cohort where you have unlimited access to all future cohorts, so you can come back again whenever you want. So don't feel like you have to capture it, find something useful that you can put into practice and then practice it and then keep going, right? You're not here to capture everything because that's not your job. Your job is to work on yourself. I know the anxiety that comes with  Oh, I'm not getting everything. And there's like 200 conversations going on in circle reading all of them. Don't try and just find the thing that you really want to work on it, which is why there's this whole focus on the top favorite problems,  find out what you're here for and focus on that. And other people have other agendas that they're pursuing and you don't have to be in every conversation. Right.  Speaker 2: [00:25:40] Okay. Thank you. I just have one follow up with everything that we are capturing. There's so many, so, so much good advice around which types of contents I love the idea of what inspires me. What's personal to me. What surprises me, things like that.  Q&A: How to turn notes to action? [00:25:53] But do you have a way of turning basically what you consume into an action item? Ooh.  swyx: [00:26:00] Do I have a way of turning what I consume into an action item? So for me, my action item is blogging right now. That is the way I express myself, that's the way I could produce public output. There are other forms, tweeting videos. Talks. But they all secondary to blogging, cause I think that's the most scalable form of human output. So I have a list I can show you. I know that you all want it to be perfect. And I think there are some consultants out there who  really impose a lot of imposter syndrome. I'm here to show you the negative example of how imperfect it can be and still work. This is the way I blog. This is how I compiled my newsletter every week. It's just I want to talk about this in my newsletter and I just throw the link there. These are my blog posts, ideas. I, and I drafted in here in simple note. Very minimal not very structured. I do have knowledge bases, right? So, I think Frank in the comments Leslie was saying next week we'll actually learn about how to organize stuff. So we're not even at the organized stage yet. We're at the capture stage. This is the capture week where you're just training on having the habit, the trigger and the action, the trigger is, is it surprising? Is it interesting? Is it  what were the other two personal and I forget the other one, but is it noteworthy to you? Then make sure to write it down to the point of  when I come across something interesting, I will pause what I'm doing and not taking any other information until I've captured it because there's no point to absorbing more information and forgetting it all. It's really about getting over that mindset of having to capture everything, because we're no longer talking about, drinking from the fire hose.  We're having a point of view and we're trying to collect things.   So the second brain people have been giving us some help in terms of like, how to mentor. So I've been catching resources, just like that  in Notion. And for me, it doesn't exist. It's not real until I blog about it.  I think catching without an intent I can feel a bit lost. Like what's my real goal here. And having anintent of this is the blog post that I'm going to write, which is what's the difference with your mentor, coach, teacher facilitator. It's just literally word for word exactly what they taught us, but I didn't really know this and I think it's useful for other people. So I'm going to write it. I'm going to write it up and I'm going to live through it and add some personal experience. And that will be it. Having a goal of like I'm capturing this to do something is, is more helpful to me than just pure capturing everything and never doing anything with it. Speaker 2: [00:28:13] Amazing. Thank you so much. And I do think I jumped the gun a bit, but with trying to learn what we're going to be learning next week, but thank you so much. That was really helpful. swyx: [00:28:22] Absolutely. First of all, you can jump ahead if you want. It's all available there. But yeah, you'vegot a long, long road ahead of you. If you do this right, you're doing this for hopefully the rest of your life. So, yeah, you don't have to do it perfect , just do it often.  Okay. All right. Please go next. Q&A: Processing Notion vs SimpleNote [00:28:36] Frank Amaya: [00:28:36] So Tom has his hand up and, but one question or one idea, some, some of the attendees may have come to know or ask questions around notion. So, or perhaps to get more of your perspective around notion. Yeah. I, it there'll be any questions perhaps that people will ask that they have around notion or just that topic. If we can focus them on that, at least for the little bit of the session here.  swyx: [00:29:01] Yeah, we have the room until like for another seven minutes and then I can go into the 30 on like personal questions. So let's take some notion questions now. And then those people who are just here for that can can go and the rest can stay on in lines or whatever it was got. Notion questions. Gina says, can you give an overview of your capture and processing of info in notion? Thanks, Gina also I'm it says, how do you decide what goes in simple note versus notion? I like this question a lot. I think Amit, you were talking about the local first idea. I don't care about local first because I don't, I'm not that privacy focused as long as it's behind a password lock. I'm happy with that. So OneNote is my secure journaling thing, and it doesn't intersect with anything else that I do. A simple note is cross-platform and faster than notion is. So this is simple note and it is simple. It's simple. It really is. It's almost too simple and that's how you want it to be. You want to not give yourself a choice of should I bold this? Should I make this red? Should I meet this italics, screw all that. Just write stuff down and don't screw it up. Don't let anything get in the way of that. And that's what sticks for me. Other people they have beautiful motions and it really sparks the creative joy for them. So please don't let my, the way I do things affect you too much. But  that's how I do it. So simple note just has raw material. Notion has my startup focus. I am a head of department in a startup so I do concentrate on collecting a lot of focus areas on all these topics.  A lot of these are just in case meaning that I essentially use Notion as a buffer between the stuff that comes in serendipitously and when I need them because often those times do not match up. But what does help is for example when I need some advice and cold emailing, these are the things that I have personally approved for myself that I can just go, I'll go through and call the mill. I do my, in my own community. This is gonna, this is going to look super overwhelming to you. So please don't don't feel like you have to do this. Part of my book is that I've run a community where I do resources like this.  In fact, the cold email resources have been, I've been working on for a while as well. So I will come here and add them and write them up as I go over time. That's part of how I think aboutNotion. I do definitely try to publish some of these. So when I worked at AWS I actually curated this as a service to my community as I learned about AWS myself. And that's it, you can learn a lot about AWS, just going through these resources and that's great. Then for me, I have a scratchpad in notion where these are the ways in which I draft blog posts. So here, this is a talk that I did. So I literally just structured the talk and then it turned it into 30 minutes off react summit. This is a blog post that I just sent out yesterday to my newsletter. And I it's all drafted in notion. And people can leave comments if they want. Actually I realized that if you want to send up, send a, probably Buffalo's do it in Google docs because more people have it's a, just a better commenting feature in Google docs. And most people are logged in already. But yeah that's how we decide between simple notes and notion.  Capture Thinking [00:31:47] Frank Amaya: [00:31:47] Shawn, can you walk us through  your captured thinking and specifically a notion like your workflow and if after doing that, if you can maybe show how you capture podcasts notes. I think a lot of people want to know like how you got to what you just showed us, but maybe the process that got you there.  swyx: [00:32:03] The thinking is just  is this the thing I want to blog about? For me having an intent to my capturing is very important. So, what's the blog title and then attach all the discussion points and the relevant links to that title. So, yeah, this is it. I mean, when I so I have, I have I have a, another resource again. It's all it makes sense in my head. I am more of a messy person. So I'm not as minimalist as some other folks who do really well on YouTube. But it works for me.  Frank Amaya: [00:32:28] Is there a chance you could show us like how you're using maybe the capture tool in ocean or how you get this into your notion environment?  swyx: [00:32:35] Like these are this is essentially a project, right. And then these are resources. So  it's loose PARA. And then the 12 questions. And then it's very loose PARA. And then I have a personal finance stuff I have, and then a scratch pad for myself. I don't use the notion capture tool mainly because it's too broad for me. Like either I get the point of the article or I haven't read it at all. And if I got the point on the article, I can summarize it for myself. And that summary is way more useful.  I think this is covered in one of the weeks. I'm not sure which week, but he has a few levels of progressive summarization. So I, I tend to just skip the first level.  That's like in week three. First of all, when you first come across something you have like Ronald's, then you bold passengers and highlight passages and mini summary and remix. I basically go  either I'm at layer one or zero, and then I go straight to layer four. The other stuff is too intermediate for me so I don't really do that. And the mini summary, like I can go down the summarization stack if I need more and quite often I do, but all the links to the resources are already there. That is the amount of work that I want to do for my note-taking. And probably I could do better at that, but that's what I do right now. Yeah. Okay. Did I have, I feel like I lost some questions.  Q&A: Podcast Notes? [00:33:41]  How do I capture POS podcasts and notes to notion? I do not. So, podcast notes go here. And they're literally like the five minute clips that I want to highlight and model upon. And that every day, once a day,  I clip that and produce it. So this is, I've been doing this for probably a hundred ish days now. And these are just clips of Hey, I really like this interview. This is an origin story of a CEO, which I thought was really inspiring.  But that's about it as far as podcasts notes go. I think if they relate to a particular topic that I'm interested in, for me hiring, I do a lot of literally, this is the link to the podcast and I took notes on that podcast. And that's about what I, that's where I leave it. Because then this will go into my own company's hiring docs as an input, but podcasts notes, like that's those are the two dimensions  in which I have them. So personal notes if they're focused on the topic. But this makes us in together with text notes and for specific podcast stuff that I want to share with other people and just say Hey I really liked this Andrew Wilkinson story on his first job that was really crappy. I'm going to clip it and then make it shareable with other people. Eventually over time I would just have this resource of everything that I found interesting and people can go through that find they find a lot of value from it. But again, it's an example of a potentially multiplayer game that I win as a single player game, just because I had just had a record of everything that I have listened to. Frank Amaya: [00:34:57] Well, so you're at the top of the hour in case anybody did.  swyx: [00:35:00] Yeah. Well, I hope this session was useful. It's my first time doing this. But we'll, we'll get better over time and I'm definitely gonna drop in on other mentoring sessions to see how they do stuff. But yeah you can email me if you weren't comfortable asking questions. Here you can email me I'm at swyx.io, so I guess  Frank Amaya: [00:35:16] well, there's some comments coming in saying there was a great idea of clipping. Yeah,  swyx: [00:35:22] thanks for that. So I do a lot of interviews as part of the nature of my job. This is my email address, by the way, if anyone, anyone here can email me questions, I'll them async. But yeah, I do a lot of interviews. And so what I do is actually and this is my finance side showing I rehypothecate my session. So every weekday I do five minutes, five minutes, five minutes. And then every weekend I would drop a longer form chat. So people who follow me can just literally catch up on everything that I've been doing outside of my own personal output. I like this idea of  going onto other people's channels, other people's YouTube and podcasts, and B being a guest. So people hear about you and you get a nice energy to bounce off of, to create content and then bring that all into your own site. So that you have one central place for people to discover you and go deep on yours and your stuff. So that's what I do. Yeah.  People asking about how I clip use audacity. It's a free open source app has a little bit of a learning curve, but there are any number of tutorials on YouTube to learn how to do it. And literally I'll go something like this. And then I'll move stuff around. I actually, I did this in my audition for the BASB mentorship, but literally I'll just be like, play this. Okay. This is cool. Cook that, click that, and then move it around here. Like you learn all the shortcuts really quickly and you can make a, it doesn't take that much effort. And it's a really nice productive experience for me because it's a small win that I can knock out every day, no matter how bad my day is. I know I can do this. I have a huge backlog of interesting content in when I revisit the content, I learned it over again. And I can knock it out in 30 minutes and it's, that's a win for me. So I like this. I like having a Keystone habit essentially as a creator. No matter how stuck I am in blogging mental health, how how bad my media work has been. I can do this and I can call it a win. And it's, it's something that's mine. Q&A: Grabbing notes on the go Speaker 1: [00:37:06] Yes. I had a question because I learned a few seconds ago. Well, my question is regarding to the notes to notion how they capture the notes. But my main question is related to that. How notion or what is the best technique or the best tool. To grab notes on the way, because for example, something that happens to me, it's driving and sometimes an idea came to my mind related.  I'm going to go to person. And then I got that idea, but if I don't write down at that moment, then I forgotten that sometimes I forgot that idea and just say, miss a chance to solve a big problem,  but doing that, it's a kind of a book because it's not too easy to just go with mama while I'm putting in there. I'm gonna start using draft apps because he has something willing to watch. Just wondering if exist, any other technique or tool or something to only capture notes quickly on the way. So it dropped off. So  swyx: [00:38:08] is it this one they have on screen? Is it drafts get dressed up? So first of all, someone, somebody in the chat said don't know shit and drive. I endorse that. So thanks Benjamin for that. It's true.  Drive safe.  Frank Amaya: [00:38:24] Can I answer this question? Yeah, please. Because I just, I'm pretty excited about this. I just I had a session on Friday and Tammy, one of another fellow BSB or mentioned a notion actually has widgets. So I just installed a widget earlier today so I can share what that looks like. It's okay. I think I'm going to stop sharing what you're sharing. But there, this could be really useful for what you were just asking about Sergio and I'm going to you see it. So this is my phone that I just found a way of showing it. And what you'll see here is the whole idea of a, of a, of an inbox. Oh, you can have your favorites widget. And instead of the way that you could easily come in on the plus, okay, that's do it. That'll put it in. You can add a new private page at the bottom. So that's one way that you can address that. The other thing is the fast, quick add, like what you're saying, you're on the go, let's say you have your inbox and I'm going to minimize this. You could easily create a new page in here, and then you have the ability to add it. So  the thing that was slowing us down with notion was the quick add using widgets and customizing needs to what you need is definitely gonna improve  your workflow. As easy as just putting a little plus sign and then just doing different stuff in here . So it's just, it's really something that I'm playing around with, but this is solving that one issue that I've just been struggling with. And a lot of us, which is how can we get information fast inside of a notion without as fast as maybe some of these other tools that we're using.  Yeah, I'd definitely recommend exploring that because that might improve your flow and  I'm not sure if you saw it here, but let me share it again inside of the, let's see, so I'm sharing my phone and scary right. Chain because I didn't carry it, any of that stuff, but we'll, you'll see at the bottom right corner. There's that little. Plus the, so if it's in two clicks, I can easily come in here and start adding. And one of the things you can do is, it's tied to, Hey yeah, this is, these are some of the ideas that I'm capturing right now, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you don't, if you're on the go and you can't really write right now, but you can speak it. I mean, you see what the power here now you can start integrating many of these other things that you're talking about and go, so you're using your phone. It also works for Andrew. They checked out right now, but yeah, here's the note period, next line, new line et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, just something for you to consider. Oh, that's perfect. I  Speaker 3: [00:40:45] would try the widget thing. Just, I was using only the widget, a single icon and you just access, but the other one with the plus sign, this is the kind of the thing that I am looking for. And this is for that. Thank you so much, friend.  swyx: [00:41:04] And then someone should blog about it.  Always turn it into output, right. Yeah, every time you have  some TIL that is something that you learned. And I learned that too. I didn't know about this, so this is great. Yeah, but I, I personally use simple note just because I find it a bit faster. I I've been very, like I'm very performance oriented and any latency in notion just really ticks me off. Yeah.  Speaker 3: [00:41:23] Actually I started, well, just something to share with everyone, with the drafts apps in iOS. I have the app for the watch. And so you'll say I'm moving here on a star, you'll sit through it in the notes. You'll just take it to there. And then when I get into my whole disability gate, certain amount of bandwidth to go PM pays the notes inside of notion. But, well, I think so with that, the one that Frank show us will be a better, I think as much. Yeah. Frank, do you know if it's available on an Android? It was asking. It is, I'll put,  Frank Amaya: [00:41:55] I'll put a link in right down for both of them, because I just saw, I just literally sent this acuity, not like an hour 70 for the call started. So that's, I'm pretty excited about that. I'm also pretty excited about testing automation with notion. I know that's been one of those things that a lot of us have been looking for, but it's, it's there as a workaround, not, not out of the box and not but I use here's a, the Twitter link, I think for the widget feature, what I was impressed. And I was like, I think I'm the notion guy, right. But this came out in November of last year was like, what is this? Like, how can I, but in the call Friday again, another student mentioned, and I was like, see, because that's what these sessions do. They just bring up a bunch of stuff that we just didn't see. But yeah. And I'll put the, the notion widget, there was a notion VIP guy willing to not, he wrote about it. And I think he did a really good kind of little explanation  swyx: [00:42:44] there. So I'll put that. Yeah. Bottom line is the capture habit is super important and yes, I've had those ideas that come in and then I like 10 seconds later. I'll  lose it. And it was, it would have been like a big unlock for me at work or some big insight. And I just totally like, it just, it's just gone. So I'll literally like if I, if I hear something, if I have a thought in my head while I'm showering, I'll just  jump out of the shower, dripping wet and go write it down. That's how seriously I take this caption capture thing. So I, I highly recommend if you're driving, stop driving, write it down, keep driving. But  it really, that is important to it to capture stuff because you will, was it have an Alexa in your bathroom? Yes, that's if I were not in COVID yeah, I don't have a lot of control over my living space right now, but yes. I think so. So when I was a Alexa developer, I try to basically make an Alexa notes app and then they, the API didn't let you record any amount of length of detail. Maybe they've opened it up since but it'd be nice to capture notes through Alexa. I don't think the allow you to do it very long. So I wanted to like, Nick, could you record a podcast through Alexa? And I think there's a limit of 30 seconds. Cool. All right.  Q&A: I dont like any of my apps, what do I do? Speaker 3: [00:43:46] Well, my question is mainly around the struggle with expression, like actually putting the things out there and having more of a. Engineering or technical mindset,  for example I'm now using bear as a note taking app Alexa mainly right in markdown, but then every time I use it, I'm getting a little bit of discontent that I can't use certain key bindings that I'm used to using programming. And I think I should look into researching, like, how do I use another system? So then the same with producing, like blog posts or something like, then I'm on creating a aesthetic sign, I'm setting up all these things. And then whenever I just try to do one thing, it brings up then more questionable like research questions, like, should I, and then I fall a bit in the trap of not actually putting something out there, the same with certain topic or blog posts. Like it brings up so many sub questions. So something to. Mitigates more, I guess the feelings of like, there is a way I want to do it. And there is a lot of things yeah, if that makes  swyx: [00:44:53] sense in some way. So you actually having is real and it's not just, and I think developers are very aware of, of that. You have, you essentially have a bunch of dependencies that you're not super happy with, but you gotta get stuff out. If it's, if you, if you don't produce, then it never existed, right? Like it's, it's almost like getting 90% of the way there is almost like 0% if from the outside world. So I definitely. I think that having tools that you enjoy is important because that that's an input to your writing. And if you start having any friction at all, then you're not gonna enjoy the process of writing. So, you got to keep looking for tools to keep trying all of them. What's great in, in BSB is essentially you have a community that has tried out every tool out there. So just go into the forums and look for like what other tools that's partially your issue is why I like him? Well, no I actually have also tried to code my own CMS using vs code. That's why I I had that blog post about Monaco because I use Monaco to write my own CMS. And I, I miss, I miss a lot of the niceties in NCO in in vs code. But ultimately when you find something that's good enough, it's not going to be perfect. And then you ship and you start to, you have to figure out where you draw the line on what is a deal breaker for you, or like, I cannot keep writing on this unless I have this and everything else just. Be okay with it and be okay with the imperfection because it's good enough for a lot of other people. Sorry, Diana. And I don't, I don't know if that's the answer they go looking for, but all right. I met Monica is the core library behind vs code. It is the editor tooling that is written in each model, script and CSS. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, Glenn, if you have any followups let us know in the comments. But otherwise I'm just going to go ahead to read. I think Reb had next and then I think your next, Hey,  Q&A: Security & Privacy [00:46:31] Speaker 2: [00:46:31] Thanks for the session so far. I know you mentioned that you're not going to be that interested in local first and that's fine, but just curious if you, or Frank or anyone like from BSB not been through so many cohorts, 70 kind of guidance. So my problem is basically around security and privacy, because my employer has strict like requirements. So I can't really just send stuff to the cloud. And then, so that was torn and that's the reason I took the course to try to figure out a solution is I could either have a, kind of a set of apps for my second brain for my personal stuff, which I'm okay with sending some of it or most of it to the cloud and then have another one, for my profit, my employer, and then trying to bridge the gap. Right. So there's some overlap. And so like for example, like some example could be like, if I figured it out, very simple example, like how to provision a VM in AWS, I could write out all the notes from my employers in my those notes. But there's a lot of stuff I could just take, which is just general stuff. Right. It's just but then I, now I don't have dry cause if I copy paste it and all this, because I'm repeating myself. Right. So, sorry, a bit of long winded, but wanted to give you some context.  swyx: [00:47:35] So what's the question.  Speaker 2: [00:47:36] Do you have any guidance for like a local first, second brain with also having workflows for separating personal and employee stuff? So I could  swyx: [00:47:45] take my personal stuff with me. Yeah. Gotcha. So Glenn has a bunch of answers actually in, in the chat. So there is a circle and a meeting around using Emacs org mode. So, yeah, I've heard a lot of good things about work mode. Actually. You might want to check that out. I would also check out foam which is the vs code version of Rome. Like the wrong tools, the, the, the thing would be app with the backlinking obsidian also supports McDonald city is local first. There's a bunch of these that are local first. Absolutely. You have your pick of choice tools for these. Yeah, a lot of people are using obsidian. I'm actually, I'm interested by obsidian, but for me cross-platform is very important. Like I'm, I'm on my phone as much as I am on my desktop. So, I cannot have my tools be separate for those things. They need to be the same thing. I know. I know. I know. Okay. Okay. So yeah, what's the other, I think that was it. I mean, yeah, it looks like Glen's, Glen's really up in there. So talk to Glen. Speaker 2: [00:48:35] Yeah. I mean also like if there's working examples, but yeah. I'll follow up on the messages in the chat because there's, task management, North node Mattamy is just like one part of it. Like, there's no read wise local first for example. Right. So you got to figure out like all those parts of the flow chart. Right. That's where I am right now. So, but yeah, I'll, I'll follow up with the chat  swyx: [00:48:53] and yeah, the back is like dry, like in coding is also overrated, right? Like I think there's a movement against dry. It's fine to repeat yourself, especially if you're repeating yourself a maximum of twice, like who cares? Like just copy and paste. It's, it's fine. It's cheap. And also I think be aware that to me, I view my work notes as a, as a thin outer layer around my own thick set of personal notes, because that one will last with me for life. Whereas the work one is just wherever I'm currently working and that will go away. And so you want to minimize that to just projects that you're specifically working on for work. Yeah. And that's going back to like how you're expressing and you touched, showed like your notion, like standards, all procedures and all that stuff. Right. I appreciate that. Okay, cool. Cool. Thank you. Q&A: Triaging Information to be Productive [00:49:35] That's a head to uni.  Speaker 4: [00:49:36] Hi, Karen. First of all, thanks for your time for investing in power growth. My question is more around, more like a general one. So it might be a little bit related to Parra. I haven't watched it yet, but after you capture all this amazing information, I'm curious how you do cocoa. How's you do the triage process. So starting like for when you do it to, while you do, especially with the mindset of productionizing, this content, my hypothesis, my assumption here is that probably depending on which phase you're in, in terms of productionizing, your content, maybe your triage process might be different. So I'm just curious after you kept your old those things. How do you, yeah, how do this triage things to put, okay, this is going to, that I might be used for this future blog. I might be used this for the current blog. I wonder how this whole year process looks like, does this question  swyx: [00:50:23] make sense? You need, you can't have too many just in case items, essentially. Like it's very easy to try to collect everything and just like, I might need this one day. And then just add them with  an unmanageable pile of stuff. This is why it's important to have those tough favorite problems or to me  those could equivalently be the 12 blog posts that I'm currently working on. And then you're slotting information there. Anything that doesn't fit either you would have to let it go pretend you never even came across it at all.  And you need some filter. You cannot, you just, you cannot try to capture everything like don't try. So is it currently relevant to a project they're working on or not? If it's not is it worth starting a new project over compared to all the other things that you're currently working on? If you've got too much going on, you gotta drop it. You gotta let it go.  Speaker 4: [00:51:04] I think that's honestly great answer. Yeah, that makes sense. I think probably I was thinking more like capturing. Yeah, cause you can basically what the solution, not a solution, but the approach you are taking here is that you have a set of the project that you're currently working on and you're capturing the information that maps to it. And then you keep evolving around it. Once that project is called, you might add on a little more and they kept her on other information from the different lens. swyx: [00:51:26] Yeah. And it's not just projects para is projects, areas, resources, and  you can accumulate any number of resources as well. So, yeah, so for me,  but the more you are able to limit it, the more, the deeper you can go rather than broad. And to me that is more rewarding because it's too easy to just spread all over everything and try to be interested in everything. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay.  Q&A: Outdated content [00:51:46] Speaker 3: [00:51:46] I said, Oh, I'm sorry. My mute was on a lovely session. Learned loads. I have a quick question regarding research I've next insight collect a lot of information. So what I've faced is I've collected information and I've saved it someplace. So when I want to do like make a blog on it or write a report on it, I feel that since some time has passed, so that research might be outdated. So I go back to Google, do the research once again. So the process of collecting it, saving, it becomes redundant after a certain period of time for me or what should be the thought process or the mind shift I can change. So regarding that, I would like your opinion of kids,  swyx: [00:52:30] right. Stuff becomes outdated you said? When you, when you collect notes? No,  Speaker 3: [00:52:33] like suppose I'm researching on a particular topic, which I want to make my notes on. Suppose six months have passed. I feel like in six months there would have been more research conducted on that particular topic. So I go back to Google research again and collect more information, switch, take a continuous cycle. swyx: [00:52:52] Yeah. That makes sense. I think that's pretty normal.  Speaker 3: [00:52:56] That's pretty normal. Right. Okay.  swyx: [00:52:58] Awesome. I do like building reusable resources, right?  The react and typescript cheatsheet that I showed you if it's outdated, just delete it. It's on the history somewhere if you need it. But having a materialized view of everything that's currently relevant that's what we're going to is for someone coming across it for the first time is extremely valuable. People don't do that. People always do logs of here's what I came across today. Here's what I learned today. That's useful, but it's not structured. And structure is almost as important as content. Awesome. Perfect. Thank you.  Question: Defining Dealbreakers [00:53:25]  Speaker 4: [00:53:25] I mean, this was great, but you mentioned with regards to tools to define your deal breakers. And I mean, just new to this, I've been, distracted by so many different shiny, bright object tools, for me, I think that's extremely powerful just to define your deal breakers. Like you talked about how cross-platform is important and things like that. Well, that's going to immediately eliminate certain tools. So yeah, defining deal breakers was a big  swyx: [00:53:55] help. Thanks. Thank you. I think something that Tim Ferris is famous for. I don't know if he came up with this, but it's a definitely powerful concept, which is making one decision that eliminates a hundred other decisions. So if you, individually, if you evaluated each tool from scratch then it would take a lot of time. But if you had an understanding of your own needs and deal breakers, then you can rule out entire categorie

Dana Dunford from Hemlane Property Management joins us again with some practical tips to ensure the best outcomes with your rental properties.  --- Transcript Michael: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the real estate investor. My name is Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co host,   Tom: Tom Schneider.   Michael: And we have a very special guest with us. Dana Dunford, CEO of Hemlane is going to be joining us again for another episode. And she's going to be talking to us today about some of the tips and considerations we need to be cognizant of and thinking about if we're going to be remote landlording. So let's get into it.   Michael: Hey, Dana Dunford, welcome back to the show. Real pleasure to have you back on.   Dana: Great. Thanks for having me, Michael. Thanks, Tom.   Michael: Absolutely. So Tom doesn't get any credit!   So today, Dana, you're going to be talking to us today about a couple different rules that landlords should be mindful of, if they want to get into remote landlording. So I am just going to kick it off to you to start out. And if you could start with rule number one walking us through what people need to know about before they become a remote landlord?   Dana: Yeah, so a lot of people just so you know, the background is a lot of people do self manage their properties, right? 73% do. And many of those are remote. And so a lot of people ask us, you know, how do I manage my property from a distance, there are a couple of key rules that you have to set up.   And very first one is setting yourself up as a professional and as a property management operation. And not considering yourself just a landlord of a single individual working with the tenants, your local service professionals, a leasing agent, really making sure that you're set up professionally from an operations perspective.   So Mike, if you want, I'm happy to go through some of those details. And some examples,   Michael: That'd be great. I'm just curious, you say that 73% of remote landlords self manage?   Dana: 73% of landlords in general self manage their properties. And so the Census Bureau did a study on…   Michael: Wow, I didn't realize that was so high.   Dana: Yeah, majority do self manage majority do not use full service property manager. And and you have to think about it, Mike, when you're buying a physical asset, right? It's a lot different than stocks that are very passive, where it's not a physical asset, or a REIT where you put money into something to real estate, but you never see it. It does become emotional. You know, if you think about it, you go on roofstock, you see this property? And you're like, Oh, I would change those carpets and put hardwood floors and at some time, Oh, those sinks, I need to change those, right? That's a real estate investor. When it's physical, like   Michael: That paint color!   Dana: Yeah, the paint color, why would they choose that horrible green color? You know, I want to change it from puke green to gray or whatever, you know, off white color that real estate investors want these days. But yeah, so it does become much more of something where you take a little bit more ownership. But that doesn't mean that real estate investors want to do everything. Like they don't want to do the showings, they don't want to go and fix the toilet. You know, all of that stuff they don't want to do but they definitely want to be more hands on. And so that's why I do see a lot of investors come up with much more creative ways to manage their properties. And then how they tap into that is is what we're here to discuss today.   Michael: Awesome.   Tom: Yeah. And I guess to that point, you know, that statistic around 70 some odd percent, I bet you historically, a lot of landlords have come into landlording. More like accidentally, I think probably the vast, vast majority of our listeners are more kind of on offense of building not letting rental properties come to them. So anyways, I love point number one show that you are professionals. Let's let's jump into some of the examples on that.   Dana: So the biggest thing to talk about when you first get a rental property is are you going to set up an entity, right, and that's either saying I'm going to set it up under an LLC, right to protect your personal assets, or you can also get a landlord insurance for it. A lot of folks with 1-2-3 rental properties will put it in their personal name. Of course, I think you guys are on the same side as me of, Hey, you're looking to build passive income through real estate investing. It's better to set it up in a legal entity and LLC. Get that out all out of the way. And then there are strategic ways you can work with a real estate attorney with your accounting team to make sure that the reporting is easy as you add more properties series LLC is all of that.   But it really the the first part is setting up that entity. why I say that so important is two things. The first reason it's so important to set up an LLC is because you will then suddenly take out that personal emotional aspect of property management off your plane.   When you're a managing member, so let's take a tom let's take as an example here, if it's Tom with Great Rift Valley, LLC, you're just a managing member who's signing on behalf of the LLC. But you know, you're, you're not making the decisions, right? It's the LLC making the decisions, you have the property under that entity. It's much better than, you know, Tom saying, I own this property, my tenant comes to me and says that they wanted, you know, a garbage disposal. And you, Tom, as the landlord have said, no, that suddenly becomes emotional of Tom versus his tenants. So if you are going to remotely manage your property, still, obviously, with local support, but if you are going to it, it is really important to think about that, and how that will set you up for success of having that LLC, because now suddenly, you're a managing member of the LLC. And that emotion of me against anyone else on it, it's not that it's, here's how the LLC is structured. Here's what we have set up as the rules and the lease contract. And it makes it actually for both the tenants and for you a much more professional experience. Because they get it it's it's a professional LLC running the property.   Just so you guys know, just some stats there. 72% of landlords have properties in their own name, and 20% in LLC or trust, then obviously, there's other types of vehicles that people use, but majority don't have properties and LLCs. And really, if you're going to set up yourself for success, I definitely recommend going the LLC route and being ahead of the game from that perspective.   Mihcael: Dana that's super interesting statistic. So for me personally, when I first bought, my very first rental property was in Southern California, and there was just not enough cash flow generated from the property to justify having an LLC. So what I opted to do is just get high liability insurance limits on the policy itself, and then go for an umbrella. But there are so many different options out there. Like you mentioned, your LLC S corp series, LLC, is how should folks be thinking about what type of entity is going to be a good fit for them? And then also, where should they be setting up these entities? And at what point in their investing journey should they be setting up these entities? But there's just seems like so many unknowns? Can you speak to that a little bit?   Dana: There's different ways you can structure but two things. One, California your first year, it's free, they waive that $800? Just so you know, the other thing is people do set up those entities and other states. And that's why I recommend talking to a real estate attorney of am I going to do it in Montana or Delaware or whatever? And how can I structure this based on where the property is? And where I'm located? How can I structure this to make it beneficial from that perspective?   And you are right, there are certain cases where a real estate attorney will say and also your plan, how many properties are you planning to purchase on Roofstock? Right? What is your plan? Are you purchasing three this year? Are you purchasing two? Are you going to do a series LLC, you know, there's some school of thought from Real Estate Attorneys that there's not enough case law on series LLC is and maybe you shouldn't do it. And so getting those opinions are super important. But I think a lot of it depends on where your property is located, where you're located, how many additional properties are you're acquiring and what that structure should be. Because you might also be told to put it into a trust instead, right?   It will become personal exactly what is best for you. But having that those introductory calls, to understand what your options are, and putting them all on paper is definitely beneficial. And you're right, I don't recommend just doing a free resource and going online and setting up a California entity and say, Oh, you Well, my first year is, is free. And that $800 is wave two, because to your point, Mike, the second year is going to get expensive. And if you have one property and you're cash flowing it but you know, your cash every single month is, you know, maybe it's 250 $300, whatever it is, depending on where the property is, suddenly that does eat into your cash flow. And so something definitely for you to consider.   Michael: So something that I've ran into Dana is that I've got a California entity registered in California. I mean, it doesn't own property in California and Ohio and Kentucky properties. So I had to register it. And it was formulated or formed in Ohio. But I had registered in California as a foreign entity just because of the fact that I live in California, and I'm the sole member of the LLC. So what's your structure look like?   Dana: As a foreign entity? Yes. So we have a structure, I can talk to my husband about it as well. We have a structure where and we're managing co managing members with folks in Idaho, on the property so we semi get around it for our entities and just ours in general, like personally, we've gotten around it that way. And so that's why there are some creative things that you can do from that perspective. We have actually a pretty good real estate attorney who's in Idaho who helps us with all of that. However, there's other ones like Scott Smith down in I'm sure you've heard of him down in Texas. A lot of people use on the real estate and a lot of our California residents, I know use ham, so I'd be curious to see what he sets up. And if there's a way around.   Tom: It be a good person to talk to future episode.   Dana: Yeah, yeah, he would be great for you.   Tom: So I was just going through the exercise of getting my documents in a row for property taxes, and you go to the county and you pull up and I have a bunch of properties in my own name, when you look at those tax records, because it has all your information. So I definitely understand the value of having that sort of buffer by just putting in an entity and not having your like home address on your property. Anyways, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense.   Dana: Yeah. I mean, Mike had Great Rift Valley. And hey, let me get back to you on this, whether or not we're going to do that, or maybe we'll upgrade it in, you know, six months during your next lease renewal should you decide to renew with us, all of that, if it's Mike with Great Rift Valley, LLC, it suddenly sounds a lot better than it's just you making that decision. Um, so definitely sets it up. At the same time, I think email addresses and phone numbers are also super important. So I've seen ones where, you know, people come on to Hemlane, and it's Jake's mom@gmail.com. Or like, you know, even just so bad is like, you know, sexymom@gmail.com, birdguide24, it's like we were talking about, we need to get this changed, right. And so setting up a Gmail, I mean, there's free, you can set it up there anything doesn't necessarily have to be Gmail, but you can route that email to your main email account, or you know, any phone will allow you to have multiple emails on it, but essentially setting it up where that's the email they use.   And so if we take that same example, it's Great Rift Valley, llc@gmail.com. It's not your name, surfer mike@gmail.com. So I think that's really important. And also to Tom's point about mailing addresses, write them having your address, having someone look up your address, it's not like you're going to get in a bad situation, like in most cases, at least what we deal with tenants are very great, you know, you treat them really well and follow the lease terms and do repairs with five star service, and they love you, right.   But it's never to say that there won't come a day where you have someone who's a little bit more difficult, or, you know, just had a bad tenant that a lemon that you accidentally selected and did something wrong in that selection process. And in that case, you'll be really lucky to have that stuff set up because suddenly that emotion goes away of are they going to knock on my door or put my number out there, or my name or address, you know, all of that is is taken out of the equation.   And so the same thing comes with a Google Voice number. The reason I say Google Voice is you don't really want to go and set up a whole new phone bill, but a Google Voice can route to your phone, also free. And something like that, where you have a personalized voicemail of this is Great Rift Valley, LLC, our hours of operation are eight to five for emergencies or maintenance requests, please call this number. Otherwise, leave a message and we'll get back to you within business hours, that just suddenly makes it where you don't feel like you have your phone on you. 24 seven, right, you don't want to have your phone on you. 24 seven, of course, you need someone available, whether it's us at home lane or another team available 24 seven to take your emergency repair calls, you definitely need that. But you yourself don't want to be 24 hours of the day.   And so I think it's really helpful when you're setting up your process that this stuff is definitely part of the checklist. And you have to have it from setting up standard hours of when you'll hear from us back all the way to having an email that's not your personal one I'm really separating business from personal is, is crucial.   And even if you don't have an LLC, which totally get some real estate investors don't as long as you have an email, that's the propertyaddress@gmail.com even something like that helps make it where it's like, oh, this is professional, they actually have an email for this. Right rather than I'm messaging the landlord from that perspective. So the emotion I think when people first purchase their properties, right, majority of people either own under four properties or over eight properties, it's very difficult to find someone in the middle. And I think it's because of that leap. If you set up all of this kind of stuff, you're setting yourself up, whether you're using a full service manager and they're you know, talking to your LLC or not, you're setting yourself up to get an eight plus rental or households by setting up all these processes that make it feel much more like a business.   Tom: Love it so any other aspects within rule number one we're gonna touch on we talked about entity address and phone numbers just setting yourself up to be professional in that way?   Dana: Yeah, I think once you have that you take the emotion suddenly out of the property management right and some things I'm thinking of a tenant comes to you and says hey, I want to get a pitbull for my property right and it most likely landlord insurance won't cover that. So it's It has nothing to do with you personally not liking pixels, it has to do with, hey, here's suddenly a financial liability, where if anything goes wrong, my insurance won't cover it. And I personally am going to have to cover it or my LLC, right.   And so from that perspective, when you're thinking about it, it's much easier to respond and say, Hey, Tom, with Great Rift Valley, LLC, I'd love for you to have a pit bull. But like the insurance for the LLC doesn't cover it. And so I'm so sorry, you can't get one because of that, and they're not going to approve it, the LLC just won't approve. And suddenly, it takes that emotional part out of it. Same thing with you know, rent increases chargebacks, on repairs, any kind of difficult conversation, obviously, you address those upfront, by making sure that people understand when chargebacks happen or policies with rent increases, that it's actually preferable for them to stay versus move, because you've given a reduction for market rate.   But no matter what, with it all, it does help with that emotional part. And that's where, you know, we really want everyone to go from eight plus properties, right, and really have that passive cash flow. And the only way to do it is one, obviously, save your money and invest in more properties on Roofstock. And then second, obviously, on the management side, being really prudent that you aren't emotional with the management and it doesn't get difficult, because if you are trying to self manage your properties, or do certain aspects of it, if you don't set yourself up for success, you'll you'll fail, and you'll never get past those eight properties.   Tom: It's not Tom, this is a wolf cola policy, where we do not allow this certain type of dog, we have a rent increase. So the kind of parallels that you know, in setting up this sort of like business entity, you know, you have that liability reduction, and then you have that kind of personal like, you know, separation. So love it very good.   All right, time for Rule number two?   Dana: Great Rule number two is you must always stay on top of it with your operations. If you are someone who just cannot project manage things, I don't recommend ever trying to remotely manage your properties, I actually recommend just getting a full service manager. And the reason for that is you're going to leave money on the table if you're not on top of things.   And so it starts with education. It starts with understanding what are the key things I need to know in the rental lifecycle, it doesn't take that long, you can figure it out in five hours with the right resources, but having the education in place and some examples of that is like understanding fair housing. Right? I mean, here in California, you can't right? No, section eight on your rental properties, right? So understanding Hey, what is legal what is not legal with the tenant selection process, making sure you know how to objectively qualify tenants, what is a good tenant, what is a bad tenant? Do I have all the data to accurately figure out whether or not I should accept this tenant? Those are certainly examples of it.   And really where I see things go wrong is during the process of I just need to speed things up and get things done. So I'm not going to follow the right process or educate myself on it, I'm just going to select this tenant because it's been on the market for 30 days, that's really going to hurt yourself.   So you do need to stay on top of it. It's not time people always ask me they say does it take a lot of time to do this? It's like no, if you have the right tools in place, if you have the right processes in place, it's actually pretty quick. But you do need to make sure that you know what you're doing. And one example with that is lease renewals. And that's one where I see people mess up so frequently, where they say, Oh, well, the property down the street is renting for 1600 a month, and my rent is at 1500 a month. So I'm going to raise the tenants rent directly to the $1600 a month and tell them it's a year long renewal at 1600, you have a risk that that tenant might move out. And you'll lose way more in monthly rent by having turnover costs of vacancy, using a leasing agent to flip your property, all of that.   And so an example like that is where if you educated yourself and you knew you could give two options a month to month versus an annual, the annual is a little bit lower to incentivize them to do an annual contract. And it shows that you're trying to give them a reduced rate suddenly that that makes it look a lot better for them.   So I do definitely think if you are going to manage your properties, you do need to stay on top of those things. It doesn't mean you have to be 24 seven, it just means you know, once a week, you need to look in there and make sure you have everything done and then obviously have a 24-7 team for emergency support. But otherwise, make sure you have those processes in there.   Michael: That makes so much sense. I'm curious to get your thoughts around lease renewal or tenant renewal and you know, you let the tenant go month to month or do you change them try to get the renewal as soon as possible. Can you speak a little bit about that?   Dana: If you suddenly say the month to month option is much higher significantly higher. They feel like they're getting a great deal when they lock into another annual lease right on but a lot of property managers don't do that. It's actually more so landlords don't do that. And they leave some money on the table by either having too much turnover, or they leave money on the table by not raising it as much as they could, because they're worried what the tenant will say versus putting it into perspective, what's a month month?   Tom: All right, Dana. So on point number two on being on top of it, I know for myself, and it's probably similar for a lot of investors is you could try to boil the ocean in monitoring metrics around your portfolio. I'd love to hear I don't want you. So the point is not to boil the ocean, what would you say top, I don't know, five or four metrics that you would categorize as being important to being on top of it within Rule number two?   Dana: I break it down into two different categories, Tom, the first one is leasing. And the second one is management. And I treat them differently. However, when you build a large enough portfolio, they probably get combined together, because you're looking at the total portfolio. Well, let's say you only own three or four homes, you're just starting out, right? The first one on the on the leasing side is days on market, that's the number one you should never have anything on market that is over 30 days, if you have something on market, over 30 days, you have a problem, or you have a luxury property you probably should have never invested in is something you know, outside the norm.   But as far as that is concerned, days on market is crucial. So if and there's a secondary with that, to understand if that days on market is going to hit 30 days, and that is right, when you advertise the property, how many leads are you getting? Right?   If you're getting, let's say 10 leads a day, Tom. And so 10 inquiries of common of tenants who are interested in seeing your place, and you're not getting any showings, right, like no one signed up for showing there's something wrong with your leasing agent, right, they're not responding fast enough, or maybe they're responding and every tenant is not qualified. And so they're not showing the place and you need to put those qualifications of no evictions, you must have a 580 credit score, whatever your criteria are for your investment property.   But that's number one, his days on market, if you can watch that, and look at the leads, and how far those leads convert, that is going to help you crucially. So I mean, the main metric there is days on market, how do you shorten that and get a tenant in there faster? And a more qualified tenant, right? Because I mean, everyone knows, I would rather not have two days on market. With a tenant with that's had four evictions, I'd rather have it on market for 20 days, and get a stellar tenant that's going to be in there for 10 years type thing, right? That's much, much better situation, much better outcome that's always paying rent on time. And so that's the first thing.   And then the devils in the details. So always, when you're looking at numbers, always look at that, like number one metric you're looking for, and then drill into the details. If you say, Oh, it's getting close to that, then it's why is it a problem with the quality of the inquiries? Is it a problem with my agent, and they're not converting it? And like, I have to say, I've been on calls where I sit there and a leasing agent that I've had I asked them I say, you know, I've had you've shown the property to 20 people, why haven't any of them converted?   If the agent can't tell you? It's because the bedrooms were too small. Or and maybe we consider one in office, right? Or if they say you know that none of them are converting because your criteria is too high. No one has the qualifications for that, or whatever it may be, are you too strict, you don't allow pets and everyone who come in has pets. And if they can't tell you a reason, then that's a problem with your operational process. But again, you can use that metric of days on market to understand it. And that coupled with number of inquiries will help you get to that first step to make sure that you can shorten that period of time.   Tom: So like let's say you have it up for one day, and you get like 30 inquiries. 40. Do you ever, like change the rent? Or is it like, Oh, I missed out? You know, I'm saying like, you clearly put the rent at too low. I'd love it. I don't know, do you guys ever have those? I'm kind of digressing from my original question. But I'm always so interested to hear your feedback. So have you ever had that type of a situation where you listed you get just a wild amount of interest? And it's like, we missed the rental amount?   Dana: Yeah, definitely. I mean, we've definitely seen that come up. Remember, it's only the legally binding contract that counts right that someone can bring to court. And so from that perspective, I've have seen people increase that and usually you want to be with how you're increasing it. You want to make sure that you are very transparent and it doesn't look like you are sketchy by any means of increasing it.   What you know from that perspective, if you have 30 people and one comes to Tom and says, you listed the property for 1600 in monthly rent, I'm offering 1800 and my rent, you might then from a marketing perspective, it's much better not to just raise it to 1800 and a tenant be like, wait, it was just at 1600? Are you gonna raise it to 2000? It's much better to tell the other folks who have inquired all other 29 people, just as a heads up, we have an offer for 1800. We want to be fair across the board, because these people have not put in an application, we want to follow fair housing first application in first one qualified, so we're raising it to 1800 for everyone, but we want to let you know that we want to be fair across the board that we do have this offer on the table and we want to give everyone a fair shot.   That is fine. What's not okay is your lease contract says something like you know that you offer a washer and dryer and suddenly you don't right, but that's legally binding contract on the marketing side. It's more of making sure you're communicating and making sure tenants understand why you're doing things the way you are.   Tom: Okay, so we covered the leasing metrics days on market being number one being the indicator, the canary in the coal mine leading to the extra why's what other metrics are we looking at leasing or into after leasing into occupancy?   Dana; Yeah, so I think if you've done the leasing correctly, you've reduced the days on market and you have a qualified tenant. And why I say that's important is you have evictions, then you have a problem with qualifications and leasing. And that's a metric. And then the biggest thing is looking at your cash return, that is the most important metric, in my opinion to look at. And that's really making sure you're tracking all of your financials and how is my property doing.   You have to be patient with it right. And so expenses, say your first month, you have a repair cost, or some sort of capital expense that you're depreciating over three years, or the lifespan or whatever, you do have to be patient, you have to look at it over time, not just within one month, but after a year, you should be looking at that cash on cash return and checking to see how is this investment doing?   A lot of that also goes back to your original real estate pro forma that you put together. You want to make sure you're really good investor, right? Like if you're going to buy a I always get worried when I hear investors who are like, I just bought 10 properties, and it's my first time going into real estate investing, I get a little bit nervous because how do they know that their processes working with anything like you try something? You see it starts working, and then you just keep pouring money into it. Right? And so for me, it's you check their cash on cash return, you check, how am I doing? Great, this is working for me, let me put more properties in it.   Or you might say, hey, this area is not working. We've seen investors sell properties, 1031 them and go toss that into a different area. So being able to check what's working, and what's not working is really helpful. And real estate investing is not a get rich, quick scheme. Despite some people thinking that building the passive income through years, it takes time, and it takes patience. But as long as you're looking at those numbers, you're checking to make sure that you've set your operations up for success, then you can really look at those numbers and say this property is performing better than this one. Let me go ahead and go purchase another investment right in that area, because that one is performing much better than the others. Or a property that's like that property because I see that one's performing better.   And so that's what I would say you always the devils in the details, right? And so if something isn't working, or you are seeing your numbers low drill down into why what was the expense that threw you off? Or you're not receiving income? For some reason on the property? What could you have done better? Is this a fault of yours? Or is this just something to do with the property and you need to get rid of it and go invest in another property.   So that's where I think it is really helpful to look at that. I know you guys also have some great numbers online as well. And it's good for, like with cap rates and return on investment. And there's so many different numbers you can pull kind of looking at, Hey, what happened when I purchased the property, what was I expecting What am I actually getting, comparing it to other properties in your portfolio, as well as comparing it to what was the scenario when I purchased the property and staying honest to that?   Michael: I think it's such a good point in doing, you know, an annual post-mortem, so to speak on, Hey, how are we actually performing as compared to how I thought I was going to be doing just like you mentioned, is so important. And it doesn't take a forensic accountant to do this kind of math or do this kind of accounting to figure out okay, how did I perform as compared to how did I think I was going to perform? And I know a lot of investors are just scared. They're scared of the answer because they feel like they had a bad year and they have to face the music that hey, maybe this year wasn't that great of a year.   But like you mentioned, it's not a get rich quick scheme. So if we can forecast out 5,10,15 years, yeah, you're gonna have up years, you're gonna have down years. So we might just be looking at the one down here. But it is so important to track them each and every year, I would argue so you know, where you stand I can benchmark against Are you improving? Or are you doing worse than you were previously?   Dana: Yep. And that's also where I think the education comes in to, because if you know of other investors in the area, or you've networked with other investors on Roofstock, who have purchased properties in that area are doing better. Maybe you can find out why maybe it's like, oh, well, they charge pet rent of $35 per pet. And there's two paths in the property. And you didn't do that, right? or whatever it may be like, it could be on the income side, it could be on the expense side. But you can compare what they're doing. And then look at those numbers. Oh, wow, all of it had to do with leasing my property was on market for over 60 days, that's not going to happen again, I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen, then you're right, you can forecast that out for your 10 years, Mike and make sure that you are getting the numbers you wanted.   Michael: Yeah. And then the other piece of that is maybe they just bought it wrong. Maybe they paid too much. Maybe they financed it wrong. Because as we talk a lot about in the academy, how you buy something can have a massive impact on the performance of it. So if you buy all cash, Tom uses 50%. Leverage is 20%. Leverage will have the exact same income and expenses, but vastly different performances and cash from cash returns. So we need to face facts and really do a post mortem again and make sure okay, well, does the financing even work on this day? Do we need to dump the thing? Maybe we bought a lemon and didn't even know it?   Dana: Yep, exactly. And also think from that perspective with that, doing the research in the area, right, and really getting to understand as much as you can. I always love the macro trends within an area. And I know Roofstock already does this for you. But it's always good as an investor to like, do it as well, where you're like, Is this where I'm buying a property? Is the population growing? Right? If it's not growing, don't invest in that place. Right?   Okay, great. What about job growth? Okay, great. Is it all in one industry? Or is it multiple industries? I don't want it all in one industry. Because if that industry like oil collapses, I'm screwed. Or maybe I do want it all in that one industry knowing that if it does collapse, I'm going to lose, right? It's it's a risk.   So really understanding I think the macro trends and that upfront, what you're getting into is really going to be helpful.   Tom: Awesome. So the last little bit of time that we have you here for today, just kind of rounding out our second rule on being on top of it. We talked about education, education, project management skills, any other aspects to kind of round up being on top of it?   Dana: Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is setting guidelines upfront, right? Again, property management actually doesn't take that long, you'd actually be surprised with it as long as you set things up upfront, because usually when there's property management when it comes up, it's usually because something went wrong, and you're cleaning up, right, it's like a reactive instead of a proactive approach.   They didn't pay rent, I need to chase down the tenant, well, that's reactive, maybe we should have qualified them upfront to reduce that risk, right. And so there's a couple of things you do want to get set up. First is things that simple as a moving guide. Hey, where do they set up their utilities with single family homes, like the great part is the tenant pays the landscaping, the tenant pays the utilities like all this stuff, right? You don't have to manage. And so setting that up and making it easy for them.   Here's the moving guide, here's who used to do the landscaping, you're responsible for it for the lease agreement, we highly recommend you know, this company, but you could use someone else if you want to. Inspections letting the tenants know we do inspections every six months, every year. This is when we're gonna do it and follow up with you on it. What's an emergency, a tenant thinks everything's an emergency, right? They think a faucet dripping is an emergency. But if you tell them here are the emergencies, this is when to call for an emergency. All of these other things are not emergencies. It's going to make sure that they know what those expectations are.   What are your hours, what hours do you work? When should they hear back from you? Will they hear back from you on Sunday at 9pm? Nope, our Great Rift Valley LLC office is closed at that time, right? And then also maintenance on systems. So on the repair side, people always ask about capital expenses and stuff like that. Have a plan in place just like you do for your primary residence. Hey, when is my roof gonna have to be replaced? How old's the water heater? When am I expecting to replace that as long as you have all of that stuff set up, you're going to reduce that risk of having surprises. You're also going to be able to forecast better and then you're also going to make sure that your management the time spent on it is reduced.   Michael: Such great tips.   Tom: That's great, playing offense not playing defense setting up systems. It's love it love it. Love it. Awesome. Michael, do you have any other questions?   Michael: No, this was awesome. And I've been a remote landlord for almost a decade, but I was never managing my any my own properties. But I'm definitely going to be implementing some of these for the one property I do self manage. And then for pushing a lot of this stuff onto my property managers, because there's a lot of really great things that can be done here, and none of which are overly complicated. So I think it's, it's simplistic, it's easy, just got to do it.   Dana: One thing I was gonna say is that even if you have a property manager, you're still managing, right? Like you're either managing the tenant in the property or you're managing the property manager. So these numbers we mentioned about cash on cash return days on market, even if you have a property manager, you're going to want to look at these. And if something looks off, or you think the numbers could be better, you're going to jump on a call with them and drill down into those same details that you would drill down even if you were remotely managing.   Michael: No makes total sense. makes total sense, Tom, and I've got some homework cut out for us.   Tom: Love it. Awesome. Well, Dana, thank you so much for jumping on and we're looking forward to our next segment.   Dana: Great. Thanks so much for having me.   Michael: Take care Dana.   Alrighty, everybody that was our episode a big big, big thank you to Dana for coming on. Again. Always a pleasure to have her on and we look forward to doing our next segment on the show where we have her back on. As always, if you liked this episode, please please please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is using your podcasts. And as always, if you have topic suggestions, ideas, something you want to hear about an episode. Leave us a note in the comment section. We look forward to seeing in the next one. Happy investing

The 7 Dollar Millionaire joins us to share 1 simple tip that will help you make your children rich. The 7 Dollar Millionaire will be joining us for a full length episode on his book (linked below) very soon!   The 7 Dollar Millionaire is the author of Happily Every After: Financial Freedom Isn't a Fairytale https://www.sevendollarmillionaire.com https://www.sevendollarmillionaire.com/happyeverafter/ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55402867-happy-ever-after --- Transcript   Michael: Hey everybody, my name is Michael Albaum and welcome to another episode of The Real Estate Investor. On this weekend wisdom, we have a very special guest with us, The $7 Millionaire is going to be talking to us today about some tips and tricks you can use for your young ones when they're just starting out to help them get ahead financially later in life. Let's get into it.   Michael: So, Michael, I'm curious to know, Tom, has his youngster Charlie sitting on his lap here. And so we were chatting a little bit before the recording. Are there any tips, tricks, advice recommendations you have for folks that have really young kids where maybe the book doesn't make sense for them, but things they can still do to help their kids or young ones get ahead?   The 7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, it's it, I wouldn't put this in the book, if I discovered it before yesterday, which literally, when I discovered it, I was so frustrated because I do this stuff. And I'm a spreadsheet geek. And I'd never done this. But I worked out just yesterday that if you put it in $7,777 into an investment account for your kids when they're born, and if it makes 7% returns during their life, they will be a millionaire by the time they turn 70.   Now 7% is just the number I pick because it's the number I use and all the other stuff I do, but the s&p 500 has made nine and a half percent returns for every 50 year period for the last 90 years. So yeah, if you put in eight grand the day they're born, that could be a huge number by the time they're 40 or 50 just life changing for a grant. So I think that's one of the things that even if the kids are too young to learn these concepts, you can put it away you can talk to them about how it's growing. You know, you can talk to them about what they can do with it you know when they can use it all that kind of stuff really powerful.   Tom: That was a great par to just kind of follow.   The 7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah.   Michael: Yeah. So Tom, you've got no excuse now for not making Charlie a millionaire. The pressure is on!   Tom: All right, awesome.   Michael: Sorry for throwing you under the bus.     Michael: You know, it's it's so funny you say that? I think one of the best lessons my father ever taught me was for my 12th birthday, he bought me a couple shares of GMC stock. And we said every day we looked in the paper and said, Okay, this is what the value is doing. It's going up, it's going down and and learning about just financial finances from kind of that basic level, I think is so eye opening. So when you can do things to help give people in your life a leg up. I think that's that's super helpful.   The 7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah. And so I did it totally. I mean, one of the reasons for writing this book is I have in my day job, I get to meet billionaires and families or billionaires. And one of the common things that they talk about is the fact that their parents would talk about business across the dinner table from a really young age. And the rest of us don't have that we don't have I don't have any billionaires around my dinner table from a young age. But the more we can do, the more we do it, the more chance our kids have of having that level of skill.   Michael: Yeah, I love it. And was it was it Albert Einstein who said compounding interest is the eighth wonder of the world or seventh one or the world.   The 7 Dollar Millionaire: No, he the internet said it. If you get out, get out get that one. On Snopes. There's like a great quote from a physicist. He's like, do you have any idea how clever Albert Einstein was? He's not impressed by compound interest!   Tom: That's basic algebra. Yeah.   The 7 Dollar Millionaire: This is not the kind of thing that impresses him.   Michael: That's too funny. That's too funny. Well, Michael, thank you again was really such a pleasure to have you on and I'm sure we'll do this again sometime soon.   The 7 Dollar Millionaire: Excellent. Thank you very much.   Michael: Already everybody that was there episode a big big, big thank you to Michael for coming on the show. It was a pleasure hanging out with you all the way over in Singapore. Really great tips. I know Tom is going to be taking massive advantage of what we talked about today. If you enjoyed the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is. You listen to your podcasts. We look forward to seeing on the next one and happy investing  

Do you have money and are not sure how to invest it? In this episode, we run the thought experiment on how we would invest $25,000. Listen to get 3 different takes on how we would use this money to make more! --- Transcript   Tom: Greetings, and welcome to the remote real estate investor. My name is Tom Schneider. I'm joined by   Michael: Michael Albaum   Emil: and Emil shore.   Tom: And today we're gonna run through a thought exercises. What if $25,000 showed up in our bank account? All right, let's do it.   Welcome, guys. So before we get into the episode, I think it's a good time to refresh and do a quick introduction kind of background on our remote investing experience all that jazz. Mike, why don't you lead us off?   Michael: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Michael Albaum, California guy, I was working. Previously, I was used to work as a fire protection engineer, and the commercial property insurance industry and started investing about the same time I started working in single family homes in Southern California, and pretty quickly realized that that wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go fast enough. So I was traveling a lot for work. So I was traveling out of state. And so I was looking at properties wherever I was trying to work and realize pretty quickly that out of state, small multifamily cash flowed a lot better than single family home in Southern California.   So I started purchasing those, and then organically grown into medium sized multifamily. And then of over the last several years really specialized and found my niche with medium sized multifamily value add. So finding the junky dirtiest most beat up properties I can find then getting them repositioned, performing better and either selling cash out refinancing or just sitting on the killer cash flow, and now find myself working as the head coach with the rootstock Academy.   Tom: Cool and Emil.   Emil: So Hey, everyone, my name is Emil shore. I am also a Southern California native. I'm a marketer, by trade or by profession. And I started investing back in 2017. My dad invests in Los Angeles, and so I grew an interest in real estate investing. But when I had built up a little bit of capital, realize that Los Angeles was very cost prohibitive for me to invest in real estate, so sort of looking around at other options, so other people investing out of state. So for people living in high cost of living areas, some people were making out of state investing work. And so 2017, I bought my first single family property out in Jacksonville, and then went on to buy a couple more single families across the southeast and Midwest. And now I am also focusing on small multifamily in the Midwest to grow my portfolio. So yeah, that's my background. Tom, what about you, man?   Tom: So a little bit about myself, I got out of college a little bit before the housing crash. And while I was in college, I was very influenced by reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, which I think a lot of real estate investors. So getting out of college, I knew that I wanted to work in real estate and I wanted to work in system. So I really found a dream job working as a product manager for one of the very first publicly traded single family reads. And this was a super fun experience where it was before as a publicly traded, it was a brand new industry of single family where before people thought single family was too tricky to manage. But with the advent of mobile computing, cloud computing all of this cool technology, it made managing single family rentals at scale. And through that process, I got into it, I got the bug of investing on myself. So I just have been slowly accumulating single family rentals throughout the southeast, as well as the Midwest of the United States and try to add a couple properties every year.   I am also a California real estate broker. And I am the parks and recreation Commissioner for the city of Orinda, California,   Michael: Right on.   Tom: Little Orina shout out. Excellent guy. So let's go ahead and jump into the meat of the episode. So this is a fun exercise of you wake up this morning and you find an extra chunk of money in your bank account. So what I want to hear your guys's responses is the way that you're thinking about spending it the way that you're thinking about allocating it, what is your thought exercise and I get to pick who's on the hot seat first. And I asked Michael to introduce themselves first. So I'm going to mix it up and go Emil. All right, so you wake up this morning, and there's an extra $25,000 in your bank account. What is your next steps? your thought process? All that good stuff?   Emil: Yeah, I woke up well, are we painting the stage saying we have no rental property? We have no, my a brand new investor or am I just in my current spot in life and I have an extra 25 K?   Tom: You're in your current spot and in life, you know another fun thing about us as the hosts as the investors I'd say a meal is a little bit newer into his career. I have a couple more years of experience a couple more units and Michael has quite a few units as well. So he's got a ton of them. So in each of our answers, you're gonna get this lens of of how much experience and I guess units they have under their belt. So I think the context meal is you are a meal with us today on whatever the date is February end of February.       Emil: Yeah, I would probably do one of one of two things. I would either use that money to renovate some units that I currently have that you know if i renovated them, we could get rents up, you know, right now is a tough market to buy in not a lot of inventory. So one thing I'm thinking about as well, if I can't go buy something new, if I'm not finding what I'm looking for, can I use money to improve what I currently have and increase the profitability of those. So that's one thing I might do is look at some of this triplex I bought in November, and all in all, is by three $400 under market rent, but we're gonna have to make some upgrades. So I may invest in that right now. Like, let's, let's make these improvements. Let's get the rent up, and let's get this thing performing better. That's, that's one area, I would probably focus.   Michael: And as a performance metric measure, how do you determine whether or not to spend that money on the improvements or go elsewhere? I mean, how do you determine the return you'd be getting on that capital?   Emil: As real estate investors, I like to look at everything as a cash on cash return. So let's say I were to spend $10,000 to improve a unit I know, I can get $300 more in rent per month. So yearly, that's going to be 30 $600 3600 over the $10,000 investment. That's a 36% return on my cash, which is awesome. We're using the stock market. Typically, I know this year, last year has been crazy. But typical year in stock market people say is like average of 8%. I'm far exceeding that. So to me, that's definitely worth my time and energy to make that investment.   Michael: Awesome. Awesome. And so what would your ideal purchase be if you were choosing between purchasing something, or doing these renovations? I mean, what would your ideal purchase look like? Would you leverage would you buy something all cash?   Emil: Yeah, if I was buying right now, I mean, debt is so cheap, right now, interest rates are at historic lows, I would want to be juicing my returns and taking advantage of this low interest rate environment, especially if you're buying a single family home to lock something in 30 years at us, you know, sub 3% interest rate, I think, is what we're at that I mean, that's amazing, like your cash flow. It's unprecedented how much this helps, like we were talking about on another episode, I just recently refight one of my properties. And because the interest rate dropped by a percent and a half, I was able to pull money out without even changing my monthly payment that much. So right now, it's just such an awesome environment to go get some long term fixed rate debt.   Tom: Yeah, this is just one of the awesome things about real estate investing is you can just borrow other people's money so cheaply. And so easily, you have this huge infrastructure of lenders that you can just tap into and take that 25% multiplied by four with debt and you have for buying power. I like it. So you're debating with your magic $25,000 that you got for selling GameStop you're debating either some optimization, perhaps some little improvements on the episode Emil, you got to pick something. What do you do with that?   Emil: I don't know. It just depends, man. I know that's the worst answer.   Michael: No, it doesn't. You just got 25 grand in the account. It doesn't depend. What are you gonna do?   Emil: I mean, if it's 25 K, because I'm currently looking for smaller multifamily requires a little bit more capital than 25. k, I would probably be focusing on improving my portfolio, or just taking that 25 K and just using it to save up for the next small multifamily purchase.   Michael: Boo boring!   Emil: I know. I know, if I was just starting out.   Michael: Yeah. If you don't spend it in a week, it's gone. I mean, put it in a CD that gets point 2%.   Tom: I love that we keep changing the assumption says or I like that answer. I like that answer. That's prudent.   Michael: Emil was like, woah, woah, we didn't talk about the rules. All you asked was the question.   Emil: Yeah, Jesus, I didn't have time to think of all these possible scenarios God. Investing decisions aren't made in two seconds, guys,   Michael: Yes the are, or at least they should be!   Tom: Emil. You're you're off the hot seat. All right. I like it. All right, Michael. Waking up this morning.   Michael: Yep.     Tom: 25,000 in the account, an extra 25 k?   Michael: Yep. I'm gonna wait one day and make sure that the deposit clears my account, because how big of a bummer would that be to find out Oh, it was an error. And I go spend 25 grand and then it gets pulled out of my account, so I get a negative balance. So once I make sure that it clears the account, I'm going to Vegas red 22. roulette going to turn that 25 into several 100,000.   Tom: That's a mistake. Red 16 all day every day. Go ahead, man.   Michael: Classic rookie mistake. So I'm kind of with Emil I invest in multifamily properties, specifically multifamily value add. And so 25,000 is not going to go really far in terms of purchase. But right now I'm in the middle of several pretty significant rehabs on some multifamily projects, I'll probably use that to fund that deal. to fund some more rehabs in those deals. And very similar to me, I would probably use that 25 to get those units rent ready and then rent it out. And like Neil said, the exact calculation that's what I'm doing. I'm saying, Okay, how much is it going to cost to do the rehab work as compared to how much is that going to bring in additional rents? And if I can get a better return elsewhere by investing although elsewhere,   Tom: I'd love to hear you walk through. So you guys have Similar responses in that, like the bigger multi families are a little more expensive. I'd love for to kind of work backward on like, what, in getting to a fully performing multi stuff that's in your wheelhouse, like, are we talking about like a $300,000 building we're using like 50% debt, and then you're putting X amount for construction because you said this is a rehab, if you can just walk through just really kind of simple terms on like, what that type of capital requirements and that kind of project looks like.   Michael: Yeah, that'd be interesting. Totally. So like Emil said previously, it depends, which is the worst answer. But so I'll give kind of two extreme examples.   Tom: Vanilla. Vanilla me.   Michael: Yeah. So one is I bought a five unit building in the Midwest several years ago. And it was advertised at like, I think 155 or 160, or something like that. And I bought it for like 130. And it was already leased up…   Tom: With debt out the gates?   Michael: No so that was an all cash purchase. So one of the reasons I was able to get it for so cheap was was an all cash purchase, and then went and refinance 30 days later and got 75% of my purchase price back. So put dead on it immediately. And so that was a fully leased building that didn't need a ton of work. Some of the units had already rehabbed, but the rents were way under market. And so what I did is basically day one went in and increased rents across the board by about $200 per unit, and three people stayed and two people left, and so was immediately generating significantly more cash, I think that's an extra 1000 bucks a month in cash flow by having to do nothing physical.   Now, the two folks that left we did do some unit turns on those and that was, I think, ran like six or seven grand each, I think is what we ended up spending what I end up spending. So that was relatively light. Now I have another building I bought, it was an eight unit. Again, units were way under market rent for the area. But so were the updates. And so we did a full update on an eight unit building that was well into the six figures in terms of rehab costs. And so we have eight brand new units now brand new fixtures, appliances, plumbing, electrical throughout. So that's a much more intense rehab. And a significantly requires significantly more capital.   Part of the reason I think that it costs so much was because we were trying to do brain surgery and keep some tenants in place so that we could keep some cash flow coming in on the building. But it just ended up I think adding time and labor costs, as opposed to just getting the building fully vacant, and going in and being able to occupy or get access rather to all the units at a moment's notice and work more freely. And so again, if I could do that project all over again, yeah, I would give up the $2,000 a month or whatever that was coming in and rent to be able to just move more quickly and efficiently. Assuming all leases would allow for that assuming everybody was month to month.   Tom: I love the fun flow like aspect of this. So like with this other one was it did you buy with debt, and then later refi after the rehab was done?   Michael: Yeah. So that one I bought with cash as well, I was in a really strong cash position at that time, and then refight out immediately 75% of the purchase price, it was the same lender that did the prior one. So that was super easy. And then I knew it needed a ton of rehab. So I use that refi money to then go do the rehab, I was able to buy cash, get the purchase price down where I wanted it to be, let it sit for 30 days, then refied out 75% of my cash and then use that capital to go then improve the building and then haven't since refinanced out of it. I totally could. There's a ton of equity in the building. Now, most of its purchased because of the rehab dollars that I spent, but I could definitely tap into that. But the cash flow right now is so good on it. And the debt I have is so cheap. I'm a little bit hesitant to to refinance and change the structure. But I'm definitely going to investigate that as you know, probably actually get my tax return.   Yeah, Emil?     Tom: Question in the back from Emil. What do you got?   Michael: The peanut gallery?   Emil: I'm raising my hand for people who can only hear us and can't see us. I'm curious having done both of these. I think I've asked you this offline. But having done both these a light rehab where you you know, $6,000 per unit that's super light versus a full gut where you're changing electrical, plumbing, new appliances, all this stuff? Which one would you rather do going forward?   Michael: Oh, the light all day, the light. I mean, the light is so much easier, and so much less stressful and less headache, and less opportunity for things to go really sideways.   Tom: I think you're already leading on the counter argument, the like, you know, opportunity for sweat equity.   Michael: Yes. So I'm going to circle back to that to the sweat equity comment, Tom. But what I was gonna say is that now on that eight unit, everything is brand spanking new. So I have a new roof, I have new plumbing, new electric, I mean, everything, it's, for all intents purposes, a brand new build. And so I'm not going to have to touch anything. So my repair and maintenance costs and capex costs on that building are so much less than on that original five unit that I was talking about. Because we didn't replace the roof. We didn't replace a lot of this stuff. So you know, it could go either way, depending on your bandwidth and your appetite for risk and for growth. And so I would say that Yeah, the value add is significantly higher on that eight unit.   But that being said, Because five units of commercial property and value based on cap rate and performance, because of The fact that we increase the performance so much on that five unit, the value has pretty much doubled. I got a broker opinion of value on it a couple of weeks ago. And they're like, yeah, like you did a really good job, increasing the performance of this property, such that pretty much doubled. So there's multiple ways to add value. If you can take the cheaper approach, it's changing that financial optics most of the time. But if you have to go the physical route, there's a lot of delayed gratification and down the road benefits that you'll see as well.   Emil: I'm super curious, in five to 10 years, if you still have these buildings, to be able to look back and say, okay, you know, here's what I thought would happen, less catbacks, less Rnm, less repair maintenance,   Michael: What actually happened?   Emil: Yeah, that's what would be super, super interesting. And then, you know, you're just learning from your own portfolio, and you can make those decisions going forward. Like the full guides were great. I'm going to keep doing full guides, or like these light rehabs have proven better for me.   Michael: Yeah, hopefully, the podcast is still running. But I can call in from somewhere and say, Hey, remember that? That's killer?   Emil: That's right.   Tom: I'm guessing a lot of people underestimate like the cost of the repairs. So if you're buying a real estate that needs work to be done, you're probably thinking that it costs less than it actually does costs. I think this you know, rosie glasses are sometimes be a challenge for real estate investors. in evaluating these kind of deals, would you did you did you have rosy tinted glasses on there?   Michael: I had the rosiest thickest glasses you could imagine. And part of it was in part not to throw them under the bus. He's an awesome, awesome agent. But my agent was like, Yeah, I don't think it'll be very expensive. We can do this and everything. And he was he was helping steer the ship to a certain degree. And then we went and got quotes. And it was a lot worse than anticipated. And some of that was rosy colors, Rose tinted goggles of affection. And other stuff it is you just learn more as the walls start to come down and the drywall starts to come off. So a lot of this stuff you can't know about until you are in the building doing the rehab. And so there's no one's fault to that. But you just need to have a big contingency built in for that kind of stuff.   But yes, Tom, I think you're super accurate. And one thing that caught me off guard, we were doing this a lot of these rehabs during COVID time, it's just the cost of materials has nearly doubled, like cost, lumber, wood has gone a roof. So like who could have predicted that and you can't just stop the rehab and go, Oh, my God, cost just doubled. I bet. I'm going to press pause until those come back down in line to where they need to be. So stuff happens. And I think with real estate investing in general, you need to be able to bob and weave and be flexible and have a plan B, C and D contingencies so that when and if things do go awry, you're not up a creek without a paddle. I feel like I just use so many like colloquialisms.   Tom: I love it. I love it. I love.   Emil: It takes two to tango.     Tom: The henhouse house. Fox chicken.   Michael: Yeah. And a couple of canaries.   Tom: Yeah, I love the tangents that we get on just because like all this stuff is so interesting. So back to the original topic. So you have the 25,000 you're making sure that it's in the bank.   Michael: Yes. So I'm going to go rehab some units like Emil was saying, I've got some units in a building that I rehabbed. And now I'm waiting for those to get rented out and start cash flowing to then fund the rehabs on the other ones. And kind of countering myself, at my own words, I was saying previously, that if I could do it all over again, I would get an entire building vacant and do all the rehabs. This one, the physical layout was a little bit different. So that wasn't necessary. So I was able to do half the building at once. And then the other half is what I'm waiting on. So I would go do the other half with that 25,000 today.   All right, Tom?   Emil: You're in the hot seat, the hottest of hot seats.   Tom: All right, Bring it on.   Michael: It's about to boil over 25,000 in the account   Tom: 25,000 in the account. So I'm assuming you know, the check cleared, and I'm assuming there's just zero taxes on this mythical $25,000. So not needing to think about whatever kind of tax, whatever rate this is coming in. So as a single family, primarily a single family rental investor, I'm going to use this for a new acquisition. And if it doesn't get me all the way to the new acquisition, it's going to get me pretty darn close looking at just common financials on this type of investment. Let's say I'm spending $100,000, I'm going to put 20% down. So there's my $25,000, I'm going to look for something that's fairly turnkey, so not requiring a ton of construction, I'll use a debt in the very beginning and the acquisition, either putting him into my wife's name, so she can, you know, within real estate investing, using conventional lending, you can have 10 loans in your name using Fannie backed financing. And once you get over that you can perhaps your wife or a second or other whatever, husband, whatever can put them in their name.   So I'm using the traditional conventional financing, you know, for these $100,000 properties. There's an important question investing is like, Where are you investing at? I think of them as kind of three like tiers of market. There's like tier one, which is the bigger cities, the Dallas, Atlanta, maybe Atlanta is definitely a little maybe a little bit cheaper, Denver, these are these more expensive, and it's going to be really difficult to find something for $100,000 for these type of properties. But then there's this Secondary tier of cities, Indianapolis, Birmingham, there's maybe like slightly smaller, smaller populations, but a little bit less competitive on the real estate side. So probably deploying that capital in a second tier city, like a slightly smaller one to be able to get, you know, better school score whatnot. And that's what I'm gonna be doing. I'm gonna be adding another property in my little SFR portfolio with that $25,000. All right, you guys want to grill me on some stuff?   Michael: I've got a question for you. And I'm kind of cheating because I have a little bit of insider knowledge on you as an individual and your background. So I know that you have a HELOC on your primary residence as well.   Tom: Yep.   Michael: Would you ever consider coupling that $20,000 cash with the HELOC to go buy something all cash and then refinance out of it? You know, six months down the road?   Tom: Yeah, I could see that. You know, there there is advantages to buying all cash, it's a stronger offer. There's a little bit of like extra overhead that you have. So if I felt that it was like a really competitive property that I was making an offer on, and that would help me out I would consider doing that and then refi back out and put that money back in my keylock. I love that, that type of a strategy. And that's you know, keylock is just such a cool instrument of debt.   For those who you are not familiar of a home equity line of credit, or a HELOC is what it is, is basically a credit card. That is a really cheap rate. And the balance of that credit card is the difference between the amount of the loan that you have on the property and the value of the property. And usually it's up to 80%, or in some cases up to 90% of the value of the property. And it's just wicked, low rates. And I think it's Gosh, what is it like three and a half percent 3%, something like that. And it's a really significant amount. Like I think the one that I have is like roughly $200,000 available, just to go do some stuff. There's no HELOC police I can use that money wherever I want to spend it. So that's a good point, Michael, possibly using a HELOC and then refinancing back out to it.   Michael: How much rehab? Are you comfortable taking on if a property, you know has is relatively turnkey? I mean, do you want to literally have a tenant walk in the door? Do you want to buy something with a tenant already in place? Do you want to buy something with under market rents? I mean, talk to us about what this ideal property $100,000 property looks like? And why you're thinking about some of these different factors?   Tom: Yeah, good question, Michael. So I think on the the property condition side, buying properties, and doing big rehab projects is a little bit out of my wheelhouse. I'm okay, paying a little bit, you know, not getting a massive steel, just because I find that when you do those construction properties, just like we were talking before, it's difficult to estimate the construction costs. If you're right next to the house, it's extra difficult if you're, you know, a remote investor.   So, in doing the diligence process of buying this house, I'm gonna look for a property where, you know, perhaps there's some aesthetic stuff that needs to be done. But as long as like structurally, the roof, the foundation, all that kind of stuff is in good shape, I'm fine, you know, new carpets, new paint, all that stuff, you know, shouldn't exceed whatever $3000- $5,000 on getting the property what they call rent ready, but I'm going to look for a property that is in more or less in good shape, I think it's important to try and get a little bit of value and a little bit of a discount to the current price that can be extra hard these days, because it's just so competitive. But I find that going into some of these smaller cities, it's a little bit less competitive, versus trying to buy something in, you know, Los Angeles or whatever. I'm in Northern California.   So some of these smaller cities, it's a little bit less competitive, but you know, me wrong, like it's tough to find, you know, to get that little bit of a discount to market. But I think that's important to have a little bit of equity built in when you do your acquisition.   Let's see what else occupancy, you can. One thing that's cool with roofstock is you can buy these occupied, or you can buy them vacant, I'm not too particular, if I'm buying them occupied or vacant, wherever I'm doing my acquisition at just because I plan to hold these long term and through the lifecycle of these properties, sometimes they're going to be occupied, sometimes they're gonna be vacant. And my evaluation of the property shouldn't be on that just because it's kind of a transient thing. Now the value to buying it occupied is you're getting cash flow day one, but the value to buying it vacant is you can have more input with who you select as your property manager, or if you're self managing to set the tenanting guidelines and rules. So I'd say that's my sort of down the middle of the fairway strategy using getting back using more isms. like Michael, but I'm not a construction guru. That's not in my wheelhouse. So as part of my strategy of evaluating is finding properties where I decrease that risk by the inspection that's completed, it's identified that foundation structure whatnot is in good shape.   Michael: So Tom, I think those are all great points. As a follow up, we know what the goal is, we know what the criteria look like. So what are you going to go do today? Now that you see the 25,000 to me reaching out to agents are you getting on the MLS? Are you on Zillow? What are you doing right now to make this happen?   Tom: I have a pretty good idea on what my next markets are going to be in. I'm pretty heavy and throughout the southeast, so probably continue to build that portfolio out. There's a PM that I worked with for a while that I think is pretty great. So me We just continue to to lob more properties over the fence for them to manage for me. So I would start just put in an alert of new listings coming up within the different markets that I am looking at. Also, you know, monitor set up alerts on Roofstock on the MLS on all these different acquisition channels to just start seeing what's available. I like to look, sometimes there's opportunity for properties that they've been listed on the market for a while, sometimes they should be careful those just because there's probably could be a reason why they're listed on the market for a while. But my acquisition processes begin by setting up the appropriate alerts and notifications of new listings coming on in that particular neighborhood.   So those would be my steps is getting the awareness part of the funnel on listings in that target market and where I'm acquiring. And if I didn't have a property manager already in the region, I would start to talk to those local property managers, and get their feedback on certain sub markets or as properties come up. A great tip for people with remote real estate investing is when you identify a local property manager, don't wait till you like have done the acquisition, but include them in the acquisition process. So as you're evaluating properties, get their feedback on sub neighborhoods, whatnot, and…   Michael: Send them inspection reports. See if they can't walk the properties.   Tom: Yeah, exactly. They're your boots on the ground.   Michael: All right. So Tom, I think a lot of people throw shade at buying turnkey properties or saying oh, you make your money. When you buy, you have to buy with some equity. If you know, let's say you can't get a discount to market right now. But the numbers still make sense for you. And you're comfortable with the acquisition. What do you say to those people, who say, yeah, turnkey is for suckers?   Tom: I would say, oftentimes, like boring wins, like, you know, if I want to throw some money in like, you know, Penny stocks, or like, really high volatile stuff, I think that's really similar to buying a huge construction project, like you might be right. Some of the times, like, you might, oh, I accurately estimated how much it costs to fix it, I did it it uh, but if you are a more conservative investor, who just wants to take advantage of the kind of the tail winds of real estate without taking on a lot of the risk, your upside might be slightly smaller. But you know what, like that upside is still very high, even buying turnkey, you shouldn't buy a property where you're buying it for more than it's worth. Like, I think that's a mistake. But you don't have to swing for the fences and buy these properties that need like new foundation, new gut, new, whatever. And I think that's silly.   Michel: Yeah, sure.   Tom: You don't want to buy a property that the value is worth less than what you're buying it for. But you don't need to try to hit these homerun Grand Slams like just get a bunch of singles and doubles. Like that's building wealth, in what, you know, in a really pragmatic, prudent way. Michael: Yeah, I think just to piggyback off that my very first deal was totally turnkey, before I even really knew what turnkey was, or maybe even before it was a thing. And I'm so glad that it was because I could barely fathom the idea of spending all this money on the down payment, let alone additional money on any kind of rehab or innovation to make rent ready costs. And I was so overwhelmed with just owning the property and doing all the things that that took going through the closing and setting up property management, and all the things that are involved with owning a rental property. And so to then be thinking about, oh, well, what kind of how do we get a contractor in there, and all of the things that come along with doing value add or doing a renovation or return, it would have just been too much. And I think that probably would have left a pretty sour taste in my mouth with real estate investing as a whole.   So as a toe dip exercise as a way to wade into this water as opposed to jumping into the deep end. I think turnkey can be a really great way to go and just, you know, understand what's involved with owning and operating rental property in its easiest form, and then move on from there.   Emil: I want to bring in something from our good friend of the podcast, Michael Zuber, who has been investing for 15-20 years, and he's really transparent about he's been investing 15-20 years, he's very transparent about where he made mistakes. And he often talks about in the early runnings, he would buy these cheap properties, that same deal, right, you're getting them at a good price, but then he has to go put 10-20K in. And when you look at his cash on cash return, oftentimes had he just gone turnkey, his cash on cash return would have been better, because he didn't have to think that extra 10-20K, basically, someone else goes and makes the rehab. Yes, they sell it to you for a profit, but then you get to use leverage to bake those into your loan. And then your tenant is basically paying for those renovations in a way so you're not coming out of pocket.   Anyway, he talks about all the time how he wishes in the beginning, he had bought less of these like cheap but needing 10-20 K and repair single family homes, and just scooping up more turnkey. And again, he's done this for 15-20 years. So he's got a pretty long time horizon to be able to look back and say, these are some of the things I wish I had done differently early on.   Michael: Yeah, it's great point.   Tom: I think a great analogy is value stocks versus growth stocks, where a growth stock would be, you know, high beta like it could go either direction. I think that's the equivalent of buying some fixer upper. And as a remote investor, like that's extra hardware value stocks, you know, Warren Buffett whatnot like those are buying tried and true properties where there's just less risk, you could say, in that you're not needing to open up walls and find all kinds of potential issues. So value investing.   Cool, guys, so love this topic and a lot of great tangents. I think what we're gonna do is in our next episode, we're gonna do the similar exercise but bump up the value. So what would we as investors do, woke up and there was $200,000 in your bank account? How would you deploy them?   Michael: Oo, la,la I know my answer is gonna be different. Emil, are you gonna have similar or different strategies?   Emil: I'm putting it all in Bitcoin. Yeah, so you'll get for Bitcoin, hey, I'm getting for Bitcoin. But bitcoins gonna be worth a million dollars in the next month. So that's not a big deal.   Michael: You heard it here first, folks.   Emil: Everyone who's into bitcoin is going to hate me now. So I'm sorry.   Tom: Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please rate us Subscribe. All that good stuff wherever you listen to your podcasts and as always, happy investing.   Michael: Happy investing.   Emil: Happy Investing

Paul Casey: Now, what are the 20% of targets that will let you 80% of results if you were to focus a disproportionate amount of time on those 20% tasks? Speaker 2: Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, it's the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. Welcome to the TCI podcast, where local leadership and self-leadership expert, Paul Casey, interviews local CEOs, entrepreneurs, and non-profit executives to hear how they lead themselves and their teams so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey, of Growing Forward Services, coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success. Paul Casey: It's a great day to grow forward. Thanks for joining me for today's episode with Tom Fletcher. Tom is the assistant manager for the waste treatment plant, and Tom does everything with gusto. So Tom, what's unusual about that? Tom Fletcher: So I often get teased by the wife and many family members that I'm either 100% in or 100% out. And when I came into and I was walking through the house at night and that's no different, walking through the house at night and missed the step. I have tiled floor; you know if you're on the tile you're safe. Well, guess what? My foot stepped on the opposite side of the wall and smashed my face right into the wall, blood going down. Paul Casey: Oh, no, no. Tom Fletcher: The wife comes out and laughs at me and says, "What are you doing? Don't you put your hands out in front of you?" I said, "No, I was walking." So I do everything with 100% in or 100% out. Paul Casey: And that's why we're interviewing you today, Tom. Well, we'll dive in after checking in with our Tri-City Influencer sponsor. Paul Casey: It's easy to delay answering uncomfortable questions like, what happens to my assets and my loved ones when I die? So it's no surprise that nearly 50% of Americans don't have a will and even fewer have an estate plan. Many disabled clients worry that they don't have enough assets to set up an estate plan. But there are important options available to ensure that you have a voice in your medical and financial decision-making, even if your health takes a turn for the worst. Estate planning gives you a voice when your health deteriorates or after you're gone. Maren Miller Bam, attorney at law, is currently providing free consultations. To find out more about estate planning or to book an appointment, call Maren at (206) 485-4066 or visit Salus, that's S-A-L-U-S-law.com today. Thank you for your support of leadership development in the Tri-Cities. Paul Casey: Well, Tom, great that you are here. I'm doing a little bit of coaching for your organization and got to meet you through that process. And just our brief conversation made me want to interview you, because I think we're kindred spirits on the whole leadership stuff. And so, let's let our listeners get to know you. So what are some career highlights that have led you to where you are today? Tom Fletcher: So I got master's and bachelor's in civil engineering from WSU, go cougs, grew up in a family of construction businesses. So I've been in the field since I was little but knew that that wasn't my career path. So I went to work for the US Army Corps of Engineers, and in 2006 decided I would make a change and actually transferred to DOE. And from there it's been a whirl, and I think I've held seven positions in the last- Paul Casey: Wow. Tom Fletcher: ... 11, 12, 13 years. Was the deputy manager of regional operations, and just about three years ago was asked to come back and bring the waste treatment plant online. Right now we're headed towards 2023 for the first creation of glass. So got a lot of work to do, but that's where we're headed. Paul Casey: Awesome. And why do you love what you do? Tom Fletcher: A couple of different things. One of the things that I love doing is to give back to the great nation. It's my way of giving back, working for the federal service. But it's also, I get to have fun doing it. And there's something about building a $16 billion facility that you don't often get an opportunity to go do. And the magnitude, the challenges, all of those are rewarding and fun at the same time. Paul Casey: Yeah, I was just doing that last week. No, just kidding. You're right, that is a rare opportunity to be able to put on your resume. Well, staying in one strength zone at work multiplies your influence, you probably believe that as well. So how do you add the most value to your organization and to the teams that you get to lead? Tom Fletcher: So one of the things that I've done a lot through my career is really building the team. Putting the right people in the right seat of the school bus is critical in delivering of a project. You don't put the kid that trips everybody in the front seat, you put them towards the back. So when I build up a team, it starts with building a clear vision, delivering that clear vision, building a critical mass within the team, supporting that clear vision, and then delivering on results. And as long as you can bring those three together, the sky's the limit. And I've created my career based on basically those three premises of clear vision, building the critical mass within the team to support that vision and then going and delivering on our word. And that's how I pretty much came to where I've been at this point in time. Paul Casey: Where did you learn that, Tom? Did it come from resources? Did you have a mentor maybe that taught you that? Or did you come up with that on your own? Tom Fletcher: So a couple of different things. One, I do a lot of reading. I grew up in a family, as I said, that we were taught early that nothing in life is given and everything is earned, or is given or deserved and everything is earned. So, that started off at an early age. I've been working in the field of construction since I was probably 10 or 12 years old with my dad and family members, two of the family businesses. So, that was the starting of it. But a lot of it comes down to mentors and coaches. I've had a lot of mentors and coaches. I'm lucky to have my brother who built businesses on supporting building businesses and supporting people grow. So having a brutal, honest voice that I get to bounce things off of that comes free when he normally charges a lot is excellent as well. Paul Casey: Well, on the flip side, leaders have to be self-aware of their weaknesses. So what is your favorite "Way to sabotage yourself?" Tom Fletcher: So one of the things that I want to touch on here, and this is really about defeating the lesser self. I have a philosophy, and this is built around my brother and my brother's concept as well. You have a heroic self, and you have a lesser self, and the lesser self is that little person on your shoulder, always sitting there telling you to rationalize things away, removing accountability. And I've spent a lot of time making sure I recognize who that is and what it is, and it's me. So the lesser self is just another side of me. And understanding what that means to me and what his triggers are, usually starts with words like, it can be done tomorrow, or there's a future day for that. Tom Fletcher: But for me, it's, being an A type personality, active listening. It's always that little guy saying, jump in there. You know we are going to tell you. And not actually letting the other people provide their perspective, the teammates that truly are the ones that are delivering the mission and truly often have the best answers. Getting all of that information on the table before you're making the decision has been critical and probably my weakest aspect, but it's been something I've worked hard on over the past 10 years. Paul Casey: You mentioned about rationalizing, and I think our brains do have the unlimited capacity to rationalize. If you had an employee who was a "rationalizer," we've probably all been there in our lives, what advice would you give them? Tom Fletcher: Know oneself. A lot of us have someday syndrome. Someday we'll start that, tomorrow's a good day, and that never stops. It's, someday we'll do that. Just over 18 months ago, I was challenged, and again, by my brother, to get back in shape. I'd let business take over for seven plus years and my body got out of shape. And now 18 months later, I'm 60 pounds lighter and in the best shape I've- Paul Casey: Wow. Tom Fletcher: ... physically been in my life, because some day is now today. And it's taking that accountability, again, 100% in or 100% out. And I have watched many statistics, and I'm a huge tracker and I watched my cholesterol keep growing, I watched my shoes get further and further away. And I took no action until I took that challenge. And once the challenge happened, it's been 530 days since I've missed a workout. Paul Casey: Wow, fantastic. Tom Fletcher: But it's about knowing yourself and knowing those weaknesses. And then once you go in, just make it a part of your day, make it a part of you. Paul Casey: Yeah. You can't dabble in it, you've got to fully commit, all in. Well, you mentioned about active listening, which is one of the best leadership skills you could probably have. How do you remind yourself to actively listen? Because you are a driver and you said you're type A, go, go, go, but you've learned along the way. You said that before you make a decision, you've got to listen. How do you remind yourself of that? Tom Fletcher: I think part of it comes to educating your team. And it's two pieces. One, educating the team that you need to know the bottom line upfront. So as a leader, I make sure my team knows, give me the bottom line and then provide me the details. I'll listen to the details, but if you start with the details and I don't know where I'm ending at or what the punchline is, man, that takes me a long time. So I've taught my team ... and this is true throughout life. If you look at the different types of personalities ... I've done a lot of reading and training on personality types. If you start with the bottom line, provide the analytical data and the facts that support it and then provide the connection from an emotional standpoint of how it makes us feel or how it improves us, you cover the entire suite in that order. Tom Fletcher: And the amount of patience people have or normally have is in that order, if you look at it from a personality type. So that is a way to communicate and something that I've learned works very effectively, both vertically, horizontally and down. If you communicate in that style, because you grab that bottom line up front, you gather the facts for those analytical thinkers and then those that are emotional based, they really want to understand what's in it for me. And if you connect that at the end, they'll stay there the longest, because they're really there about the emotional piece and they don't want to cut you off because they want to make you feel that good. Paul Casey: I love that. And I heard that's an acronym. Bottom line up front is BLUF, right? Tom Fletcher: Yeah. Paul Casey: So you got to call your bluff. Tom Fletcher: Yup. Paul Casey: And I love that you hit each one of the personality styles with that approach. Sounds like that'd be a good email too. Tom Fletcher: It is. Paul Casey: Just hit it up because some people want to read the first paragraph anyways, but then those that are going to hang with you need some of that other information. Tom Fletcher: Absolutely. Paul Casey: Yeah, it's great for vision casting. So Tri-City Influencer listeners, bottom line up front, then the analytical info, and then the emotional why, and you'll probably catch everybody. Well, rarely do we achieve our highest potential by ourselves. So Tom, who keeps you accountable and energized to getting your professional and personal goals accomplished? Tom Fletcher: So as you guys probably can tell, my energy level is high all the time. Again, I'm 100% in when I go in and that's just me as a person, my personality type. But I will tell you, I have a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters that support me unconditionally, whether it's in my career, at home, whatever craziness I try to get them into. And a lot of time it's at the expense of personal time with them, because again, I got high energy, high expectation on my career side, the house as well. But in addition to the family, I have a whole host of mentors. I've been lucky enough that many of my mentors started off as paid mentors and the relationship and friendships, which I can't stress enough the importance of relationship and friendship that I've built with those people over time. Tom Fletcher: Now I can pick up the phone without the paycheck that goes along with it and have that conversation about, hey, what do you think about this? Or what do you think about that? I have my brother, which is another awesome resource for me, and the team that my brother works with. And so, it's been a great, I'll say, interaction. But at the bottom line, for me, it really comes down to making sure that we as a human or organizations, only our organisms, only have a couple of things that we can control entirely within ourselves. One is our integrity ... for me, these are my two large ones, my integrity and my word. And I will protect those at all costs, and those drive my behavior. So if I've committed to something and it takes me 24 hours or 48 hours straight of work, I'm going to meet my deliverable. Tom Fletcher: But that's just me, and that's something that I think it comes down to. You got to know what your value is, what your commitment style is. But one of the things I would tell you is, make the commitment publicly. Nothing makes it more important than putting a date on a piece of paper or putting a date in Facebook or putting a date in something that's public. When you're going to get questioned by those people that are out there that says, did you do it? And you don't want to say, no. That's a bad answer as a leader. No is not the right answer. Paul Casey: Yeah. I heard the other day, you're 78% more likely to accomplish your goals if you declare it out loud. I mean, that is some great odds. Tom Fletcher: Yeah. Paul Casey: So publicly share that with somebody or put it out there on social media. And you don't want to have that egg on your face. Tom Fletcher: No. Paul Casey: You want to get that done. I love how you said you've almost turned your mentors into friends over the years. And I think we all need people that we can hit up for advice, or as a sounding board along the way. I call them the A team. Accountability, teamwork, encouragement, asking for help and motivation, that's your A team. We've got to have those people in our life. And that's so cool you got so many that you could turn to. You mentioned your family, and before we turned on the recording, you talked about it blurs your style, work-life integration. Talk a little bit more about that. Tom Fletcher: Yeah. So I'm a person that I work and live one life. I don't have a work life; I don't have a home ... they blur together. I'm lucky that my wife is willing to let me do this because I'm not sure ... I don't know if I could do it any other way. So I often go to work a little later in the morning because I want to spend some time at home with the kids in the morning, get them off to school. I've had the ability throughout my career to be able to pretty much meet every one of their games. But on the flip side of that, work doesn't stop when I left the office. So I don't have a 9:00 to 5:00 job. I could, but that's not my style. I respond to emails throughout the entirety of the day. Tom Fletcher: I work throughout the entirety of the day, whether I'm home when it's a Saturday and Sunday. If one of my teammates have emailed me or sent me a note, it doesn't stop me from jumping on the phone. I do try to hold a couple hours each evening dear to my family. But from a big picture, it's really just one life. And tried and we talked a lot about work-life balance, and you think about that in a scale, you always are giving up on one or the other. Paul Casey: Right. Tom Fletcher: And with integration, some days, some weeks, it's going to be higher on the work side and some weeks it's going to be higher on the family side. And that work-life balance, or that work-life integration, it'll all level out at the end. And you're not trying to truly give one thing for another. And often it creates, like I said, two different lives, a work life and a home life. I just, I don't do it. Paul Casey: My wife calls me the blur, I just sort of fly. So when you say it blurs together, I totally get that. So replenishment has to be important too, to stay at this high level of capacity that you have. What do you do to manage stress? Tom Fletcher: This is a weird one for me, because most people think I'm not human in this case, because I really don't get stressed. I probably have one of the highest stress jobs, I've had one of the highest stress jobs that you could possibly have. I've went through major litigations, multiple major litigations, I've went through very emotional events from a workforce standpoint, but I really don't have stress. I mean, I do the best I physically can do and at the end of the day I know I've done the best I physically can do, and that's good. I mean, to take home energy or negativity or to even have it at work, that doesn't have a positive outcome or event that's caused by it, why? So I don't do things that don't add value. And if it's all in, all out, stress is one of those all outs for me. I can't figure out the value of it, other than, we all have it in the background. I mean, yeah, it's there, but I don't really feel it. Paul Casey: Sure. Tom Fletcher: But again, it's that work-life integration that I think is part of the reason I don't have that field, because it really does flow. It doesn't come in as one giant peak. And yeah, I get 50 deliverables a week that weren't planned, on a Monday, that disrupt my whole week. And I could be stressed over, or I could just go and say, okay, how's the best way to tackle them and prioritize the order, and just go crank down the list. Paul Casey: Right. Yeah. And stress is just stress. And I think what you're talking about is your response to it. And you're not viewing it negatively, you're viewing it as like, man, this is just an energy giver for me. Tom Fletcher: It really is. It's not really a planisher, it's really just, hey, I got to go tackle the projects or the action in front of me. Paul Casey: Yeah. If we continue to view stress negatively, that's when we get to burn out. So if you can have a positive view of stress, you won't get there. Love that. Well, before we enter our next question on hiring and people development with Tom, a shout out to our sponsor. Paul Casey: Located in the Parkway, you'll find motivation, new friends and your new coworking space at Fuse. Whether you're a student just starting out or a seasoned professional, come discover all the reasons to love coworking at Fuse. Come co-work at Fuse for free on Fridays in February. Enjoy free coffee or tea, Wi-Fi, printing, conference rooms, and more, and bring a friend. Fuse is where individuals and small teams come together in a thoughtfully designed resource-rich environment to get work done and grow their ideas. Comprised of professionals from varying disciplines and backgrounds, Fuse is built for hardworking, fun-loving humans. Learn more about us at fusespc.com or stop by 723, The Parkway in Richland, Washington. Paul Casey: So Tom, hiring and people development is crucial for leadership. If you could clone the ideal employee for your organization, what traits would that person have? Tom Fletcher: A growth mindset. And that is one that wants to learn, doesn't believe a failure is a failure and really believes it's an opportunity. We have a motto in my organization and something that I've lived by failure today is an opportunity for success tomorrow as long as we learn from it. Is driven and is a self-starter. I can teach, we can teach anybody a skill. It's really hard to teach somebody something that, in most cases, all three of those are contained within. And if you think about some of the great growth mindset people, or some of the great fixed mindset people on the opposite spectrum that just truly believe everything, great growth mindset would be Michael Jordan, right? Paul Casey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Tom Fletcher: There's always a way to get better. Paul Casey: Yep. Tom Fletcher: And I can see the tennis player's name that throws his racket. Paul Casey: McEnroe. Tom Fletcher: McEnroe. Great fixed mindset. There's nothing that I did wrong, it's everybody else's fault. It's that guy in the stadium that made him sneeze, right? Paul Casey: That's right. Tom Fletcher: So that mindset, and it's been proven, and that's just something that's been shown, that if you have that growth mindset where your mind is about, okay, how do I fix that or how do I get better? I can try to get you there, but that's probably the biggest thing for me. And then driven and self-starter, because the sky's the limit, no matter what level of the organization you're going. And if you have those three, you can learn the rest. Paul Casey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Say that quote again about ... what you said was, "Failure today is an opportunity for success tomorrow." Is that the quote? Tom Fletcher: Yeah. Failure today is an opportunity for success tomorrow, as long as you learn from it. Paul Casey: As long as you learn from it. Great words, TC Influencers. We love the self-starter thing too. I've been really reflecting on that. What separates a leader from a follower or at least an influencer is that initiative. That self-starter. If you're looking for a potential leader in your organization, look for those that kick it in gear on their own without any prodding from anybody else. Well, I've had emerging leaders tell me that they want to grow in thinking strategically, Tom. So what tips would you give on how to look at that big picture, that vision for greater long-term impact? How can people get better at that? Tom Fletcher: So, know where you want to go. If you're looking three months out, four months out, six months out, you're going to fail to start with. Most of us, and I've had the opportunity and my wife's business is now what, five years in the making. And we started her business, knowing that we had a five to seven-year plan before we thought she'd become truly profitable. I mean, that's just something you got to know. You got to know that you're in, especially with a business, if you're building a business, you're in up to five to seven years before you're going to be a truly profitable business. Or that amount of cash that needs to go in to support building the business actually starts coming out in the positive terms. And if you can't see that end point of where you want to be and you think today's going to be cash day, I challenge you to think longer. You got to know and be real with yourself, that long-term vision there. The only thing I would tell you is, don't get stuck on the starting gates. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Paul Casey: Yes. Tom Fletcher: I tell my team all the time, we know where our destination is and a destination is a point on the journey, so that's one of our goals along where we're ultimately headed. But we're going to leave the starting line, not knowing exactly how to get there. And through metrics and measurement, we're going to self-correct or mitigate risk, another way to look at it, through time, such that we're going to leave. And we may take two or three jogs, but at the end of the point, end of the time, we're going to make it to our destination. And guess what? We don't get to stop there, because the day we stop is the day we start going backwards in life. Paul Casey: Yes. Tom Fletcher: Because somebody else did not stop. Paul Casey: That's right. Tom Fletcher: So it really is about taking that long-term vision, knowing that destination three, five, seven years in advance. Now, you can have some intermediate steps along, those goals, and you need to track metrics to measure those goals. Paul Casey: Yes. Tom Fletcher: Right? What's measured is delivered and what's not is forgotten, for lack of better words. Paul Casey: Yeah. Tom Fletcher: So I would just challenge you to think big. Don't have pride and rigidity. Too many people write a plan and say, this is where I'm going to go. Well, guess what? 27 things happened between here and where you thought you were going to go that you need to be adapt and flexible too. And if you're willing to be adaptable and flexible, the sky's the limit. And I'll give you an example from my wife's business. My wife creates cake toppers. When the pandemic hit, how many cake toppers do you think were coming into our business, which just turned profitable this year? Tom Fletcher: Her business just turned profitable this year. Not many. We went from over a couple of five to $600 a day to less than $50 a day. So we quickly looked at the potential and we landed this year with the largest year of the year, because we started developing face masks and stuff to support the pandemic that we're currently in. You have to be flexible; you have to be willing to grab that next product line. Yes, did it cost money? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, in all these major changes is opportunity and you just got to be willing to grab it. Isn't that scary? Paul Casey: Yeah. Well, quick shout out to your wife's business. Do you have a website that we can- Tom Fletcher: She's actually on Etsy, Christy's Custom Vinyl. Paul Casey: Okay. Tom Fletcher: Is her shop, but she does a lot of cake toppers and cake wedding products. Paul Casey: Fantastic. Well, that reminds me of Seth Godin's book, Poke the Box, where he just says, "Put something into play, ship it." He kept saying. And then you can iterate off that later. But as adults, we get more and more reserved and we get risk averse and we don't put it into play because we think it has to be perfect. But like you said, we got to be flexible. If we're rigid with it, we're in trouble. Also, like how you said, think bigger. We sometimes set goals that just by the normal course of things were just going to get done. I always tell employees, stretch, put a stretch goal down, think a little bit bigger. If you shoot for the moon, you're going to end up at the stars. Tom Fletcher: Yeah. Paul Casey: So that's at the macro level, let's go to micro level. What small acts of leadership, Tom, if done daily, make a positive difference in the lives of people and their teams? Tom Fletcher: Communication, communication, communication, and just keep hitting repeat. And I think the other piece of that is positive reward recognition where it's deserved. And I make that very clear, if you say thank you to everyone, thank you means nothing. So you need to make sure, as a leader, especially if you're the top leader or at the top of your organization, that your thank yous are visible, but also reserved for those areas that truly are those A performances. If all your C performers are getting the same thank you that your A performers are [crosstalk 00:25:51], you have just trivialized your A performers. Paul Casey: Yup. Tom Fletcher: And it's okay that the C performer does an A job and gets that credit when it's done. But you have to give credit where credit is due, and it has to be in a razor manner that is truly rewarding and meaningful. The other thing I would tell you is, make sure you know how your employees want to be recognized. Paul Casey: Yes. Tom Fletcher: If you take a very strong introvert and you go put them up ... bring them up in front of a stage and deliver them a grand award, they are going to want to sink as far down into their seat as they physically could. So, recognize people how they want to be recognized. That would be my other one. Paul Casey: Do you think that goes to performance reviews too, Tom? Like, rating? You can't give everybody the exceeds, exceeds performance review, right? Do you think it also plays out there too? Tom Fletcher: My biggest pet peeve in life, rating everybody equal. And I'm not trying to put a differentiation, but when you look at an array of people, we have a bell curve distribution, no matter what anybody tells me. There are people on the lower end, there's people on the high end and the masses in the middle. And so when you look at it, we have that distribution as you look at the vast majority of organizations. There are a few that skew one way or the other, depending on their structure and depending on how they style. But we have to be brutally honest with our teammates in order to help them grow. If we're not, we're giving them a disservice and we're doing ourselves a disservice because we're allowing subpar products to be the standard. So you have to be able to have the hard conversations to truly push the team, to give them their feedback. I don't ever wait. Yeah, we have feedback twice a year, plus end of your performance. That's nonsense. When you see something that they can improve on, give them the feedback. Paul Casey: Yeah. Tom Fletcher: And as long as you start with what we talked about earlier about the growth mindset, they want that feedback. Paul Casey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Tom Fletcher: They want to know, how do they improve? Very rarely do I go ... I mean, I do have presentations all the time and it doesn't matter whose ... if they're willing to give me feedback, I'm asking for it. Paul Casey: Oh yeah. Tom Fletcher: Because it could be something small or just a small tweak that truly makes a difference and I make a better connection to the audience I'm talking about, so. Paul Casey: Yeah, real-time feedback is so crucial. Like you said, the once, twice a year kind of thing, it's doing your people a disservice because they can course correct if we give it to them sooner than to wait for the once-a-year thing and then it's, oh, surprise. Tom Fletcher: And you have disempowered employees when you do that. Paul Casey: Indeed. Indeed. And I like how you said that it's the motive behind that, it's the high performers. If you just pull everybody up to this rating that everybody gets, it really de-motivates the high performers. If one of our Tri-City Influencer listeners asked you two to three books or resources they must read in order to grow their leadership skills, where would you point them? Tom Fletcher: So I have a whole library of books. Paul Casey: Yes. Tom Fletcher: But if I was to put a couple on the list, I think, and I've talked about this a little bit, growth and fixed mindset. Mindset by Carol Dweck is an excellent book, it really talks about the growth of fixed mindset and gives great examples. And then Good to Great by Jim Collins. Another great book where you talk about getting the flywheel, the 5,000-pound flywheel going. And once it gets going ... it's really hard to get started, kind of the same idea of a business thinking long-term. But once that thing creates rotational mass and starts moving, it takes a little energy to make it keep going faster. But as soon as you don't put energy into it, it is slowing down and therefore you're going the wrong direction and somebody's passing you. So I think those are probably the two great books. But honestly, anything that you want to gain knowledge in, just read. Tom Fletcher: I tried to read 30 to 50 pages the other day. I tried to make that part of my day, reading 30 or 50 pages a day. And it doesn't matter what it's in. I mean, it really doesn't, as long as it's in an area of improvement you want to go after. I read a lot of books that some would go, what, why is that? But it's just leadership styles. Whether it's a book on autobiography for Amazon, Jeff Bezos or any of those. They each have nuggets in them. And are you going to read the whole book and you get something out of the whole book? No. But there's nuggets in every book that you can learn from. One thing I will say is, find a way to actually know how to go back and find that information in your book. Paul Casey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Tom Fletcher: If you don't have a good way of tabbing or a good way of note taking or highlighting or whatever works for you, categorizing, to actually go back and recall and reflect on those words, six, 12, 18 months later, you hurt yourself a little bit when you're reading books. I always write mine; I highlight those critical ones and then I write on the edge of the book itself on the margin, my note that I want to capture or the thought I want to come back to. But just find a way that works for you. Paul Casey: That's a great method. I read 46 books last year on leadership, personal growth. That's why I think we're like-minded in that. And yeah, I try to highlight, and then I go back and journal through. So I get really three reads on a book and then it imprints in my brain a little bit more than just reading it and then it's gone. So Tri-Cities Influencer listeners, whether that's a seminar or a conference you go to, when you get to go back to conferences, or whether it's any kind of resource or even meeting with your mentor, take good notes because you want to capture that stuff. And put something into play within 72 hours, share it with somebody, write it, do something, or we start to lose it, and then all that professional growth opportunity slips away. Well, finally, Tom, what advice would you give to new leaders or anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining more influence? Tom Fletcher: Be true to yourself. I think you've heard me say this multiple times. I'm the same person at home as I am at work. As soon as we try to divide ourselves or make ourselves have different personalities, you're not going to be true to yourself. So many people try to fit in a box because there's a paycheck or a pay increase that goes along with it. But if it's not the right spot for you, don't take it. Money is just an object, it's not what defines us. And be true to yourself in that process. Keep moving forward, no matter what is in front of you. Yes, you're going to get knocked backwards in life and in business and in developing or growing. But no matter what adversities, challenge, you keep moving forward. That'd be my main thing. It takes determination, grit, and just pure brute force at times to overcome those challenges. Tom Fletcher: So I would just say, keep going. You talked a minute ago about documentation, one of the things I work hard about is documented approach. So whatever we do, whether it's a process at the business at home or a process at work, I try to document it such that I'm improving on it. So rather than trying to relive, okay, how do I go do that? Well, I've got a documented approach. I go back to my piece of paper. That's what we did last time. Let's see, what do we do this time? Was it better or worse? And keep iterating on that. And that approach just keeps getting better and better through time, the more times you use it. Paul Casey: Yeah. Anything we're doing is worth evaluating for sure. And so, yes, be yourself, Tri-Cities Influencer listeners. It's the best way to have executive presence if you're trying to go for that goal, because you're not trying to fake it, you are trying to be your unique self. Well, Tom, how can our listeners get in touch with you if they wanted to follow up? Tom Fletcher: Yeah. This is the part that I ... I'm probably the worst at social media in the world. Social media and I are like evil enemies. But I am on LinkedIn and Facebook. If you do send me a note, I do look at those and will respond. Just don't expect it overnight. Paul Casey: Because the driver is on his path, achieving great things. Tom Fletcher: I look at them every couple of days. They pop up. What really gets me is those little stupid bubbles that have numbers in them that drive me absolutely crazy as a human. Paul Casey: Well, thanks again for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a great place and keep leading well. Let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend, the book I'm in the middle of right now called the 12 Week Year, by Brian Moran. The 12 Week Year. It's trying to help you get more done in 12 weeks than other people do in 12 months. So if you're a productivity junkie like I am, you're going to like this book because it's giving yourself tighter deadlines than just your annual goals. Those annual goals seem so far off and we just procrastinate saying, hey, I got time. And then November and December come, and all of a sudden, we've got some pressure to ramp up. But by breaking your year into 12-week years, you're going to have that little bit of pressure to get things done more often. Paul Casey: Again, this is Paul Casey. I want to thank my guest, Tom Fletcher, from the waste treatment plant for being here today on the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. And we want to thank our TCI sponsor and invite you to support them. We appreciate you making this possible so we can collaborate to help inspire leaders in our community. Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road to help you make a difference in your circle of influence, it's from Zig Ziglar. He says, "Outstanding people have one thing in common, an absolute sense of mission." Till next time, KGF, keep growing forward. Speaker 2: Thank you to our listeners for tuning into today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams, so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul in your leadership development, connect with him at growingforwardatpaulcasey.org for a consultation that could help you move past your current challenges and create the strategy for growing your life or your team or group. Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity to your crazy schedule and getting your priorities done every day by offering you his free control my calendar checklist. Go to ww.takebackmycalendar.com for that productivity tool, or open a text message to 72000 and type the word grow. Paul Casey: The Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast was recorded at Fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of Safe Strategies.  

So Tom was in, Pickles was out and Carolina gets to punish us all. Learn about whale testes in season, freakin out all night and are you a psychopath. Listen to the show and it will make sense. Give us a chance and we'll give you a laugh. C'mon and join our FB group page, The Drain. There you can vote on Shotgun Stories and see extra content. ANNNND don't forget to comment, subscribe, review & share. YOUTUBE: Circling the Drain Podcast Check out our Instagram: Circlingthedrainpodcast FB: Circling the Drain Podcast FB Group: The Drain Contact the Cake Chick - IG - CakeChick1217 #comedypodcast #museumofdisgustingfoods #nakedfloridamethman #pepelepew

One of the foremost conferences in the field of clinical trials is SCOPE, which stands for the Summit of Clinical Ops Executives. While held virtually this year, the conference was packed with interesting and innovative presentations. Spencer Health Solutions served as a premier sponsor of the event and co presented at the conference with a client and collaboration partner, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. Our content was presented in the track, focusing on accessing and generating real-world data. The presentation was titled Implementing a Transformative Medtech Device Program to Gather Real World Data. Our co presenters were Tom Rhoads, CEO of Spencer Health Solutions and Kelly Roland, Associate Director, Otsuka. In planning this presentation, we decided to show a little bit behind the curtain of how a large pharmaceutical company evaluates digital health technology before it is written into a patient protocol. Let me set the stage. My name is Janet Kennedy and I'm the host of the People Always, Patients Sometimes podcast. Coming up is a conversation between Tom and Kelly walking through Otsuka's reasons for creating an internal focus group to evaluate the Spencer SmartHub. As part of the evaluation, Spencer health look forward to having Otsuka learn about and experience our deeper data and a more comprehensive look at how patient real-world evidence can be used to support the patient and improve outcomes. I hope you enjoy this candid conversation between Tom Rhoads and Kelly Roland on People Always, Patients Sometimes.   Tom Rhoads: (01:42) Hi, I'm Tom Rhodes, CEO of Spencer Health Solutions. Spencer is and FDA class one medical device for use with medication management, patient engagement and data collection. The Spencer SmartHub is being used in care management for about three years now. And in 2019, we added the clinical trial and commercial pharma division and launched Spencer SmartHub into both the clin trials, as well as post approved commercial farm applications. We're really pleased to be presenting at SCOPE this year, and we're very proud to be joined in the discussion today by our partner in an innovative internal focus group program. With me is Kelly Roland, Associate Director of Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. Hello Kelly, how are you doing today?   Kelly Roland: (02:23) Hi Tom. Thanks so much for inviting me to join you today. I'm excited to be here.   Tom Rhoads: (02:28) Well, that makes two of us. Kelly, our presentation in the SCOPE track is focused on accessing in generating real-world data, which is having a greater impact on the design and clinical trials and patient programs more than ever before. But before we jump into a discussion of our focus group, could you share any insights on why real-world data is a priority for Otsuka Pharma?   Kelly Roland: (02:49) Happy to. So as you know Tom, real-world data, real-world evidence - it's really information that creates action. So using this information, we're able to not only look at the improved design of clinical trials, but also conduct those clinical trials in new and different ways. Better data really lends itself to potentially faster analysis and better drug development overall, with really the aim advancing towards understanding both patients and drugs sooner. So from an operational standpoint, real-world data real-world evidence can enable more efficient, effective clinical trials and hopefully remove any friction for patients, investigators, and sponsors.   Tom Rhoads: (03:37) Well, it's interesting cause you know, as we were designing Spencer, the ability of patients to provide data back to the SmartHub was always central to our design. In fact, whether we're capturing biometric data passively through a Bluetooth connection, or from the patient's direct response for survey questions. We always wanted to be able to provide multiple layers of health data beyond the moment of medication dispensing, and our program today is really to share a rare insight into how a large pharmaceutical company can bring new technology to their patients and ensure that the internal team has buy-in on the new program. So Kelly, with digital health apps have been around for quite a while; why is the team at Otsuka interested in designing an internal evaluation before introducing Spencer to your patients?   Kelly Roland: (04:21) Otsuka is a company that's really dedicated to serving those with unmet medical needs, and we really strive to innovate and defy limitations. When we first evaluated Spencer, we felt it could really help us put the patient at the center of the trial first and foremost. And at the same time, we also knew it would break those current processes and operational logistics that you have for more traditional ways of running a clinical trial. So by getting out of our comfort zone and kind of embracing this new way, this new technology, a new way of doing things, we decided to pilot our own internal focus group, Otsuka only. We could have easily outsourced this to another group to research for us. However, we thought that this internal approach would allow Otsuka functional area champions really, or subject matter experts with that really in-depth personal experience with the device. They could experience firsthand what the patient would experience and help to develop new processes and new solutions based on those insights.   Tom Rhoads: (05:29) You know, you remind me, as we went to develop Spencer, we developed it from the patient out. So to see pharma taking the same position of understanding firsthand what the patient would experience is truly innovative, and we were obviously thrilled to learn you'd be interested in having your team experience Spencer in person. So maybe let's break down a few reason why that's a good idea.   Kelly Roland: (05:52) Holding that internal focus group served a few key purposes for us. First, as I mentioned, gather those insights very quickly and you get that firsthand knowledge that you wouldn't have otherwise. We wanted our teams to look through the lens of the patient, the site, and actually their own functional area when evaluating Spencer. So in the case of Spencer, it's a new technology, it requires a bit more organization, a little more prep work on the part of the team. And we thought this could be an exciting new approach for us. So our goal was to really set up a focus group so we could better evaluate everything end to end from the program set up, data integrations, training materials, and overall how Spencer worked.   Tom Rhoads: (06:38) So when you think about really the protocol that you're outlining, why was it important for Otsuka to kind of evaluate Spencer in each of the different roles?   Kelly Roland: (06:47) So when we're planning protocols or planning our programs, we really want to anticipate as much as possible where there could be difficulties where there could be challenges. One such area are those new roles and skill sets, quite honestly, that need to emerge when you layer technology and roll real-world data into the mix. In the past, we've relied heavily on, I'd say more manual processes together feedback from patients and sites. But with new digital platforms like Spencer, we can be much more proactive in assessing how a patient's doing between their clinic visits, especially as decentralized trials become much more common here in the future. But that said, we can better respond as a company if we've lived the experience in those key roles. It makes our team more intuitive in designing a protocol, and also a little more creative in the support materials that they bring along as well. So a focus group like this creates a lot of change in the company, but it also creates change agents, I'll call them, because now they've lived the experience, they can spread the word to their colleagues and other functions about the tool. They can be that subject matter expert in their function and help others to understand either the value and or challenges of this particular tool. So I think a focus group is really interesting and great way to start that change management activity.   Tom Rhoads: (08:15) That's a great point. So as we kind of break down the roles, maybe we can take a deeper dive into the patient role for a moment. What were you interested in evaluating as a patient using Spencer in a clinical trial?   Kelly Roland: (08:27) I said it before. I'll say it again - I really think this is going to give us invaluable experience from that patient perspective for our greater team. You know, we know we're working with a tool that has really interesting data around adherence and engagement, and we really wanted to explore that further. You know, we're asking ourselves questions like, "could Spencer cause annoyance or frustration for a particular indication?" "Are there other indications that may lend themselves more readily to a Spencer device versus another?" Would the collection of biometric data in the home be more desirable to a patient or caregiver versus having to go to the doctor's office?" I think if COVID has taught us anything that does seem to be a much more desirable functionality that people are looking at now. All this to say, it's very different reading about a tool and assessing capabilities versus actually experiencing them and walking in the patient's shoes.   Tom Rhoads: (09:22) So when we look at some of the aspects of the platform, how does the ability to gather patients' answers, to post medications, dispense survey questions, factor into your plan for utilizing real-world evidence? For instance, we found some eliminating data on how different individuals - in fact, two different individuals, both were basically 98% adherent - can reveal very different situations for those patients. Just curious, how do your plans factor in for that real-world evidence?   Kelly Roland: (09:50) So I think, as you indicated, medication adherence is only part of the story. So the questions we ask patients via the Spencer device could potentially provide, I think, some interesting real-world data on how the patient is not only doing from a physical standpoint, but also a mental standpoint. I think the data can help us to potentially create algorithms that allow for some of these deeper insights. Wouldn't it be interesting to have the ability to predict a manic event in a patient with bipolar disorder, for example, using both biomarker data and survey questions before the event even happens? So finding ways to identify signals related to relapse, potentially diabetes control, et cetera. I mean, this would be something that could be explored by asking the right questions at the right time. And these types of scenarios I think are really what excites our team as we kind of look to take those data insights to the next level.   Tom Rhoads: (10:47) Oh, that is great. It does remind me of the story I mentioned a moment ago. We had two different individuals currently on platform. From a high level, they were picture perfect. They were both basically a hundred percent adherent. They were 98.9% adherent taking their medications during the time prescribed. So you think at this point, check the box and move on; nothing more to see here. When we dug in and began looking at answers to questions, we saw two very different individuals. In fact, there was about a 10 year difference in their age. One was female, one was male. Suffering from depression as a primary and other disease and comorbid. And when you dug down into the questions you found that one person was sleeping well, eating well, exercising; in many other aspects, basically was on a very good path, consistent with a high adherence rate. Yet the other person, even with the high adherence rate, was experiencing a totally different outcome. They were not sleeping well, not eating well, not exercising. And their depression was a bit spiraling. Those are the types of data and insights that we all hope to collect. And I think working with a leader like Otsuka to be able to apply, as you said, algorithms, so that we can begin to notice these patterns and alert against these patterns, are critical really for healthcare's future.   Kelly Roland: (12:11) Totally agree, Tom. I think that that's something that our team looks forward to learning more as we push forward. This is exciting.   Tom Rhoads: (12:18) The funny thing for me is often times we all go out and have a third party evaluate something for us; and then they give us a report and we read our reports and we make assumptions and decisions around those reports. You know, cause we're all busy. I think what's truly unique here is that Otsuka has decided to have their team do it. And I'll tell you, from my experience - just my past in marketing - having your own hands on, you're going to see things, ask things, question things more deeply than you ever could coming from a report. I think that's a really interesting aspect of this where companies really do roll up their sleeves to understand what it is they're evaluating.   Kelly Roland: (13:01) So Tom, we talked a little bit about the Otsuka focus group and the program that we've developed, and the partnership that we have. From your perspective, was creating the focus group program the same as launching into a new clinical trial? You know, were there many differences or any similarities you could speak to?   Tom Rhoads: (13:21) Well, overall it was a terrific experience for us. I guess on the firsthand we followed the same procedural pathway that we would use for clinical trial: treating it as a protocol and really following the regimen and structure and review process with very deep collaboration across the teams. By approaching it in this manner, I think we were better aligned with your team, certainly, with the expectations and the outcomes that you were seeking. I think the difference for us in this was that the focus group program really centered on feedback and modification to best support your long-term needs. And so for us, it was very refreshing, maybe not as nerve-wracking either - given that we had opportunities to modify and change - but being able to go in with a mandate to learn and collaborate was really critical, I think to the teams to provide honest feedback, questions, and have the necessary dialogue and how we can make things better overall, from an onboarding, a management, you know, a site management, and general support throughout the entire trial. It was a great experience for us, for sure.   Kelly Roland: (14:25) Thank you for that. And I agree, I think that some of the ease of the focus group was really around being able to be creative and work together in that kind of creative fashion, where if something didn't work or we wanted to pilot something different or add this or switch that, we had the flexibility to be able to do that. So I agree. I think that this was refreshing from all angles - ours as well. So definitely appreciate that. One other question for you. What do you think, again from your perspective, is an important thing that clients, pharma companies in particular or researchers, need to experience when working with new technology?   Tom Rhoads: (15:07) You know, digital health has been around for gosh, a decade now, I guess we've been talking about it materially, and I think clients, or really anyone looking at technology really need to understand how to best apply the technology, kind of what the upper and lower limits of the technology are. You know, where is it best used? Who best responds to it? How is it supported? Does it work for their needs or not? And you know, I think one of the things that Otsuka did such a really refreshing kind of remarkable job of is rolling up their sleeves and experiencing it themselves. I think too often clients look to third parties to evaluate technology and give them condensed reports on it. And it's hard to make decisions from that. But when you experience a technology firsthand, you're going to have a really insightful and deep understanding of the good and the bad, and be able to make decisions - and I think more informed decisions - and directionally support your strategy longer term. That was something that as we move forward, we'll certainly be sharing that as an important aspect to evaluating new technology.   Kelly Roland: (16:15) Perfect. Thank you.   (16:17) Well, thank you for having us and allowing us to present at SCOPE. We certainly hope you come and visit us in the virtual trade show hall. And it's really exciting to be able to share our focus group study. We very much look forward to sharing the findings that come out of this, maybe in the next SCOPE.   Kelly Roland: (16:35) Thanks Tom. I appreciate being here and agreed. I think we look forward to sharing our learnings in the future.

Chris Stocker is a well-known voice from the early Diabetes Online Community, launching his blog about life with type 1 diabetes called Life of a Diabetic in 2007. In 2019, he stepped back a bit from the DOC with good reason: his daughter, four years old at the time, had just been diagnosed as well. Now, two years later, Chris is jumping back into the online community via Instagram and a YouTube channel. He talks to Stacey about what it's been like for his family to adjust to their new situation. He also has a great message for any men who live with T1D. In Tell Me Something Good, one of the scientists behind one of the COVID vaccine.. is one of us! And some new books are our for the littlest ones of us.. The Adventures of Captain Lantus Little Shots for Little Tots When I Go Low: A Diabetes Picture Book  Friends for Life information  This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android     Stacey Simms  0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dario Health – manage your blood glucose levels increase your possibilities by Gvoke Hypopen, the first premixed auto injector for very low blood sugar and by Dexcom take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom   Announcer  0:21 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  0:27 This week a well known voice in the early diabetes online community stepped back for a bit stopping his blog and his brand new podcast when his daughter at age four was diagnosed with type one herself.   Chris Stocker  0:39 Do you want to help me do it? Do you want to help me I you know decorate my infusion sets and things like that. So we shared those common bonds and that's how we looked at it from the day of diagnosis was Hey, you're like daddy now.   Stacey Simms  0:51 It's been two years since Chris Stocker’s  daughter's diagnosis, and he's jumping back into the online community. Chris shares his story as a dad of a child with T1Dwho lives with it himself in Tell me something good. One of the scientists behind one of the COVID vaccines is one of us and some new books for the littlest ones of us. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Welcome to another week of the show. We aim to educate and inspire about diabetes with an emphasis on people who use insulin aim host Stacey Simms, my son Benny was diagnosed with type one right before he turned to more than 14 years ago. My husband lives with type two diabetes. You know, I started blogging just after Benny's diagnosis. And that blog, which I eventually called off the dial led me to the DOC the diabetes online community at that time, and this is 2007. When I started, it was basically blogs and some online chat rooms. And you know, gradually social media exploded and everything changed to what it is now shorter posts, influencers, more podcasts, that sort of thing. The Twitter chat remains DSMA on Wednesdays, if you're not familiar with that, that is a 10 year old now more than 10 year old chat on Twitter, I'll put a link in the show notes, but it's just hashtag DSMA Wednesday evenings at 9pm. Eastern for anybody in the diabetes community we'd like to give it a plug it's not separated by type or if you're a parent or a person with type one. And that's one of the ways that I first remember meeting Chris stocker and it was great to talk to him this week for so many reasons, but it really brought me right back to those early days. You know, when we had diabetes blog we can you know, to feel like we're finding all these really to me amazing, cool people in my computer, which depending on your age, either sounds ridiculous or you know, right on you, you know what I'm talking about. But before we get to Chris, I do want to share a Twitter post that I was tagged in this is self serving, but I just I have to share it. A gentleman named Hugh Stimson retweeted my episode release about Lily and Ypsomed and my conversation with with Mike Mason from Lilly diabetes all about that. And he wrote, “I wish political journalists asked follow up questions, the way Stacey Simms asks health device executives follow up questions.” Whew. Thank you so much for writing that. It's hard to describe what that means to me. And and compliments are always nice. But that right there is why I started the show back in 2015. I would listen to podcasts. And I'd be yelling back at the hosts, I'd be asking my own questions. I'd be like, follow up on that. He didn't ask. You know, look, radio people are interesting. And well, I am really glad to be built like this. It is an odd thing sometimes. But I'm glad it came in handy. I'm glad it helped. And I'm really glad that you feel like I'm doing a service by asking those questions and trying, you know, sometimes we don't get answers, but you got to ask. So thanks again. I really appreciate it. All right, Chris Stocker  in just a moment. But first, Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dario health. And you know, one of the things that makes diabetes management difficult for us. It just really annoys me and annoys Benny, it isn't actually the big picture stuff. It is all the little tasks adding up, you know, are you sick or running out of strips? Do you need some direction or encouragement going forward with your diabetes management with visibility into your trends help you on your wellness journey? The Dario diabetes success plan offers all of that and more. No more waiting in line at the pharmacy. No more searching online for answers. No more wondering about how you're doing with your blood sugar levels, find out more go to mydario.com forward slash Diabetes Connections. Chris Stocker’s  blog back in the day was called life of a diabetic and he wrote about everything from his diagnosis as a college student in 2009. To Day in the Life stuff to product reviews to what dragged him down and made him mad and what lifted him up. When his oldest daughter was diagnosed just before she turned four. Chris felt like he had to pull back and face this challenge before venturing back online in such a public way. But he never really left the community. And I think dads and men with type one as you listen, there is really great advice here for you in terms of support and asking for help. Chris, welcome to the show. I'm excited to talk to you. I feel like we have talked before, but it's only been on Twitter and Social Media. Thanks for jumping on.   Chris Stocker  5:19 No problem. I'm definitely happy and honored to be a guest here.   Stacey Simms  5:24 Well, you're a podcast pro and a YouTube Pro. So this should be fun. But we do have a lot to talk about. Let's just start at the beginning for you. Because your diagnosis story happened when you were in college. Right? You were 19. Tell us about that.   Chris Stocker  5:35 Yeah. So I was I was a freshman in college, I was playing football at King's College up in Wilkes Barre, and the season was over. And I just was I was working out I was losing a ton of weight. I was drinking a lot of Gatorade and water. So I was urinating quite frequently. And I just thought I was losing weight because I was working out. And then this one night, I didn't have an appetite. I started getting sick all day long. And I ended up in the emergency room with 858 blood sugar.   Stacey Simms  6:05 What year was that? If you don't mind me asking.   Chris Stocker  6:07 That was in 2000. Wow. 2004.   Stacey Simms  6:10 What was the diagnosis process? Like? Did they you as a young adult like that? Did they believe you had type one? Was it an okay, diagnosis?   Chris Stocker  6:17 Yeah, it was. I honestly don't remember too much of it. Because I was kind of in in like a foggy state. My mom has worked at a hospital for almost 40 years. She took me to her hospital. So of course, we got the VIP treatment went right into the ER. And, you know, they took labs, and immediately The doctor came in and was like, You have type 1 diabetes. So there was no real question or debating anything whatsoever. Then I remember seeing the on site endocrinologist, probably I think it was that night. This was probably around 2am. So yeah, there was no discussion ever about whether it was type one or or another type of diabetes.   Stacey Simms  6:56 And what did they start you want? You immediately put on? I think 2004 elantas was around for adults, but not necessarily for kids. Like what what was your beginning entry into diabetes tree?   Chris Stocker  7:07 Yes, my very first night home, I can remember almost exactly the ratios and everything. I was taking 14 units Atlantis at night, the carb ratio was about 51 to 5015 to one. And that was Yeah, I was on lantis. And I think I started on probably either human log or no blog at that time. I can't remember that. But I didn't know anything about pumps or was never even brought up to me at that point in 2004. Either.   Unknown Speaker  7:36 Did you go back to college,   Chris Stocker  7:37 I I was not able to go back to King's College at that time. So I stayed home for a year I went to community college. And then I got this bright, awesome idea that I wanted to go to college away from Pennsylvania. And so I decided to go to Boca Raton, Florida and finish up school at Florida Atlantic University. So not only was I only a year or so maybe a year and a half, after diagnosis, I was then telling my mom that I was going about 1200 miles away to go to college. So it was definitely a rough conversation to have with her for sure.   Stacey Simms  8:15 Okay, well, it is sometime later, let's say right, it's, you know, we know you did pretty well in college, I assume. Can you give us parents the reassurance that you know, you You did? Okay, and that was the right move for you?   Chris Stocker  8:27 Yes, I mean, it definitely forced me to really grow up pretty quickly. I mean, I was 20 by the time I went there, but I was a little bit more mature than a lot of my, you know, my roommates and a lot of my classmates, because I was managing this disease pretty much by myself. I had no family, no friends down there. So it was really it was on me, I was in constant communication with my diabetes educator up here in Pennsylvania. So I was able to communicate via email with them quite often. So you know, there were some times where I had some pretty high blood sugars. I did actually end up at the ER one night, because I was getting my insulin through the school on campus pharmacy, which was not open on the weekends. And I thought that I could go from Saturday afternoon till Monday morning with just about 10 units of insulin which I use in one meal. So I actually ended up in the ER, I had met my girlfriend who's now my wife down there. And this was all new to her too. And she ended up taking me to the hospital and think I was probably up in the five 600 range. And then that was an interesting phone call to my mother as well. Who at that time, then flew down and did the motherly thing and came down and spent a few days down there with me.   Stacey Simms  9:49 I'm wondering though, I mean, my kids, my daughter's in college far away. Then he is a sophomore in high school and we're starting to talk about college and I've told him you know, you can go wherever you want. I'd love for him to stay next year. We're at least in this state, but I doubt that he will. I'm curious looking back What made you want to go so far away? I mean, do you feel I don't wanna put words your mouth I wonder like, did you want to prove something to yourself? Did you just love that school always wanted to go to Florida like why from there's so many great schools in that Pennsylvania northeast corner?   Chris Stocker  10:16 The weather? Yeah. Yeah. So I was playing football. I played football my whole life. I was playing football, I kings, I actually left the football team because I had no energy. I couldn't I didn't want to work out anymore. Later to find out that that was diabetes related. And I just said, You know what, like, I don't wanna play football anymore. I just want to go somewhere that's totally different than than where I grew up. I love Pennsylvania. I'm actually back here now. But I wanted to go somewhere totally different. And I started looking at colleges. I'd always wanted to go to UNC Greensboro. I don't know why, but I always wanted to go there. And I started looking online. And one day I was watching a tennis tournament, and Andy Roddick was my favorite tennis player and it popped up that he lived in Boca Raton. So I went on the internet, looked up colleges in Boca Raton, I found Florida Atlantic and I fell in love with their website. So I always used to joke that I have Andy Roddick to thank for meeting my wife. Even though I've never met Andy Roddick, and Andy Radek has no idea who I am.   Stacey Simms  11:22 Well, you wouldn't be the first to go to college because somebody either lived in that town or went to that town that you admired. But that's a great story. I love it. I want to talk about the diabetes online community, you were a very big part of this. You still are. But there was this time when there were so many bloggers and we were all just finding each other on Twitter. But I at first like to skip ahead in your story to when your daughter was diagnosed. I think that's such a fear of so many people I know who are adults with type one. But it does happen of course and you do deal with it. Do you mind sharing her story too. When was she diagnosed?   Chris Stocker  11:56 She was we're actually coming up on her two years, in about a week and a half year so she was diagnosed on February 12 2019 in the middle of a snowstorm. And that was when we decided to take her to the ER was when we had about eight inches of snow on the ground.   Stacey Simms  12:19 Right back to Chris in just a moment Diabetes Connections is brought to you by g Bo hypo pin. And almost everyone who takes insulin has experienced a low blood sugar. And that can be scary. A very low blood sugar is really scary. And that's where GMO hypo pen comes in. It's the first auto injector to treat very low blood sugar Jeeva hypo pen is pre mixed and it is ready to go with no visible needle. That means it's easy to use in usability studies, 99% of people were able to give g vote correctly. I'm so glad to have something new, find out more go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the G book logo. g Vox shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma. Visit chivo glucagon.com slash brisk. Now back to my conversation with Chris about the night his daughter was diagnosed. Had you suspected I mean I, you know I don't wanna get too personal. But   Chris Stocker  13:14 the signs were there. And I feel that I had maybe been living in denial for a little bit. It is something that I had thought about every single day from the day my wife told me she was pregnant, that that what if scenario and it was something that I talked about a little bit, but I didn't talk about it a lot because I felt too vulnerable, I guess. So I shared that because I knew I would not be the only one that had those feelings. But when I would see her, she was potty trained. So she was waking up probably three or four times a night asking for water and having to go to the bathroom. And I really started to see a change in how frequently she was going to the bathroom. And then that kind of was going on for you know, a couple of nights. And then just one night, I just had a gut feeling. And I said well let's pull out my meter. Let's check her so you know, of course, she didn't want that to happen. And you know, I can remember just looking at the meter. The number was in the 250s but I just remember looking at the meter and then just knowing and just knew and just being just crushed. So it was it was something that I had kind of mentally prepared for but it's just one of those things I don't think you're ever prepared. You know you think you might be but it's just you know, it was just a crushing feeling. But then the dad and the type one in me kind of just said hey, it is what it is. We just got to do it. And you know we took it to the hospital. I'm amazed by how she handled the entire thing. It was just unbelievable being in a in an ambulance to go from the ER on hospital to the pediatric unit at another hospital. I mean she loved that still talks about it to this day. Really   Stacey Simms  14:57 what did she do what she did like she was feeling Okay, and she was excited.   Chris Stocker  15:01 Yes. So she didn't really know what was going on exactly our local hospital, which was, you know, a few blocks away, they didn't have a pediatric unit. So it's a system hospital. So they just, you know, put her and my wife in the ambulance and took them to the hospital that had a pediatric unit for her. So she got to watch TV pretty much all day long. She got to play with toys in there. So it was different, you know, getting getting those first round the labs done and putting her into the burrito as they called, it was probably her only bad memory of the entire process. So she definitely still talks about those days, even, you know, she was a month away from turning four. What is the burrito? So sorry, later down on the table to draw labs and freaking out? Yeah, so they kind of, you know, they put like a weighted almost like a weighted blanket over her to kind of strap or in and they just called it a burrito, I guess to make it sound not so terrifying.   Stacey Simms  16:00 How long did you stay in the hospital? And then what did you have to do? I assume you know, your you and your wife are pretty well educated about diabetes. So I don't know that you needed much of that. But it's different when it's your child,   Chris Stocker  16:09 I would assume? Yeah, it's totally different. And we were in the hospital for about two and a half, maybe three days, I do know that they kind of rushed us through the process. Because when we first went there, I basically just said, Hey, listen, I have type one. I know what it's like, you know, I know what to do. But I don't have a child with it. So I know I need to, you know, relearn some things, and things are going to be a little different. But the, you know, the staff there and the whole diabetes team was very helpful. And really, they directed most of the education, most of the conversations towards my wife, which was something that we kind of asked them to do, because I really, you know, my wife had lived with me for 14 years before that. But my diabetes was kind of just my own diabetes, I didn't ask her to take an active part and help managing if she knew if I was low to give me Skittles, she knew if I was high, I needed some more insulin, but she knew that I counted while I was supposed to be counting cards, but she knew the basics, but really, she needed to start, you know, learning. What is basal? And what is this? And what is that? So a lot of that education was geared towards her. And I think it was, you know, very helpful, not just for her, but also for me, as somebody that was living with it for at that time, I guess it was 15 years, then that there was like a refresher course that I that I needed. Because I was in my I was in my my own habits. I'm in my own ways. And it was it was really good to kind of take a step back and relook at how you know, what is diabetes one on one, you know, what is the right way to kind of do some of these things.   Stacey Simms  17:48 I'm picturing that, you know, your daughter has watched you do this, even if you haven't been doing it in front of her the whole time and everything that this is now something that while that's not great, but she can share with her father,   Chris Stocker  17:59 absolutely. 100%. And that's exactly how I looked at it was, how can I make this easier for her and just like a parent with anything, my initial instincts were, what can I do to make this better for my child, and it was just instantly that put on a smile for her show her that my diabetes is not a burden on me, it's not something that I don't like doing. So I made sure that when I had to check my sugar, or she, we were going to check our sugar, I would do mine also. And you know, now we share some of those same things. So it's like, oh, when when I have to change out my CGM, you know, my sensors is, do you want to help me do it? Do you want to help me, you know, decorate my my infusion sets and things like that. So we share those common bonds. And that's how we looked at it from the day of diagnosis, as well as Hey, you're like, Daddy, now you and Daddy, we both have diabetes. And my niece was actually diagnosed about two years before my daughter. So that was a whole whole nother thing of trying to you know, help my brother and my sister in law with with dealing with that diagnosis. So, you know, now she shared that with her cousin as well. So it was kind of something that, you know, with her daddy having in it, her cousin having it that that she was able to not. And also she didn't at that time really even know what it meant to have diabetes. She just she thought it was just cool that now she has daddy. So it was definitely the way that we decided to kind of take is to be able to share that bond with her. And that's what we have in common.   Stacey Simms  19:23 Do you use the same technology as each other?   Chris Stocker  19:25 We do. We do. Now, we did it at the time, but the same CGM and we both use the same insulin pumps,   Stacey Simms  19:32 you don't have to answer this but you know when you say to your your daughter and this is what I think we would all want to say to a newly diagnosed child right? It's not going to be a burden. You can do this it's okay to have diabetes. And I think for me as the adult with my son ignorance was a little bit of bliss, right? You know, you can do this it's gonna be okay and it's not gonna stop you. You can play sports, you know, you can. Now they can fly planes, right? You can you can do what you want to do. But for somebody with type one who's lived with it for as long as you have Do you know that it is a burden? Sometimes you know that it is really hard. And I know this is not something you're gonna take, you're now, you know, almost six year old decided to Hey, by the way, you know, I mean these are conversations from they're much older,   Chris Stocker  20:10 we've had some conversations I mean, as much of a conversation as you can have with an almost six year old about living a life with diabetes. So we really kind of talked about it in Scituate, you know, take today, for example, it's been snowing for almost three days, we were out in the snow. And I can I already know, as soon as we go to that, in that snow, she's going low, it's just 100% guaranteed every single time. So we had to stop playing in the snow. So we could drink juice. And you know, she doesn't want to stop playing. So we try to you know, just let her know that, hey, just because you know, the other kids in the neighborhood happen, you know, they're still out playing and whatnot, we just need to take a little extra precaution steps here and just sit down and have a juice and you know, we frame it that day, they don't get to have a juice right now, right? You're the one having giggles and juice. So you know, but it's just you know, so we use those kind of, it usually comes up during Lowe's, where we may say like, hey, let's let's settle down for a little bit. Let's not run around or play rough right? Now let's just sit down. And, you know, we'll play a play game of checkers or something just sitting on the couch. So we kind of have those conversations with her, like why she has to sometimes stop doing what she's doing, she can get right back into it. But we might need to take 10 1520 minutes here or there to just settle down a little bit, have a little snack or juice or something like that. But I think about how I'm going to have additional conversations with her in the future. And I've gone back and forth, you know, talking in the mirror how I'm going to handle it, it's probably going to be one of those situations where I have a great plan going in, and it's just not going to go anywhere near how I play it.   Stacey Simms  21:50 Um, I do want to ask you a few more questions about your children because you have another child as well. But let's take a couple of minutes and talk about the diabetes online community from a few years back, if you're a longtime listener of the show, you know, we started this in 2015, which was probably the beginning of the end of the like the hybrid if we were to check blogging and that kind of thing. And the whole, you know, I guess what some people would call the Oh g diabetes people, you know, maybe that's when it peaked my non scientific method here. But you were, you know, you were right in there and all of those conversations, and I'd love to know, how did you find the online community? What was your first entry.   Chris Stocker  22:26 So I first started blogging or even finding out about blogs back in 2009, I was working for a, I was interning actually at a diabetes supply company. And they said, Hey, we want to start a blog. So I started to write blogs for the company. And then I was like, Okay, this is I kind of enjoyed this. And then I started finding other type one, blogs. And I thought, you know what, I have so much that I want to say, and I felt that I didn't have anybody to talk to about it. Because I didn't know anybody with diabetes, I went to high school with the kid. But I knew we drink Gatorade at halftime of football games. But that was it, we had water in a Gatorade, that was all I knew about diabetes. So I just started writing things that were in my mind that I think I just wanted to get off my chest, I just started writing about them. And I didn't even care that nobody was reading it, I just wanted a place to be able to just share my thoughts. And it just helped me just help my mind mentally just be able to get it out on to you know, typing on the keyboard and just reading it. So that's kind of how I started. And then I can't remember getting my first comment, I got a comment on a post, it was probably after about six months of writing daily. And so I mean, I can't do the math that fast. I mean, I, I was well into 100 posts before my very first comment, and somebody said, Wow, I was going through this exact same thing. And your feedback here really changed my mindset on it. And I'm going to try this and you know, make changes in my life and whatnot. And I just thought, wow, I just changed somebody's life. Like I just changed how somebody thinks about something simply by me just typing on a computer. And then it just that was kind of that first, like, I'm actually helping other people by just getting out the words that are bothering me. And then it just kind of took off. From there. I just started writing daily and just I started meeting other people. You mentioned previously speaking to people on Twitter and a little bit of Facebook back then, but just meeting a ton of different people online, and just writing and writing and writing and writing and just sharing my story. And it was just, you know, I was never very edited in my blog post. And even my wife would always say, Did you know that you spelled this wrong? Or you said this? Like No, because I type and I wrote the way that I speak and it came out that way and it was just how, you know it was I didn't have a you know, a very like a very edited style. And it just kind of, you know, people kind of just connected with it and it was just Every time I would get a new comment or a new share or something it felt it just felt motivating to know that I was helping people by getting those stories out there.   Stacey Simms  25:08 It is funny. That's one of the reasons why I love podcasting, because there is no editor for my grammar or my spelling. And I have transcripts now. And those are very difficult for me because I usually we clean up the diabetes language because my transcription software doesn't speak diabetes very well. But I'm not correcting the grammar and the spelling from pot. Yeah, it's really, really interesting. And I'm going to link up your your blog if that's okay. Because I think a lot of those older posts in itself, a lot of residents, I mean, I blogged as well. It's starting in 22,007. And I think two people read that blog, but I've kept it up. Well, I just like you I got so much more out of it right. For me, it was perfect for me, I got I got a lot of help, just mental health assistance for writing it almost like a diary. But it has been in the last couple of years, people have found the goalposts and it's helpful because diabetes issues change, but not really, right technology changes things, but not really,   Chris Stocker  26:03 you know, I still get notifications of comments on posts that I wrote back in 2010 2011. And one of the areas and this kind of circles back to my daughter's diagnosis is that I wrote maybe, I think I wrote two posts total about my fears of one day having a child B die, those with diabetes. And to this day, those are still some of my most, you know, most read posts and most commented posts and people to this day still comment or send me emails like, hey, how did you go about this? Or how did you deal with this? And, and it's just, you know, those are things that I wrote, five, six years ago before I even knew I was having a child. And it's still relevant today as well.   Stacey Simms  26:43 Well, you're dipping your toe back into social media with, you know, YouTube videos, you're on Instagram, are you podcasting again,   Chris Stocker  26:49 I, I am not as of now, but I'm not saying that I'm not going to. It's funny, I did start a podcast, and I recorded two episodes. And my daughter was then diagnosed. So I kind of stopped. You know, I   Stacey Simms  27:05 mentioned that when I started this podcast in 2015, it seemed to be kind of like, I don't know, for sure. But from my experience, it was like this high point of activity online for certain a certain group of people. And a lot of those folks have kind of moved on or paused and come back. And, you know, I wonder too, if there isn't just a natural life to some of this old natural burnout to some diabetes stuff. And you've been very open about those kinds of things. Can you share that part?   Chris Stocker  27:31 Yeah, absolutely. So once my daughter was diagnosed, kind of everything just kind of went on Paul's it was this is our focus. Right now, this is everything that we want to focus all of our efforts on that I was actually going back to, I was getting my real estate license at that time, as well. So there was a lot, a lot going on at that time. And once I decided to start getting back into writing, I sat at the computer probably 20 different times to start writing about my daughter being diagnosed. And I was just filled with diabetes just all day long, whether it was I was managing my own diabetes, and my alerts were going off, and then it was time to check my daughter's blood sugar and then give her insulin and do her calculation, then do my calculation. And it was just too much that at the end of the day, or the the start of the day, I just didn't want to, I didn't want to think about diabetes anymore. I didn't want to write about it, I just kind of wanted to manage it. And that was it. And I definitely felt a disconnect from the diabetes community. Because I just kind of just left I just I shut down. And I just didn't want to be involved with anything. I didn't want to see posts, I didn't, I didn't want to read people's posts, I didn't want to watch videos, I didn't want to listen to anything, I just wanted to kind of just deal with that. And and it was just, it was a lot at once. And that's kind of what shut everything down for almost a year and a half. And then I started to write again a little bit, and they kind of came back to me where it was, I can remember the exact moment I was writing a blog post and my low alert went off and within five minutes, my daughter's low alert went off. And then my Omni pod alerted me that I had a low reservoir. And my daughter's went off about 15 minutes later that hers was being changed that night. So we were both having a low both theater pots change that same night. And I think that I actually had to change out my CGM that night as well and it was just a complete overload and I said are stopping again and I can't deal with this I need a mental break from from diabetes and I need to be at my strongest in order to be that you know role model and example to my daughter and I felt that let her see me get frustrated with with an alert or an alarm and and be like oh, I have to change that tonight or hi we have to do this or I'll have to drink a juice. I tried to never let her see that and never let her see that. There may be some frustrations that come with living Diabetes,   Stacey Simms  30:01 I'm hesitating, Chris, because Far be it from me to armchair psychologize anybody, but I want to plant this in your brain. And I agree six years old is not the time to do that. But I hope as she gets older, you do allow her to see some of those frustrations. And again, I'm not your doctor, or psychologist, right? I think if you were my dad,   Unknown Speaker  30:22 I hope this really is not at a place, I'm such a nosy person. Mom, I   Stacey Simms  30:27 become that we're my dad, to share those experiences, you know, when somebody shares the bad as well as the good, it just makes your bed feel not so bad. So when she's like, 10 1112, you know, those are the times when you guys I know, I know, it's in your future that you're going to share all of that, and she's gonna appreciate it so much. But I I agree, because I remember with Benny, you know, at six years old, you're just, you know, it's like, you know, you gotta brush your teeth. So you don't, you know, you don't get carried away. Everything's fun.   Chris Stocker  30:55 Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's a struggle at times, just to every three days, when a new pod has to go on, you know, she has to be watching either a cartoon or using the iPad, some some type of distraction. Now, we don't plan on doing that forever. And we've already kind of slowed that down a bit of what we let her do to kind of distract her from it. But I know that that's going to change in the future. And those are definitely, you know, some conversations that I would definitely have with her about the frustrations and stuff. But I think my thought process behind it is that if she sees that I'm getting frustrated of having to put on a new ami pot or put on a new Dexcom that she's going to think that it's so you know that she's going to put up by force who and and it's just something that I know will come one day, but I'm just trying to push it off as far as far   Stacey Simms  31:44 and I think you're very wise, because I will share with you that Danny ran away from insets. He had to bid pump his whole life. And you know, every three days, you're teaching the inset, and we tried everything Chris, we did, you know, numbing cream and ice cubes and rewards and he ran away from them. It was a struggle until about age eight or nine. And then it amazingly got better. And now he does everything himself for the past, I want to say three or four years even. And it's and then some kids start doing everything themselves very early. Right. I think when you're diagnosed tiny the trend that I noticed anecdotally is that it takes them longer just to be completely independent, because that's how they've been taught. So I don't take that iPad away before she's ready. She'll let you know when she's ready.   Unknown Speaker  32:26 You're right,   Stacey Simms  32:27 she will, it'll be fine. And I will tell you one funny story. I don't know if I'll keep this in because I'm talking too much in this interview. But we were laughing the other day because I used to let Benny say what we called potty words when he changed his incident. So right, we put it on and he could be like, oh poop or whatever. And I said to him in the kitchen the other night, he came down to change. And I said do you want to yell some potty words? And we were hysterical of the thought of thinking of my preschooler yelling real curse words, like Could you imagine if you know what he thinks of potty words today, so you can fill in the blank on that.   Chris Stocker  32:58 I like that. I like that idea. Actually, she will probably enjoy.   Stacey Simms  33:03 I think we would all like to yell some potty words when we're doing stuff.   Unknown Speaker  33:06 Absolutely.   Stacey Simms  33:07 Let me ask you about your your second child because your wife was pregnant, which had to be so stressful when your daughter was diagnosed during that time. And you had, as you've said, you'd already been nervous about any of your children being diagnosed. Again, I feel like I'm being very nosy. But What went through your mind at that time.   Chris Stocker  33:25 So initially, I mean, my initial thought was the stress that was going to be put on my wife and her being pregnant at that time, and making sure that she was okay with it, and trying to comfort her as much as possible and try to take away as much of the stress that I could possibly do, you know, from a mother, and, you know, knowing that she was pregnant, we knew there were chances. And it was just a decision and conversations we had throughout our relationship. And before we were married, we're gonna have kids no matter what it's what we want to do, and we're not going to let the thought or the chance of something stop us from doing anything. And that's kind of our, our thought process in life in general. So we knew that we were going to, you know, have wanted to have a second child. And we actually were scheduled to find out whether we were having another daughter or not. On February 13, I think and my daughter was diagnosed on the 12th. So it was actually in the same hospital. My wife left and went, you know, down the hall and oh, my God on the elevator and went like two floors down. And, you know, she did what she had to do there and then so we were you know, planning on having this big celebration to find out if we were you know what we were having and next thing you know, we're we're in the hospital for a totally different reason.   Stacey Simms  34:48 I gotta be honest to Chris, I love talking to dads of kids with type one because we hear so much from moms, right, so many of the bloggers and the writers and podcasters like me Moms. So let me ask you as a dad, now not as just a person with type one, but as a dad of a child of type one. What advice would you give newly diagnosed families, I mean, you're almost you're two years into this. Now you know what worked.   Chris Stocker  35:12 I would say that just being open, especially with you know, your spouse about how you may be feeling about it, I think a lot of times that the reason why we don't hear dads speak out too much is because they want to be the backbone, they want to be the strong one they want to, to not show that they're upset and show their feelings. And for me, I've been open with my wife, me and my wife, we've had conversations, we've cried together about it, we've talked about things that I let her know, my fears that I may have over things about it, it has helped tremendously, because there are times where I just say, like, Hey, listen, I need a break tonight, I can't do this, I've had a bad diabetes day, I'm stressed out by this, I'm just getting upset about it, I need a break. And that open communication has really helped us become an amazing team. And quite honestly, my wife almost entirely manages my daughter's diabetes. At this point, I cannot express like how grateful and like, just proud and I'm amazed by how my wife has taken this on and have she just tackled this head on. And I mean, she's pretty much almost managing my diabetes at this point, telling me how many carbs are in my meals and this and that. So going back to being the dad is that I just think that it's okay to you know, you just have to be okay with having those uncomfortable and vulnerable conversations and, and just know that it's for the better good, like, let your guard down, let it out, it's going to help that you don't have to just be you know, the strong one, you know, every single day in every single situation where it is okay to just let your fears out. And if you need to talk to somebody, talk to somebody find somebody that you know, you may have something in common with and just get it out and talk it out. And it feels so much better. Even having diabetes for 1415 years before she was diagnosed, I reached out to other dads have type one kids that I knew from meeting in the community and had, you know, conversations with them, like, what do I do from here? Like, I know how to manage mine, but like, What do I do? How do I do this? How do I tell her this? How do I explain this, and that helped me tremendously. And that's part of that community feeling and knowing that, you know, for all those years, I was, you know, putting into the community to be able to reach out when I was the one in in need of help. And it was great to have that community there to let me know, like, You got this.   Stacey Simms  37:40 I'm curious, if anything in the last two years with your daughter has surprised you any of your reactions to things or anything that she's done, you know, you were not six years old or four years old, when you were diagnosed, did anything surprise you about her diagnosis or your experiences with it or your reaction?   Chris Stocker  37:57 I am not kind of glued to the Dexcom as much as my wife is. And my wife is with my daughter a lot more during the day than than I am as well. But one thing that my daughter does is she knows that if she's going to be you know, she's playing upstairs in her room, she needs to now take her phone with her or her Dexcom actually with her and she will let us know. I think she was only diagnosed for maybe three or four months, the first time where she said to me, daddy, my knees feel wobbly. And my initial reaction was, first of all, how do you know what the word wobbly means. And second of all, let's get the meter out. And let's check real quick. And I can remember we were in target which another place no matter every time I go in there, it ends up in a low, but we are in target and she said her knees felt wobbly. We checked her she was 41. And I just remember picking her up and sprinting to the front of the store and just finding the first juice I can find and just said just start drinking and I remember her asking about paying for it or something. I'm like drinking it don't you don't have to worry about that. I'll figure that out. Just start drinking. So that was probably a surprising moment to me of her letting me and this was before she had Dexcom. So that was very kind of surprising moment to me that she used the word wobbly and she knew that she fell off. So now she does that quite often now where she she says I feel low. She'll Look at her Dexcom and just randomly I'll just hear her scream out 125 or something. Okay, I guess that's what her number is so low that she she has taken that on as you know, she's kind of proud, not kind of she's extremely proud to have diabetes. You know, she in her classes. She talks tells people that she has diabetes and whatnot. So she definitely surprised me of how proud she is to wear it. That's awesome. That means you guys are doing an awesome job as parents. That's something we actually did kind of talk to her about that she doesn't ever have to be ashamed or, you know, she doesn't have to be scared to tell somebody that she has diabetes. In fact, you know, because my philosophy has always been I want to tell you that I have it because in case something Goes go wrong. I want somebody around me to know   Stacey Simms  40:04 this before I let you go, you have been posting you know more on Instagram and you're really getting back into it. And I noticed you posted a lot about your daughter and her reaction to the virtual friends for life conference. And I, I was part of that. And I gotta tell you, I wasn't sure what to expect me this isn't a commercial for friends for life, even though we love them. But I was stunned at how good it was to connect even virtual with people. You know, we're all stuck at home, we can't get out to meet up. But I loved that conference, did your daughter have fun? There was so much for kids.   Chris Stocker  40:35 She had an amazing time. I mean, she still talks about it almost every day. To this day, she talks about the different events that were going on, she talked about playing bingo with with the guy from Toy Story. She talked about the all the animals that are Parker Ranger that was there. And I mean, she loved it, she loved seeing other kids and hearing other people talk about it. And we were planning on going, you know, this year in 2022 it so it was something that she already knew was going to happen. And you know, the day was over, she was she started crying. She was so sad. She couldn't wait till the next one. And it was just, it was a you know, it was life changing to her because, you know, she had only known me and her cousin that had and a few other people that she had met that had diabetes, but to be opened up to this world of all these other kids that were living with it and we're all sharing their different CGM and their different pumps and seeing a different perspective other than just her life and you know, my life with it was just absolutely amazing for her to experience that even virtually, it was just amazing how smooth it went. And and all the activities that were there for the kids. Yeah,   Stacey Simms  41:50 I mean, I gotta be honest with you, I didn't put a lot of time because I figured, well, you know, I'll do my speech. And I'll watch one or two, the research updates. I was hanging out in the social hallways, you know, with my mom, friends, it was great. I was I thought it was a very well done. And so we'll put a plug in because they've got the march one coming up. And we put a link in the show notes. Is there anything else Chris that you wanted to push people to or to you know, to put all your links to follow or anything that you've got coming up that you wanted me to make sure to mention,   Chris Stocker  42:14 people can follow me on on Instagram, it's just life of a diabetic, it is a newer account, because I am trying to keep it separate it from a personal Instagram account that I had previously. And it's just just to keep things simple and clean. I've just kind of started a new one. And I am putting out weekly YouTube videos now so they can check that out, you know, with the link in the in the show notes, but I just hope that you know, I can continue to help people and share my story and also my daughter's story. And as long as it helps one person, I feel that all the work and effort that goes into it is well worth it. That's awesome.   Stacey Simms  42:51 Well, no doubt you'll be helping other parents and other adults with type one. Chris, I can't thank you enough for coming on. It was so much fun to talk to after connecting online for all these years. I really appreciate it.   Chris Stocker  43:00 Absolutely. I appreciate you having me on.   Unknown Speaker  43:07 You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  43:13 More information including Chris's YouTube channel and his Instagram and all that good stuff will be in the shownotes. And that is always on the episode homepage as well. So if you're listening in an app and it doesn't show you what you want, just go to Diabetes connections.com and find the episode should be very easy to do. I should let you know he mentioned it went by quickly when he was talking about friends for life. He mentioned the Toy Story guy playing Bingo. what he's talking about there is john Ratzenberger who people might remember as Cliff Klavan from Cheers, but who has been a voice of a character in every Pixar movie, his son lives with type one. And Tom Karlya who's a very big part of friends for life, and also the Diabetes Research Institute. He knows him through his work through the DRI together. So Tom brought john to friends for life this year, which is really, really cool. And as I mentioned, they have another event coming up in March and I will put a link in the show notes on that. Tell me something good in just a moment. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And we started with Dexcom back in the olden days before there was share. I think we had Dexcom for two years, almost two years before Cher was added as a feature. So you know, we know using Sharon follow makes a big difference. To this day Benny and I set parameters about when I'm going to call him how long to wait, you know, that kind of thing. It really helps us talk and worry about diabetes less. It helps if I need to troubleshoot with him. I love this you can see what's happening over the last 24 hours and not just at one moment in time. The alerts and alarms that we set help us from keeping the highs from getting too high and jump on lows before they're a big issue. Internet connectivity is required to access separate Dexcom follow up. To learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the Dexcom logo. Our first tell me something good story is one I wish I had jumped on myself. But I read about it at diabetes mine and Mike Hoskins always does great work over there. And I had to share it with you. Dr. Drew Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania is one of two key researchers behind the science used to develop the first COVID-19 vaccines. And he lives with type 1 diabetes. He was diagnosed more than 50 years ago, he didn't announce that he had type one, you know what he was in the news for this vaccine. But apparently some eagle-eyed folks by the photo of him getting his own COVID vaccine shot and they saw that he had an insulin pump on and I'm looking at the photo, as I'm telling you this, he's getting the Pfizer vaccine. And you can see it looks like a Medtronic pump on his waist. I will link up the story from diabetes mine, which is a great conversation with him, including photos, and Great job guys getting that done. Maybe we can grab Dr. Weisman and get him on the show. Our other bit of good news comes in the form of more books for very little ones with type 1 diabetes. We've had folks on the show before who are authors of children's books, which I think are a really vital part of young children's care when it comes to type one. I know reading books like this to Benny, and bring these books to preschool and kindergarten and really willing to elementary school helped give us friends a good understanding. And you know, just seeing yourself in a book is a wonderful, wonderful thing. So I just want to mention a couple that are newer out there. The Adventures of Captain Lantus is one that I have seen a lot of this focuses on seven year old Maxs, who has type 1 diabetes, and it's kind of a fantastical adventure, because everyone in beta town has type 1 diabetes. So this is a real fantasy story and very cute stuff. Brandy in our Facebook group in Diabetes Connections, the group published her T1D toddler book, it's called Little shots for little tots. And it is also very cute looking. And one that I think is actually a pretty important one is called when I go low, a type 1 diabetes picture book. This is by ginger Vieira. And Michael Lawson. And we have talked to both of those folks on the show about other books that they have put out there. But this is a book that I wish I'd had when Benny was younger. The other ones are great stories and always fun. But this teaches about when a child is low, what does that feel like? What How do you articulate it? You know, what should you know about it, it's a great way to get young people with diabetes to talk about what low blood sugar feels like, and to help explain to their friends and friends, families and kids at school and that kind of thing. So I will put the links to all of these guys. They're all on Amazon. And I'm sure they all have their own author pages as well. But there are so many great books about diabetes right now, if you've got tips, or you'd like to hear more, I had thought about in the past doing book reviews, but I don't have the time. So if that's something you're interested in, let me know, we could have an ongoing segment or something. I'm gonna be looking for new Tell me something good stories in our community. So please keep an eye out for that. I love to ask in the Facebook group. And you can always give me your good stuff. Before I let you go quick reminder, if you are a podcast person, if you are thinking of starting one, if you have one, I have a podcast course it has nothing to do with diabetes. This is all about podcasting, and learning about podcast sponsorship in an ethical way, in a way that makes sense for small businesses. You know, I'm not Amazon podcasts here, or Wondry, or Spotify. This is about independent podcasters who want to serve their communities and make some money, enough money to cover the costs of the podcast or perhaps make a living at it. So I've launched a new course there's a free webinar coming up, I'll put all the information in the show notes. And if you're just here for diabetes, which of course I think 99% of you are we have another classic episode coming up later this week, we're going to be talking about spare arose. But this isn't any spare a rose, informative interview. This is my very first game show that I did here on Diabetes Connections and it features some very familiar names, some very silly stuff, and a couple of mistakes along the way that we left in. So that should be fun, and that should be out on Thursday. Thank you so much to my editor John Buckenas from audio editing solutions. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, I'm Stacey Simms. Be kind to yourself.   Benny  49:21 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged

In this episode Tom and Emil share their experience with the Refis an HELOCs they are currently processing.  ---  Transcripts   Michael: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co hosts,   Tom: Tom Schneider   Emil: and Emil Shour.   Michael: And today we're gonna be talking about loans, how to get them trials and tribulations upon getting them and things you can do to expedite the process along the way. So let's jump into it.   Alright guys, so Tom, I'm curious now for a quick update from you, how is your insurance restructuring coming along?   Tom: So I had the call with Nick, who is a an academy member and also an insurance broker expert. And I am we had a great call, and I'm sending him my current policies right now. hopefully get that done today. And then he's going to come back with game planning some options. So it's making progress, albeit not at work speed, but I'm ahead of where I was when we recorded our last episode on my 2020 failings. So making progress.   Michael: Okay, good to hear. I will follow up with you on the next episode and see where you're at next.   Tom: Love this. Thanks. Thanks for being my accountability buddy, Michael,   Michael: That's what I do. That's what I do. Is he looking at every single one of your policies, or just only a handful?   Tom: He's looking at a handful of them. He's looking at like six of them. So well, I don't know. We'll take a look. I'll keep you updated.   Michael: All right, guys, I know that we are all in the midst of some form of loan product. And so we're going to be talking about some of the different products that are out there some of different products that we've utilized in the past, but a meal, I want to start with you since I know that you're in the midst of a cash out refinance, which is something that a lot of investors utilize along the way. So can you walk us back to why you wanted to get this? What was the kind of point and then what the results have been thus far, and what kind of ping us some questions along the way?   Tom: And you're a good person to go first, because you held us up and recording because you had some stuff to do while we were waiting on the line for you related to your refi.   Michael: So we're gonna blast you at the hotseat.   Emil: Yeah, that's right, this is very pertinent, because they basically just asked me for my firstborn child so we can get into it. Alright, so this is the second property ever bought property in Indianapolis, we bought it for 115,000, back in 2017. And right now, with interest rates being so low and inventory being so low and prices going up a bunch because people are owner occupants are driving prices up, because everyone wants to get in a home. Now, the value of this property grew, I thought to about 140,000, or 150,000. So my plan was I could probably cash out our original investment down payment, closing costs, all that stuff was around 25 K.   And I figured if values have risen to 140, 150K, I can probably pull out around 20,000 bucks, and it won't change my payment every month all that much. Because when I got the property, it was a 4.6% rate. And now at the refi, it's going to be a 3.1. So point and a half drop will offset a lot of what would be, you know, if I cashed out at the same rate, I'd be paying a lot more each month. But with that one and a half percent rate drop, my cash flow doesn't really change, my monthly payment goes up like 15 bucks or something 10, 15 bucks, and I get to pull this cash out.   So we got the appraisal back last week. And to our great surprise, usually the painful surprise, this was a good surprise, it appraised for 157,000. So we're actually gonna be able to pull out our entire original investment of 25,000 bucks. So we'll be in this property for $0. And our monthly payment i think is going to go up like 25, 30 bucks in total.   Tom: You know what, I think that is Emil. I think that's cool. You wanna know why I think it's cool?   Emil: Why?   Tom: BRRRRRRR BRRRR   It's actually not like a traditional verb I cut he basically like effectively kind of did a burger, just being able to take all your cash out with the refinances. So it's not a full BRRRR. It's like a BRRR. Like you just Yeah, well, you probably didn't do a big renovation. Emil: I didn't know renovation, I was texting Michael, we were chatting on slack. And I coined a new phrase for this. It's called burger. And so what that stands for big GRP. So one is by the first key is get lucky and have the Fed drop rates. The second key is get more luck with low inventory and high demand. So prices go up. Yeah, the R is refi. And then the P is this probably won't repeat, we probably won't be able to do this lucky sequence of events because we just got lucky we didn't do anything we didn't we didn't force value and force appreciation we didn't do anything special. It's just a nice sequence of events that sometimes when you're in the game, and the environment changes, you can take advantage of that. That's all happened here.   Tom: BGRP. So that's sticky. I like that.   Emil: Very, very sticky. It doesn't quite roll off the tongue.   Michael: Rolls off the tongue so nicely. Fluid, you know, BGRP. So I have to ask though, I mean, I mean, it's we always joke on the show that you're a pessimistic person and I'm an optimist. Do you think that you made your own luck? Or do you really think this was just dumb luck? You threw darts at a board ended up in Indianapolis ended up with a, you know a great property? Or do you want to give yourself a little bit of credit and say, yeah, you know what I did some research, I did some legwork. This was a very calculated decision,   Emil: I would say more luck than anything else, I'm not going to pretend like I saw this coming. And that's just me being really honest, I think you can often delude yourself into saying, Oh, I did all this research and blah, blah, blah. And sometimes, you know, maybe when Detroit or Cleveland in the past, you know, in 2008, when they had meteoric falls, I'm sure there were tons of people who were looking in those markets and saying, I bet Detroit or Cleveland could be on pace for great things, and then unpredictable things happen. I know, we all like to give ourselves a lot of credit and stuff. But I think a lot of stuff comes down to luck in my eyes.   Tom: Yeah, I think that's true. But you also like need to be at the table to like to be lucky like that. Exactly. Like, if you're not if you're not gonna..   Emil: You need to be in the game playing in the game.   Tom: That's right. So circling back on the finance aspect of this, this is something that I think about when I refinance, especially when I refinance pretty quickly from the original origination of the loan. So your example, so you said you bought in 2019, or 2018? Emil: 2017   Tom: So you've made a bunch of loan payments, or a better way to put it as your renter has helped you make a bunch of loan payments. And with it being an amortized loan, the majority of those loan payments aren't cutting into the principal at all. It's just you're just basically, you know, paying that interest piece, I love to hear your guys's thoughts like in refinancing so quickly, it's like, you know, you don't bring the total loan basis down that much, just because those initial payments, so much of it is interest heavy, do you think that makes it like a better time to refinance versus just because you no longer into your mortgage, the more you're going to be able to cut into that hang down that principle total. And I'm just digging a little bit in the conversation and thinking about, I mean, I think we all like the concept of refinancing. But to play devil's advocate, so when you when you're refinancing, you're basically going back to square one, if you're doing another 30 year amortized loan, where you're only paying off interest for you know, are primarily interest for the first several years.   So I know that Michael probably has some a good rebuttal where he's gonna say, I disagree with you, Thomas, I'm happy to hear it. But just to be devil's advocate, you know, with these loans and the way that they're amortize those initial payments, you're just paying principal. And once you get over that extreme, you're just paying interest. And once you get over that, then you're actually cutting into the principal and by refinancing so quickly, you're never really cutting into the principal. So when you take out your mortgage for 30 year amortized, your first several years, so since 2017, your mortgage payments have primarily been going to just paying off interests. And over time of that 30 year loan, more of those payments are going to go towards the actual principles, but by refinancing so early on, you're never really cutting into the actual principal. And you know, to be honest, I refinanced stuff pretty quickly, either there's a pop in appreciation, or I was able to get it a little bit of a discount or whatnot. But my argument for this discussion is, are we throwing money just by only paying these loan interests before refinancing right away and not really cutting into the principal at all? Does that make sense?   Emil: Yeah, no, I get your question to me, because my primary objective right now is to grow my portfolio. I'm not concerned with paying off anything I don't, I don't want to be free and clear on anything. For me right now to be able to pull out $25,000, right, only have my payment changed by 30 bucks a month and be able to go use that to buy something that I don't know, adds 100 $200 cash flow, whatever it is, it's a no brainer in terms of and then I get to have more properties in which I could potentially do what I'm doing right now with right like instead of one property that gets the appreciating you do a cash out refi. You take it and make it two properties, right, and you snowball a lot of that initial equity.   Tom: Got it. So just a paraphrase. Even though the principal isn't getting cut down, because we've refinanced really early on in the mortgage. It's more valuable at this point of your life to just Hey, I want to scale this as quickly as possible, less concerned about getting as much of that loan paid down. Emil: It's like his net worth or cashflow, more important I get is that kind of like?   Tom: Sure, yeah. Yeah.   Emil: For me, I'd rather take that equity and create more cash flow rather than pay down and have things free and clear, grow my net worth faster, things like that.   Tom: I dig it.   Michael: I tend to agree. I don't have a big looming rebuttal for you, Tom. It's not something that I look at super closely. And in fact, actually, I have several mortgages that are interest only because I'm doing some rehab stuff. And so that's like the epitome of what you're talking about is you're literally just paying for the right to have access to the money, you're not changing the principal balance whatsoever. And so doing a quick refinance, when you will see where you have potentially see a dramatic drop in the amount of interest that you pay, I think it'd be a really good thing to do.   And I know a lot of people that are in your like 20 or 25 or 30 year mortgage, and they're thinking about refinancing, and I think that the Question you're posing is much more applicable in that situation where they are so close to getting their home free and clear. Versus do they want to reset the clock, but take advantage of a better rate, there's a lot of things to consider there. And so at that point, you're just so aggressively beating down the principal versus someone in yours, you know, one through 5, 6, 7 even is it making a massive, massive dent on their principal, but something that I personally like to do, and I know, I've chatted with Emil about it in the past is on higher interest rate properties, or on primary residences, I'll actually make extra principal payments, either 50 bucks a month, or 100 bucks a month, something that I would, I'll never notice, thankfully, but that seems over time to make a pretty significant impact that over time, even in that short run, after one to three years of paying a loan down can have a pretty significant impact on the principal. And so make that refi even more exciting, so to speak.   Tom: I like it good little little sidetrack of thinking about the amortization aspect of these interests and timing on a refinance. And it makes a ton where you're super late, you know, your year 20 into a 30 year when so much of your payments is going towards beating down the principal, anyways, just wanted to sidetrack us a little bit on that aspect, cuz it's something to think about, you know, on how much of your payment is going towards principal versus interest.   Michael: Absolutely. And I think if anybody hasn't looked at an amortization table, or amortization schedule for their particular loans, they definitely should, because it's really eye opening, seeing how much is going to principal and how much is going towards interest. I think people are often really pissed when they like, if you add up the total amount of interest paid over the life of the loan, it ends up being like, I don't know, 170% of the original loan amount to begin with, and people stand, it's like, yeah, that's how loans work. So it's really important to really go into it eyes wide open, understand what you're paying, and for how long.   Tom: Yeah, and just to kind of beat over the head of the topic of the amortization. Basically, when you have a 30 year loan, your payments in the beginning of that loan, it's broken up between that payment, some of it is going towards paying down the principal, and some of it is going down paying towards interest. And with amortized loan in the beginning, the early years of paying that loan, the majority of your payment is just going towards the interest and not the principal. So just a concept to understand.   Michael: Okay, so I just pulled up an amortization table that I built for the Roofstock Academy, we have that as part of our academy playbook. And so for example, $192,000 mortgage at four and a quarter percent interest amortized over 30 years, the payment on that is $944.52. And so the payment is going to be consistent month over month for the entire life of the loan. But what changes Tom, like you're mentioning is the amount that goes to principal and the amount that goes towards interest. So in that first month, you make your payment, you have a principal payment amount of $264.52. And interest is $680, for an ending loan balance of 191,735 and 48 cents.   So we can see that the interest portion of the payment totally eclipses the principal payment. So year over a year, so in year one, we will have made a total payment of $11,334.30. And that stays consistent again, throughout the life of the loan, because your monthly payment never changes, the yearly principal that we've paid down on this particular mortgage is $3,236.86. And the amount of interest we've paid is $8,097.43. So again, a massive massive portion going to interest less so going to principal, versus as we get down into year five, again, we've still made a total payment of 11,334, because our monthly payment hasn't changed. But now we've paid 30 $835 in principle and only 7500 in interest. So as we slide down the time continuum, that scale shifts heavier weighted towards the principal side and lesser so on the interest side.   Tom: So it's kind of mind boggling to learn, like the way that amortization work because I always thought like, okay, you make a payment of of your mortgage, and it's it's always split evenly between your principal and your interest. But nope. Yeah, it changes over time.   Michael: Economics is crazy. It's definitely in favor of lenders, that's for sure.   Tom: Yeah. Let's get back to Emil. Some of the friction that you have been dealing with in your refinancing, what are some some takeaways, some gentle frictions and thoughts on, managing anything you could done differently? Go ahead.   Emil: Yeah. So I joked earlier that they're asking for our firstborn. And what I mean by that is they just asked for so many documents, right? And it's funny every time I refi or get a new loan, it seems like it's never standard. It's always something a little different. And if you're doing a cash out refi versus just buying the property that's a little different. The biggest tip I have I would say is like keep a folder with as many of these documents as you can write, like, all your prior tax returns, all of your leases, all of your evidence of insurance on the property, and then anything that comes up that a new lender needs throw that in the same folder.   So for example, they asked me for the certification of our trust, because we hold these properties in our trust, the lender is asking for like that first page, that certification of the trust is what it's called, it's I've never been asked that before. And so I had to go, like find that and scan it or whatever. But now I'm going to keep it in that folder for any time someone in the future asked about that. And I have like, one central place that I can keep these documents.   There's certain things like every lender is going to ask you for two months of statements for all of your checking and savings accounts, and your pay stubs. So those are things you're probably not going to regularly update every month. So those are probably something new you go get when you submit an application or whatever. But there's a lot of things that are standard that you can just keep in a folder, and it'll just make it so much easier to collect and wrangle all these files and documents you need to send the lender.   Michael: What else? Do you have anything Top of Mind of other documents that people should expect to have on hand that you've been asked for? In this particular refi?   Tom: Like, is that a question you're asking when you have an answer in the back of your head of some additional ones?   Michael: No, no, no, I'm just curious.   Tom: I just get I sometimes ask questions that I like have an answer for   Michael: To set myself up to spike it?   Tom: Yeah, just set up yourself.   Michael: The Michael Jordan of podcasting questions,   Tom: but Michael Albaum.   Emil: This one was a little different in that this is the only property I have with an HOA. So that was a new one where I had to go back and dig up like proof of Hoa. There's also this funny side story of I hadn't paid my Hoa in a year and a half. If I had $1. For every time a bill got sent to the property I own and not not to me, man…   Michael: You have $5   Emil: I'd have $5. But I paid way more in fines. Let me tell you. So   Tom: That's miserable.   Emil: And there's nothing you can do. It's not like guys, you had the wrong, this is recorded. Why wasn't it changed? The buck stops with you. So you got to take care of these things you can't expect? I don't   Michael: So are you saying that as a result of this? refi? You found out you hadn't paid your Hoa in a year and a half?   Emil: Yes, sir.   Michael: How was it being paid before you've owned this property for you know, almost four years.   Emil: What happened was I've changed property managers in that time. And my last property manager was terrible. Sometimes you just forget that things need to be transferred or whatever. The thing is, is that there's so many bills you forget when one you're like, wait, have I paid my Hoa bill? You know, there's like Hoas…   Tom: How did you manage? So did you end up just having the property manager reach out to the HOA? Are you doing that on your own? Or how did you know?   Emil: I got a letter from an attorney saying there's a lien on my property until I pay my Hoa. So in the middle of a refi. No less. So that was fun.   Tom: Oooogh   Michael: It's so interesting how attorneys can find your proper mailing address immediately, but.   Emil: Exactly. Yeah, it's hilarious. Yeah. I at least told them what happened. And then they removed like their attorneys fee, which was like 100 bucks, which was at least nice. But still, it's   Michael: So you have a year and a half worth of HOA dues. Plus late fees, I'm sure.   Emil: Yeah, exactly. More or less don't buy properties with an Hoa is just a general.   Michael: You know, Counter point. I don't think we can make that blanket statement.   Emil: I know I just personally now dealing with an HOA if there's two properties you're looking at, and one doesn't have an HOA. The non Hoa is our choice.   Michael: Yeah! HOAs 99% of the time a real pain in the butt to deal with.   Emil: I know, look at this property is appreciated. It's got an HOA it's obviously been good. Like, that could be part of why it's appreciated in this area, right? Like the the community takes care of their properties and whatever. So   Michael: Totally.     Tom: Don't bite the hand that feeds you.   Emil: Yeah, totally. I'm just bitter right now. I'm a little salty right now, because I got fine.   Tom: Michael is asking what other documents are asking for. And I think that is emblematic of the document request process where instead of just asking for one time of the documents you need, it's like an ongoing run of like, every two or three days asking for a different document. It's like, Hey, you know, I'm excited to get you this information that you need that we both are excited about closing this loan, just send me an email, just just send me what you need. And I will respond back, I get it that sometimes, you know, something may come up where it will end up asking for another document.   But I feel like most the times, it's just a very slow trickle of like, okay, send me your, you know, IRA or 401k or bank account or checking, okay, now send me your insurance on these other properties. Okay, now, it's like, let's just do let's do one request. Let's do it one time, but I mean, whatever, not a big deal. The other kind of grinds my gears in this process, the website of the loan application. So a lot of these companies, they have one website for the loan application, and then one for actually managing the loan. So you set up this email account this for whatever, uploading documents or whatever, and then the loan closes, and you go back to that same website to do anything and it's like now That's just like a special purpose website for this company even though it's the same company as managing the loan they make you go to a different website let's let's get this all integrated Come on Come on everybody like we're originating loans and managing the loans let's do it in one spot.   So anyways that's the other grinds my gears you know, basically one storefront for originating so and I think most websites are like this you go to I'm not gonna say specific companies but even though it's the same company, originating it the other website for actually managing it, let's, let's get this all integrated.   Emil: You know, the first point you mentioned Doc's, like, all throughout the process, it's like you get, they ask you for a ton in the beginning. And then it's like your closing week, and they ask you for a ton. It's like, Ah, there's never anything in the middle. It's always in the beginning. And always at the end. It's so funny. It's always the same. It always works like that   Tom: In a marketing language. It's a drip campaign of asking.   Emil: This is like, all up front, and then all on the back.   Michael: Tidal wave.   Emil: Yeah, exactly.   Michael: I was gonna say real quick anecdote for kind of two stories relating to document request ridiculousness. So I bought my primary like two and a half years ago, and I got approved for the loan without going through the underwriting process and like, Oh, hey, we need this k one, which for anyone who doesn't know k one, it is basically a membership as part of an LLC form that you report on your tax return so the LLC performs a tax return and then gives all its members a K one so I bought some stock like $100 worth of stock in his company several years ago. And for whatever reason this company issues k one   Tom: Bitcoin, it's doing pretty well now it's, uh, you know,   Michael: I wish I wish, but so like, I don't know, on the K one, it shows like your membership ownership, percentage, and mine was like point 00000074 to have whatever like $100 for the stock. I got, like a $2 dividend. And like, Oh, we need this k one. Are you kidding me? Like I got a paper copy of it. And I sent it to my CPA years ago, because it was from two years ago, tax return. And now I don't like I don't have it, like, Oh, well, we need it's like, Are you kidding me? So my CPA, who's a partner at the firm is like, this is not materially important. This is like a $2 distribution. Like, I don't understand what the problem is. And they're like, Oh, yeah, okay. Okay. All right.   And then, literally, like you saying, a meal a week before we close they go, we need a letter from your employer saying that you can work remote. I was like, I'm literally on my way out the door to getting married in Costa Rica. You can go figure out how to get that because you're not going to get it in the next two days. When we settle too close, like, Oh, we need it. We need it. Like maybe I'll just come down to your office. I'm like, dude, I work for a multinational company, headquartered, like on the east coast. Like, that's just that's not happening. Sorry. So you should have asked for, like, months ago when you were doing this and like, okay, we'll get it figured out like, great. Do that. See ya.   It's like, unbelievable. So I think the lesson takeaway for me is like, push back, like they don't have the right to just delay and delay and delay like, we have some power as borrowers. And just yeah, I think just don't take flak from people be like, Hey, this is your fault. You need to go figure it out. Now. Don't make your lack of planning my problem.   Emil: That's right. Yeah. Especially when they ask you for that downpayment. You just say, No, I'm good.   Michael: I'll pass. I'm good.   Emil: You guys got this?   Michael: All right, Tom, I want to shift over and ask you a couple of questions. So I know that you're in the process of doing a HELOC. But you know, any final thoughts before I take you out of Limelight?   Emil: No, no, I'm done. Take my mic away.   Michael: Okay. So Tom, you're in the process of getting what's called a HELOC. And for anyone who's not familiar, maybe you could walk us through what that is and why you decided to utilize that as opposed to a Neil's cash out refinance.   Tom: Yes. So HELOC is a home equity line of credit. And we've talked about on the show a little bit. And basically what it is, is it is a line of credit that you're getting. That is the difference between your loan amount and the up to a certain percentage of the value of the property. So for just a really simple example, let's say your house is worth $100,000 and you have a $50,000 loan, you can get a HELOC. Most of them go up to 80%. I've seen up to 90% that would be worth in this example of a $100,000 home with a $50,000 primary, this would be a $30,000 HELOC, so that's a rough the way the mathematics works. So I have this once this closes and I'm actually signing, I think tomorrow to close the HELOC then I will get basically it's almost looks like a checking account where this money is available for me to take out and spend on whatever the heck I want to there's no like rules on what I can or can't spend the HELOC money on and there is 10 years in which I can draw on this money or take it out. And then I believe it's another 20 years that I have to pay back on it. So that is the HELOC it is pretty much the same process as you would go through as a refinance where they'll do some sort of an appraisal on the property to determine what the value is so they determine how big of a keylock you can get you there is title involved. So this gets put into a second position behind like the primary mortgage there is you sign with a notary when you close to me All official.   Michael: So the process sounds pretty similar to like a traditional cash out refinance or traditional refinance. So yeah. Why did you opt to go for the HELOC versus a cash out refi.   Tom: I went for the HELOC? Well, this is on my primary. There's some benefits to it. One of it is you don't pay anything if you're not using, but you have that credit available. So I actually did all of this in 2020. I mean, just the fruits of having super low interest rates. So I did it initially did a refinance, I didn't take any cash out. So I kept a pretty healthy loan to value ratio, a lower loan to value ratio and instead of doing a cash out refinance for all of that equity that I had in the home, I am capturing that through the HELOC. And as I said before, the benefit of HELOC is I don't have to pay anything on the on it when I'm not using it. It's just there as like an available credit card at a super super low rate and the amount that you can take out. Depending on how much equity on your house can be super high. Like I know this one company, you can get a HELOC up to $200,000. And I can spend that on whatever I want. If I want to go buy some down payments, buy some property depending on how comfortable I am with debt and all that good stuff. Or if I want to do a personal remodel or stuff like that. It's whatever I however I want to spend that money I can.   Michael: Right on. And so process wise one isn't really any easier than the other it sounds like it's similar. What I will say that with both he locks and cash out refinances.   Tom: Oftentimes they won't even require a full appraisal. Like if you're buying a new property and buying it with a loan, they're going almost always going to require an appraiser to be on site and do that rigmarole but with key locks as well as refinances. Oftentimes, they're fine just doing a desktop appraisal. And what that is, is an appraiser just from their home looking at comps and not needing to go and do a full inspection. So it can be a little bit cheaper and faster on the on the appraisal side.   But it's the same process of like document requesting. And one of the issues that came up this time since you know we did this in pretty tight coordination where we refinanced our house then get the HELOC right after and when we refinance our house, the original lender didn't clear title completely. So there's some still some stuff that they're doing. So in the process of pulling this HELOC, they're like, hey, there's still a lien on your property. So it was probably a week and me going back and forth with the original lender and the company that's doing the HELOC and the title title company that's helping the HELOC where I'm like doing phone bridges between the new company like and what it needed to happen is they needed to notarize a document the original lender that had the original loan, you know, had to notarize a document saying we do not have this lien position anymore, blah, blah, blah. And and I probably started this process in November and it's getting close to finish and it's hard with a lot of investors are super type A and like move fast. And you know what, alright, what's next, what's next and just to be moving in this sort of slow motion it's like having a big chalkboard and some nails constantly dripping through but…   Michael: Fast as molasses.   Tom: As fast as molasses that's right.   Emil: I'm smiling and shaking my head because I just got an email telling me the same thing on this cash out the last title company, whatever hadn't cleared it when we bought it in 2017 So…   Tom: You know, though, I think the important thing to put in a context is this is kind of a moat, you know, this is a moat of the business that for a lot of people you know, it's not worth this kind of work and not that this is a lot of work it's just kind of the hands of a bunch of institutions. But I like to think of it as a moat like this type of investing strategy. There are a lot of benefits to it all the stuff we talked about with cash flow appreciation being able to you know, do things with debt and tax advantages and a reason why everyone and their mother doesn't do this is because there's this little bit of overhead that you have to deal with and a little bit of a know how and on what's available and getting through it. So something that keeps me whatever optimistic and like totally worth it is this is a little bit of a moat as in like not everybody wants to go through this process and I'm okay doing that to get the fruits of real estate investing that like that fruit taste.   Michael: The fruit to the castle, the fruits of the castle.   Emil: Yeah, you're right. It's a hassle and that's the silver lining is that probably scare some people away.   Michael: Okay, guys got anything else tidbits, additional tips, tricks to make people's lives easier and grease the skids for getting their loans done.   Emil: You had a good one that you posted on Twitter the other day about how you kind of organize files and folders. I think that'd probably be a good little message to end this episode on.   Michael: Yeah, that's a super great point, Emil. So actually, for everybody listening check out last Saturday's weekend wisdom. We actually recorded an episode talking about specifically folder structures and how we structure them to be as most efficient as possible when doing refinances or purchasing or anything lending related, or even just end of your tax planning. Having all of those documents accessible at your fingertips makes your life much easier.   Thanks so much for listening, everybody that was our episode. If you liked it, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is you listen to your podcasts, they are really, really helpful for us. So we'd love and appreciate the support and shout outs, always looking for more content. So if you have an idea for an episode that you'd like to hear, leave us a comment, and we'll talk to it. We'll see you on the next one. And happy investing.   Emil: Happy investing.   Tom: Happy investing.

Tom van der Lubbe is a visionary, sustainable entrepreneur, speaker, and writer. He co-founded Viisi Mortgages, the first financial organization in the world to implement Holacracy: an horizontal, self-governing and self-managing organization. In Holacracy the purpose or goal of the organization that should be the leading factor, and not the CEO or a manager. So Tom believes in a "why" of individuals and organisations. The "why" is the motivational engine that gives fulfilment in what we do. Today we get to talk to him about his most interesting vision on the future of work and organizations. In this episode, Tom explains: - why he thinks decentralized decision making is way more productive than micromanagement - why psychological safety is the key to high performing teams - why big bonuses are unnatural to us as humans, and are counterproductive - why everybody should be a leader, and nobody THE boss More about Tom: https://www.viisi.nl/over-viisi/team/tom-van-der-lubbe/ More about Holacracy: ‘Getting Teams Done’ - Diederick Janse & Marco Bogers ‘Reinventing Organizations’ – Frederic Laloux Corporate Rebels: https://corporate-rebels.com/ In the interview Tom mentions the layoffs at Heineken that morning. He decided to write an opion article about those layoffs, which was published in Dutch in the newspaper Trouw: www.trouw.nl/opinie/kiest-de-co…r-belang~b603da91/ And in English at the international platform Corporate Rebels: https://corporate-rebels.com/future-of-capitalism-swinkels-or-heineken-economy/ Producer: Gabriella van der Linden

In this episode Tom and Michael go head to head yet again with a hot debate on what is best; buying your primary or an investment property first.  --- Transcript   Emil: Hey everybody welcome back for another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Emil Shour and today I'm joined by my co hosts,   Tom: Tom Schneider.   Michael: and Michael Albaum.   Emil: And on today's episode, we're gonn a be doing another showdown of the century talking about buying your first rental property before you have your primary residence or buying your primary residence before you buy a rental property. So Tom and Michael are going to be going head to head and I'm going to be officiating this one. So let's take out the gloves and start the show down.   Michael: Tom, did you drink your um cheat juice this morning? aka coffee?   Tom: I did I did. We were talking about this yesterday. The espresso nap.   Michael: Oh boy. So did you espresso nap before we record this?   Tom: I did an espresso sleep. I what I did is like, I put the espresso in time release capsules. So I could you know start my sleep early. And then it dissolved at around you know four o'clock I got a solid 45 minutes asleep. I just watched elf pretty recently so I got a solid 45 minutes of sleep eating the the four main food groups. There's sugar bear,   Michael: candy corn, candy canes,   Emil: Maple syrup. Is it the last one? Yeah, we've all watched elf way too many times. Clearly.   Tom: There's like, within movies, there's like funny quotes that just like stick with you that are like not like super obvious. Yeah, my favorite elf quote is when elf is offering the spaghetti to like, what's his face? The dad and the dad's like, he's like, Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. We don't want that. Yes. My wife has an inside joke. Like when someone says like, No, I don't want that to go. Oh, yeah, of course. Of course.   Michael: That's really good. That's really good. All right, enough of the friendly gestures, the friendly pleasantries. Let's get down to it. Tom. Emil: Why don't you guys get your corners here.   Michael: Weighing in at 150 pounds!   Emil: All right. So, Tom, Which side are you taking? To start this round off,   Tom I'm gonna start with the buying the house that you live in for   Michael: Easy one, 1st round knockout.   Emil: Alright, so Tom, you'll start this round, Michael gets the rebuttal and you get the final word. All right, I want you guys to meet in the middle touch gloves and fight.   Tom: Okay, so within this battle, the reason that you should buy your house first, before you buy a rental property is a simple question of math, that's going to be my number one argument. And it's a simple number of math because you need to think about your investing in your life holistically. So there's money in money out when you are buying a house that you are going to be living in not only are you getting on the old appreciation train of buying a house that you're living in, but you are drastically decreasing your costs. So when you buy a house that you are going to be living in good news, you're not paying rent anymore, you're paying a mortgage. So those that fun that you're using to pay that mortgage, you would still need to be paying rent if you were to buy an investment property elsewhere.   So, huge difference that is a Crossing the Chasm if you will of no longer paying rent number two which is I think more straightforward is you are learning the ropes if you want to get into specifically remote investing, what better way to learn the mechanics of a transaction and lending and all that stuff by boots on the floor doing the transaction where you are going to be living? Right makes sense. So learning the that transaction process the financing process and lastly, is we do this investing as a way to you know, get to a point to financial freedom, we do it for ourselves and what better way to do it for yourself then to get into a place that you can call home especially in these times of being you know, in a pandemic you might want to do a house project can you do that if you're renting Nope, can't do that. You could do that but it's not ultimately now yours so pay yourself first you know that's how you buy buying a house that you're going to live in you are paying yourself first smoking mirrors, smoking mirrors, okay. Okay done.   Michael: Well Tom, those are all really great points. I'm so glad that you brought up so many of them. And I just took kind of your first point I love the fact that you brought up paying a mortgage now instead of paying rent because there is no faster way to be unsure about how much your housing expense is going to be then with paying a mortgage and the utilities and the extra expenses you have with owning a home so if I'm renting a home for 1000 bucks I know month in and month out I'm paying 100 bucks a month the end Bodie Bodie.   Tom: What!? That is not Bodie. Did you just through my dog under the bus?   Michael: I through my dog under the bus>   Tom: You're dog is named Bodie too?!   Michael: Yeah.   Tom: Shut up.   Michael: I've told you so many times?   Emil: Way to pay attention Tom.   Michael: but he's squeaking his toy right in the middle of my home run here,   Tom: Smoking and Mirrors,   Michael: Smoke and mirrors. That's right. So there is no better way to be uncertain about your monthly housing expense than by owning your own home. So up, we have a leak in the roof, that's $2,000 got to fix that up the stove broke, got to go get a new one that's in there. $600. So when you're renting, you know, month in and month out exactly how much your housing expense is going to run you. And I would argue that as you're saving up to start investing, that's one of the most important things is knowing what your savings rate is. Number two, we also talked so often about how and the investment property world you want your tenants to pay your mortgage? Well, that's true for the investment property that you buy, and then rent out, why can't that also not be true for your primary residence. So go buy an investment property first, and then let your tenants pay your mortgage on your primary. Thirdly, depending on where you live, this might be out of the question for you.   So Bay Area, California, Seattle, New York, the cost of housing is so expensive. And so if you take that down payment for what you would pay in downpayment and go elsewhere, you can potentially buy properties all cash, you could get into numerous investment properties. But I also think that in order to save up for your down payment for your primary, it's going to take a while. And so if you can go invest and build up cash flow, this cash flow train this cash flow snowball, by buying investment properties, first, your tenants will pay your mortgage and your tenants might even pay your down payment on your primary versus going the other way, it's going to take you a long time to save up for your next down payment if you go buy a primary until you can start investing in rental properties. So I love that you brought up appreciation, Tom, because you're absolutely right, go buy investment properties and have those puppies start appreciating all the while you're waiting to go buy your primary residence.   Tom: Alright, so     we're going to come to an agreement on a point you made is I think house hacking is kind of the splitting the difference of this argument. And what house hacking is, if those are not familiar, that's buying a duplex living in one unit, renting out the other unit good point there,     Michael: It doesn't even have to be a duplex. It's just something bigger than you need for yourself. So if you're one person, you could go buy a three bed house and rent out the other two bedrooms. You could buy a duplex triplex or quad or rent out the other unit. So it can be a really diverse approach doesn't need to be just a duplex. So just to clarify that.   Tom: Yep. Like that. So okay, so that to your argument, you're making at me here. So one of them was related to unknown costs. So you're saying, you know, if there's a leak in the roof, great, you're spending money and there's unknown costs on buying your own house? Well, Michael, there's unknown costs are just as likely to occur on your rental property than they as they are on your property. But in fact, I would say you have more control of those unknown costs at your own personal house. So for example, if something say I don't know, some simple plumbing issue or something happens at your personal house, and then also happens at your rental house, you are guaranteed to have to pay pretty much top dollar at that rental property to get that fixed, where at your own house, you know, you kind of make an adventure of it, you know, oh, just cold water? No, it's good for your lymph nodes to get into cold water shower.   But on the rental property, you can't control that you're going to you're going to be paying to fix that. So I'd say those costs measures are you have a little more control of your own house, also on the cost factor. So I rented for a couple years and oh my goodness, did I get jammed on rent every year, I think it went up like 25% year over year, where if you're buying your own house, you're getting fixed costs. Sure, there are some issues that can happen with the plumbing, but then you get a really good health treatment where you get a cold water shower for a little bit as long as you don't want a cold water shower. But those costs are fixed versus if you're renting. And if that landlord wants to jam ya for 25% increase, you're just subject to that you just have to take it so I would say that you know your argument that around costs is you definitely have to pay whether things happening to your rental property and for your own personal house. You can make some cheap decisions around health and financial well being of accepting culture. Yeah, I think that's a I'm going to end on the cold shower.   Micheal: Emil weigh in man, please.   Emil: All right, there's a little bit of thunder left you know a little bit of juice to squeeze out of these two topics. I don't want to steal your guys's thunder and call everything you know what I mean. Yeah, just wait till the end.   Michael: All right. Yes. All right.   Emil: All right, guys. That was a very fierce round, a little bit less fierce than I've seen you guys in the past like sometimes I see you guys just just going straight for the jugular this time, you know, a little more civil.     Michael: It's the holidays, you know, you got to be   Tom: I started the day with a cold shower. My endocrine system is doing awesome. You guys.   Emil: Alright, well now that we're switching So Tom, you are taking buying your rental before you buy your primary but we'll let Michael go first. With buying a primary I want you guys to bring a little bit more fight. All right, like throw the haymakers Let's go guys give the people what they want. I'm raising my standard. Yeah, there you go, Tom stand up. It's game over. Let's go. All right. All right, Michael, when you're ready?   Michael: Yeah. So it's kind of a no brainer you got to take care of number one first and that's you as an individual get your housing squared away first and foremost before even thinking about going in investing. I mean if you're gonna have your rent payment jacked up like Tom mentioned previously, how could you possibly be forecasting for the future with saving for future investment. So take care number one, get it locked up, get it squared away, first and foremost. Secondly, there is no better financing than owner occupant financing. So go buy a primary residence, let the appreciation train work its magic. And in a couple of years, you can either move out of that primary residence and convert it into a rental thereby creating a rental with owner occupant financing, or do a cash out refi or get a HELOC on that property. Again, with owner occupant financing and use that money to go start investing down the road, it becomes so much easier and so much cheaper when you have owner occupant cash to compete against peer investors for bidding on properties. So it's a no brainer. In my opinion, go buy your primary First, get it locked, ready in an appreciating market. And watch what happens. It'll blow your mind.   Tom: Mike, you ready to take it?   Michael: Let's just do it. I would love to see what you're going to try to drum up here.   Tom: All right, Michael, it's time to September some real talk. Michael, I think you need to be long term greedy. You know, I think the short term greedy thing for you to do is Oh, I'd like a house the women that I own right now and to go buy a house, you know, and that might be great for current Michael. But future Michael is going to be so much better off for so many reasons of deploying the capital in building his real estate Empire, you have plenty of time to buy a house. In fact, you're going to be able to buy a better house in the future by making these smart, prudent, long term greedy decisions now of buying, you know, buying rental properties right now. And one of the reasons why it makes a lot of sense is your money can go so much further if you were to buy rental property, especially remotely. So where you're living at now, Michael, you weren't what you would be paying to buy a house, you could buy like three houses three rental properties, think of all that cash flow you can have your money just goes so much further versus in the market that you're living right now versus if you were to go and invest in one of these remote markets. So be long term greedy.   The other really value of this is being a person Michael, who likes to travel and stuff. You don't have to weigh yourself down with some house, you can deploy this capital, get it working for you, if you have it just sitting at your own house. It's not working. It's being slothful, you want to get this working for you invested, get it running. So you can go do some fun things. Oh, you want to go ride a motorcycle up and down Chile? Great. You can go do that. If you want to go to Spain, great. You could do that. It's out working so you can go be playing, right? So get your money working. Be young, be awesome. Go do fun stuff. And do that.   So my next little bit, I'm going to just put on my economist cap. I'm going to mess the countries up. But this is that I'm specifically talking about but I'm it's going to be directionally right. So within Europe, there's this inverse relationship between unemployment and homeownership. It's true. So countries like, again, I might nest the specific countries, but countries like the pigs countries like the Spain, Portugal, they have very high ownership, but also very high unemployment, versus certain Scandinavian countries like the Norway and Sweden, they have relatively low homeownership, but very high employment. And the reason for this insert inverse relationship is by not owning your home that you're living in, it gives you a lot more flexibility to move around to wherever the jobs are at.   So when you're done riding your motorcycle in Chile, you can go to wherever the jobs have, it gives you flexibility, but you know that key investment in housing, you're able to still participate and all that upside by deploying that capital in a good market that you can be remote investing. So in closing, you want to be long term greedy Michael, don't be shorted short term greedy, buy your house now and get your money working for you. Number two, take your money further, you're able to do a lot more by deploying it in investment properties. And number three, look at the European model be a Scandinavian country not a one of the pigs country that Portugal, Spain, I forgot the other ones, but be one of those ones where it's a high employment, you know, riding a motorcycle in Chile. Go ahead.   Michael: Tom, I really love and appreciate those points you brought up first and foremost being long term greedy, I couldn't be more excited that the fact that you brought that up because what could be more long term greedy than living in a property for two out of five years and getting a capital gains exemption when you sell the property of 250,000 as an individual or 500,000, as a married couple. It totally personifies long term greedy. So thank you so much for bringing that up. And then secondly, get your money working for you. I also love the fact that you Mention this point, I'm getting an owner occupied key lock on my owner occupied property that I live in at two and a quarter percent. What better way to get your money working for you then appreciating in a California market and being able to take advantage of that owner occupant financing for the purchase and then owner occupied HELOCs. Amazing, amazing money again, really great point. Thank you for bringing that up for in support of owner occupant property first before investment property.   And then you mentioned taking your money further. What better way to utilize your money than using an FHA owner occupied financing loan where you only have to put down a much smaller percentage and 20% 20%. And on it so happier to 25% get out of town. If I can put down between two and a half to 5% on a primary residence, get into something get rid of paying rent, start building appreciation, building equity, getting HELOCs, getting owner occupant financing. It's just an all day when win win win you look at the math, so I would say you know thank you so much for proving my point, that owner occupant is the way to go.   Tom: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right Emil, come in here.   Emil: Ding ding ding Guys, get back to your corners. That's what I'm talking about. That's how we throw some haymakers bring some emotion, leave it all in the ring, guys. Well done. My comments here you guys on the second round, basically got through some of the stuff I had written down, FHA loan was being the big one on the primary just to be able to get in with 5%. Down, I think the to step back from our debate here and talk about our own personal situations, all three of us, I think, bought a rental property before we bought a primary. I think just depending on where you live, it just makes more sense to do one or the other us being in expensive cities, looking elsewhere, buying a rental property, I think made sense. But I don't think there's anything wrong with buying a primary if you can afford it just like the Hilo cash out that you mentioned, Michael, especially if you're an appreciating market, and you use like an FHA loan to get in for 5%. And then your home appreciates a bunch. Like that is an awesome way, if you don't have a ton of cash up front to get into something stop paying, you know, quote, unquote wasting rent, you know, build some equity, and then in a couple years, if the market is good, you can actually pull some cash out and then go buy rental properties with it. But you know, I think there's something to be said about us all buying rental properties before we bought a primary. And the big one that stood out to me was you're using you know, if you think about it, the cash flow from your rental properties can go towards paying your own mortgage on your primary, right, you can use it to pay your mortgage, you can use it to just grow your portfolio, whatever it is. Yeah, I think solid points on on both sides.   Tom: Yeah, I mean, I bought a rental before my primary. And I would do it again. And again, there's a great article on the New York times.com slash interactive slash 2014 slash up slots hash by slash rent slash calculator. If you just type buy or rent calculator, New York Times, it's a really cool calculator that they have that evaluates like, oh, should you buy or rent, basically, and it's very situational from person to person on where they live, it got to the point where me where I was just getting jammed at this apartment in the East Bay, just outside of San Francisco, where my rent was very close to what my mortgage would be. And you know, there was an initial kind of nut to pay with the downpayment. But after that, it was actually cheaper on a monthly basis to pay my mortgage versus my what the rent had gotten to and it wasn't like that when I first went in there was just as crazy increases in rent year after year.   So it just at that point is like, okay, you know, bite the bullet, I suppose that that was like super hardcore and discipline, I would just continue to rent and just continue to use that down payment and using my house on other rental properties. But there is something to be said, of, you know, having a place to live that your own that you can do fun projects on is is fun, it may not be the most long term greedy thing to do if you're really bullish on on building your investment. And this is a decision that you know, I have now like pretty regularly like, Oh, do I want to do some remodeling on the kitchen? Or do I want to add a couple of roofs or do something like that it's it's honestly kind of hard and making that decision. I mean, it's a very blessed to be able to have like decisions like that to be made, but it's kind of a constant pull and tug, tug and pull, push and pull, you know, how much am I spending on building this these rental folio, which I love and is really fun and has major long term benefits versus these current times doing projects on the house or whatnot. So it's a kind of a push and pull for me kind of related to this conversation of ongoing stuff, you know, that you want to do on your own house. So for my 10 cents it's different for everybody's situation,   Emil: You guys view the primary as a hotly debated is your primary and investment?   Tom: No.   Michael: I would say pretty confidently for me that it's not I kind of I use Kiyosaki Rich Dad Poor Dad definition of asset versus liability, who puts money in your pocket, it's an asset. If it takes money out of your pocket. It's a liability. No point in getting any more complicated than that. Every month I pay money to live in this home. It's a liability. Every month I get money in my pocket from my cash flowing investment. It's an asset so you could expand that absolutely and say well Yeah, if I sold it down the road and I made money on the sale, well, maybe it would be an asset, but on a kind of snapshot month by month basis, it cost me money. So it's a liability.   Tom: I like that. I mean, I would take Yeah, whatever the kind of harshest stances, you know, it's, yeah.   Emil: I wanted to rent for a long time until my wife was pregnant. And we were both just like, to me buying a home is a emotional decision. And you do it because you want to not because you think it's gonna be this amazing investment. Hopefully, it turns out that way, but I try not to treat it as such. So yeah, for us, it was just like, the timing was right, we were in the place in our lives where we wanted to do it and and did it for nothing, besides wanting it not looking at it as an investment.   Tom: Yes, pretty funny. the buying process of like owner occupied versus buying a rental where I feel like a rental, like I'm extremely disciplined, like, I have my performance, my max bid and all this stuff. And like now I'm out, get out of here, versus like when you get it home, and it's like,   Emil: It's so emotional   Tom: Wife and baby look at it like, oh, that's the one that's the right one.   Michael: I took a semi different approach when we bought our primary. And so we were looking down in the Central Coast and everything became way more expensive than we anticipate. And I had a really tight budget just because I knew how much I wanted to pay on a monthly basis based on how much the rentals are bringing in. And so I thought, Okay, this is what we can afford. So we actually ended up buying a condo down here. And we analyze it as an investment because we knew if we were to move out, or when we were to move out. And when we started having kids that we were gonna turn it into an investment. So it totally makes sense as an investment property and cash flows as an investment property, which is super exciting.   But something else to be thinking about as you're looking at buying primary residences is the maintenance and exteriors additional stuff that just comes with owning a property when you're living in it versus being a rental and Tom, we were kind of talking about that in the showdown is Yeah, you're gonna have expenses that pop up that you're able to control a little bit less on your rentals and your primary. But if it's your primary, you're probably going to take a higher degree of like, you just want things looking a lot better, I would say in your primary because you're living there versus a rental. So there's a lot more pride of ownership, as they say. And so I find that people often dump a lot more money into their primary than they would into a rental of similar caliber.   And so with a condo is just kind of nice, I don't worry about exterior maintenance, roof, paint, any of that stuff, all I have to take care of is the inside of my place. And and it's good. So from a maintenance standpoint and a cost standpoint, aside from the HOA, I mean, the condo can be a decent way to go. So I would employ everybody to kind of think about that. And then also evaluate it as a rental for if you ever plan on converting it into one or at least that at that point, you have the option two if you'd like as opposed to being saddled with this huge mortgage payment that would never make sense as a rental. Now you're stuck.   Emil: You don't pay to fix your roof on a condo?   Michael: Every Hoa is a little bit different. But the condo pays in my particular case, they pay my water sewer trash, they pay all the exterior maintenance, which includes paint, landscaping, and roof and then just maintenance in the association itself. The Hoa the fee is way too high for what we're getting, because we don't have any real amenities. But my homeowners insurance is a little bit less. I don't have to worry about any of that stuff. So we just had our roof redone, like last week. And we didn't come out of pocket for that. Yep, it's nuts. It's nuts. But something to think about and consider as an option, because I didn't for a long time, but it's just especially in older homes. First time homebuyers are looking to get into you know, if there's a lot there, I think there's just a lot more than meets the eye. So make sure you go into it kind of eyes wide open.   Tom: So Michael, are you aware of your condo if they have Hoa rules about renters if you were to move out and to rent that place out?   Michael: Oh, yeah, we checked the CC&RS way before we purchased this thing, and they don't, which is the important thing. So they don't have any rental restrictions.   Tom: Good, good, good.   Michael: Well, okay, I think that like they have rental restrictions for short term rentals. So there has to be 30 days or longer. So when we Airbnb at our place, we had to have a 30 day minimum stay, which because we're doing this during COVID times that worked out just fine.   Emil: Cool, nice job guys any other parting wisdom before we clock out of this episode.   Michael: I would just say to everybody who's kind of on the fence considering between the two, just look at the numbers, like Tom was saying at the beginning of the episode and see what makes the most sense. But also understand that there's an opportunity cost it to whatever decision you make. So if you buy an investment property before you buy your primary, just look and understand how long it's going to take you to save up your down payment before your next either investment property or to your next primary. And conversely if you're going to go buy your primary before your investment property, go look and understand how long it's going to take you to save up for your down payment for that next investment property or for the first investment property for buying your primary first and understand that there's a cost and benefit to doing one versus the other. And I don't think there's one right or wrong universal for us. It seemed to be investment properties first owner occupant you know, primary residence after the fact but everybody's coming at it from a different place. So talk with whoever's in your life   Tom: Love it just to reword it, you know, have a plan that everyone's situation is unique. But just kind of map out short term, long term, midterm middle term, middle term. Yeah.   Emil: Did you guys actually plan that far ahead? Like for me, I kind of just like, let me get some rental properties. And then we'll kind of figure it out as you go along. Like, do you guys find that like, mid to long term planning is a helpful? And B, do you even stick to it? Like, do things just change so much in the journey that it's like, it's almost not even worth it, Tom: I enjoy the exercise of putting it down to paper, and then modifying it everybody's functions differently. But I think doing it at some sort of a high level, there's value to that, in that there's more of a Northstar. And like we talked before, with like Academy, you know, write it in pencil, have an idea doesn't need to be in pen or in stone. But in sort of providing yourself sort of a Northstar. There's a lot of value to that. And in the way that you're kind of managing the day to day to have that.   Michael: I totally agree. I mean, for me, when I first started investing, I was just flailing around. And not having a plan makes it so easy to flail, but I was also single, I wasn't married. And so none of that was even part of the picture. I was just go go, go, go go. And then after the fact is like, Oh, I guess I should consider buying a primary, I guess that makes sense to do now, now that I'm getting married. So I think, again, if you have the resources, like the educational resource that goes into this podcast, you can just evaluate where you currently are, and then also talk to other people who have done it before you I didn't have that luxury. When I first started investing, I was kind of figuring it out. My dad now we're kind of figuring it out for ourselves. So didn't have many other people to lean on to talk to you about what that planning might look like or even how to strategize.   Emil: Thank you everybody for tuning in to another episode of the real estate investor. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. If you do, we always like to ask that you leave us review. Let us know your thinking of the show. And if you do sometimes we'd like to just pick people at random and send them some cool stuff, like we've done on previous episodes. So wherever you listen your podcasts, leave us a rating and review we'd love that and we might pick you to get some cool swag. Alright guys, check out the next one. Happy investing.   Tom: Happy investing.   Michael: Happy investing.  

Hello and happy Thursday! Knowing this is a very challenging time of year for many, Tom knows the current situation is not making anything easier on anyone. So Tom doing what Tom does, he shares how he is managing his Pro You Path. As always, it begins and ends with gratitude. What Tom is sharing on today's episode are the fruits of his labor... 'the other side' of what he did, his actions, the decisions he deemed himself worthy of and the responses he chose. If anyone needs to chat, someone to listen to or a need to share anything - please feel free to contact Tom: he is here! Enjoy, and as always, thanks for listening! Be sure to like Pro You on Facebook, follow along @ProYouPodcast on Twitter and Instagram and check out @tomjdeters on Instagram for daily inspiration! *Not all exercises are suitable for everyone and this, or any other exercise program, may result in injury. Any user of the exercise program assumes the risk of injury resulting from performing the exercise. You should always speak to your doctor before you change, start or stop any part of your healthcare plan, including physical activity or exercise.*

Personal Training or Group Workouts What works best for you? with Mark Greenwood I've had a passion for helping others live a healthy lifestyle for a long time.   I began as a Physical Education Teacher  21 years ago.  I have a tremendous opportunity to help lead kids toward an active, healthy lifestyle.  Around 17 years ago, I  decided to share my love of exercise and fitness with adults who struggled to do it on their own. From this came NLFF - New Life Family Fitness. I've seen and participated in all kinds of exercise programs and workouts.  My goal is to provide a way to help improve families' health and fitness but to do it in a way that is family-friendly, fun, and impactful. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of seeing individuals begin that "new life" of health and fitness, individually and with their families. www.newlifefamilyfitness.com www.feedingfatty.com Full Transcript Below  Roy (00:01): Hello, and welcome to another episode of feeding fatty. I'm Roy I'm. Terry. We've got another great guest today. Well, first off you can find us at www dot feeding, fatty.com, uh, on, uh, Twitter, uh, C at feeding fatty pod, and we're on Instagram as well as Facebook. We have a group, so join us there. Uh, today we have a fantastic guest. I think I've known him probably about 10 years now, Mark Greenwood with new life family fitness. And a reason we got Mark on here is, well, not only is he an awesome trainer. He trained me for a long time, but he has gotten, uh, he got into the boot camps and then they did a reboot last year to where they focus on family, uh, family workouts. And I think it's in a boot camp type setting where they're out of a gym, but also, um, Mark is a fabulous trainer that, um, you know, the, he's not one of those guys that will stand out machine and count reps while you're doing, let me, I actually mixes up all the workouts, which makes it it's interesting fun, but it works, uh, your entire body, not just, uh, you know, one thing at a time. Roy (01:18): So, uh, Mark welcome and thanks for taking time to be with us today. Mark (01:23): Uh, appreciate it, Roy Terry, thanks for having me on. It's great to be here. Yeah. Roy (01:28): Just, uh, I'll let you tell, tell the history, but basically you've been, uh, uh, uh, physical ed teacher in our local school district for approximately 23 years. And, um, you know, it kind of tells how you invol evolved into the, uh, you know, I know that you were an athlete in high school and college and then kind of evolved into the personal training aspect. Mark (01:52): Yeah. Um, absolutely. I always enjoyed sports, uh, growing up and, uh, uh, as big football guy all through high school and ended up, uh, playing in college and just, uh, was always working out anyway for that. And, uh, once, uh, that was over with my football career, I just, uh, uh, that's when I moved to moved down here to Fort worth and, and, uh, really didn't know too many people. So I spent a lot of time in the gym and continue to work out and just always love exercising and just, uh, uh, feeling good from, uh, trying to stay in shape. And, and, uh, so I spent a lot of time in the gym and then I met my wife and she thought, uh, um, I might make a good trainer, just, uh, I guess, cause it looked like I knew what I was doing. Mark (02:43): And so through her encouragement, uh, I was like, okay, well we'll try it out. Then I just fell in love with it. After that it was kind of a, um, or then again, going back to my physical education career, a kind of, uh, was a unique perspective of seeing the kids that I deal with and then seeing adults that struggled, uh, with their health and trying to kind of close that gap so that, uh, at school I'm trying to, uh, get the kids prepared to take care of themselves and keep themselves healthy, but then try to work with the adults at some, somewhere along the way, just kind of, uh, it slipped away or maybe they had a bad experience when they're younger or whatever it might've been, but to just try to, to bridge that gap, um, between the two. So, uh, I, but I just fell in love with it and fell in love with, uh, just, just telling other people about, um, the benefits of it. Mark (03:47): Um, uh, I always get excited to see people improve and, and to, to reach their goals and stuff. So, uh, but yeah, I just fell in love with it and it's, uh, and the rest is history. So, um, it's evolved, it's evolved over the years, um, in just keeping it kind of keep changing with the times and, but, uh, the, the, the people out there that, that, that struggle and need help, um, it's always the same. Um, you're still helping them, uh, reach, go down that path where they reach their goals and feel better about themselves. So, um, yeah, and the rest is history. That's where we are today. Roy (04:30): Yeah. And what would we do? We'd be lost souls if we didn't have good women behind us, I can say that for sure, for some brownie points here. And she reminds me all the time. That is to say you've been personal training for what'd you say 18, 18 years. Is that what you're telling me? Mark (04:53): 18 years, 18 years. Um, I started to actually, she pushed me towards it, um, before we got married. Um, and then I worked in a corporate setting, a corporate gym for three years and, uh, just got to the point where I felt like, um, what they were charging people, uh, was a little ridiculous in that I could go and help people on my own, uh, by making it, uh, um, simple, just go to their houses and make it cheaper on them and be able to connect with them better and give, give them the convenience of doing it on your own homes. And it just seemed like, uh, such a better situation to be able to help people like that and make it easier on them, um, to get that help, uh, then it was in the, uh, corporate GM setting. So yeah. Roy (05:54): And I can tell you from experience that the, that you don't feel like working out, he, he kept knocking until he finally answered the door. He wouldn't just go away Mark (06:06): And, you know, and that's, that's how it is for so many people. Um, it's tough, it's tough to stay motivated, but when you got somebody knocking on your door, you got to get up and you got to do it. Terry (06:17): Yeah. If you rest just for a minute, I mean, it turns into, you know, a couple of days and then it's like, Oh my gosh, it's been a week or two before you realize that you haven't been working on your fitness and it's like, ah, it's hard, hard to get back into it. Mark (06:37): Absolutely. And, uh, and it was interesting being at a, at a, at a corporate gym. Uh, you know, you had the people that you work with personally one-on-one, but then you also get to, you get to see all the other members they come in and just work out on their own. Um, you know, it was a yearly cycle where, uh, you would see some coming in and after a month, month and a half, and you never saw them again. And, uh, whether it was through just getting discouraged or not knowing what to do, uh, whatever it was that it was just a cycle every year. And you could get to see so many examples of, of just the membership coming in and just not really knowing what to do and they get discouraged and quit. And so, uh, yeah, just to have that person knocking on your door and you don't have to think about it, you just do what they tell you to do and, uh, Terry (07:30): And answered the door, hope the answer to that. Roy (07:34): Well, and the other cool thing is that, um, you know, I never knew what you were bringing over. I mean, every time, every time he'd come over, it'd be like getting unloading stuff looked like he had had a rummage sale in the back of his car and he was bringing all this stuff in and then, and stuff he made me do. And I always tell the story. I can't remember exactly what we use, but I think it was like a S uh, I think it was like one of those snow disc. And he tied a rope around my waist and made me pull them around the backyard made laps around the backyard. But, you know, that's the, um, you know, I think that's the important aspect of finding some, uh, personal trend. And I don't want to knock the big box stores because I'm sure they've got some awesome people, but there's a difference between a personal trainer and a guy that just sets their accountant, uh, reps on a machine. Roy (08:27): And, uh, I'll, I'll let you explain that, but you know, like the going out in the yard and doing things, and I know that you had that, um, it was like a half of a ball with, uh, uh, a platform on it that you could stand on the platform or turn it over and stand on the ball, but doing those kinds of things. Well, let's go back to the weight machine. They typically work one muscle or one group of muscles where, when you use these other devices that you implore that, uh, you're not only getting a core, but it's working out a bunch of other muscle groups as well. Could you kind of talk about that a little bit more? Mark (09:09): Yeah. Um, it's interesting. You talk about the edge. Um, I, uh, heard this quote a few years back and, uh, somebody said that people don't stop playing because they get old, they get old because they stop playing and, uh, yeah. And, and it goes for any age, um, you know, if you just keep doing the same stuff over and over, you get bored with it. And, um, you're probably not going to continue doing it. So, uh, but absolutely, um, having somebody there that, um, is going to just keep you guessing, uh, when, when they come in and I'll be totally honest with you there, uh, lots of great trainers out there. Uh, lots of great equipment out there. Um, but I, yeah, I've, I've been around a lot of trainers that I was just like, what are you doing? You're standing there watching them. And you're counting just like you said, and the retention rate was not very good and the results weren't very good. Mark (10:19): So, yeah, just, just to, uh, and again, I, I kind of go back to my teaching. I, uh, right now I'm teaching my students in elementary school to use, uh, much of that equipment that they're using now in the gym, so that they will understand how to use it safely. And bill went to, uh, to work with that stuff as they become adults. Um, but just to, to take things like that and make it unique and make it different because, you know, anybody can, uh, you know, I just had to do an, a machine all the time. You can go buy the machine yourself and do it. Um, but to change it up and give you, uh, different things where, um, you're always surprised which you're going to do that day. And of course, you know, as a personal trainer, um, we know that your body's also going to get used to doing the same stuff over and over. Mark (11:13): And when it does adapt to it, uh, then you're not going to get the results that you, you should be getting. So by changing it up all the time, then you're going to continue to get results. Your body's not going to get used to it. You're not going to get used to it. And, uh, and you're gonna more likely stay with it. So, yeah. And then there's the, the safety aspect of it. Um, having us to, to sit there and watch every movement and make sure, you know, you're, you know, if you're doing squats and your knees are an inch or two out past your toes, uh, that's a problem. And if I'm not there watching you and telling you that, Hey, you need to make sure that your knees aren't going forward. You have to going backwards. That person, you ended up with knee problems, you know, in a year or two. Mark (12:00): So, uh, it's, uh, it's about helping them do it safely. It's about making it fun and enjoyable. And again, that's a, another thing that I take from my teaching is I have 50, 60 kids at once. I've got to keep them engaged and make it fun so that they're actually exercising, but they don't feel like they're exercising. Right. And that's what I tried to do in my workouts is just to try to keep it fresh, keep it fun, do different things, whether it's games, whatever it is to keep that person, you know, not so focused on, Oh my gosh, this is so hard. I'm dying. You know, when is this over? But, you know, Whoa, where'd all the time to go. And I just got a great workout and using all the different, uh, equipment, um, as a great way to, to do more functional training also just to get your body, uh, strengthened and enabled to do everyday activities, not just, you know, he's going to go out and squat during, during the job, most of us that aren't going to do that. Uh, but to, to be able to do functional movements where that's going to help you, when you go out on the weekends and try to do things, would you friends or family, um, and you're going to feel better doing it and stronger doing it. Uh, those are the types of things that are going to get people, um, not just closer to their goals, but feeling better and feeling better about life and getting out and doing stuff. So, yeah. Yeah. Roy (13:31): You bring up a good point too, that I tend to kind of harp on this is that a form form is important versus wait. You know, we, we go to a gym and we see these guys that, you know, they load up their weight stack and they're grunting and grown in. And, uh, you know, like a lap pool, you know, where you got the bar over your head and you're pulling it straight down, but they, you know, they jumped back with their back with their legs are just doing all this crazy stuff that, well, first off you get hurt doing that. But second off, you're not working the muscles that you really want to be working. So, uh, you know, that's the other great thing about having somebody like Mark watching you is that, you know, when you get a little bit out of shape, he can correct you where not only you don't hurt yourself, but you, you know, you get the results that you're really looking for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the other thing, Oh, no, go ahead. I'm sorry. Mark (14:27): Well, I mean, and it's just, it, it just makes it more efficient too, because, um, it's, it's like I tell everybody, I would rather, you do five great pushups with good form than 50 bad ones. Right. Cause those five correct ones are going to help you. And, you know, and, and then you say that extra five minutes that you had to use to do all those extra wrong ones you've already gotten done, and you've worked at the muscle correctly, safely, and you got more out of it than doing a bunch of reps with bad form. So yeah, it's just, you know, you're talking about saving time in the gym. A lot of people don't have the time, uh, to go spend an hour and a half. Um, but some people will because they, they spend that extra time doing high reps the wrong way, instead of just getting it in there, being efficient with what you're doing and safe with what you're doing and getting it done. Roy (15:20): Yeah. And the other, uh, kind of to that point, another thing I feel like that you taught me was to, uh, you know, make every minute count. So especially today with the proliferation of smartphones is, you know, somebody will do a rep and they'll sit there and play or text or do whatever they do for 10 minutes in between reps. But I remember that, um, you know, what one of our keys was that, you know, when we were on the machine, uh, hit the machine, but when you're done with your reps, get up and do step ups on the little platforms or, uh, jog in place or walk or do something to keep your heart rate up. Mark (16:04): Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you get, you get the benefit of, of, you know, a lot of different things. And there's so many studies now that, uh, that show how beneficial, um, hit workouts are high intensity interval training. Uh, and that's the whole concept though, is just, uh, short rest breaks, uh, very short rest breaks. And just, you just keeping it going, right. The high intensity levels, you get more out of it, you get it over with faster. Um, but yeah, um, just, just to stay moving, so you've got the cardiovascular benefit and then you're still, um, and if you, if it's planned out, I know the benefit of having a personal trainer, if you, if it's planned out right, then, then, uh, if you just get finished with the lower body exercise, then while it's resting, you can move to, uh, an upper body exercise. And so you still have the energy to be able to do it, um, as well as you want to, and as vigorously as you want to. Um, and, and just keep on going, you keep on going keep that heart rate up and, and you get so much more done in such a more of an efficient workout, uh, by doing that than just sitting around doing one, uh, exercise for one muscle group and then failing your phone. Absolutely. Terry (17:25): So Mark new life, family fitness is the name of your company. Do y'all have, what kind of services do you have? Do you offer still individualized personal training group training? Um, the family training. Can you tell us a little bit about those? Mark (17:44): Yeah, so we, uh, we started off with in-home personal training. Um, we still do that, um, with the COVID-19 of course it's changed around a little bit. Um, um, but we still do that. Uh, I still have one or two, uh, clients that I go to their home. Um, but with the COVID-19 is also, uh, I think with everybody it's, we've had to learn new avenues of, uh, training and we can't go to their homes. So, uh, we've uh, as a lot of other people have we've started doing it virtually. Um, so I have, uh, another client that I, I train, um, just over zoom calls, um, and Roy (18:32): Wow. Technology technology is awesome. I never thought about doing that makes everything so convenient, isn't it? Mark (18:38): Yeah. Uh, and that was huge for me in the old big grand scheme of things, because, you know, I always have family time in the back of my mind. Um, but that allows me to be home and then just jump on there and do a workout with someone. And then I'm brought back to where I was at home with my family. So that's been a big blessing, you know, just to, to, to learn this new technology. And, uh, so I, uh, but I still do a one-on-one training, uh, virtually still go to homes and, um, and work with them. Um, then also my group camp right now is virtual. So, um, and it's been, uh, at the beginning of the quarantine. Um, I, again, I had to learn all this technology. I didn't know this stuff was out there. I'd never heard of her zoom and never heard of bugle needs, uh, any of this stuff. Mark (19:33): So yeah, I was actually, I had to learn it for my teaching. And then, uh, once I learned it for that, I was like, Hey, you know, this is all right. And so, um, my family, uh, fit campus, I call it now fit, fit families in training camp, um, started out outdoors. So, uh, once we got hit with the corn G and everything, where you went to the zoom and they just love it, they love being at home and being able to do exercise and run to the bathroom when they need to, or, uh, lay underneath the fan and sweat if they need to. Um, so that's been really nice and, uh, and it's actually, uh, business, uh, through our fit camp is it's picked up really, uh, really quickly last month, month and a half. Um, just people that, uh, are kind of stuck at home or don't want to go to the gyms yet. Um, they're looking for ways to, to stay fit and healthy and not have to go out amongst all the stuff out there. Um, and, and, and we're able to do that for them. So, um, yeah. Uh, that's, that's, we, we still do a small group training, um, and this a little bit of everything. Um, but we're, we're really trying to focus, uh, more and more on just giving these, uh, these families to, to try to get healthier together. So we do still doing a little bit of, uh, of it all. Roy (21:07): Yeah. And that may actually be something that stays with us after the fact is the, uh, the group over zoom, I guess they, you know, like the Peloton or however you say that word that I think that's kind of the way they do it. They have a instructor somewhere else. And so, uh, yeah, that's kind of interesting that some things that we've learned through COVID may actually stick around, you know, even after it's gone, it may be more efficient for a lot of people to not have to get out and drive to, you know, wherever the gym is or to the place where the group is. So the virtual would be a great answer for that. Terry (21:45): Yeah. I was going to ask Mark. I was going to ask you, do your kids ever get involved in your classes? I mean, do they come and try to take over and be in charge? Are they the teacher? Mark (22:01): Uh, they would actually come up there and they would work out with them, um, because my, you know, my kids were born Jean also. Um, but they're also homeschooled. Um, so, uh, yeah, they would come along with me or ride with me up there and he'd get out there with everybody else. And, uh, a lot of times, uh, you know, I would look up and they would be, you know, racing other kids around, um, and you know, things like that and doing, doing the exercises that, uh, that all the grownups are doing because it's, it's, um, planned out where the kids can do the same thing, the same exercises, everything that the parents can. So, um, Oh yeah, they got out there with it and, uh, um, it has been a little bit tougher on them since we started going virtual. Um, because, uh, we just, we just moved a couple months ago from a smaller space, so they had a tough time getting in there and doing it, but, uh, that was, that was a lot of their activity during the day was because they couldn't get outside a lot, so they would jump on there with us and, um, and just get after it in the floor. Mark (23:11): So, Roy (23:13): Yeah. So Tom, I know that, uh, you know, it's probably been, um, ah, should, I was trying to think back, think about six, seven, eight years. You kind of started into the group fitness and, uh, you know, I see these guys a lot though, have a, a group, some of them meet on the side of the road or in front of a restaurant or whatever. So what is the benefit or what, I guess, what is the difference for the participant that versus going to a gym and I guess just kind of a compare and contrast, you know, what they come for and what they get out of it. Mark (23:53): Yeah. You know, and I think it all depends on the individual. Some people just don't, they're not in the group stuff, they're not in their to group workouts. Um, they, they feel like, um, they don't want other people to watch them work out, uh, for, you know, for whatever reason. Um, and that's fine. Um, you know, a lot of times those are the people that want me to come to their home and that's great, but, um, you know, for, for that comradery, that, that, that group feel, um, you know, I've always been, been blessed with just a great, bootcamper a group fitness members where they're all very encouraging. Um, and when they get out there that, you know, 95% of them all had the same goals, uh, and, and they get out there and, and, you know, I, I'm not a big yeller and you know, this, I I'll push you and work you hard, but I'm not a big yeller in your face, yeller. Mark (24:51): Um, and a lot of times, you know, the, their, their peers are the ones out there cheering them on because I get tired of listening to me sometimes, you know, I'm sitting there, John, keep your act, keep your apps, uh, you know, make sure you're doing this and do this. And, and, you know, and they're there, the person working out in beside them is, come on, come on. And you, can, you got this? You know, and, and for me, this witnessing is just, uh, something special just to watch that, that group of people that didn't even know each other before they came in and became a part of this, they're, they're pushing each other, they're encouraging each other, the clap and for each other. Um, and, and you just, you know, it's just something about that, uh, to have people that are on the same mission you are to be out there sweating and grunting and talking trash to the Mark. Mark (25:47): And just to have other people that are, are having to work as hard as you are to drive, to do something about their health. And this has been such a blessing to sit there and see, you know, when, uh, sometimes during, uh, oxygen breaks is I call it anybody, uh, anybody have, uh, some results to share with us or anything, and some biology, you know, pop up and say, well, my, my, uh, pants had a little bit baggier this week and everybody just starts cheering. It's amazing. It's just amazing just to sit there and be a part of that, just to see everybody, uh, you know, the rejoice and, and people, uh, you know, improving their health and getting results and just feeling better. And, and, uh, and that's what makes it so, uh, nice. What I do is, is just being a part of that, you know, it's very to see people that, um, um, just get out there and work hard with others, just, uh, you know, towards the same goal. So yeah, it's, it's pretty awesome, but it's, um, and everybody's not into it, but the ones that are just, you know, they, they feed off of that. Terry (27:00): That's pretty cool that you can carry that over and into, you know, from, be in your you're the PE teacher at school and having all those kids, and then the families and the groups of adults, uh, all of it's encompassing and being able to, uh, see all that encouragement and acknowledgement. And that just must be really rewarding. Mark (27:28): Yeah, it is. And, you know, uh, I always try to tie everything I do together, and that's one of those things where, uh, again, you know, uh, you get old because you stop playing and even adults like to play. And when they get out there with their kids, you know, we're playing and we're running around and they're, they're breathing hard and their heart is pumping out of their chest, but they're not really worried about it because they're playing with their kids or they're just having fun, you know? Uh, I always tell my students, if you, if you walk out of here with a smile on your face and we're good, and, and for them to, to come in with their families, or just by themselves and work hard and sweat and do what they need to do, but they, you know, at the end, they're smiling and, um, then, then it's all worth it for me. And I tell them it's all gonna be worth it for them too. So, Roy (28:20): Yeah. And that's one aspect of the, um, you know, of the, uh, group that I just didn't think about was that comradery. And, uh, almost like a, you know, a team sport, football, baseball, basketball that, you know, you're always there to pick up each other and encourage him. And, uh, you know, there's always days we don't want to be there, but we show up anyway. So it's always good to have somebody to kind of help you get through that. Terry (28:44): Yeah. Accountability for sure. You know, that, that seems to help a lot. Roy (28:51): Yeah. I guess also too, you probably have a lot of, uh, friends that come kind of partner up, like to, for the accountability issue to make sure, make sure they both show up every time. Mark (29:03): Yeah, we do. And we have even, yeah, just, uh, family members or, uh, yeah. People that know each other from church or, you know, whatever. Yeah. They, uh, and that even makes it makes it funnier sometimes because they're the ones that gets out there and talks trash to each other, each other and, and, and challenges each other. And I'm all for it. I ain't heard that, Hey, Nope, keep it clean and talk, track each other and make each other work. Um, and they just, they just love it. Um, it's, it's really cool to watch. Yeah. Roy (29:37): Yeah. And then, uh, you know, you've touched on it a little bit, but transition that y'all made last year was kind of focus focusing on the families. And, uh, so how, how is that dynamic, I guess, you know, mom, dad, the kids, and, uh, you know, we've talked a little bit about it that unfortunately the, um, you know, unhealthy children, they learn that at home from unhealthy adults. So I guess this is nice because it gives everybody a chance to get healthy, but also support each other and spend that family time. I mean, it's like instead of me going to the gym and doing my thing and the kids running down the street, this is a good, uh, it's a good bonding experience. Mark (30:22): Yeah. Um, and, and that was that, that was one of the things we talked about when crystal came with the idea is we have a lot of people over the years. It just couldn't work out because they didn't have any place for their kids to get to go or anything for them to do or any, anybody to watch him. So they couldn't go work out anywhere because of their kids. And so that was also another thing that we talked about. She came on a deal was, you know, there, they just bring them with them. No excuse. So you remove that excuse from it. But, um, yeah. You know, um, it's not perfect. There's, there's families that start out on there and their kids, um, um, you know, that they, the kids struggle a little bit and sometimes the kids don't want to work out that day with them. Mark (31:11): Um, but I just, I just keep reminding the parents that, you know, what the, the best thing that you can do is just be a good example for the kids. You know, if they're struggling with it and maybe, you know, sometimes kids are lazy and that's just how it is, and that's how kids are, and that's okay. Uh, but if you, if you start taking care of your own health, if you make your own health important to you, then they're going to see that. And you're going to set that example for them. And when you start setting that example and you start feeling better and you start losing a little weight or, or whatever it is, and, and, and you start feeling better, better about yourself, then all of a sudden now you're, you're making better choices at what you fix for your family at dinner time and things like that. It's just going to run in to the rest of the family. But sometimes it's just a matter of starting with yourself first and, uh, being a good, good example for the kids. You know, it's not always perfect. They don't always just get on there. And, Oh my gosh, they just all working hard and the kids are smiling and the parents are smiling and everything's just great. It's a struggle for some of them. And it's because they've been in that rut for so many years. Right. Roy (32:28): Right. Well, not just like me, even on those days when I just make it to the gym, I may not work out as hard as I wished I had, but I always look at flip side is if, at least if I'm there doing nothing, I'm not at home sitting on the couch, you know, eating a bag of chips or candy bar. So there's always that benefit to just getting out there, no matter how things go. Uh, and if you do, if you're consistent and you do it, it finally will come around. Mark (32:59): Yeah. It's, it's tough for some of them, but, uh, you know, th they'll as they get a little bit older, you know, they'll, they'll watch you and they'll, they'll see what you do. And, uh, you know, they'll pick up things. So they get things, whether it's, you know, the little habits that you, you change or just, uh, you know, you started taking a walk more throughout the day. Just things like that. And honestly, I'd been a teacher, a physical educator that those are the things that we're trying to teach them and, and hope that they, uh, carry throughout their, their teenage and in as grownups. Uh, but it doesn't always happen. Right. So, um, yeah. Roy (33:44): Well, Mark, we appreciate your time today. Um, if you wouldn't mind, tell us one tool or one, uh, habit, one ritual that you have every day, either in your work or personal life that you just don't think that you could live without. Mark (34:02): Uh, honestly I tell ya, um, I, I have, I have a wonderful family and probably I'd probably say it was just my wife, my wife prays for me every day and encouraged me and pushes me sometimes, but I don't want to be pushed. Um, and, and if I don't think something's working, she just pushes me even more. And so just, just having to her and, uh, uh, praying for me all the time and encouraging me and, and, and always, you know, always just try to make sure that, that I spend as much time as I can with my family. Um, and, and balancing that out, uh, with, with the business and with my career and everything. Um, that that's just the most important thing that keeps me going. Um, so when I get home every day, I got them and their support. So, yeah, Roy (34:56): And that's, uh, even though I would say it, if she wasn't sitting across the table from me here, that, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's good to have that support system at home. It goes both ways. Hopefully we can, uh, support these ladies the way that they support us. But, um, if you don't mind tell us basically, you know, who, who your client is, what you can do for them. And then, uh, you know, tell everybody how that they can reach out and get ahold of you. Mark (35:26): Okay. Uh, well, uh, we, we work with pretty much all fitness levels. Um, if you haven't done it for a while or ever, we're going to work with you, uh, we work with everybody at their own fitness level. Um, it doesn't matter if you're all in the same, uh, fit camp or group camp with a bunch of people that have been doing it for a while. We're gonna, we're gonna make it work for you. Um, so, uh, also have a couple of senior clients, uh, right now I have one is 86. Oh my God. Awesome. Yeah. And he just re and he's just recovered from COVID. So, uh, you know, people can tell me all they want, but I believe part of it is just because he, he exercise and, uh, was probably in a little bit better safe than most 86 year old. So, um, Oh, sure. Mark (36:21): Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we work with seniors, uh, kids just pretty much any anybody, uh, at any fitness level. Um, and, uh, you can reach us a new life, family, fitness.com and check us out there. Uh, give us a call, send us an email, whatever we are on, uh, Instagram and Facebook, and look us up on there. And, uh, again, the, the beauty of this, uh, I, don't not to save the beauty of the COVID-19 this time in our lives. Uh, you know, last year somebody live in another state, well, you, weren't going to be training with me, but that's, that's not a problem now. So, uh, you can do it from anywhere and that's, uh, that's been a big thing just that nobody has any excuses anymore. Right. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just get it going, but, uh, yeah, give us a holler and, uh, and, uh, we'll get you towards your goals, whether it's losing weight or losing inches, or just maintaining a, if it's a senior know, a lot of times they're just wanting to improve that bone density and keep up their strings so they can get around. Um, so, uh, whatever it is, we'll, uh, we try to get you there. Roy (37:47): All right. Well, Mark, again, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Uh, you can find us at www dot feeding, fatty.com. We're on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and Google play, and be sure and share with your friends. We'd also love to have you join the Facebook group, try to start a conversation there and, uh, know we just want to help everybody get healthy. Uh, we, you know, we want to take that balanced approach, no gimmicks. We want this to be a, you know, a lifelong changing, uh, changing of a lifestyle, basically. So if you have Instagram as well as Twitter as well. Yep, yep, yep. Yep. Also Instagram. That's my favorite. All right. Well until next time everybody I'm Roy and Terry. Thanks, Mark. Mark (38:41): You're welcome.

Young Tom Coderre had secrets. Painful ones. Growing up in a Catholic, political family in Rhode Island, with aspirations of elected office and a life in the spotlight, there seemed no room left for one major aspect of his life, a part of him that refused to sit quietly in the corner: his homosexuality. Balancing his outer world with his inner reality caused him a great deal of pain- a pain Tom managed through alcohol and other substances. While on the outside Tom's life looked ideal- he was a Rhode Island State Senator at 25, then the Chief of Staff for the Rhode Island Senate President, this denial of his true nature brought his career crashing down around him, leaving him with no home, no career, and not even a will to live. Through the world of 12 step-based recovery, Tom relaunched his life and today focuses both publicly and personally on helping others who are running from themselves and their problems with the aid of alcohol and drugs. By being willing to look inside himself and make peace with what he found, Tom opened the door to a more serene way of life and a life-long adventure of self-acceptance. Join Johnny G and Tom in this important discussion around how to look in the mirror- and really see. Links to materials referenced in this episode: Daily Beast web story on the Call Me By Your Name monologue: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-call-me-by-your-name-monologue-leaving-audiences-in-tears Click Here for Spiritual Teacher Byron Katie's website. Here is the link to the book Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman. I get neither money nor any other benefit from this link. Episode Transcript below, compiled via automated software service. Please excuse any wrongly-identified words or punctuation errors. Speaker 0 00:00:03 Ever since you can remember, you felt something in your chest that tells you to move to love, to speak, to try day after day. You pretend you don't hear it calling, or maybe you dismiss it as silliness or worse, but it's there and it will wait for you as long as you need. My name is Johnny G and I invite you to join me on a journey of awakening as we dare to embrace our light. This is refractive.Speaker 1 00:00:40 Hi everybody. And welcome to refractive podcasts. I am Johnny G and I have a guest with me here today. Mr. Tom Kudair. Tom is currently a regional administrator with SAMHSA. That is the federal agency that works with substance abuse and mental health issues. Before that he was a senior advisor to the governor of Rhode Island and going back into his history, he was a member of the Rhode Island Senate. He was also chief of staff for the president of the Senate. So Tom, welcome. I'm so happy to have you join us on refractive.Speaker 2 00:01:13 Thank you, Johnny. It's great to be here. I know we've been talking about this for a while and I'm excited. The day has finally come.Speaker 1 00:01:19 Yeah, we're good friends. You and I, uh, for the listeners out there, Tom and I have been in the same circles in Washington DC for several years, even though he's moved

In this Episode Emil, Tom & Michael cut through the noise and explain how to calculate cash flow properly.    --- Transcript   Emil: Hey everyone, welcome back for this week's episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Emil Shour. And I'm joined by my co host,   Tom: Tom Schneider.   Michael: Michael Albaum.   Emil: And today we're going to be talking about how should you actually calculate cash flow. There's a lot of different formulas out there. And we want to clear the air and give you a we believe is the best way to calculate what your projected cash flow should be as you're analyzing a property. So let's get into this episode.   Theme Song   Emil: Alright, guys, so this was actually a topic that I thought would be interesting to cover, because I feel like there's a lot of misinformation out there. And I feel like it's really easy to read case studies and blogs and go on YouTube or on social media. And you'll see people talking about their cash flow. And the numbers seem outrageous, right? It's like a property renting for 1100 dollars. And they're talking about $400 of cash flow a month. And obviously, it seems like there's a lot of things missing from the way their, their expected cash flow should actually look like. And so I thought it'd be good for us to dive into this on this episode. Have you guys seen the same thing? Like a lot of people?   Michael: Yeah, I have a property that rents for 1100 cash flows 400 bucks a month, so this is gonna be interesting.   Emil: Oh, do you   Michael: No just kidding.   Emil: Do you guys see this a lot? Do you guys like get this kind of feeling like being prevalent out there that a lot of people maybe aren't calculating cash flow the right way?   Tom: Or they just inflate it a little bit to feel good about yourself.   Emil: Sound cool?   Michael: Yeah, he's a bit of an ego thing.   Tom: Yeah, the thing with returns and what I like about this episode is man assumptions are just so important. And two people can be looking at the same deal, analyzing it and come up with completely different returns based on the way that they're calculating these, you know, what's in the sausage factory of those calculations is just so critical.   Emil: Yep.   Michael: I agree. I think that's kind of where deals often get made or broken is in the assumptions. And if you make a bad assumption, you can very easily buy a bad deal. And you could just as easily lose out on a good deal. So getting good at making assumptions is huge. But I totally see this regularly, where people aren't including the things that I would include in their cash flow calculation to determine what it is, I think it's it's too often to light.   Emil: Yeah, I agree. I've actually seen examples of this of properties that I've analyzed, like someone posted on Twitter, a property they just purchased. And I remember that exact property, and I had underwrote it as well. And my cash on cash was like half of what, you know, they said their cash on cash was going to be so I've seen it on like, on property, like specific properties, I've underwritten, too. So hopefully, it's a good episode for people to just have like a little bit more of like realistic expectations of what their cash flow could look like after they really account for everything and peanut butter spread all the expenses that come up throughout the year, right, Tom?   Tom: Jiffy, that Oh, yeah.   Michael: Jiffy on the spot?   Emil: All right, let's start out by talking about like, what is the formula? What expenses should you be considering as you're calculating this number?   Michael: The PITI is an acronym for your principal, interest, taxes and insurance. So the principal and interest is just determined by whatever the mortgage looks like, whatever the interest rate, whatever the amortization period is, and then your property taxes, if you are escrowing, these, the lender will often pay them for you. And so you pay monthly into this account. And you don't have to have this big property tax bill once or twice a year. And so I would always call the county assessor to determine what the after sale property tax looks like for an investor, and then obviously, divide that number by 12, to get a monthly cash flow amount.   And then your insurance, I use a very ballpark estimate of point eight 1.2% of the purchase price for properties under 150 K. And for properties over 150 K, you're probably looking closer to one half - .8% of the purchase price, one half percent to .8% of the purchase price. And so I'll use that number divided by 12. And again, apply that to my monthly cash flow. So you've got your principal interest, taxes and insurance, and then your property management on top of that, Tom, what are some other expenses that I want to hog the mic here that you would include in your monthly cash flow?   Tom: Ohh, vacancy, so an often assumption used is half of a percent of the annual rent or perhaps a month, depending on what that term time is, like, like a more conservative would be doing it a month, but hopefully that would be shorter than that. Another one is within that property management fee, or I guess this would be separate but they would be managing that process. If you're using professional property management would be turned costs would be repairs and maintenance costs and to define the term cost. That's the cost You're paying after your tenant moves out, and you have to get the property rent ready again. So that's typically more static stuff, some paints and carpet, perhaps if there's some older deferred maintenance that was there when the tenant was living there that kicked down a line that would be addressing any of those issues. So turn costs, what do you typically budget for your? I'd love to hear what you guys typically budget around turn costs.   Michael: 1 million dollars. I've seen this inverse relationship between monthly rent, amount of the property and turn costs. So if I've got a $2500 a month rental, my turn reserved that I'm escrowing is going to be a lot less than a $500 a month apartment. So can I have a bigger security?   Emil: Do you guys have a separate turn reserve? Yes, don't just leave it as a repair and maintenance and it kind of just gets lumped in there.   Michael: I mean, it can, I just am mentally bucketing money for when the turn comes, that's totally independent of the regular repair and maintenance and the regular capex that I'm anticipating and also reserving for a page back the roof, exterior paint that kind of stuff.   Tom: You have a mental escrow account.   Michael: Yeah, mental escrow account, but also I put it into my calculator, it is a separate line item. But yeah, mentally, I'm thinking about like, Okay, this money is going towards the eventual turn inevitable term for kind of middle of the road rental, I put a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, on it, depending on when the last time that the unit was turned. If you did a big turn at the beginning, your subsequent turns are probably going to be a lot less. And you can also do things on the front end, like tenant proof properties, put in vinyl flooring, laminate flooring, as opposed to carpet, you never have to worry about that, again, you know, maybe tougher cabinets, builder grade cabinets, you can put into the getting into get less banged up. So there are things you can do on the front end to make your turn reserves down the road, your turns less expensive.   Tom: I'm going through a turn right now on one of the properties. And thankfully, the property manager which just did their move out inspection in the properties in great shape. So this is going to be a fairly inexpensive turn, it's like 400 bucks or something like that just to do kind of a deep cleaning. But in my experience, turn costs have ranged anywhere from 400 to like 10,000 bucks if there's a lot of deferred maintenance. And where you see those big deferred maintenance is oftentimes if you have a tenant that's been living in the property for a super long time, then stuff builds up over time. Sneaky stuff sneaks up like fences and any kind of like loose decks and stuff like that is the one that always surprised me that I'm like, dang, that's expensive. So in budgeting, kind of depending on the condition of the home, my kind of down the middle of the line, say we're talking about a 1700 square foot three bedroom, two bath, I typically budget around 2000 bucks or something like that for the turn if it's occupied. And it's, you know, been so for 12 months.   Michael: Wow. $2,000 you budget for the return? I mean, for the for the turn,   Tom: I'd say anywhere between 1000 and 2000 bucks. I mean, I don't know you don't necessarily and be overly cautious, but then optimistic.   Emil: So how, at this point, how are you even making any money on these with all those assumptions? I'm kidding, we don't have to get into that. But I think the only other one we're missing is utilities. So if you're buying a single family home, most of the time, water and electric are going to be even lawn service, all that stuff is going to be covered by the tenant. So you don't have a ton of utilities to pay for. If you're buying multifamily. A lot of times you as the owner, you're on the hook for water heat, sometimes depending on where you're buying a couple other different things. So I've noticed with multifamily, you have to account for a lot more utility versus single family, the tenant is covering a lot of those.   Michael: And also depending on how the property is metered, you may not be able to push utilities onto the tenant for multifamily and a lot of multifamily also have what's called a house meter, which is a common area usually just electric meter. That's good for common area lights, exterior lights, that kind of thing. So you'll as the owner will likely be responsible for that. Let's say again, just check how the property is metered. And that'll give you some indication of whether or not you as the owner are going to be paying utilities whether or not you're going to submeter it or check some of that expense back to the tenants in the form of a utility bill back or just included on the rent. Again, check how it's metered.   Emil: Yep. So okay, so I think those are all the different line items It was interesting to do because you guys have a couple more line items than I do so that may be some homework for me to start being a little more conservative. I thought I was being conservative here I am looking at you guys like dang   Tom: Looking back at my bottle I I estimate typically like 1000 bucks not 2000 bucks in that like catbacks turn costs but a lot of that is dependent on what I'm seeing like within the inspection if it's like in pretty good shape your point to Tom How do you ever cash flow on your on your property with that turning cost is is right and so yes, a little bit less overzealous with my Yeah, not 2000 roughly you know 750 to 1000 bucks is is more where I target that turn costs the once a tenant moves out. So within that cash flow assumptions,   Michael: And is that inclusive of like cap x reserves to for HVAC roof? Or is that a separate line item?   Tom Two separate line items. So one of them would be for R&M for costs that I'm incurring? Well, the tenant is in the property. So roughly 75 bucks a month, maybe 100 bucks a month, and hopefully a lot of the months that doesn't happen, and you don't do that, but then a separate line item for reserve for capital expenditures.   Michael: And so is your turn reserve considered cap x?   Tom: Yes, that is that. Am I thinking about this the same way that you are? What? Go ahead, Michael.   Michael: Yeah, I mean, I just have a separate, I break it out, separate I call it, you know, turn reserve versus capex. My turn reserve I expect to spend every year or every tenant turn versus the cap x is more, I think 10. Instead of that a little going into this bucket, that's going to be a piggy bank to draw on when I need to replace the roof replace the fat. But at the end of the day, I mean, the money is going into the account anyhow. So I just mentally earmark it for certain purposes.   Tom: I like it. So just to paraphrase the three buckets that you have within these type of costs is R&M tenant occupied, right. Yeah. And then one would be turned costs just bread and butter, cleaning paint. And then the third one would be more specific for like, roof or like, you know, major property system? Ah, back. Yeah, Michael: Big ticket systems.Yeah, exactly.   Tom: I like it. Nice. Nice.   Emil: You got a lot of very detailed Michael, I like it.   Michael: I'm a reformed engineer. I don't have a choice.   Emil: All right. So we've gone over, like, what's the formula world of things we consider, we've kind of like sprinkled in some of our assumptions, but maybe we should just go through each line item and give what we think maybe are some good assumptions for people. Would that be helpful?   Michael: Totally. Let's do it.   Emil: Okay. All right. So mortgage, I don't think we need to get into how you can go online, use a mortgage calculator, figure out your mortgage payment. That one's pretty, pretty simple. Insurance. Michael, I really liked your, your kind of formula, I use something pretty close. Can you describe that again?   Michael: Yeah, so I like to use and this holds fairly true for properties. 150,000 purchase price or less. So I like using point eight to 1.2% of the purchase price. So let's just take an example a property's 100,000. on the low end, we're talking $800 a year on the high end, probably around 1200. And what's going to make the difference on that sliding scale is one, how conservative how much insurance? Are you looking to get? What type of policies that are replacement cost versus actual cash value? Is it really a comprehensive policy? Or is it named peril? So I am a very conservative person, I come from the insurance industry, I grew up in the insurance industry, so I get a more expensive policy than is available for that same hundred thousand dollar property, you know, my guess is you could go get insurance for 400 500 bucks annually, it is available is out there.   But it's probably not going to be the type of coverage that I'm comfortable with. And so to help me sleep at night, I'm going to up the coverages, I'm going to add some additional layers to it probably get some additional liability coverage. And so the additional coverages just have additional cost. So for the extra $300 a year, or $600, or whatever it is, that's often worth it to me. So I've just over the years and purchasing properties and helping other people purchase properties, that point eight to 1.2% of the purchase price tends to be fairly reasonable. And I'm confident that getting that type of coverage, you shouldn't be paying much more than that, that's going to be on the high end, being very conservative.   So if that ends up being your biggest expense on the property, you know, of course, we might want to go back and take a second look at things and say, oh, maybe we were too conservative. But I find that typically the $300 that we might be too overly conservative isn't going to push something from a no go into a go category. There are typically going to be other expenses that are significantly larger as a percentage of the income that we want to take a second look at and see if we can't refine those a little bit more. So that was a super long winded rant. Hope that answers the question Emil.   Emil: No, that was good. That was great. Okay, so that's insurance. Tom, anything you want to add there anything you kind of like to use for an assumption that's made different from what Michael mentioned,   Tom If you look at the Roofstock calculator, really helpful tool, you log in to Roofstock and look at an individual listing. And then you click on financials. Just below that financials tab, you can click on cashflow, you can see kind of a rundown of all these different costs. The Roofstock calculator is pretty handy in that you can see all these assumptions. One thing I like about Michael's example for insurance is he does it as a percentage of the purchase price. It's just kind of general guidance. And a lot of values in the risk calculator does it a percentage of income. So I think in some cases, a percentage of income makes sense. And in some cases, a percentage of the value makes sense. So just as kind of like an FYI, you can see these assumptions in here and looking at a property that's $110,000 we can see this insurance value is pretty close to Michael's assumption of point zero Point 8% point oh 8%.   Michael: Yeah, yeah,   Tom Where that would be $800. This example is a little bit less than that at $110,000. Home is around $600. But within rootstocks calculation for insurance, they'll actually get a value that a insurance company will, will bind again. So part of the Roofstock's operations team, they'll go out and work with one of our insurance partners, insurance costs can change based on what kind of deductible you have. So depending on what value you have, it could either the price go up or down. But that's my two cents is I'll just touch on Roofstock as a platform and their calculator, the value they have and where it comes from.   Emil: Cool. So next one is property tax. I don't think you should estimate anything for this one, I think Michael mentioned called the property assessor, some cities, they have a like part of their website, you can literally just go put in the value that you're going to be buying at you and put in the address, and it'll spit out what the new property tax will be. So this one's probably no one you kind of estimate based on percentages or whatever. This is something, it varies from state to state, city to city, you should probably just go figure out what it is for your market. So you can accurately estimate it.     Tom: There's a lot of landmines and trying to calculate property taxes, one of them being if you're looking at last year's taxes, the current owner might be an owner occupied, so they get a homeowner's exemption. So I would be conservative in that property tax assumption.   Emil: Cool. Alright, so next one is property management, property management. This one's usually pretty easy to figure out, you know, as you're interviewing different property managers, you find out what their property management fee is, whether it's flat fee or percentage of monthly rents, like Tom and Michael were talking about, and this isn't something I should I do but I should be doing in that property management or you can have it as a different line item, adding it make sure you add in whatever you think for lease or releasing fee, right, so releasing fee will usually be a smaller percentage than a completely new lease, but factoring in every year that the property manager is going to charge either a release fee or if it's a new tenant, a leasing fee. So adding that up there, Tom, you want to add something   Tom: Yeah, just specific to roof stocks calculator that it has or any calculator that you're building perhaps in Excel with rootstocks calculator, It defaults at 8%, I remember something that we wanted to do on the product side was make it like updated dynamically based on picking a property manager if you use one of Rootstock's preferred property managers to automatically update, but whatever the case is, when you know what that property manager fee is going to be for rent collection, you should update your calculator accordingly, within rootstocks calculator, it defaulted. 8%, but you should keep that updated.   Emil: All right, give me on. Okay, so after property management, we have utilities. And so for utilities for anything, two units, plus, I use $1,000 per year per unit. So if I'm looking at, let's say, a four unit building, and I want to figure it out monthly, it's just $1,000 times forums 4000, divided by 12, to find the monthly for single family, I don't have a more cookie cutter approach. Again, it's it's a lot of the times utilities are going to be covered by the tenant. But sometimes depending on some cities, like I own a property in St. Louis, a single family home in St. Louis, the water bill and the sewer bill are separate. Whereas most other cities, it's all on one bill. And so the tenant pays the water bill. But the sewer bill comes to me as the owner. So that's something I have to factor in as part of my utilities. Are you guys any kind of formula you use to estimate utilities?   Tom: I think on every lease that I have the tenant pays for utilities, I don't even have that in my, in my model, I guess it's more common with multifamily and bigger stuff. But utility isn't even something that we'll have. Perhaps during the turn, you know, I might spend like $10, or whatnot, just during the turn time where the utilities will be on me as the landlord, but for the most part, yeah, I don't consider that. In my cash flow.   Michael: I was gonna say for me for multifamily, it's, it's similar, I think 1000 bucks a year per unit is fairly reasonable, depending on what utilities are being paid by the owner. And usually the listing will say on or paid heat, water or whatever. And that can give get pretty good insight into all tenant paid utilities. Okay, that's gonna be a whole lot less than a grand a unit a year,   Emil: Like 12 months of expense, prior expenses from the seller. And so you can kind of see like, how much are they paying for all these different expenses and see if it lines up with what you have and if you need to adjust up or down but as I have no information, I just put $1,000 a year per unit.   Michael: Yeah. And I would say don't hope that you get those t twelves. Go demand those in the due diligence. I would say that's something that you really need to get a handle on before you close the property because you could find out that you were way off on your estimate and really buy yourself an alligator.   Emil: As our good friend Michael Zuber likes to call it absolutely. Next one is repair and maintenance and capex some people separate those out. Most people separate them out. I have them as one line item now and for multifamily, I'm using hundred dollars a month per unit is what I do for repair, maintenance and capex just kind of all together. for single family I've usually used 120 550 per month on single family is the amount I've used for repair and maintenance and capex as one line item. How about you guys?   Michael: like Tom for my repair and maintenance, I break it out into those three that we talked about. So for repair and maintenance, I'll use 75 $200 a month depending on the property size, and location and tenant class. So in a milder climate with a good tenant, that's not a massive property, I'll use 75 bucks a month, all the way up to the size of 100 bucks a month. And then for capex, I really let the inspection report dictate what that looks like. So if you've got that in advance, like on a roof stock property, you can get a decent handle on what that might look like. versus just looking at the photos or plugging something in for a run of the mill single family home that seems to be in decent shape 750 bucks a year, between 750 to 1000 bucks a year for capex usually should do it, that's, you know, in three years time, you'll have 2000 plus dollars set aside.   And also, depending on if I'm going to get a home warranty or not, for that property is going to also determine what type of capex budget I'm looking at. And capex is kind of one of those tough ones too, because it's a bit of a living, breathing, moving target. If I just replaced the H fac this year, well, now I'm going to put less money set aside for that each of that going forward because I know I got another 10 to 15 years out of it. So depending on the life of the systems, I call it the property will dictate what that budget what that number should be.   Tom: Ditto to Michael and I like that concept of kind of trade off, you know, you might not what you might be spending more on one year on the turn or or catbacks you know, major property systems that's going to take away for future costs related to to R&M. So similar to Michael and structuring that and if you really wanted to geek out and get really sophisticated on building a crystal ball to estimate some variables that we used when I was working on one of the REIT the vintage of the property was the size of the property just because oftentimes these costs, especially on the turn are directly related to how big the property is and square footage, and perhaps certain vintage, you might expect more or less on those turn costs. Those are some important variables to consider.   Michael: The one thing I would say on vintage is just look to find out what's been done on the property. I've got a 4-Plex that was built in like 1892. And we did a total gut rehab on it down to the studs, we put in brand new electrical brand new plumbing, brand new roof. I mean, everything is brand new. So the year of construction is at 92. So if someone attacks record, that's what they would see. But as far as the insurance is concerned, the effective year of construction in 2019. So I would say you know, with a take it with a grain of salt look just a little bit beyond the year of construction to determine Okay, what was done? Absolutely, if something was built in the 50s it's going to have more maintenance and something that was built in 2000s. But if that 1950s has all new electrical plumbing, I would say they might be comparable or that might could even be more updated.   Tom: before we run out of time. I'd love to hear your guys's thoughts, more multifamily dudes on like in ciliary and silivri income like perhaps having a laundry machine or having like storage sales. How do you guys underwrite that when you're thinking about cash flow on your multifamily? Because there's also the costs of like up keeping those type of amenities?   Michael: Absolutely. So for me, I'll just jump in here Emil for I gotta hop off. It's something that I think about, and we'll calculate if it's like a reasonable assumption. And so for me, I just have laundry, the vast majority of multifamily on site coin laundry, it's not a big moneymaker by any means. I mean, 15 to 20 bucks a month, maybe. But there's cost associated. so there's costs associated with that T rex and paying the water and electric bill for those machines because those are on house meters. So the big ones that I like that I use is storage, digital storage or parking. I know pretty darn sure what I can get for those on a monthly basis is for rent comps talking to property managers and also it has zero expense. So those are ones that I really like adding into the pro forma or using to drive value and increase the NOI.   Emil: For me I am newer to multifamily so I don't have like the confidence Michael does and knowing Okay, we have a garage we have some spaces how much we can get for it. So I don't even account for any of that and laundry. Even if you have a bigger building maybe you account for it, but I haven't been when I'm looking at stuff I just those to me are are extras, but I haven't really been accounting for those is that extra income because like Michael mentioned, they do come with some extra expense as well. So unless it's parking, parking and storage, that's that's on the property, but laundry, it's you know, you're paying for that as a landlord potentially. Okay, so you guys had mentioned turn that you guys actually have it as a separate line item. I think we already were to talk about kind of what you guys set aside for that. So Tom, you mentioned like $1,000 every year every other year, how do you set that term budget aside?   Tom: Yeah, I would set it as an annual You will amount 750 to 1000 bucks. And again, if the property's been occupied for a long period of time, I would expect that eventually be a little bit north of that value. But you know, be happily surprised when you get back in your turn cost is 400 bucks, 300 bucks, and that that you can roll around in that extra money.   Emil: Yeah. And you know, it also, I think it depends on property type, right, with multifamily, you're just gonna typically see higher turnover. So you're gonna have more turns where a single family I don't know about you, Tom. But like, single family, a lot of my tenants stay really long term like I've had of the four single family homes I've owned over the last couple years, I've had one turn, the rest of them have stayed even with rent increases, like single family tenants just seem to stay a lot longer.   Tom: I totally agree. I mean, I was saying I had a turn right now, but it's like, it's pretty far and few between. I think you're right, though. And there are studies around SFR having longer duration. And it makes sense. I don't modify my cash flow assumptions. I'll still assume you know, based on whatever is on the lease like expect, the worse that they're going to move out. But generally speaking, like you said, oftentimes be surprised. happily surprised. Roll around that extra dough.   Emil: Awesome. All right. So then the last one, I think we should cover here that we mentioned in the different expenses, you should be considering his vacancy. What's funny is for single family, I always do 5%. I feel like that's like the industry standard. But again, if I'm looking at my actual vacancy across my portfolio, it is way below that I think it's just good to be conservative, because I don't know, maybe you're in a city or an area where your tenant does leave once a year, whatever that may be. And it kind of equates to 5%. But honestly, I've heard so many people who have seen my family and they're like, you know, they're good landlords, they have the same tenants for five to 10 years. So your vacancy becomes real tiny.   Tom Especially Emil, I think if you are getting in really nice school districts, it's a hassle. Like if you have a rental in a nice school district, and you have good tenants with kids, like no reason to move out, you know, I think it's an upside to including that in your acquisition strategy a little bit.   Emil: Totally. So that 5% for single family for multifamily, I do seven and a half 8%, usually just depending on where I'm investing in. But I feel like that's a solid level, like seven and a half percent. A lot of these things also, especially as you're learning a new market, every market I think is different. And you're estimating these expenses, but I imagine in five to 10 years, I'm going to be much better at like being able to look back at all my expenses for five years and say, Okay, here's what it actually averaged out to be. And here's how my pro forma should change. So you know, I think right now, it's like, especially in the early goings, you're kind of just taking some different assumptions, either talking to people who are in that market, or figuring it out. And then I think over time, you're just gonna get really good at knowing, alright, my expenses are basically this amount every single year per unit. This is my vacancy over the last five years. So I think, just with time, you'll get really, really good at these pro forma. Yeah,   Tom: Yeah. And when you're setting that budget, and thinking about your cash flow, that's goal setting, right? And to be successful, and to make money as a real estate investor is to, you know, spend less and make more. And once you identify those numbers, those are specific values that you're working against. So when you get to the end of the year, it's like, Okay, how do we do against these values, and hopefully beat them. And if you don't, you know, reasons why and how to improve upon it. And if you don't beat those value goals, hopefully you put enough of a cushion, that you can still be fine. And then get back at it next year and work with your property manager if you're working with a property manager. So it's fun.   One other line item for you Emil is HOA fees. So if you're buying a property, and there's a homeowner's association fee, and those can be super high in some areas, especially if you're buying like condos, or they can be really, really low. So that's a really important consideration because that's money in money out.   Emil: Yeah. And like you mentioned, some of them are high and some of them are low. Like I have one property, I only have one property that's in an HOA, and it's $21 a month so as I was looking at it, everything else I really didn't want a property with an HOA but at $21 it wasn't really affecting my monthly cash flow. And so yeah, I went with that. But yeah, be careful sometimes it can be $100 plus, so that can really really you know, mess with your cash flow number. So good call Tom.   Tom: And kind of back to that exercise of comparing your pro forma assumptions for cash flow to actual you have some actions that you can do to try to improve them specifically around shopping. for insurance costs, that's something that I need to do right now, to revamp the insurance costs, looking at mortgage rates, interest rates have never been lower. So you can beat those values. And then looking at that trade off between taking care of items on the turn or just repair replace. So there's a lot of places that you as an investor, in working with your property manager and some of your other partners that you have, there's actionable item, actionable items to improve on those values.   Emil: Yep. You know, there's other small things, right? Like if you are again, buying, let's say, a four unit building, and you're on the hook for water, installing low flow toilets, right, not expensive, but over the course of a year, it can add up to some decent savings that probably more than paid for the toilet in the first year. So like there's, you know, little things you can do to also try to decrease your expenses along the way.   Tom: Yeah. And rent growth versus vacancy. You know,   Emil: There you go.   Tom: Have we done a debate on that rent growth versus vacancy?   Emil: We haven't we should   Tom: That's coming up in the pipeline, for sure.   Emil: Yeah.   Tom: I like the question of you know, do you are raising rates at the risks of vacancy? Right, I got a feeling I think I know where we're gonna land. But it'll be fun to just switch back and forth in that debate.   Emil: Yeah. I also think it's depending on what you invest in, I think dictates how you do it. Right? If you're investing in something that's valued on cap rate makes a lot more sense. Because it's all based on income versus a home or up to four units based on sales comps. You know, you're less incentivized   Tom: Very astute point, Emil makes a lot of sense.   Emil: But we can get into all that in a debate.   Tom: Yeah, it'll be a good episode.   Emil: With that. I think it's probably a good spot for us and this episode. Thank you again, everyone for lending us your ears, and we will check you out in next week's episode. Happy investing.   Tom: Happy investing.

Tom, Michael and Emil answer another round of listener submitted questions.    Transcript   Tom: Greetings and welcome to The Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Tom Schneider and I am here with   Emil: Emil Shour   Michael: And Michael Albaum.   Tom: And we are going to take on another episode of ask us anything. All right, let's do it.   Theme Song   Michael: Before we get into it, how was the holiday weekend? Monday, yesterday was labor day. What did y'all do?   Emil: I went out and shredded some gnar at the beach. It was so packed at the beach. I dunno, man. Little scary out there with how many people were at the beach.   Michael: Didn't feel like the surface of the sun. There was a crazy heat wave in California. Pretty much the entire state where you feel on a down South.   Emil: Oh yeah, there was that too. That the entire state of California was basically on fire. That was really fun.   Michael: So the only logical place to be is in the water.   Emil: That's right. It was nice. The water was cold, but it was so hot outside. So it was like the perfect place to be, which is why everyone was there, I assume.   Michael: Did you trunk it?   Emil: I did not know. I'm a baby. When it comes cold water. I always wear a wetsuit. The only time I don't is when I'm like traveling and the water is super warm, like in central America or Bali or somewhere. Alright.   Michael: Right on.   Emil: But in California, I'm always, I'm always in a wetsuit. I'm never, one of them…   Michael: Always suited up.   Emil: Every time I wear trunks, I immediately regret it, so.   Michael: Tom, what did you get up to?   Tom: I just, just managing this bit of a hellscape we have up in Northern California. You guys are further down South in Northern California. I think it's like record like 105 or 109. And you guys look at the air quality with all the fires. So I'm like constantly looking at yeah. Cause it's like, it kind of controls if you can like go outside or not. And it's funny, there are multiple apps out there and it's a Q, ACQ is the one that I'm looking at anyways it's like little bits of ash on the ground and it's, you know, you can't like go inside somewhere else with other people. Cause we're still doing some, some quarantine. It's like a, a, a triple whammy of the heat plus the bad air, plus the pandemic going on. So just being present with wife and baby at the house and making the most of it, playing games,   Emil: It got up to 115 where I live this weekend. It was crazy. We have all these like roses and stuff in the front of our house. And they all got torched. Like they're all dead. After this weekend. It was crazy.   Michael: Wow. One and done.   Emil: What about you Michael, what went on?   Michael: I was hanging out, up North, the central coast where I live for the weekend and my mom actually came up to visit. So we were hosting her and showing her around. But yeah, I was just super hot here as well. We were supposed to do some yoga in the park, socially distant yoga in the park on Sunday. And my buddy was like, dude, it's a hundred degrees. Like, don't come. It's just, you can't be outside. So they have an…   Tom: Outdoor Bikram yoga,   Michael: That's basically it, yeah. Everyone would just be a sweat box. Yeah. We just went to the beach and hung out and got a little bit of a reprieve, but it was like 95 at the beach too. So we just ended up coming right back home to where I live and it was always a coastal breeze. So it was back in the seventies. So it was great. It was like the only place where we could be where it wasn't pretty much on fire.   Emil: Yeah.   Tom: Pierre did you do anything fun?   Pierre: Yeah. This weekend. So we're starting a music channel here with the housemates and we're going to be running a live stream or more like a virtual concert where we can control the audio quality. So we started filming for that.   Tom: Is it through YouTube or where, where is it published through?   Pierre: Yeah, on YouTube. We just started a YouTube channel.   Emil: Nice. Look at you, man.   Michael: That's really cool.   Pierre: Yeah. I'll drop a quick little shameless plug for Ansel Avenue.   Tom: Ansel Avenue is that what it is?   Pierre: Yeah, Ansel Ave is the page,   Tom: Nice   Pierre: It's a music production channel and we'll be hosting five different artists on October 9th. And we've been following the COVID shooting guidelines for those of you worrying out there.   Michael: Good man. Good man.   Emil: Quick caveat.   Tom: Awesome. All right, guys, let's jump into this. Ask us anything. So this is a grab bag. We're gonna cover a variety of different topics and we're going to start with what assumptions go into property tax estimates. And I will take the initial crack at this and then I'll, I'll pass it along. So we're going to be talking about property tax estimates, and I'm going to talk about some of the methodologies that Roofstock uses. And then we're also going to touch on ways that you as an investor can think about it, but just kind of riff on the topic of property taxes. So this is what you're paying on a semiannual basis to basically support roads and schools and all those other local great stuff that property taxes pay for. So property taxes, two aspects of it is a, a millage rate, which is a percentage of the assessed value and correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's usually anywhere between like 1% or 2%. Some areas are really high. So in Florida and Texas, where they don't have income taxes, that local area, they make all their money on property taxes. So it's significantly higher. But back to my point, so calculating property taxes, there is a millage rate, which is a percentage of the assessed value.   And then there's also what they call ad valorem or special assessments where it's just adding a flat dollar amount. It's not a percentage of the assessed value. And these could be for, you know, one year the voting populations votes for a bond to put in a new swimming pool with the school or whatever, totally making up things. And this would be like a flat dollar amount that would not be specific to the value of the home. So that's really the, the ingredients that go up to go into making the tax value.   If I'm evaluating a lot of properties at time, I may use a flat percentage just based on it, uh, of, you know, go through this exercise in detail on a couple of properties. And with that neighborhood, I can just apply a set percentage and for properties that make it through the funnel of ones that I want to evaluate further, then I'll go in and looking at the, at the millage rate after doing that initial exercise as a way to kind of batch it and doing a bunch, um, that would be the another way that you can do it, especially whittling down a bigger list of properties. And, um, I'd love to hear, let's see what, Michael, what do you have to say about property tax estimate?   Michael: Yeah. I just have a follow up question. Ad valorem is that Latin?   Tom: Yes. I think it is. It is the proposition to the estimated value of the goods or transactions concerned, shout out to google.   Michael: Country of origin? Please use it in a sentence.   Tom: It's just like an additional flat rate and, uh, you know, really good questions, Michael, really good questions.   Michael: Really prevalent and pertinent question. Yeah. So on, on property taxes, I have a lot of thoughts on, on this subject. Um, cause it's something I see a lot of new investors get wrong and I've been wrong myself too. So there's three values that should not be co-mingled together. One is the assessed value of the property, which will often dictate what your property tax will look like. The other is the insured value from the insurance company. And the last is the sale price. Those three numbers often have no relation to one another. They can in a lot of instances like in California, the assessed value is the same as the sale price, which is then going to change your property taxes. But so just getting that out in the open. So Tom, I think you nailed it with the millage rate. Every County is going to have their own millage rate and they're going to calculate it based on whatever their needs are.   And then it's going to be multiplied by the assessed value and the assessed value can be any number of things. It can be this last sale price of the property. It could be a two year appraisal or a new assessment that the County does on a regular basis. They could do it based on a sale. There's there's any number of reasons why a property could be reassessed. And so you just want to call the County assessor to get a very clear understanding of how is this property going to be evaluated for the assessed value? What is the millage rate and what are the things that could cause the property taxes to change? Once you can ask those questions, you'll have a much clearer understanding of what the property taxes are. And I always tell folks, you know, look at historic to get an idea. You can make this ratio right of, I know what the last sale price is. A lot of that's public information, and I know what last year's property taxes were. So I can calculate, I can almost calculate out a ratio or percentage of the sale price. And you can use that going forward for your worst case scenario and say like, okay, look, if the last person paid 3% of the sale price and property taxes, I can assume I'm going to pay 3% of this new sale price and property taxes annually. As a worst case scenario, it might not be that bad. And so you just want to call the County sets or get an understand, how do you calculate property taxes for your property after the sale to get the most accurate picture?   Tom: An important point I want to make about looking at last year's taxes paid is I think that could be a tricky in that they may have a homeowner's exemptions for some areas. You might get a major discount on your property taxes, if you're an owner occupied and you lived in the property. So that's a super important thing. And you know, Michael, you asked that question in jest about ad valorem and being Latin and I double checked on it and it is Latin and ad valorem actually is the tax based on the assessed value. So I had that a little bit mixed up. So the ad valorem is that, is that calculation of the road relative to the assessed value and its special assessments is what you're paying for on additional and on top of it, for those like, you know, bonds that pass and whatnot. So it was my quick cleanup, a meal. Any final thoughts?   Emil: Yeah. I don't have much that you guys nailed it. The only thing I want to mention is that if you're evaluating different markets, let's say you're looking to buy your first property. This is such an important thing to pay attention to property tax, because you'd be looking at two markets, maybe two separate properties in two markets, you'll see one market that has an awesome rent to price ratio, right? Like let's say you, the sales price is a hundred thousand, but it's renting for $1,500 a month. So it exceeds the 1% rule of saying monthly rent should be 1% of the sales price. So if it was selling for a hundred thousand, it would rent for $1,000 a month and it far exceeds that. Right. But you'll go to another market and it'll be right at the 1% rule, but you'll see that the returns are completely different. And it's because of this property tax, some States, some cities just have super high property tax rates and others don't. And so you'll just be looking at two properties and you're like, why is it so different? And usually the differences of the property tax rate causing it to return to be much less. So that was my rant about price of rent and yeah.   Tom: Yeah. And with, so just some experience. Just some other musings working on the operation side with Roofstock taxes can be a little bit tricky in that when Roofstock, when we had opened up a market there's little sub pockets in the markets where there can be big swings, like where perhaps there's a school assessment that isn't in one pocket. So we, I think it might've been in Memphis where we opened up that market. We did some diligence on some properties and came up with a good methodology of coming up with the taxes and we are up and running and we have these properties listed and then a couple of people close and they, on the closing statement, it said their property taxes were significantly more. And we back as an operations team said, Hey, what did we miss on these property taxes?   And it turned out in some municipalities, the city adds extra taxes on top of the County. So that's something to think about as well. If that area, if there are city taxes that are thrown on with the County taxes, it's, it's not a one size fits all taxes are not as transparent as it should be on what the prices are at the way that certain States they change the assessed value on what you're taxed on, can be really unique from state to state. Like some of them do it on a transaction. Some of them do it on a rolling seven year basis. It's a taxes is not super straightforward. And I think it's a great place where you can play offense where if you're buying a property, you can appeal the tax values, uh, in writing to the County commissioner and say, Hey, this property should be worth this, you know, trying to lower that value to manage your money. So kind of the takeaway is, is taxes can be a little bit tricky, but it's just, you know, do your homework. And I love Michael's point about talking to the County assessor or looking on the County assessor's website is a good one.   Michael: What'd you say Tom, that taxes might almost be a little bit ethereal.   Tom: They are definitely a little bit ethereal for sure. No question   Emil: One additional thing, You'll also notice within your market that the tax rate will be different for a single family than multifamily. So that's, that's an important consideration as well. Often I've found that the tax rate on single family homes will be less than multifamily. So that's another thing. So if you're buying single families and you decide to move into multifamily, I wouldn't use the same rate you're used to seeing on your other properties. I would go figure out what multi-families of that size, what the rates seems to be. And you can, again, tax assessor website, you can ask an agent you're working with whoever, just people, local net market. And they'd be able to give you some insight on that.   Tom: All right, I'm going to tee this one up for Emil. So question for you. Do property managers automatically collect the reserves or is that up to the owner? When you think of mail what's your strategy on this?   Emil: They do not. So the, the only thing the property manager holds for you is they have like a minimum account balance. So some will be like $250 or 500. And that's just a minimum balance so that they can cover things when necessary, right? The property. Manager's not going to be your bank. So when little things come up, they maintain a small amount of reserves to be able to cover those things. All the reserves, you know, we talk about CapEx, repair and maintenance, all those reserves that's on you. So your, your property managers collecting rent, taking their fee and then distributing the rest to you. So they're not maintaining any reserve above that minimum I mentioned,   Tom: It's a baby. They keep a baby reserves, right?   Emil: Yeah. 250,500 is not a yeah.   Michael: Yeah. I think that's not the reserve that most people are talking about when they talk about reserves. Like Emil mentioned it's for the one little stuff and the reserves that you should have for those, but the lender is going to require you to have, or for your cap tax and your maintenance. That's all on you as the owner to set that money aside to your market. When you get it out of the monthly rent to then have it sitting ready to deploy,   Emil: How do you guys maintain your reserves personally? Like, do you have a separate account for it? Do you just leave it in your checking account where everything's deposited, like at a minimum level? I think it'd be good to…   Michael: My property manager does it for me.   Emil: Oh, nice. So you just, uh...   Michael: I figure out how much I should be having and then set it aside. And I figured out how much cashflow I should be making. I try to not touch the cashflow from properties, or at least I did that when I was first started investing. Now I'm using much of that to fund other projects in my daily life. So my strategy has since changed a little bit, but I try to never take more than my calculator tells me I should be making on a monthly or annual basis from a particular property. And I leave everything else in the account.   Tom: Yeah. Similar amount. I just have a separate, separate bank account where I keep a few thousand few thousand bucks, maybe a thousand, 2000 bucks a property on top of the reserves that the, you know, that baby reserves that the property managers all keep. And just within that one account, it's this, this beautiful flow of mortgage going out, rent payments coming in, and if need be, you know, pushing some additional of my larger reserve account into that particular property manager account.   Emil: Nice.   Tom: Excellent. Once this next question relates to 10 31 exchanges and we cover a lot of topics related to 10 31 in episode 15 of the remote real estate investor. Uh, so if you want to go deeper on this stuff, check out that episode. But this question is with a 10 31 exchange from, can you go from a multifamily to multiple single family or from a single family to multifamily or multiple single family? Basically that question of going up and down, uh, as an exchange and you gentlemen, like to a step on this one?   Michael: Short answer is yes. From what we learned from the podcast episode about 10 31 exchange, episode 15, like you mentioned, Tom, and it just has to be like kind property. So that's the investment property for investment property, both ways the property you're selling into the investment property and the property you're buying needs to be investment property. And there are some very strict rules, guidelines, and regulations about the cost basis of those properties, the purchase price, the equity share that you have in those properties. So yes, you can go from a single family to multifamily or from a single family to multiple single families or from a single multifamily to one single family. Any combination of is my understanding that you can, you can go and I'm going to preface this all, talk to a tax professional, talk to a 10 31 professional accommodator, but this is my 2 cents. This is my understanding based on that episode, as long as you're following the rules. Yes, it's absolutely possible. But you just want to make sure that you're involving a professional accommodator to assist with that process. And they can absolutely walk you through the do's, the don'ts and everything in between of how to go about it.   Emil: You can also do commercial to single family as well. We actually have a case study up on roofstock.com of two entrepreneurs who live in the Bay area who had a commercial property. They ended up selling it and 10 30ing into like 167 homes in the Southeast and Midwest. So you can, you can also do commercial insists.   Michael Yeah. I think the restriction is only investment to investment. So if it's an investment property, industrial, whatever, as long as the new property is also an investment property, I think you're in the clear.   Tom: Yeah. And just to redefine the value of the 10 31, it allows you to sell a property without paying any taxes on it. So as long as you, you roll all those proceeds into another and investment following all the 10 31 rules, but pretty cool. Like imagine trying to you buy a bunch of stock, it appreciates a ton, you sell it and you can move it into a different stock without paying any taxes. You can't do that with stock, but you can do it with real estate. It's just one of those really neat aspects, but makes real estate so fun and cool.   Michael: Well, actually, Tom, there's something that I think we've covered on a previous episode, but there's the opportunity zone. And so if you sell stock and look to invest in real estate, there are ways to avoid paying capital gains on the sale of the stock. If you invest in an opportunity zone, but that's for another episode.   Tom: A zigzag 10 31 that's right. I mean, not, not, not really, but you know, a different way to approach it. Okay. My, the next question I have here is what is a REIT or a real estate investment trust.   Michael: Tom, do you want to take this one because you're kind of, you played in that space. Yes, you're right. My goal, I did play in this. I worked for a REIT. So a, a re is defined as a real estate investment trust. And essentially what it is is you're buying a percentage in a company, a collection of homes. So unlike buying an individual home and owning it in your name, you're just buying a percentage of this.   And it's a REIT is a company that owns and operates and income producing properties. Uh, it is a way to be really diversified in that you're buying it. And you automatically kind of have access to all the markets that the portfolio of that REIT is in. I worked for a single family REIT, it's called Invitation Homes. It previously was Waypoint Homes, and then it got gobbled up by another company and became colony Starwood Homes, and then got gobbled up by invitation homes as businesses do. But it is a, an easy way to invest in real estate. You know, you're not investing directly into the individual assets, but you're investing into this pool of assets. Some other aspects about REITs is most of at least the single family REITs, they have a similar makeup in that they're all using about 50%. They all have a similar market footprint covering, you know, mainly the Southeast, the, the Florida, maybe Arizona, Texas, a very similar footprint up makeup.   So an advantage of a REIT is you have great liquidity where you can get in and out very, very quickly. But what isn't as attractive as a REIT is you do not have the type of upside that you would on an individual property. It's ‘cause it's peanut butter spreading like the uber peanut butter spreading the risk. Something that also just kind of personal anecdote with a REIT is I, as I worked at this rate and I saw how the properties were performing and oftentimes the value of the rate, wasn't completely indicative of the performance of the property. Just the way that globalization has. There's, there's so many aspects that can affect a stock's price that doesn't have to do with the property. So, you know, one reason that I like to own property directly is the performance of the property is going to dictate the performance of the returns versus a lot of other stuff that's going on in the economy. So that's my 10 cents on a REIT. It is a publicly traded stock where you're buying a percentage of a collection of properties.   Michael: Tom, you worked at the single family or read that own single family homes, but aren't there also REITs out there that own multifamily and commercial and kind of any kind of piece of property that exists. But is it fair to say that there's a REIT that probably owns that?   Tom: That's right. Big multifamily data centers, hotels, offices, warehouses. So there's a lot of different flavors of reads and reads have been around for a while. Single family reads a pretty new just in that industry really came to fruition in the early mid 2010s. It's a relatively a baby versus some of the other types of REITs out there, but that's right. There are a REITs in all types of different flavors.   Michael: Awesome. Thanks   Tom: A few last points about REITs. So there are publicly traded REITs and these are REITs that are traded on stock exchanges. There are public non traded REITs, and then there are private REITs and with private rates, these are not registered with the sec and do not trade on any security exchange and typically require you to be an institutional or an accredited investor. So the last question that I have here is what is the best type of account for holding cash in preparation for investing or reinvesting kind of ties into reserves a little bit. I think that's typically in the same vein. Michael, do you want to take the initial stab at this?   Michael: Yeah. I always think it's, whatever account can get you the best interest rate that's as safe, insecure as they come. And it's kind of a hotly debated topic. I posted about it on Twitter a while back about, Hey, if you've got 10 grand that you're saving for real estate investing, but you need 20 to get in. Do you place that in the stock market or do you place it in a savings account and some folks at stock market to grow it? Others said cash in the bank. I'm of the opinion that if you're looking to invest in real estate cash preservation is really important because as we've seen in the stock market, especially over the last couple of weeks, there are some major ups and some major downs. And so for folks that are willing to ride that rollercoaster, they might have a very different opinion because they have big potential upside. So that 10 grand could turn into 20 grand in a couple of weeks, a couple months, depending on how good the stock market does. I'm not willing to play that game because it could also go to zero. So I like sticking it just in a checking savings account, whatever gets the best interest rate and it's free to have.   Tom: Yeah, I think convenience could be a factor. I think just like Michael said, liquidity of being able to move quickly. If I know that I'm not going to move to buy something in the next six months, I mean, I could put it in a CD if I'm feeling a little exotic, not that a CD is very exotic, but anyways, if you look around, there are great savings accounts that pop up every once in a while, I know a couple of years ago, allied bank had a 2% return and I think Marcus, it might've been Goldman Sachs. They turned them on at this great rate and they often will kind of flow back down as an initial kind of teaser to get people, to put their money there. But it's worth looking at that. And it's, this is a good personal preference answer. I'm in a similar vein as Michael, where I'll keep it in a savings account, but you know, if you want it to put it in some ETF, like that probably would be okay, there's been a little bit more volatility as of late, but if you know that you're going to be sitting for a while on that cash, it could make sense where you can get a better return somewhere else on what your risk threshold is. Risk tolerance. That's the word. Yes.   Michael: Yeah. I was gonna say on that note, you know, I had a, um, like an eight or nine month time horizon. So I bought some municipal bonds or some or treasury bills that were like paying at the time, I think like 2% or like 2.05. Cause it was just a super short term. And if it was better than the point, Oh 1% of the bank offered so super safe, you know, relatively liquid investment that if you need to get out of you can. But yeah, that's all I wanted to say on that. Those are gonna be good options as well.   Emil: I think it really matters on your situation. Like, let's say you have 5,000 bucks and you need to get to 20 K and you look at how much you're saving each month and it's going to take you three to four years, right? Like you're just not saving enough. I would say you, you have more to gain than to lose. It's just going to take you awhile. I would personally go put that in something where I can get higher yield. Yeah. It's you could call it gambling or whatever, but right now you're really trying to accumulate capital. You don't have as much to lose. I, I would try to bank roll that into something bigger. And that's, I'm speaking from that personally. That's like how I bought my first property. I invested some money in the stock market invested for a couple years, got lucky and cashed out and bought some rental property. I mean, but if you're like looking to buy the next six to 12 months, I personally wouldn't want to take that gamble with such a short time horizon. I would just be putting it in the savings account. I would even say like the account type, even just like find a savings account, all these banks right now, they're pretty close to one another.   And the interest rate they're giving you is nominal because of how like interest rates are so low right now. I think I looked at my savings account. It was like 0.65% annual yield. It's like, it's irrelevant. You're not, you're not getting really any yield there. It's just cash preservation like Michael mentioned. Right? So if your time horizon is short, you just are saving cash to deploy in the next six, 12. I just put in a savings until you get to the, the amount you need to invest.   Michael: That's such a good point in the order to make that you have in that instance, more to gain than you do to lose. If you've got a long enough time horizon and you're playing with the smaller amount of money, as long as you're not needing that money to pay your bills or whatever, that's purely allocated for investing. I think that's a really good point and something definitely to consider for each individual.   Tom: All right, last question for the day is for this episode, is, are there any litigious trends against landlords? How likely is it to be sued? I'll kick this one off and say that, you know, this is not legal advice. This is, we're just talking from our own personal experiences within my portfolio. I've never dealt with any litigious issues. When I worked at one of these REITs, that own thousands of homes, we had some stuff pop up, but I think sometimes there are people that would see the big company and, you know, they would see it as an opportunity to come at them. So I'm not going to say that it doesn't happen, but I haven't seen or heard of any litigious trends happening within my experience. Haven't been sued or had any of those types of issues. Let's pass this off to one of the other hosts. What are your, what are you guys?   Michael: I think he talked to anybody in this space, any professional in the space, they've got stories, then you hear about, it's a very litigious environment. And we know this, the U S is often referred to as a very litigious country. People are often suing each other for all kinds of reasons. And so I personally knock on wood. I have never been involved in a super, my older brother has, he was served actually, um, for a kind of ridiculous thing, ended up getting dismissed by the judge because it was somebody trying to make a cash grab and, and didn't really have much to their claim, but this kind of stuff happens at any time and we're in a people business. And so people do stupid stuff. People do all kinds of crazy stuff. And so you can only control what you're doing. And so protecting yourself from those types of litigations, I think is really important. And so just make sure you're doing your homework and talk to professionals about what it is you can do to set yourself up for success.   Tom: And this is another annual episode, shout out to making sure that you, you know, you have a good property manager and a reputable property manager. Cause if I know if I were to have any sort of litigious issues, like they would be on the front lines of, of managing that with the tenant or the person living there at the property, they're really their first line of defense of deescalating, any types of issues and managing that. So shout out to getting a good property manager and vetting your property manage. Emil?   Emil: I think this question kind of gets that too. Like, do I need an LLC? Do I need umbrella insurance? Like what all the different ways I can protect myself. And just, again, speaking from personal experience, first property I bought where I knew like most of my net worth, I hadn't really generated any wealth yet and still haven't generate anything meaningful. But I think again, when you have less to lose getting caught in the weeds and all these things, like you can just get brain damage from all the different ways to protect yourself when you don't really have a ton yet that needs protection. Again, personal experience, as you start acquiring more, as your wealth goes up and you have more things to lose, this is when it's like, you need like a real estate attorney having all these different protections, I think matter more and more and more like as you're, you're playing a lot of offense early on. And then as things grow, it is really about preservation and not losing what you've built. That's at least the way I've, I've kind of approached these things.   Michael: It's such a good point and that's kind of the second time you've made it as is what's what's the risk. And so I come from the insurance world, we always ask ourselves, okay, what's the risk when we're making a decision? What's the bet, how big of a downside is it? And if it was a $1 billion semiconductor plant that was going to burn down or not based on the decision we made, we're going to spend a lot of time evaluating and analyzing that decision with a microscope and a fine tooth comb, if it was a $10,000, uh, swing one way or the other, which in the insurance world is not a big deal. We would just make a decision and move on because the impact wasn't really meaningful, same thing with your, with your personal finances. If the impact is not going to be significant make a decision and move on.   And I also want to caution people. There are tons of snake oil salespeople out there that are trying to use scare tactics, to get people, to buy products that they really don't need and protect themselves that they don't need. I remember talking to somebody a few months ago, they were talking about setting up series LLCs and Delaware trust and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, great. How many properties do you own? Well, none I haven't bought any yet. Okay, well, let's use that money to maybe go buy the property first. And then we can talk about all that type of protection. And that's not to say, don't protect yourself on the front end, don't do your homework if you're small, quite the opposite, you need to be informed, but you also need to understand what's overkill. And there's absolutely a point where you can be over insured and deciding for yourself as an individual is what's important because I can't tell you Tom or Emil, if you're over insured or not, if you feel comfortable, great, that's what matters. Doesn't really matter what I think. But I would say that there are, there are things out there and there are tactics being used out there to scare people into buying products that they probably don't need.   Tom: Alright guys ready for the fun end of the episode, get to know the host.   Emil: Let's do it.   Michael: Totally.   Tom: Alright, so get your phone out. This is going to be the exercise. You're going to go to your phone. You're gonna go to settings. I want you guys to talk about…   Michael: If you make me change my language is something I don't understand I'm going to be really upset.   Tom: Yeah. So click on settings, click on settings. And then you're going to click on screen time, which is below notifications. Okay. And then you're going to click on, see all activity. And you're going to look at your most used apps and we're going to talk very quickly on our top two most used apps. You can't count messages or Gmail or whatever, like the nonstandard apps. And so I'm looking at mine right now. I'll go first, my top two, Audible, I had a little bit of a car ride and I'm, that's one of my most recent ones. The audio book, one shout out to Eric Larson. That guy is such a, he writes these historical stories that are really awesome. He wrote this one called devil in the white city, the splendid and the vial is the one on audible. I'm listening right now. It's about Churchill and world war II. And what a neat dude. And the other one I've let's see, go ahead.   Michael: Any relation to Gary Larson?   Tom: I don't think so. Eric Larson. Super interesting guy. So, and the other one I've been using is downward dog. It's this yoga app, but like what? It creates a new routine every time, but it's you like set these settings like, Oh, do you want to be really tired at the end? Or do you want to as a more mellow and then you pick how long it is. And it's probably my favorite, one of those types of apps. So downdog is what it's called. Shout at the down dog. Emil you're up. What's your two most, Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Grill me. Go ahead.   Michael: I wanted to say, before a meal goes, I want to know too, in addition to the, the top two, what's your daily average screen time?   Tom: It one hour and 48 minutes. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. You guys got to answer that. I have a big advantage in that I had my phone hidden for like four days last week. So I was just taking a break. If you guys are over that you guys are using way too much phone time.   Emil: I feel like this is going to be very, very easy for you guys to guess mine. Top two. I'm going to say Twitter and Gmail. No, it can't be email. Yeah, exactly. No messages, no GMO, no phone. It has to be like apps,   Pierre: Wave tracker or some other surf app?   Michael: Oh, just apps. Okay. Twitter and boy littering and littering it right on Twitter. Twitter by LinkedIn. Instagram. No, I don't have, I deleted my Instagram. LinkedIn is Facebook. Worst list. I deleted Facebook off my phone surf line guys. Come on.   Pierre: I said wave trackers.   Emil: Oh, you did? You were muted. Okay. So yeah, surf line. So Twitter and surf line. I am very predictable. And uh, yeah. So that's me and Twitter by a large margin.   Michael: What's your daily average use?   Emil: Two hours and 45 minutes.   Tom: That's not bad at all. I, I bet you mine is normally way over. If I didn't have my phone hitting hidden from me,   Emil: I've been trying to, I think some weeks it goes three and a half plus, but I've been trying to make a more conscious effort to like, not be on my phone, especially when I'm hanging out with my family it away. Yeah. Right. Michael your turn. Yup.   Michael: All right. So we said nail apps don't count.   Tom: Nope. You can't repeat one that Emil has picked.   Emil: No I want to know if Twitter if it's on there.   Michael: Yeah Twitter is my, it is my number two. Okay. Twitter is my number two. Let's see. Photos is the next, which isn't really an app. Facebook is next. I get a lot of, I like reading news stories on Facebook so that, yeah, Twitter and Facebook are my two.   Tom: I like it. Right. And my daily average is one hour and 14 minutes.   Emil: Oh my God. One 14. You're on Twitter or you just Twittering on your desktop.   Michael: Yeah. I, I am. I do Twitter on my desktop. I do tweet from my desktop occasionally, but yeah. I try to not be on my phone a lot and I'm just constantly, I do a lot of work from the computer. So I think that's probably why I like, to be honest, I just make phone calls a lot. Um, yeah. I try to, I try to keep the phone away as best as I can.   Tom: I like it. Alright Pierre?   Pierre: I'm not seeing that option in my settings?   Tom: Are you on an iPhone?   Pierre: No I am on an android.   Tom: Oh.   Pierre: Nobody's perfect.   Tom: That good news. You get to make up whatever you want.   Pierre: That's true. What do you think your top two?   Emil: What do you think? You probably know what apps are.   Pierre: I have to say YouTube and either Google podcasts or Audible.   Tom: And what do you think your average screen time is?   Pierre: I don't know. A couple hours. I use my phone quite a bit. There's gotta be a way to tell that. I guess I don't track that stuff.   Emil: Pssht, androids…   MIchael: I remember my first smartphone.   Emil: You don't, you don't even want to get into it with Pierre he will just tell you you're a, you're an Apple sheep.   Pierre: No, there's some good things about Apple.   Emil: Oh yeah. Just cause we're recording. It's just cause we're recording.   Pierre: I'm about to put some new ram in my computer and I was considering getting an Apple until I realized I can't put more ram in an Apple, and I was like, get the hell out of here.   Michael: Yeah. It's factory set. Right? You can't, there's not a whole lot of changes you can do. I think that's the big draw for non-Apple products, right? It's just a bit more customizable.   Tom: I mean, if most of the software you use is like Gmail, YouTube, Chrome. Like why not go, go straight to the source, you know, and have Android. I've always thought about switching to Android. And I think at some point I will. I just get used to the, the smooth iPhone functionality   Pierre: And also the power per buck. You know, the amount of power you can get per buck with a PC as opposed to an Apple for me, it's just a pretty great thing. Just get more value out of a smaller down payment.   Michael: That make sense.   Tom: All right guys. Well that wraps us up for today. We would appreciate it. If you like the episode to give us a rating and subscribe as always, this episode is brought to you by the Roofstock Academy. Roofstock Academy, your one stop shop for all things, getting to the next level in real estate, we have over 50 hours of on-demand lectures. We've got coaching. We've got really cool book clubs where we bring the author in, which is really fun. We sometimes do that. I hope to do it all the time and a really awesome Slack channel where you can get real time conversations with other folks in the program with the coaching, all that good stuff. And last but not least, we have $2,500 of credits back if you buy on Roofstock. So the program costs $1,250. And if you buy on Roofstock, you get $500 cash back for five transactions, totaling $2,500. You're actually making money. It's kind of like a buyer reward program. You can think of it that way. So we hope you liked this episode and happy investing!  

The kids keep an eye on the “spaniard” and “Injun Joe” for a few days then Becky Thatcher comes back! So Tom pretty much forgets about the murderer and the gold to go hit on her. A big party is planned and Huck and Becky wind up missing- which kind of takes the shine off the fact that Huck saved a woman’s life.Go on, read it yourself:
https://bookshop.org/books/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer-original-and-uncensored/9781074561192Visit https://nuzzlehouse.com for show info.

Cash Flow with Jason Waters | Guest: Tom Rocca EVP of Summa Franchise Consulting Hey, it's Jason Waters with Cash Flow. Welcome to the show. Today with us I have Tom Rocca welcome Tom. - Hey thanks for having me, Jason I appreciate it. - Tom and I have been friends a long time and wanted to bring him home because he's kind of a guru of all things franchise. Along with business operational experience and I don't know it can really just replace me on my show so this was dangerous but we're just going to dive right in. So Tom, first of all, I always liked it you know get a little bit of background on the guests, so tell us a lot about you and how you came to be doing what you're doing. - Well, thanks for asking, and thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it being an ex-podcast radio guy it's nice to be kind of back. To be honest with you. By myself a little quiet studio here and I'm talking to you all of us and so Jason thank you and I appreciate our friendship to the back and all the things you and I've done but franchise Consulting's has been something that has been keeping us extremely busy, been doing it for many years. I'm somewhat known as the operational side of the business. My partner Robert Stidham is the financial side of the business and also a person who's been very very prominent over the last 35 plus years. I've been a guy who's been 35 plus years in operations, contact center, customer service, and so on. We kind of form forces a handful of years ago with Summa Franchise Consulting. and we've been doing a lot of work and just to give you a little distinction about

This week, we are really reviewing some stinkers. First up, we'd tell Glenn Danzig to stick to music, but we've heard his latest album. So Tom and Des review Verotika instead. Then, Tom, being a glutton for punishment, sat through the late Joel M Reed's Bloodsucking Freaks. And of course, there are songs: "Eyes Ripping Fire" by Danzig, "Close Your Eyes" by Jyrki 69, "Bloodsucking Freak" by John Brennan and The Bigfeet feat. Chris Jericho, and "No Lives Matter" by Bodycount. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

This week, we are really reviewing some stinkers. First up, we'd tell Glenn Danzig to stick to music, but we've heard his latest album. So Tom and Des review Verotika instead. Then, Tom, being a glutton for punishment, sat through the late Joel M Reed's Bloodsucking Freaks. And of course, there are songs: "Eyes Ripping Fire" by Danzig, "Close Your Eyes" by Jyrki 69, "Bloodsucking Freak" by John Brennan and The Bigfeet feat. Chris Jericho, and "No Lives Matter" by Bodycount. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

This week, we are really reviewing some stinkers. First up, we'd tell Glenn Danzig to stick to music, but we've heard his latest album. So Tom and Des review Verotika instead. Then, Tom, being a glutton for punishment, sat through the late Joel M Reed's Bloodsucking Freaks. And of course, there are songs: "Eyes Ripping Fire" by Danzig, "Close Your Eyes" by Jyrki 69, "Bloodsucking Freak" by John Brennan and The Bigfeet feat. Chris Jericho, and "No Lives Matter" by Bodycount. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

This week, we are really reviewing some stinkers. First up, we'd tell Glenn Danzig to stick to music, but we've heard his latest album. So Tom and Des review Verotika instead. Then, Tom, being a glutton for punishment, sat through the late Joel M Reed's Bloodsucking Freaks. And of course, there are songs: "Eyes Ripping Fire" by Danzig, "Close Your Eyes" by Jyrki 69, "Bloodsucking Freak" by John Brennan and The Bigfeet feat. Chris Jericho, and "No Lives Matter" by Bodycount. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

Hello and happy Thursday! The title is not a 'yellow thing' it's a 'Purple Thang!' More and more Tom realizes that he cannot compare his path to anyone's simply because there is no one doing what he is doing especially where he is living. Tom makes clear he is not tooting his own horn. He is pointing out the dichotomy of him up until forty-eight years of age and being fifty-five. Tom's world is small, he made it that way and he keeps it that way. Him not fitting in is what Tom is embracing in a new and profound way, as he never has before. It is what makes Tom special, as it does all of us. Tom goes deep and shares things he's never shared before. Even Tom wasn't sure of the why to this episode but there is not much Tom filters; when it's time, it's time. Move forward. Repeat. ** "Come to Tom's well; buy the water he sells." ** Like it or not this is where Tom and his podcast are headed. Tom got breadcrumbs! #lol So Tom hopes you like it! Enjoy and as always thanks for listening! Be sure to like Pro You on Facebook, follow along @ProYouPodcast on Twitter and Instagram and check out @tomjdeters on Instagram for daily inspiration! *Not all exercises are suitable for everyone and this, or any other exercise program, may result in injury. Any user of the exercise program assumes the risk of injury resulting from performing the exercise. You should always speak to your doctor before you change, start or stop any part of your healthcare plan, including physical activity or exercise.*

Hello and happy Thursday! It is the best start to a new year ever for Tom but that's not what he chose to share on today's episode - well a little - but not the focus. The focus became what was on Tom's heart since speaking at the Camarillo hospice. What he feels every time he is around Jim - "Loss" - and hence the title. Tom is still riding the wave of him being his best, and 2020 being the best, but more importantly is being present, not losing sight of what matters, and what matters are usually those things of the heart... what the heart feels the heart feels. So Tom wanted to address loss, types of loss, and getting through the grieving process. Not always the easiest, funnest or most comfortable, but Tom will share whatever he is currently experiencing no matter what; hoping the message lands/resonates with at least one listener. Then Tom will know he achieved his purpose. Enjoy and thanks for listening! Be sure to like Pro You on Facebook, follow along @ProYouPodcast on Twitter and Instagram and check out @tomjdeters on Instagram for daily inspiration! *Not all exercises are suitable for everyone and this, or any other exercise program, may result in injury. Any user of the exercise program assumes the risk of injury resulting from performing the exercise. You should always speak to your doctor before you change, start or stop any part of your healthcare plan, including physical activity or exercise.*

GOING WILD The St. Louis Blues are indeed going wild lately. Winners of four straight and playing good ol' tight, solid Blues hockey lately. Tom Franklin celebrates that and talks about the Blues/Wild game Sunday night with The Sota Pod's Isha Jahromi. He also discusses the Central Division, the trade deadline, and oh by the way... The St. Louis Blues are going to the 2021 Winter Classic in Minnesota! So Tom chats with Isha about that bit of news, what it means to Minnesota fans, and why some Wild fans seem butthurt about it being the Blues and not, say, the Jets or Avalanche. Plus, some BREAKING Hockey Podcast Network news is dropped this episode, too! Twitter: @TomFranklinKMOX and @BluenotesPod Website: www.thehockeypodcastnetwork.com "PLAYLINE" THPN LOTTO! How to play ⬇️ ➡️ Click: playline.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id…18&aff_id=1398 ➡️ Create Account w. promo THPN ➡️ Deposit $5 - receive $20 FREE ➡️ Enter $.50 or $2 contests ➡️ Predict # of goalie saves ➡️ 5k & 20k prizes

Episode 18 #10 Overall, what are the gaps in our preparedness?10 Questions for the Mayor to ask the Police and Fire Chief SeriesQuestion 10: "Overall, what are the gaps in our preparedness?"Bill Godfrey:Thank you for joining us and welcome back to the final instance of our podcast series that we've been doing, on 10 questions for the mayor or the city manager, county manager to ask their police and fire chiefs. Today we are going to be looking at kind of an overall summary, what are the gaps and our preparedness, what are the common problems we see? My name is Bill Godfrey, I'm one of the instructors with C3 Pathways, retired fire chief. Joining me today is Tom Billington, also a retired fire chief and one of the C3 instructors, Stephen Shaw, a Sergeant with Chapel Hill, North Carolina and one of our C3 instructors, Ron Otterbacher, retired division chief with the Orange County Sheriff's office and an instructor and Don Tuten with the Jacksonville Sheriff's office where he's the chief over Homeland Security and also one of our instructors.Good afternoon guys, thank you for joining us for this final one. So Tom, I'm going to start off with you. What are the big gaps? Let's kind of work this down. You know, the first one that comes to my mind, is just the very basics of agencies that just are not really even working together on the ... you know, across the disciplines or across jurisdictions because it's more than just your jurisdiction. Let's start there and kind of work down.Tom Billington:Well, you're absolutely right. One of the big issues is, if you have individual fire departments, where you have a Sheriff's office and a separate police department. A lot of these organizations or separate animals’ company, a lot of these organizations have their own plans. They have their own silo, their own little box, and they're not communicating with each other, which is very dangerous. In addition to that, even if you have single agencies, you still need to involve your dispatch, emergency management, school board personnel. Everybody has to work together and come up with one plan that everybody agrees on and trains onBill Godfrey:So Tom highlights, Don, the importance of the one plan. And of course everybody here all knows that we recommend that literally there is one plan. So you know, normally a police department's going to have its set up policies and procedures and a fire department is going to have its set of policies and procedures. We're saying that this is one case, where there should be a single policy and procedure that is literally the same piece of paper co-signed by the police chief and the fire chief and the EMS chief and whoever else needs to sign. Why is that so important?Don Tuten:You know, the main reason why that's so important is if leadership changes and that document has not been updated or is in transition to being updated, that an understanding is already been established on how things are going to work. The second biggest one is the leadership within these organizations. Your mayors, your city council people, your commissioners, basically you're showing them that you have a unified front of all emergency services, as well as your outlying private and public sector entities, your schools, your hospitals, that they have taken the initiative to come together, create a plan that is acceptable for all. We're not going to deviate from that plan and that we're all working together to solve the incident or the challenge within our community.Bill Godfrey:Steve, your agency, not nearly as large as Don's agency, so if you had an event, you got others coming, everybody in the world is coming and in some cases people, agencies that you may not know or work with. What kind of issues does that pose and how do we solve that?Stephen Shaw:Well, one of the biggest issues is obviously going to be communication. One of the ways that we kind of tackle that in our area, is when we updated our radio several years ago, we made sure to get a radio that was on the same system as pretty much every other law enforcement or first responder agency, basically within driving distance. And so what that does is even though everybody's on separate channels, we can all at least monitor our own channels and our dispatch center can monitor everybody's channels and we can at least communicate that way. Another issue is going to be with self-deploying officers and things like that. How are you going to keep accountability of those resources that come in? And so, what we discussed is basically just having a way to ... instead of having them come and just go somewhere, you use them for something like a perimeter.They're not going to be on our channel, they're not going to be familiar with their way around town. They're not going to be familiar with our buildings, but we can still use that person for a perimeter or go on a rescue task force, something like that. So we always have to think about how are we going to use these people. And then, I mean again, the biggest issue is just going to be communication. We talk a lot about policy, but really they just need to understand that we have our own systems in place, our own practices, and we try to reiterate that to everybody that's going to be coming and helping. And then when we have exercises, we try to invite everybody. Anybody who's around, we try to invite everybody, Hey, come on. Even though you're a a county over or a couple of cities over, come to our area, participate in this exercise so that we can kind of see what everybody's doing and make sure that everybody's on the same page.Bill Godfrey:Yeah, making sure everybody gets invited to training together and exercising together is a key element. Ron, talk to me a little bit about the challenges with, you know, the fire service has been using ICS (Incident Command System) for a long time and in many ways has got a pretty rigid reliance on ICS (Incident Command System). Whereas law enforcement, in some cases like in Don's case, their agency embraced it years ago and has done a lot of work, but there's other law enforcement agencies that don't use it at all or use it a very little. How much does that play a role here in trying to let us all inter-operate and work together?Ron Otterbacher:It plays a huge role and the reason for that is as we teach across country, we see that some agencies don't necessarily embrace ICS (Incident Command System). Others do it, like Jacksonville does a great job of it. There's agencies all throughout the country that do a great job with it, but having that understanding of how to operate next to each other, and again, you may be co-located, but we don't want you to be co-located with your own silo next to each other, we want you to be able to work together. We often talk about unified command, although unified command in a lot of examples is not necessarily unified, it's co-located command that has no focus, that's the single focus and that's probably the biggest thing we see is when we talk about unified command or working together as a command structure, you've got to understand what's going on. You've got to communicate.Bill Godfrey:It's interesting you mentioned that. I mean, you and I and Tom were or are old enough and we were on the job when unified command kind of was added to ICS (Incident Command System) and invented, if you will. And back then it had a very specific meaning of, you know, when more than one agency had a legal authority to be in charge of, of an incident and somewhere on the streets over the last, I don't know, 10 plus years, it seems to have come to mean that the law enforcement guy runs a law enforcement show. The fire guy runs a fire show, the EMS guy runs the EMS show, they stand next to each other and somehow magically they share information and that that's going to make everything okay. And, and we always, you know, we, we talk about that in class and we demonstrate on a regular basis why that's an ineffective way to do it. Unified commands got great value, but you've got to use it as the tool that it was intended to be and still speak with one voice. How big of an issue do you think is and you know how many people have that misunderstanding and you think it's that common and big issue?Ron Otterbacher:I think it's getting better, but yes, I think it's a common issue and it's not just within the public safety sector, it's other partners that we deal with that just they've got the belief that if an incident happened at their location, they would be running the incident and everyone else would be just kind of assisting them when in fact that's not going to be the case. The understanding of what goes on is critical.Bill Godfrey:So Tom, I'm going to bounce over to you. You've spent a lot of years as an emergency manager in wearing dual hats as the fire chief and the emergency manager. A lot of experience with natural disasters as well as some manmade ones. How do you make sure that your policies and procedures are de conflicted with your mutual aid partners? How do you, okay, great. So you got the fire department, you got your fire chief, you've got your police chief in your city who is on the same page. And they've signed off on a joint policy. Now how do we make sure that and what's the process for making sure that we work with the mutual aid agencies to de-conflict those policies and make sure that we're, if we're not all on exactly the same page, that we're on a close enough page that we can inter-operate together.Tom Billington:Well, Bill, that's an excellent question. Actually in my organization about 15 years ago, we were involved in just that issue. It took a lot of work, but we were able to get eight separate jurisdictions from different counties in different towns to all agree on a mutual aid plan or an automatic and mutually plan that talks about what each agency does when they come into your area, what medical protocols they use or don't use, what the indemnification is. It took a lot of work getting everybody in the same room, but in the end it really worked really good. It clears up any misinterpretation on the various policies. And of course that comes with meeting with people, talking to them together. And it really, it was successful. We were very proud of it.Bill Godfrey:What role in your mind, Tom, can the county managers, city managers, mayors potentially play, what in a helpful way, what role can they be? How can they be advocates when the inevitable politics rears its head and you're having trouble getting agency A to work with agency B or a, you know, get everybody on the same page. What, how can the city manager, the County manager, the mayor help their police chief and their fire chief get this done.Tom Billington:Actually the same way we talked about emergency responders doing it. They need to be connected to the mayor or city manager or County manager of the County next to them. They need to be involved in tri-county committees, knowing each other, working with each other. I know that in my county we had a really good relationship with the several towns and cities that were within our area. We had the local emergency planning council, which had all these key players, the County managers, mayors represented on them. And so just keeping your feet on the ground and then working with these various other organizations rather, elected officials and mayors and county administrators. It's just the way to go.Bill Godfrey:Okay. So to wrap us up here, I'm going to come around to each of you and say what's your number one thing that you think that you see with your experience as an instructor, your experience in the field. What's the number one issue that you would identify that is a common gap. And I'll start off cause it makes it easier on me cause I don't want you guys to repeat. I'll start off, the one that I see that strikes me the most is this misconception that managing an active shooter event is all about what happens down range in the hot zone and the warm zone and while that obviously is a key critical piece, there is so much more to it that if you don't manage is still going to send your incident sideways and slowdown that clock and delay the time that it takes to get the injured people out and to a hospital. And so my big one is this, that managing one of these events takes a whole lot more than just being focused on the downrange hot zone and warm zone. Don coming to you.Don Tuten:For me personally, I think we fail to include our city leaders in our plans and informing them what our plans are working in unity with all of our partners and by doing that it raises questions. So when an event does happen, unfortunately it may raise some questions where there's uncertain or somebody's not sure with something. So I think we need to educate, inform and train with, for lack of better terms, our city leaders, our city managers, so they understand that what is going to happen in that critical event is agreed upon by all as well as informs them on kind of the roles of each one of the agencies.Bill Godfrey:Tom, how about you?Tom Billington:My big one is boxes. Everybody has their little box, they stay in and they're not getting out of the box and meeting their counterparts or the people in the next county or the next organization and that is so harmful and I've seen it before where you're on an incident in a command post with two agency personnel and you don't even know their name or they don't know your name, there's no excuse for that. We have to get out of our boxes, meet, talk, work together, train together and know each other and a first name basis.Bill Godfrey:Steve.Stephen Shaw:Well, from an instructor perspective, one of the things that always worries me and the kind of a term that makes me cringe as an instructor is full scale exercise. And the reason I say that is because full-scale exercises have a very valuable place when it comes to active shooter training, a critical incident preparedness. But where I see a big gap is we have these full scale exercises and then there's no follow-up to the things that we learned from the weaknesses that we displayed or the strengths that we displayed during that exercise. And a lot of that comes from, especially in my area, there's not a lot of big agencies like where Don works. It's all smaller agencies. And to commit the manpower, the resources and the time to run one of these events and then follow it up with several training scenarios after that really leaves us a lot of gaps. We identify these areas that we need to improve, but then we don't follow up with the proper training or policy implementations that we need to cover those gaps in the future.Bill Godfrey:Ron, over to you for the final word.Ron Otterbacher:I think unification of response plans is an important direction for us to go. I think that we, even within a city, usually a fire department has a different response plan than the police department does. If you go beyond your city or your county, then you've got six or seven different response plans and we need to figure out how to unify those response plans. So if I've got an officer responding from two counties over, because it's that big a scene, they all know this is the same response plan we've gotten no matter where you go in that area, in that region, in that state, if it has to be, but it doesn't look like these situations are letting up. So we've got to do better at managing these situations and the only way you can do that is by developing plans that everyone understands, everyone abides by. And that's how we all operate.Bill Godfrey:Well-put. Gentlemen, I can't thank you enough for your participation in this final podcast of the series, and I want to say a special thanks to all of the instructors that have participated in all 10 of these particular podcasts on this very, very important topic and thank you to the listeners for taking the time to go through this. Look forward to seeing you in our next podcast.

This month on Episode 9 of the Discover CircRes podcast, host Cindy St. Hilaire highlights four featured articles from the January 31 and February 14, 2020 issues of Circulation Research and talks with Dr Joe Miano and DrThomas Quertermous about their article Coronary Disease-Associated Gene TCF21 Inhibits Smooth Muscle Cell Differentiation by Blocking the Myocardin-Serum Response Factor Pathway.   Article highlights:   Wang, et al. Multi-Omics Integration Study of AF   Heianza, et al. Antibiotics and Risk of Mortality   Dikalova, et al. Sirt3 Reduces Hypertension and Vascular Dysfunction   Hu, et al. Lipid Overload Acetylates Drp1 in the Heart Transcript Dr St. Hilaire: Hi, welcome to Discover CircRes, the podcast of the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation Research. I'm your host, Dr Cindy St. Hilaire, and I'm from the Vascular Medicine Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. Today I'm going to share with you four articles that we selected from the January 31st and February 14th issues of Circulation Research. I'm also going to have a discussion with corresponding authors, Drs. Joe Miano and Thomas Quertermous about their study on the role of TCF21 and smooth muscle cell lineage specificity in coronary artery disease. So first, the highlights. The first article I'm sharing with you is titled, Integrative Omics Approach to Identifying Genes Associated with Atrial Fibrillation. First author is Biqi Wang, and the corresponding author is Honghuang Lin from Boston University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. Atrial fibrillation, or Afib, is the most common form of heart arrhythmia and in the US alone there's somewhere between three and six million individuals with this condition. AFib can be either idiopathic or inherited, and genome-wide association studies, or GWAS studies, have identified hundreds of genetic loci that are linked to AFib. However, these loci explained only a small percentage of inherited cases. This suggests that there are many more AF related genes yet to be discovered. To try and identify these elusive a-fibrillated loci, this study integrated data from previously performed transcriptome, epigenome and GWAS studies. The TWAS and EWAS, as the transcriptome and epigenome-wide studies are short-handedly called, was collected from more than 150 Afib patients, and over 2,000 control individuals. While existing GWAS data, that's genomic data, was collected from tens of thousands of AFib and control participants. By combining and analyzing the data from these TWAS, EWAS, AND GWAS studies, the team was able to identify an additional 1700 genes that were associated with AFib. Now this is compared to the original 206 loci that were identified by the GWAS studies alone. Many of these new genes are involved in cardiac development as well as the regulation of the heart and the muscle cells. The additional gene hunting power afforded by co-analyzing multiple Omics data is not only helpful for approaching AFib but is really setting a platform upon which future studies might be done to provide novel insights for numerous other diseases of complex ideology. The second article I will highlight is titled, Duration and Life-Stage of Antibiotic Use and Risks of All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality, a Prospective Cohort Study. The first author is Yoriko Heianza, and the corresponding author is Lu Qi from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. So microbiome is a word that is used to describe all of the microbes; the bacteria, the fungi, the protozoa, and the viruses that live on and also live inside the human body. And how our microbiome influences human health as well as disease state is a new and hot research topic. Alterations to the gut microbiome have been suggested to influence the risk of developing certain chronic diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. There are many factors that influence the constituents of the gut microbiome; things such as your diet, your environment, your stress level, but another factor that can significantly alter the gut microbiome is the use of antibiotics. So there's preliminary evidence that suggests long-term antibiotic use may be linked to increased mortality in adult women, and now this study defined that link in more detail. The authors performed a large-scale population study of antibiotic use in middle aged and older women with a follow up period of 10 years. Over 37,000 women who were in middle age or in late age at the start of the study show that long durations of antibiotic use, which was defined as using antibiotics over two or more months, was associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality and of cardiovascular disease-related mortality in late adulthood, even after adjusting for risk factors such as age, lifestyle, diet and obesity. While no such association was apparent in middle-aged women, the risk for older women was more pronounced if they had also used antibiotics during middle life. And middle life is defined as between the age of 40 and 59 years of age. This suggests that risk of mortality due to antibiotic use may be cumulative. While antibiotics are unquestionably beneficial for saving lives, the link is not necessary causative, and the results indicate a potential risk may exist that could be factored into prescription decisions. Obviously, there's much more details that need to be worked out, but this is quite a provocative study. While antibiotics unquestionably saved lives and the link is not necessarily causative, the results indicate a potential risk may exist that could be factored into prescription decisions. Moving to a metabolism theme, the next article I want to share with you is titled, Mitochondrial Deacetylase Sirt3 Reduces Vascular Dysfunction and Hypertension While Sirt3 Depletion in Essential Hypertension Is Linked to Vascular Inflammation and Oxidative Stress. The first author is Anna Dikalova and the corresponding author is Sergey Dikalov, and the work was completed at Vanderbilt University. Hypertension affects about a third of the global adult population. That's a huge number of individuals. It's a risk factor for stroke, myocardial infarction and heart failure. Although blood pressure lowering treatments are widely available, hypertension remains uncontrolled in about 30% of patients who are on those treatments. A thorough understanding of the complex pathophysiology of the condition would facilitate the search for much needed alternate treatments for this third of patients with hypertension. To that end, these investigators studied the role of Sirt3, which is an enzyme that tends to be at the lower than usual levels in blood vessels of patients with hypertension. Sirt3 regulates metabolic and antioxidant functions, and alterations in either of these functions can contribute to cardiovascular disease and vascular dysfunction. The team showed that mice genetically engineered to over express Sirt3 had healthier blood vessels and lower blood pressure than control animals who were subjected to experimentally induced hypertension. By contrast, Sirt3 depletion was shown to cause vascular inflammation and increased signs of vascular aging in mice. The team also confirmed that humans with hypertension exhibit low levels of Sirt3; however, the mechanism causing Sirt3 to be low in certain people is not clear. These data suggest that boosting Sirt3 may be potential therapy for hypertension; however, of course, more studies must be conducted to thoroughly investigate this. The last article I want to share with you before we switch to our interview is titled, Increased Drp1 Acetylation by Lipid Overload Induces Cardiomyocyte Death and Heart Dysfunction. The first author is Qingxun Hu and the corresponding author is Wang from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington. In the heart, fat molecules are the main energy source. However, excessive lipids caused from diet induced dyslipidemia, AKA eating too much fat, can lead to cardiomyocyte dysfunction. It's known that lipid overload in the heart can cause increased activity of dynamin-related protein one, or Drp1. Drp1 is an enzyme that regulates mitochondrial fission, but exactly how Drp1 becomes activated due to lipid overload is entirely unclear. The authors of this paper confirmed that Drp1 activity and mitochondrial fission are abnormally increased in the hearts of mice fed a high-fat diet, and these mice also exhibit signs of heart dysfunction. They show similar effects in monkeys who were fed a high-fat diet. Interestingly, Drp1 mRNA was not altered in the hearts of mice. However, Drp1 protein acetylation was increased. So this suggests post-translational modifications are regulating its activity in dyslipidemia. The team went on to perform experiments on cultured rat cardiomyocytes, and they found that incubation with saturated fatty acid palmitate led to the acetylation of Drp1, and thus its activation. And this activation resulted in an excess of mitochondrial fission, which reduced cell viability. By contrast, mutation of Drp1 to prevent its acetylation protected the cells. Together, the results reveal the mechanism of how dyslipidemia can contribute to heart cell dysfunction. Further, this data suggests that Drp1 activity or acetylation state could be novel targets for treating obesity-related heart disease. Okay, we're now going to switch over to the interview portion of the podcast. I have with me Dr Thomas Quertermous, the William G Erwin Professor of Medicine and the Director of Research in the division of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University. And Dr Joe Miano, Professor and Jay Harold Harrison Distinguished University Chair in vascular biology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. And today we're going to be discussing their manuscript titled Coronary Disease Associated Gene TCF21 Inhibits Smooth Muscle Cell Differentiation by Blocking the Myocardin-Serum Response Factor Pathway. So welcome to both of you. Thank you for joining me. Dr Miano: Thank you. Dr Quertermous: Thank you. Dr St. Hilaire: So I'm going to start with you, Dr Quertermous. You've been taking a genomics approach to identify factors that contribute to coronary artery disease. And I'm wondering if you could just give us a brief summary of your work thus far and how it brought you to this current study? Dr Quertermous: Well, as you know, the classical risk factors for coronary artery disease and vascular disease in general really only contribute about 30% of the total risk and the remainder has not been studied, and not been investigated, and can't currently be targeted by therapeutics. So the goal is to try and better understand what are the molecular mechanisms in the blood vessel wall that must contribute the remainder of the risk. And so with the advent of genome-wide association studies and the identification of genes and loci, we've been able to begin to uncover the signaling pathways and mechanisms of disease risk. Dr St. Hilaire: And so the one we're most interested in today, this TCF21, you pulled that up out of one of your GWA studies, or how did we get to this? Dr Quertermous: Well, it's an interesting story. I first cloned that gene about 15 years ago when I was trying to understand vascular development, and it's a basic helix loop helix factor, and I was, well, a number of labs at that point in time were cloning this class of transcription factor to try and better understand developmental processes, and so it was one of a number of bHLH proteins that we cloned at the time. I did some work on it and then named it Pod-1 at that point in time, and then lost interest, and went away from it. And then I was involved in the cardiogram genome-wide association study for coronary artery disease, and I was sitting at my desk one night, and I was watching the hits coming in, you know, as we were doing the association, as we were doing the analysis, and I saw this gene, TCF21, and I thought, "Well, I don't really know what the heck that gene is." And so I was going back and forth between our data and a spreadsheet on the web, and I saw that I had published on this gene, and I was like, "Wow, I didn't even know that I had written a paper about this gene." And then it became clear that it was the bHLH factor I'd cloned some time ago. And then knowing what I knew about the development, that this gene is involved in early processes that lead to the formation of the coronary artery, and in particular the development of smooth muscle cells, then I became super interested, and I said, "Okay, my gene, I'm coming back to you. You and me are going to have a great future together." And that was really how I got started. Dr St. Hilaire: It re-found you. Dr Quertermous: It found me, I guess in this case, yes, and so I began then to work very seriously, because it's hard to try and understand mechanisms. And so we had a good starting point. We had a transcription factor so I could quickly identify the targets downstream of that, and I can link it into some cell biology that I already had some insights into. Dr St. Hilaire: That's a really neat story. I like that. It's kind of penicillin-esque. Dr Quertermous: Thank you. Dr St. Hilaire: Dr Miano, those of us familiar with smooth muscle cells appreciate that they are plastic, that they have this ability to kind of switch their phenotypes per se, and those of us familiar with that also then know about the myocardin and serum response factor pathway. But for our listeners who are less familiar with that, could you maybe give a brief background about what myocardin SRF pathway is and what smooth muscle cell phenotype modulation is? Dr Miano: Sure. I wish I could say, as my colleague said, that I cloned one of those factors, but I didn't. I've been interested in SRF since I was a graduate student actually. Actually went to Eric Olson's lab to look for what we affectionately called back then SmyoD, which stands for smooth muscle myo D. So at that time, we didn't understand what the factors were, even the signaling, that directed cells to become differentiated smooth muscle cells. So I went to Eric's lab looking for SmyoD. Of course I didn't find it. I found some other things. Worked a little bit on SRF, but it was actually Daiju Wong in 2000 or 2001 who in a Cell paper described an elegant a way of finding myocardin, what he called myocardin. So SRF myocardin is a transcriptional switch that is necessary and sufficient to make just about any cell a smooth muscle cell. So when myocardin is not present, then smooth muscle cells lose their differentiated state and they become another cell type, depending on who SRF talks to. And so how does a factor that binds a very discrete element like the CArG box, how does it confer cell identity or specific cell states? And it does so through its interaction with these cofactors, one of which is myocardin. And as this paper describes so elegantly, what Tom did in his lab, is that this TCF1 transcription factor, which is DNA binding, unlike myocardin, it does a similar thing in that it competes for SRF binding with myocardin, so it binds myocardin, prevents myocardin's ability to bind SRF, and thereby directs a new program of gene expression. Dr St. Hilaire: Interesting. So it's kind of helping to fine tune that transcriptional regulation. So I always think of smooth muscle cells, they're kind of always in a contractile state when they're healthy, and it's when they're in either unhealthy, or diseased, or a stress state that they're in that more proliferative-like state. And Dr Quertermous, your previous studies have shown that TCF21 is required for the De-differentiation, and proliferation, and migration of smooth muscle cells. However, there was one sentence in the paper that I was slightly confused on and I'm hoping that you can expand about the bigger role of TCF21. And what it said was that TCF21 expression is protective towards human coronary artery disease. And so the data in the paper show that TCF21 inhibits smooth muscle cell contractility. So can you maybe reconcile the bigger mutations or things you identified in the GWAS with the functional activities you're seeing that you presented in the paper, and maybe talk about the timeline in the continuum of atherosclerosis where TCF is maybe good or maybe bad? Dr Quertermous: So this paper is one of a duo of papers, honestly, that the other paper being published in Nature Medicine almost exactly the same time, and so that paper sort of described some of the aspects of TCF21 at a population level and shows that if you look at all of the single base pairs in the genome that regulate disease risk at 6q23.2 and also regulate expression, you can gain an idea of what's the directionality of the expression of TCF21. And those data suggests that the more TCF21 you have, the less your risk of developing coronary artery disease. And Joe and other scientists have worked for a long, long time to characterize this process and characterize the plasticity of this cell type. And note that one can switch the cell back and forth between being a contractile0differentiated cell to a de-differentiated cell, and elegant work by Gary Owens and a number of investigators have profiled the phenotype of the cells that the smooth muscle cell can become if it undergoes this differentiation process. It's not been able to know though up until this point in time whether that's a good process or a bad process. I mean, 15, 10 years ago we thought smooth muscle cells are proliferating, they're creating a space-occupying lesion, they're decreasing the lumen of the blood vessel, and that's got to be a bad thing. And in honesty, I think over the past three or four years, it's been increasingly clear that perhaps the smooth muscle cells are actually doing a good thing. They are stabilizing the lesion, they're creating the fibrous cap, and there's been some nice work correlating the number of smooth muscle cells in the plaque to the risk that that plaque is going to rupture. Dr St. Hilaire: Yeah, that was kind of my next question. Do you think there's more nuance to it's not just contractile, and synthetic? There's much more broader scope and it's not so much a good or a bad smooth muscle cell. Dr Quertermous: I think it depends on the circumstances I guess, but it's important that the smooth muscle cell be able to migrate into the plaque, and begin to produce matrix components which stabilize the plaque, and to form the fibrous cap, and I think if the smooth muscle cell remains in the media as a contractile cell, it's really not able to do those things, right? And so the human genetics data, looking at the directionality, the expression, the different alleles and their expression patterns, and what is the risk allele at? In this region of the genome, it's pretty clear that more TCF21 is good, and what TCF21 does is to promote this phenotypic modulation. And so that suggests that the process as a whole is good. Not just the gene, but what it does. It's really not possible that TCF21 does anything else in the blood vessel wall. It's primarily restricted to the smooth muscle cell. It's not expressed in macrophages, or endothelial cells, or the other cell types that we think are important in the pathophysiology of the disease process. So putting everything together, it looks for the most part, like this is a positive force in the blood vessel wall, this gene and this process. Dr St. Hilaire: Interesting. And speaking to the vessel wall, I thought one of the very cool and really key experiments in the paper was taking your mechanistic in vitro studies into the mouse, and Dr Miano, maybe you could tell us a little bit about how you were able to do that and mutate these smooth muscle specific CArG boxes in a mouse model. Dr Miano: Well, that's a really good question. Again, it's a history. We've wanted to edit CArG boxes, well, mutate back then, for a long, long time, but it wasn't until the CRISPR craze took a foothold that we really recognize now the power of harnessing that and doing the experiments we wanted to do for so long. And so we've previously published on a CArG box in the first intron of the calponin locus, and found that, to our surprise, that a subtle mutation in that element completely abolished expression of calponin into the smooth muscle. So Tom and I were working in parallel and unbeknownst to me, Tom was working on this SRF enhancer in the second intron, and we've known for quite a while that SRF is auto regulated by itself, and there's CArG boxes in it 5-prime promoter, and there's CArG boxes in the interior of the locus as well, including the one in the second intron that Tom describes in the paper here. And so what we've been doing is using CRISPR in the mouse to make these subtle edits in these CArG boxes around the SRF locus. And unlike the affirmation calponin model I just described, if we mutate the two proximal CArG boxes of SRF, we don't see a lot of change in SRF expression. That was really surprising to us, because studies from Bob Schwartz' lab in Houston two decades ago showed those were important, at least in an artificial reporter assay for the autoregulatory loop that he first described. So we moved interior to this CArG box that's really the focus of this paper, highly conserved, much more so than other CArG boxes, and we first deleted the region, which we often do with CRISPR, and found there was a decrease. But we'd like to do more subtle things with CRISPR, which is really the power of this new editing technology. And so we went in and made just, I think it was like four or five base substitutions to create a novel restriction cipher ease in genotyping. And we reported in the paper, you can see that, to compliment Tom's group's data, that in vivo, indeed, that CArG box by itself, nothing else altered within the locus, did cause a, I would call, a substantial decrease in expression of this important regulator. And so that was really our main contribution to this paper. Dr St. Hilaire: Yeah. I know the opportunities are endless, but also complicated and expensive, and I thought this was a beautiful addition to really confirming those mechanistic studies. So I think my next big question is, if TCF21 is,  so important and protective, and perhaps it's upregulation is beneficial, what is regulating it, and do we know how we can potentially modulate this? Dr Quertermous: That's a great question. That's a great question. And so we know a few things; we certainly know that platelet-derived growth factor stimulation of smooth muscle cells will upregulate TCF21, which is sort of surprising. I mean, it's not so surprising, I guess. So we've spent a little time working on that, and there's a micro RNA which regulates the expression level of TCF21, but we haven't spent a lot more time than that, honestly. We spent a lot more time downstream trying to figure out what's the mechanism by which TCF21 works to suppress the smooth muscle contractile phenotype and activate this more de-differentiated migratory phenotype that the smooth muscle cell adopts. So we've not gone upstream, but your question's a really, really good one. We certainly mapped where TCF21 binds across the genome and we've mapped the variation that regulates its expression, and so we've made progress in that direction, and as I said, identified things which are downstream. But we definitely need to spend more time upstream, and I think that's the area of this intersection of molecular science and genomic science, that there are not many groups that really spend much time up above the gene trying to understand. And so we've not spent enough time doing that, and I think that as a community we've not spent enough time doing that, because I think that's where the big payoff can come in terms of therapeutics. Dr St. Hilaire: To that end, I think I'll end with that question. What do you think is the best way that we could leverage your findings in the clinic? Would it be to focus more on the downstream or to try to identify these more upstream factors in TCF21? Dr Quertermous: Well, I think both open up opportunities, right? If we can understand how TCF21 works and what's downstream, and we can activate those processes and activities, then that's good. If we can figure out what's above TCF21, that would be good as well. The danger there is that TCF21 does a lot of things in a lot of different cells in the body. Dr St. Hilaire: So it'd be a little bit harder to focus onto a smooth muscle cell in a plaque than perhaps some of the downstream effects of TCF21? Dr Quertermous: Correct. Right. That's my worry. It's sort of like thinking about TGF beta and you wouldn't really want to try and manipulate TGF beta. Dr St. Hilaire: That's a whole another can of worms. Dr Quertermous: Yeah, it gets you into a lot of difficulties, I think. So we're really pretty focused downstream now and thinking that we can find specific opportunities there that are resident in that smooth muscle cell in the blood vessel that may not be active in other cell types. So that's really our thinking and that's the way we're going. Dr St. Hilaire: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much to both of you for joining me today. I learned a lot and I really thought this was a beautiful, complex, but well-done study, so thank you very much. Dr Miano: Thank you, Cindy. Dr Quertermous: Thank you so much for calming us down, I guess. Dr St. Hilaire: Well, that's it for our highlights from the January 31st and February 14th issues of Circulation Research. Thank you so much for listening. This podcast is produced by Rebecca McTavish, edited by Melissa Stoner, and supported by the Editorial team of Circulation Research. Some of the copy texts for the highlighted articles was provided by Ruth Williams. Thank you to our guests, Drs Thomas Quertermous and Joseph Miano. I'm your host, Dr Cindy St. Hilaire, and this is Discover CircRes, your source for the most up-to-date and exciting discoveries in basic cardiovascular research.    

Highlights from my keynote presentation at FHL 2020. Showing the 5 steps of how to find your voice, including how to find, develop and create your own frameworks. On this special episode Russell shares part of his keynote presentation from Funnel Hacking Live 2020 in which he speaks about finding your voice using a framework. Here are some of the super interesting things to listen for in this amazing episode taken from FHL: Find out what Russell means when he says everything is a framework within a framework. See why you need to become really, really good at making frameworks, and who someone is you can look to that shares a lot of them on social media. And find out all the steps you need to take to be able to finally find your voice. So listen here to this very special keynote presentation from Funnel Hacking Live 2020. ---Transcription--- What’s up everyone, this is Russell Brunson again. I’m still in beautiful Puerto Rico having a good time with some of the most amazing marketers, and personal development minds on this planet. And for today’s episode I wanted to give you guys some more from Funnel Hacking Live. During my keynote presentation I talked about some really cool things, and the first one I talked about how to find your voice, and inside of that how to develop your own frameworks. And really the theme of the event came back down to frameworks. I talked about how we find and develop and create our frameworks, and then on top of that went deeper into how to teach your frameworks and how to sell your frameworks and things like that. And then every speaker basically shared their framework. Everybody from Tony Robbins to Ryan Holladay and every speaker in between kind of shared their frameworks. So as you guys get deeper and deeper in this business you’ll realize it really all comes down to frameworks. So the very first presentation, part of my first presentation, I want to share with you guys is how to find your voice, and inside of that journey, how you’re going to create your own framework. So with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back you guys will hear this first part of my keynote presentation going deeper into finding your voice as an entrepreneur. I think a lot of us get started in this business, at least I did and I was a shy, awkward, and I’m going to show you guys a clip in a minute…you have to evolve, you can’t just, there’s a process you go through. And a lot of times people that read my book Expert Secrets, they’re out there with a sign saying, “I’m an expert. I’m going to sell you something.” No, no, you missed it, that’s not the purpose, that’s not the path, that’s not how it works. There’s a process for you to be able to find your voice, and you’re like, “What’s the process? What’s it look like?” and forever I didn’t know. I decided you just go out there and you do it, and you do it, and you do it. And it wasn’t until recently that I sat down and said, “What did it actually look like for me? What did it look like for other people? How do I reverse engineer that so we can teach it?” and that’s where this process and this framework came from. Alright so I’m going to walk you guys through this. So phase number one here, phase number one is what I call the dreamer. And this is the phase that starts with a little spark. How many of you guys when you got into whatever it is that you’re doing, you didn’t know exactly what you were going to do, you may not have been super passionate at first, but you had the interest, some desire, you’re like, “This is kind of cool.” thinking about your business or the marketing of your business. When I got started in this, I didn’t know I was going to be a marketing nerd. I got a C in my marketing class. A C, and I should have got a D or an F, but my teacher was really, really nice. But I got a C in my marketing class. I didn’t know marketing was even exciting or fun or anything. It wasn’t until later when I was learning these things and trying to start a business when all the sudden there was a spark and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” And it all begins there.  So I want you thinking back about your business. What was the spark initially that got you so excited about what it is that you do? Can you guys remember that moment? What was it that created that spark for you? That’s where this begins. The next thing that I want to kind of add upon that, this is from Tom Bilyeu and Tom is speaking tomorrow, I believe. So I’m excited about Tom coming, it will be his first time at Funnel Hacking Live. But as I was developing this, I saw Tom post something on Instagram, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is brilliant.” He posted a little framework for how to develop your own passion. And I think about this a lot because I get people all the time who come into our world, and they’re like, “This is exciting, but I’m not passionate about anything yet, Russell. What do I do? How do I find passion?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” because for me, I’m just excited about everything in life. There’s so many cool things happening, and I don’t know how to develop passion. I couldn’t understand that in my mind until I saw this from Tom and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is the secret.” For those of you guys who may not have it, you’ve got a spark and you’re trying to figure things out, this will help you. This is what he said, this is the 5 step process he said. Number one: Go and experiment with a whole bunch of stuff. So if you’re like, “I don’t know what business I want to be in, I don’t know what my career is going to be” or whatever, you go try a bunch of things. That’s why a lot of people go to college. You’re taking a whole bunch of classes just to find out, what am I actually interested in? So you go and experiment with a whole bunch of stuff, that’s step number one. Step number two: After you do that, start looking at all the things I just tested and tried, all the things I read, all the podcasts I listened to, all the videos I watched, what are the things that spark my interest? And you think, “I’m interested in that, that’s the next topic I’m excited about. That’s something I could be passionate about.” So you find the thing that sparks your interest. From there you start deeply engaging with those things that sparked your interest. You start going deeper on them. If you listened to a podcast about biohacking or about whatever, you’re like, “This is cool.” It’s like, “Okay, now let’s go deeper to see if as I go deeper this keeps resonating with me.” So start going deeper, start studying, start learning, start finding people around you that are excited as well, and go as deep as you can. Number four: As you start engaging and it goes from an interest to a true fascination, you get that fascination that’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is exciting.” Then you go down the path to gaining mastery. And then number five: Fascination plus mastery equals passion. Now this for sure was true in my journey. Again, I got started I was a college kid, I had just met my beautiful wife. I had proposed to her and I realized that I didn’t have a job. And she was probably going to want to eat sometimes, and I was like, “What do I do? I don’t know. Let me try a whole bunch of stuff.” I started just doing a whole bunch of things and studying and reading and learning, and all the sudden I started finding these things that caused interest. And those things I started geeking out on and going deeper and deeper until my interest became a passion, and the more deep the more fascinated I got, and the more fun it got. And that’s where this journey begins. That’s how you get the spark and you start to grow. Alright, so after you guys have the spark, do you know the best way to turn a spark into a fire? Do you guys want to see? It’s kind of cool. This is the way you turn a spark into fire. Let’s dim the lights a little bit. If I get my phone out right here and I turn this light on, this is a spark. And by itself, if I’m not careful, this spark is going to go out. I need your guys’ help. Can everyone get their phones out real quick, and turn the lights on? Something interesting happens when you take spark and you get it around other people’s sparks, other people who are already on fire. Everyone grab your phones out, get them out and turn your camera on really quick, I want you guys to see this. If I want to turn my spark into a fire, into an inferno I gotta find other people.  Look around you guys, look behind you. You find other people and you get your sparks together, it starts growing. Alright, if I take my spark to a fire, it can’t help but grow, am I right? That’s why we’re here today, to help you guys take your spark and to light it on fire. I tell people all the time, my role in this whole game is to get you guys so excited and so passionate about the marketing of your business, whatever business you’re in, you’ll be able to run with it. I’m assuming you’re already obsessed with your business or you wouldn’t be here. So my job is to get you obsessed with the marketing of it. Let me take that spark and let me ignite it and get it on fire. The best way to get that spark into a fire is to ignite. I lost my thing, is to get it around other people. As you get around other people you start feeling that, it starts growing inside of you, and that shifts you now to the second phase. The second phase is where I start taking on the identity of the reporter. It’s interesting, how many of you guys have ever heard of Howard Berg, the world’s faster reader? So when I was in elementary school in the 90s I was an infomercial geek. So I was watching infomercials and there was this guy who was the world’s fastest reader. I saw him reading these books, and he goes through the page like this, flips through and starts reading them super fast. I was like, “That is the coolest thing. There’s no way it’s true. He’s got to be faking it.” And I remember watching the infomercials over and over and over again as a kid. Then fast forward like 15 years later, I’m a grown man, well, grownish. My kids always tell me, “Dad, you are the least mature adult we have ever met.” I’m like, ‘Thank you guys, I think.” I remember on Fox news, what’s the Cavuto, the Cavuto show, Howard Berg was on there, it was right after the health care bill came out. And there was the huge health care bill, and they had Howard Berg read the entire health care bill live on Fox news in front of everybody. So he reads the whole health care bill in 55 minutes, and then afterwards he interviewed him, “So what does it say?” And he starts telling him all the things and reciting back huge portions of the health care bill. I’m like, “This guy is amazing.” And then I’m at an event like this, it was in Dallas, there was about 1000 people. It was about a fifth the size of this. And I’m speaking on stage and I get done afterwards and some guy is like, ‘Hey, there’s the world’s fastest reader is here. He wants to meet you.” I was like, “Wait, wait. Howard Berg’s here?” and I started totally fan-girling and freaking out, and he’s like “You know who he is?” I’m like, “Yeah, I used to watch his infomercials when I was like 15 years old. This is…” Anyway, I was so excited I had a chance to meet him, and me and Howard have become really good friends since then. And actually, when I launched the Expert Secrets book I had Howard fly out to our office and I was like, “I want you to read my entire book, live on Facebook, and then I want to quiz you and see if you actually remember it.” Because writing a book is cool, but having the world’s fastest reader read it live in front of you is way cooler than that. So I had Howard fly out to Boise, and I was like, “Here’s the book. I want you to read it.” And he sat down and he started reading it. And did anybody see the episode of this where he did it on Funnel Hacker TV? He read the entire book in 4 minutes and 43 seconds live on Facebook and I was like, ‘This is so cool. There’s no way he’s actually getting it.” So we watched and he read the whole thing, and then when he got done reading it, I had the really cool opportunity to sit there and be like, “Okay, let’s see if you actually read it.” And I started asking him questions about it, and he was able to tell me things back. “Well, you said this and this. Then you talked about this. And this is my thought about that.” And it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Did you guys ever see the Sony speed-reader commercial? He’s on that with Justin Timberlake. It’s a really funny ad where basically they have the Sony speed-reader and Justin Timberlake says something like…maybe it was Peyton Manning…anyway, Peyton Manning says something like, “With the Sony Reader I can read 100 books.” And Howard Berg goes, “I just did.” And then Justin Timberlake is like, “I just did too.” It’s the funniest commercial. It’s worth watching. So after that night, after we got done, we took Howard out to dinner in Boise. And I’m sitting here like, there’s this guy who’s read over 30,000 books. Every book you can dream of, he’s read. What do you ask this guy? He’s got information about everything. I could ask him about business or about finance, or about sports or about anything. And I was like, “I’m going to go to a spot that you don’t normally go with people, because I’m really, really curious.” And so I asked him, I said, “Howard, I’m really curious after all your life experience, reading 30,000 books, what’s your opinion on God?” He looked at me a minute, he smiled and he said, “You know what’s interesting? Most people when they want to learn about a topic they’ll read one book or one thing and they base their opinions on that and it becomes fact for them and they go forward. What I like to do instead, I like to read all the people’s opinions. I’ll read 10, 15, 20 books on a topic. For example, for religion I basically read every single book on the topic. As many as I possibly could. Hundreds and hundreds of books.” He said, “By reading a whole bunch of things about it, I got a very wholistic view of what I believe God is. Based on that let me tell you what I believe..” and I had I one of the most fascinating conversations of my life, to hear what someone like this has a chance to learn and read from every religion you could dream of, what his beliefs were in God. One of the coolest, most amazing conversations of my life. So I was thinking about this with Howard and started thinking about how that works in our life. A lot of times we come into this world and we’re trying to do our business, and we become the expert, like I know everything. And we go out there and try to convince people. But the problem is we read one book. The phase for you to really evolve and find your voice isn’t to take one idea and then start running with it, it’s to get a very wholistic view. So I started looking back at when I got started, and I found something really embarrassing. This right here is the first video I ever created ever. This is, last year I showed you guys one and you all teased me, this one’s worse. So this is about the time YouTube came out and a couple of people had videos on their websites. And I was like, I’m going to do a video and I remember someone, Armand Morin had a video, and he had the background was gone and he was on the page, and it looked really cool. And I was like, “I’m going to do that.’ So I bought a video camera, I set it up, and I record this video, and it didn’t work. I tried to edit it, and I couldn’t get the background to delete, and it was so many bad things. But this was the very first video I ever made. And I want you guys to hear how bad I was, and hopefully it gives some of you guys some encouragement. You’re like, “If that guy can do it…” Here we go. (From the video) Hi, I’m Russell Brunson and welcome to the secondtier.com. I’m here to  help you get……Okay, Hi, I’m Russell Brunson and welcome to the secondtier.com. I’m here…(mumbles) I’m here to introduce you? What do you say? Hi, I’m Russell Brunson and welcome to the secondtier.com. I want to help you get started with your affiliate training today. The first thing you need to do is click on the link above me and download our affiliate… That was real cool, the flushing toilet in the background. (Onstage) He literally flushed it in the middle of the video. It was me and him, there were 2 of us in the room. Come on. Anyway, so there’s hope for all of you, I swear. So this is the video of my journey. I was like, “I’m horrible, but I’m going to try.” And I started trying. At this point and time I had my beliefs. I was like, ‘This is how I’m going to do this thing.” But I didn’t know marketing, I didn’t know these things. I’m like, “How do I learn this.” So what I did is I went up and I said, “Okay, I’m going to do what Howard Berg would have done. I’m just going to take my opinion and believe everything. I’m going to go and find a whole bunch of people who know more than me. I’m going to talk to them, interview them, figure out all their stuff. And based on finding out opinions form a whole bunch of people and from there I can develop an actual opinion.” So this is little nerdy Russell from 15 years ago went out there and he found the best of the best at the time. This is Carl Gelletti, I used to call him all the time and ask him questions. This is Mike Filsaime, this is Gary Ambrose, this Brad Fallon, I think is in the room, this is Brad Fallon, this is Ewan Chia, this Rosalind Gardner, this is Jack Humphries, this is Keith Baxter. These are the people when I got started in the game, they were the people that were already on fire. I had a little flame and I was like, “I have a flame and this things going to go out if I don’t find something fast.” I started looking, who’s got the fire? Who’s got the fire? I need to find those people. And I found the fire. I got on the phone and I called them, I flew to their house, I had them fly to my house, I did everything I could. I got in the rooms they were in, because I knew that if I was going to take my spark and I needed it to become a fire, I had to be with the people who were already on fire. I found those people and this little nerdy Russell was able to take his spark and turn it into a fire. So for all of you guys the next step in this journey of growth for you, is first off to be fascinated, have a spark and then you need to find the people who have the fire. And you have to go to them humbly and start asking their questions, and don’t judge everything based on the lens that you view the world through. Find other people and be open to other opinions and other ideas because it’s going to give you a very wholistic view and make you, give you the ability to serve your people at a much higher level than you ever could, by just looking at one angle. So the first 2 phases in this formula, in this framework are all about growth. It’s your journey to become something bigger, become something better, become the person, the leader that you need to be to lead your people. Now after you go through these first two phases, number one dreaming and having a spark, number two is finding people around you and asking them questions and learning from everybody you can. Every single piece of information you can get access to, and learning from everybody. Then we start shifting from growth to contribution. Alex Charfen always talks about the call to contribution. How entrepreneurs hear the call of contribution. I need to contribute. I gotta create something. I gotta do something, I gotta go out there, and I gotta do something. You guys have heard that call, that’s why you’re here. You’ve heard that call to contribution. How do I contribute more? So there comes a time in all our lives, we keep growing and growing, keep studying and learning, but if you don’t start shifting from growth to contribution, you will flatline. The first time I understood this was true was when I was a wrestler. In college I was a wrestler, in high school I was a wrestler. I was a state champ in high school, took second place in the country, I was an All American in high school and I thought I knew everything. The worst thing that could possibly happen to any of us, is we think we know everything. I was like, “Shh, I know everything. I’m such a good wrestler.” And I remember my senior year after I took 2nd place in the nation, my coach Greg Williams, who is now the coach of UVU, he said, “Hey do you want to come coach at a wrestling camp?” and I was like, “I don’t know. I got girls to date this summer. This is my big time before going to college.” And he’s like, “I’ll pay you $100.” I’m like, ‘I’m in, let’s go.” So that was the value of a week of my time back then. So I went to the wrestling camp and he’s like, “Here’s some kids. I need you to train them how to wrestle.’ So I’m like, ‘Okay.” So I go to the kids and I’m like, “Okay this is how…” and I remember teaching a cheap tilt, which is like my move, and I was like, “Here’s how you do a cheap tilt.’ I show the kids and I’m like, ‘Okay, go try it.” And I sit back. The kids come out and they start trying it and nobody gets it even remotely close. Almost all of them ended up pinning themselves. I’m like, “No, you guys. You didn’t listen to a word I said. Come back in.” I showed them, “This is how you do a cheap tilt. Now go do it.” And they go back out, and everyone’s like doing the same thing, flopping over, pinning themselves. And I’m like, “What is wrong with these kids?” And I sit back and I’m like, “What are they doing wrong?” and I start looking and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, he’s doing it wrong because his hips keep sliding out, and his knee…I never knew that. This knee needs to be, the foot needs to planted here, and the knee’s got to be pointed to the ceiling. What else?” and I start looking and like, “Come back in guys, come back in. Look at this. When you’re doing it, look where my foot’s at, it’s right here. Look where my knee’s pointed.” And they’re like, “Oh cool.” I’m like, “Go try it again.” They start doing it, and all the sudden the kids start doing better. And I’m like, “Huh.” And then I bring them back in and we go back and forth, and back and forth, and for the entire week I spent with these kids, I’m looking at what I’m doing and my processes, understanding why they work and then figuring it out. And as you start looking, one of the fascinating things about a pattern is after you become aware of a pattern, it’s like, “Now I know the pattern. I can manipulate it, I can change it, I can grow it, I can figure things out based on that.” So for me, I had gotten to a point where I had grown personally at a certain level where I stopped and stagnated. And when I shifted and started becoming a coach and helping other people, that’s where I started to continue to grow. That’s where I shifted from growth to contribution, and that’s how I got to the next level of growth. So for all of us, there comes that time where as you’re growing and you’re sharing, the only way to continue to grow is to shift from growth to contribution. This is where you start coming out there. This is where most entrepreneurships, most businesses start, when you’re shifting from how do I become better to how do I make other people better. And that’s the next level. Way more fulfillment by the way, on the contribution side. Okay, so that moves us to phase number three in the framework. Phase number three is now we start building our own frameworks. This is going to be weird for a minute, but I promise at the end you’re going to be like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” So we need to start creating our own frameworks. If you notice, most of the greatest entrepreneurs business people, they have their own proprietary frameworks. So this is the next phase, after you’ve gone through growth, now you shift to contribution, this next phase is started creating your own. So the first step here is you need to create what we call your framework hypothesis. What is my framework to get somebody a certain result? Let’s just say this is me, this could be for any business. Here’s your path, so here’s you, and you’re going on this journey up here, and this is the result, this is the thing you’re trying to get to. So as you’ve been going through your growth and you’ve been learning and you’ve been studying and all these things, you’re figuring it out, and you’re moving yourself up this line. Now you’re like, “I think I know how to get here. I’m pretty sure I know how to do that.” So based on me interviewing like 50 people or reading a whole bunch of books, or whatever that thing is, I’m going to make my hypothesis, I think this is what I need to do to get that result. Make a hypothesis. How do we make a hypothesis? This is something Bruce Lee said, and thank you James Friell for finding this quote for me. But Bruce Lee talked about this, he said, “What you do is you research your own experience. You absorb what’s useful, you reject what’s useless, and add essentially, which is your own.” As you’re going through this growth phase where you’re interviewing a whole bunch of people and you’re learning from a whole bunch of experts, the goal is not to learn everything they say and just believe it as is. There’s a lot of like, as I was listening to Howard Berg, a lot of his beliefs on God I agreed with, a lot of them I didn’t. It didn’t mean it was right or wrong, but I was able to listen to that thing and say, “Wow, this is awesome. I’m going to take these gold nuggets, these are the things for me that I believe that I think can add to what I believe.” Same thing here, when you’re going through this process of learning and studying and growth, you’re looking for the nuggets. What are the things that I believe in? You take all the different pieces, you take that and say, “Okay, now that I have this. This is my framework hypothesis. This is what I think is the secret.” So we create our framework hypothesis, which is basically, “for me to get this result I’ve gotta do step one, step two, step three and that’s how I’m going to get this result.” Now we have a hypothesis. That’s step number one. Step number two, now that I have a hypothesis, this is what I think I’m going to do to get that result. Now we gotta go out there and actually test your framework hypothesis on yourself. You have to become the human guinea pig. A lot of people get that ordering wrong and they say, “Okay, here’s my framework hypothesis, let me go sell something.” No, no, no, not yet. This is where we gotta figure out if it actually works on you. One of the people I respect a lot is Tim Ferris. They’ve called him a lot of times, “The human guinea pig” he’s one of the original biohackers. And I was reading, I can’t remember which one of his books, but one of his books he was talking about, he implanted something inside of his body to test his blood levels. And every single day he’d test little things. Like he’d take this supplement and see what happened to his blood levels, and he’d take this, and try this, and do these things. He took over a thousand blood tests based on all these different things, and after all is said and done, and he said, “Based on all the things I learned, this is the diet that’s the best. These are the supplements, these are the things, this is the framework that I believe is possible for you to be able to get the result you’re trying to get. So just like Tim Ferris to become the human guinea pig, you’ve got to become a human guinea pig for your framework at first as well. So you take that and you say, “Okay, I think this is the way I get my result.” and you go out there on this journey. Now you go on the journey and what’s going to happen is sometimes you’re going to go through the process and be like, “I was right. I figured it out. I’m at the top.” But what typically happens is you go on this journey with your framework and a lot of times it doesn’t work at first. You try something and ugh, it failed. You try something else, aw, it failed. That’s okay. This is a framework hypothesis. You can tweak it and say, “I’m going to change this, I’m going to change this.” Until eventually you’re like, okay and eventually get to the top and have the success and get the result you want.  So now you’ve got a process, you’ve got a system that works. I know it works for me, it’s worked for me. And so that is the first step here, where you become a framework creator. Boom, I have a framework that works. How many of you guys in this room right now have a framework that works for whatever it is you do. It can be anything from like, how to lose weight, to how to get a white smile, to how to make more money, how to start a business, how to invest in whatever, how to save money on taxes. Every business needs to have a framework. Some of you guys are like, ‘But Russell, this doesn’t make sense to me because I don’t sell information products, I don’t need a framework. This only works for the info people, this only works for authors and speakers. This doesn’t work for me because I’m a blah.” Fill in the blank, right. Well understand this, all businesses are about one thing and one thing only. Businesses are about how in the world do I get a client a result. That’s it. I’m in business to do this, to get this client this result. That’s what you have to understand. And there’s always a framework or a process to get somebody that result. So the question you’ve got to ask yourself is what is the framework that somebody must follow to get a certain result? And what’s interesting is your product is just a piece of that framework, it’s not the whole thing. So what’s the framework someone must follow if they want to get a certain result? So figure out whatever business you are, this is a result the person is coming to you with. They want to get out of pain, they want to grow taller, they want to grow hair, they want to, whatever your business is, that’s the result, what’s the process they have to go through to get that result with you? So for example, here’s Clickfunnels, right. So Clickfunnels we have a framework, you guys have seen me talk about frameworks all the time. So we have a framework to help people to grow a company online through funnels. So that is my framework. And what’s interesting about my framework is the product, Clickfunnels, this software is just one step in the framework. So I’m like, step number one you’ve got to have an idea, step number two you’ve got to create an offer, step number three….and all the sudden step 5 now you need Clickfunnels to build the thing. If I just came to you like, “Oh you need clickfunnels, this is awesome software.” “Why?” “Because it’s awesome, you can move things, drag and drop, it’s really easy.” “I don’t get it.” But if I’m like, ‘What’s the result you want? This is the result you want, cool. There’s a 5 step framework. Step number one you gotta do this, step number two, step number three, and now you need the software for step number four and step number 5.” Does that make sense? So my product becomes part of the framework, it is not the framework. Let me show you how this works for a more traditional company, like a dentist. So the dentist, if I was a dentist I would have a framework for how to get white teeth. There’s a whole process, and I’m not a dentist, I don’t know exactly the process, but they have a framework how to get white teeth. If someone came to me as a dentist and say, “I need white teeth.” “Okay, cool. First thing you gotta do is you gotta brush twice a week, not a week, twice a day. Brush twice a day. Step number two you should be using white strips or hydrogen peroxide. Step number three, you’ve got to come to the dentist, my product is like step number three. One of the steps is you come to me and we’ll do teeth whitening, or we’ll do a line…” or whatever the thing is. But I still have a process. If I’m just like, “I’m a dentist, you should come to me so I can clean your teeth.” It’s one thing, what’s the result? The result is bigger than that. The result is the framework. So here’s the framework to get somebody that result and your product becomes one step in the framework. Does that make sense? The same thing is true with ecommerce sales, if you’re selling physical products. My product is a framework to get blank, to get what? And then inside of there your product becomes part of it. So for example, let’s say I was selling flashlights. I might have just a flashlight by itself will sell, but if you look at some of you guys have heard Trey Lewellen’s story a lot of times, he was the first funnel inside Clickfunnels that blew up to astronomical levels. But he shifted, it was a flashlight at first, but when he went from it being a flashlight to being a survival flashlight, I’m going to show you guys a framework for how to have survival. It wasn’t just a flashlight, it was part of a framework of like, I don’t know exactly how to use flashlights for survival. I think you shine them in people’s eyes and blind them so you can kick them in the shins or something. But it became part of a framework. So every product, everything is a framework. What is the result you’re trying to give somebody? And your product a lot of times, is one piece of the framework. And the cool thing about frameworks as you start creating them. We can do frameworks, I can take a framework and I can teach that framework in 3 minutes, or I can teach it in 30 minutes, or I can teach it in 3 hours. I can sit down right here and say, “Okay guys, I’m going to teach you guys the new Traffic Secrets book.” And I could do a 3 minute presentation and teach you my Traffic Secrets, the core pieces of the Traffic Secrets book, right. Or I can say, “I’m going to do a 30 minute presentation, let me teach you the core things.” And I could bulk it up, tell more stories, add more things to it. Or if I did 3, if I wanted a 3 hour presentation, I could do that. Or I could do a 3 day event just on Traffic Secrets by itself as well. So that’s something to kind of think through. And the reason why these frameworks are so important, as you’ll see here in a second, we use these frameworks in every aspect of the funnel, as you’ll see here. But the first thing I want you guys to understand is that we can create frameworks really, really, really quickly. So again, this is Tom Bilyeu. Tom and his wife Lisa are some of the best framework creators I’ve ever seen. Who follows them on instagram? Tom or Lisa? If not, you gotta start following them just so you can see the frameworks and how they do them so often. I’m going to show you guys a couple of them. So Tom put together a framework called Sleep Habits. It’s hard to see here. These are sleep habits. There are 6 sleep habits to increase your sleep. Step number one, stop eating 3 or 4 hours before bed. Step number two, use blue blockers 2 or 3 hours before going to bed. Step number three, go to bed early. Step number four, set your intentions….and there’s his 5 step, 6 step framework for sleeping better. Here’s another one. He created a framework based on a movie. How many of you guys have ever seen a movie before? Like 4 of you guys? Who has ever seen a movie before? Okay, so Tom watched the Matrix and he’s like, “I’m going to show you guys the 7 lessons I learned from the Matrix.” And he showed his framework for the Matrix. Number one, you can’t do it until you believe it. Number two, the world as you perceive it isn’t real. And on and on and on. Here’s one that he made, his framework for surviving Thanksgiving dinner. Step number one, minimum of 16 hour fast every day. Number two…and they post these all the time. These are just simple little frameworks. Now the reason I’m showing you guys this right now, and I’m talking about the fact that you can create a framework in 3 minutes versus 30 is because a lot of times I don’t want to spend 2 years building a huge framework. I want to test some stuff out. So social media, I can post a framework, I can do a podcast posting a framework and see if people care about it. I’m going to show you guys my 5 step framework for getting more views on YouTube. Whoever wants to see that one? Eh..Okay I’m not doing that one. Then I post another one. Who here wants my 5 step framework to add 100,000 people to your list in the next 2 days. Sweet, I’m going to go deeper on that. But I could post something on instagram, “Here’s my 5 steps in the system to build a list.” And if nobody cares, I don’t go deep there. If I post and people are freaking out, and this is awesome. Let me go deeper. Let’s say I’m a dentist, “I’m going to post a 5 step framework for how to get coffee stains off your teeth from home.” Who would want that? You guys don’t believe me? I’m not a…anyway, I could post that real quick and be like, “Oh my gosh, nobody cares. I’m not going to build it.” Or I post something else, and you start finding out. So it’s essentially becoming quick at creating these little frameworks, and then putting them out and testing them, to see what are the things that cause people to get excited, before you go deeper? If you guys notice, almost every one of my podcast episodes, I think I’m like 600 episodes deep or more, is me sharing a quick framework. That’s it. Sometimes you guys don’t tell me anything, I’m like, ‘Okay, that one sucked.” But guess how I know when I do a good one. You guys message me. I get tons of “Dude that was amazing.” “That was fire Russell.” People do the fire emoji. And people go crazy. I’m like, ‘okay, that’s, I’m going to go deeper there.’ All the stuff I share on stages like this, our own stage, this is the year of testing. And a lot of stuff you guys don’t care about, other things you freak out about. I’m looking, what are the frameworks that people are interested in, I’m going to go deeper in those, start creating those things. Alright, so understand that frameworks, as you’re going to see, are at every step in the funnel. There’s frameworks here at the ad level. There’s frameworks here at the opt-in level. There’s frameworks when you’re selling and frameworks throughout the sale. So I’m going to show you guys this in a lot more detail here in a second. I’m going to show you guys a case study of one, so you can see exactly how they fit. But just imagine the ad you see like, ‘Who here wants my 3 step framework for how to ad more…” Sweet, you click on that and it takes you to the landing page. Awesome. “Give me your email address and I’m going to give you my 5 step framework for how to do whatever.” They opt in. Next page it’s like, ‘Cool, I just emailed you the framework. There’s a 3  hour video of me teaching this framework in more detail. For $37 you can have it.” Boom, and then we go through it like that. So framework is what drives people and pulls them from page to page to page throughout. Okay, step number three. After you’ve created these frameworks, you have to give your framework a proprietary name. This way it becomes your own. If you don’t do that, it’s just like anybody can rip it off. You’ve got to create your own proprietary frameworks. So for example, I’m going to see how well you guys have been paying attention to me for the last 5 years. I’m going to draw something and when you know what this framework is, I want you to shout it out at the top of your lungs. Are you guys ready for this, the first one wins a million…just kidding, you win nothing. Everyone’s shouting. As soon as you know what the framework is, post it out. Oh, Perfect Webinar. There’s my framework for how to run a webinar. Do you know how many leads I have gotten by giving people for free, my framework for how to run a webinar? Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of leads of people who have opted in to say “I want to learn how to do a webinar.” They give me their email address, I give them the perfect webinar script, and we have a free plus shipping version, and we go through there. And it has become a huge, huge, huge lead generator for us. It has somehow, you’re like, “Russell, what does perfect webinar have to do with Clickfunnels. Clickfunnels isn’t even in the framework.” Oh, but if you have a webinar that works, then you need Clickfunnels to host. Oh, oh. That’s test number one, you guys ready for number two? Okay, let’s see if you guys know what framework is next. First one to yell it out wins. Value ladder. You guys know my frameworks. There’s the value ladder framework. You guys ready for the next one? This one is going to be a little trickier, this one has not been as prevalent, but if you were here last year you should know this one. What’s this, what’s this? You all failed. Everyone who was here last year, go home. Someone said it, hook, story, offer. Okay, I’ve got one more in my pop quiz. Okay, you guys ready for this one? Loud as you can, as soon as you know what it is. Alright….You guys know my frameworks. How many of you guys feel like you could confidently come up and teach any of these frameworks because you’ve seen them so many times? Yeah. The nice thing about a framework is that people, after they see the framework, they can remember it. They can teach it, they can share it, it can grow. It’s so, so, so powerful having your own frameworks. Tonight after dinner we are doing a story workshop. I’m going to be going deep into my story frameworks. I just want to make sure you guys come back for that because it’s going to be really, really fun. I put a lot of work into it. We’re going to learn how to try and tell some stories. If you look at business though, my entire business is just frameworks. How many of you guys have read any of these 4 books? What’s that last one? What? Dotcom Secrets are all my frameworks for the first ten years of my business. I put them together in a book and you guys read the book and you’re like, “These are amazing. I need to buy Clickfunnels now.”  Okay, Expert Secrets is my frameworks for how to sell, how to put video and copy on the pages to convert people as they come through your funnels. Traffic Secrets comes out very, very soon, which is all the frameworks for how we get traffic into our funnels. And Unlock the Secrets is the secrets that I keep opening and looping you guys to tease you and you’re like, “What is it?” And I’m not every going to tell you, but you’ll find out someday. There’s a framework for that, about open loops. So there you are, that is frameworks for a whole company. If you look at this, it’s interesting, there are frameworks that are embedded inside of frameworks. So if you look at Expert Secrets and if I needed to do a 5 second instagram post, or I wanted to make a 3 minute video about the framework in Expert Secrets, I would go to the table of contents and section one of the book is how to create a mass movement. Step two is belief through story, step three is your moral obligation, and step four is the funnels you use. So there’s the frameworks, the 4 step framework for how to become an expert. I could teach you that in 3 minutes. But if you look at this, inside of each framework, each of these sections of the book, there’s a whole bunch of things inside of each section of the book. What are they called? Chapters. So if you break it up bigger, chapter one is create your own movement. But then inside of there there’s a framework. In create your mass movement there’s 5 steps. Number one is become the charismatic leader. Number two the future based cause. Number three new opportunity. Number four, opportunity switch. There’s your framework for how to create a mass movement. Now I keep going another step deeper. What’s the framework for the new opportunity. I have a framework for that as well. Okay, there’s frameworks inside of frameworks, inside of frameworks. This is what we do as entrepreneurs, as creators. We’re creating frameworks for our people to help get them results. Do you guys understand that? That’s our goal. So as we are going on this journey ourselves, trying to find our voice and become an expert, we’re going through this path, we say, “I’m trying to get this result for myself first. I’m going through this growth. I’m trying to get the result as I’m going through this path. I’m learning, I’m creating my own framework hypothesis. Oh my gosh, I got a result. I have a framework, I have a proven system now to get a result.” which is all business really is, what’s the result you’re trying to give someone? Now I have a proven framework to get anybody this result. So now you’ve got a framework, what do you do? Go sell stuff now? Yeah? No, not yet. You all failed the test. Just because you have a framework does not mean you should start selling it or making money from it. Just because it worked for you does not mean it’s going to work for everybody. I had a mistake when I first got started in this part of the business where I had these funnels that worked in my business and I started to try and use them on other companies, and I realized there were intricacies that I didn’t understand in my company versus other people’s. And it took me a while to respect that enough to say I gotta figure out how this works. What are the changes to make it work in a gym versus a dentist, versus someone who’s selling physical products. You have to figure out those changes, intricacies. So the next step is not for you to go and start selling them. The next phase here is for you to start working for free and serving your future dream clients. You know that the frameworks work for you, it got you the result, now you gotta find out if it’s going to work for other people as well. This is where you will learn the intricacies of your art. So when I got started in this business, in the coaching side of this business, what I didn’t do is set up a website or set up a funnel and be like, “Hey, I’m Russell Brunson. I’m really cool. One time I made a bunch of money, you guys should sign up for my coaching program.” For two reasons, number one, you sound like a jerk. Number two, just because I made money doesn’t mean I’m going to help anybody else make money. So the next phase for me was like, “Well, I’m going to go work for free to see if what I think is right, this hypothesis I have that worked for me, I’m going to see if it works for other people.” So what I did, this is right before the whole Clickfunnels journey took off, I met this guy named Drew Canoli. How many of you guys know Drew Canoli in here? FitLife TV, co-owner of Organify. I met Drew and at the time they were kind of struggling in their business a little bit. And it’s kind of a crazy, we had a friend in mutual, and I was going through this juicing phase in my life where I just wanted to juice everything and Drew is like the juicing guy. So I was like, my wife and kids and I were going to Lego Land, and Drew lives in San Diego so I was like, ‘Hey, can you introduce me to Drew? I’d love to meet him when I’m out there.” So our co-friend kind of connected us together and like two days later I jumped in my very first uber ride ever, I drove over to Drew’s house and we sat down. And it was this awkward moment where like, we hadn’t ever talked before, we got introduced by this other third person, it’s going to be weird. I remember knocking on his door and he opened up, and I’m like, ‘hey, do we hug or just…” you know like the weird internet hi, like, “hi, I’ve seen your face a lot.” So  he let me in, and we walk in and walk into this room, his front room and I sat down, and on the table was one of my first things we used to sell it was called 108 Split Tests. How many of you guys have read the 108 Split Tests book. It was sitting there and I was like, “Oh dude, you got my book.” And he’s like, “Not only do I have your book, the creepiest thing just happened. I bought your book, like 2 days ago it showed up. I’m sitting here reading through all your split tests. And in my head I’m thinking, man wouldn’t it be cool if Russell Brunson could actually come here and actually do these tests for us, because I don’t know how we are even going to do these. And then an hour later Carl calls me and says, ‘hey, this guy named Russell Brunson wants to meet you, he’s coming to your house.’ And now you’re sitting here in my living room.” I was like, “That is the weirdest, creepiest thing ever.” So I went there to hang out with Drew and get to know him a little bit, and this is one of the first products that they were selling at the time. And I felt like I could tell that they were kind of struggling. I’m like, “Hey, I’m writing this book, it’s called Dotcom Secrets, it’s not out yet, but I’m writing this book and working on this thing and I would love to come out and just help you guys out.” And he’s like, “What would it cost?” I’m like, “I’ll just do it for free.” He’s like, “Why would you do that?” I’m like, ‘I don’t know, because I have no idea if it’s going to work or not. I don’t want to charge you. It worked for me, I think it will work for you. But I don’t, I’m not really sure. I love what you’re doing, I love your mission. I can help you for free.” And we kind of went back and forth and he’s like, “Well, what’s in it for you.” I’m like, “I don’t know, I’m sure if something awesome happens it will be great. But I just want to come and work for free.” So finally he agreed to it. I flew out there and got him and his team in a little conference room. We didn’t have white boards, so I’m writing on the windows because I can’t teach without doodling. We’re drawing on the windows, building a whole bunch of stuff out. About this time they were working on a green drink, I helped them to kind of figure out the funnel for that, to launch it. And when this got done they launched Organify a little, shortly afterwards and it completely transformed their company. They went from a struggling company to, I’m not at liberty to share their numbers, but they are at the high 8 figures, killing it right now with Organify. After doing that I was like, “Oh my gosh, this does work for other people.” And after that, Drew went and made a video telling the story, “Hey, Russell came to us, we were struggling, he gave us his frameworks, gave us his funnels, we launched it and this is what happened.” I took that video, I put it up on a page, and said, “Hey, Drew thinks I’m awesome. If you want to work with me like Drew did, apply down below.” And that’s when I created my inner circle program that we filled up with a hundred people, off the backs initially of this video. That’s the key you guys. After the framework, after it works for yourself, now you go out and work for free for other people. You find out if what you’re doing, what you’re creating, is going to work for other people as well. This is the step, by the way, that most people miss. They create a framework and they try to start selling it. They’re like, ‘Oh, my funnel’s not working.” It’s like, because there’s no social proof. I don’t know if this is actually going to work for me. It worked for you sure, but is it going to work for me? I’m in a different business. I do something completely separate, does it work for me as well? So go out there and work for free to prove that what you’re doing actually works. And that moves us now to step number 5 and this is where you become an expert, where you start finding your voice. I’m a huge believer that your results are your qualifications. This is how you qualify yourself. As you guys heard earlier, I got a C in my marketing class, so I have no marketing degree, yet we arguably run one of the biggest marketing training companies on planet earth.  Our results are our qualifications and you guys are the same thing. You have to understand that. After you’ve proven for yourself, you prove for other people. That’s your qualifications to go out there and start creating and sharing. Okay, so tomorrow I’m going to be talking deeper on value ladder stuff. But I want to share, for those who don’t understand the value ladder and this concept right now, I want to share that each step in the value ladder there are frameworks. There’s frameworks at the bottom of the value ladder, as you start moving up. If you look at the transition point, usually when you’re moving up the value ladder and providing more value and charging more money, at the lower tier it’s like people are doing the framework themselves. You give them the framework, they opt in, they get to download it, they’re on their own. They get to do it themselves. As they move up the value ladder it’s like, ‘Hey, if you pay me something I’ll do it with you.” You move up the value ladder higher, you say, “I’ll do it for you.” And even higher, some kind of combination of both. So let me show you guys a framework in action. How many of you guys want to see this whole process in action. An actual funnel that’s killing it right now inside of Clickfunnels? So I’m going to show you guys Peng Joon’s funnel. Hopefully Peng Joon is okay with this. He made me do a cameo for his infomercial, or his new music video last night, so I feel like he owes me, so I’m going to show his funnel. We’re funnel hacking, I bought it like 400 times for you guys, so he made a lot of money on this already. But I want to show you guys behind the scenes how Peng perfectly used this framework in action. How many of you guys were at Funnel Hacking Live 2 years ago, or 3 years ago when he gave his presentation on his content machine? Okay, so he came and did a presentation for 30 minutes and that presentation became the whole foundation, that framework he taught at Funnel Hacking Live in 30 minutes became the framework for this entire funnel that I’m going to show you guys. Peng’s kind of like me and he’s got ADD and he has like 500 things happening, but if he wanted to, this and this alone could be his entire business. All based on one framework, so let me show you how this works. So this is the very beginning of the framework. The framework starts as an ad, and if you zoom in here, make it a little bigger so I can see here. If you read his ad it says, who here wants me to reveal my 9 step system for telling them blah, blah, blah. This is his framework, his 9 step system. This is the ad he runs on Facebook. So that’s the first step here. At first he’s got an ad on the framework. Come here to get my 9 step system. Someone reads the ad, they say, “Ah, that framework looks awesome. I want to get the result he’s promised me by following this framework.” So they click on the ad and that takes them to step number two here, which is the special offer. So Peng’s special offer is the do it yourself, it’s a book, which literally is the transcription of his presentation here at Funnel Hacking Live with pictures of the slides. It’s pretty amazing. So this is like a free plus shipping, buy this book, you can do it yourself. You go read the thing and then you’re off on your own to do it yourself. It’s free, just pay shipping and handling. The bottom tier of the value ladder. A huge percentage of people that click on the ad on this page are like, “Sweet, this book looks awesome. I want the framework.” You order it, he shoots out the framework and they get the framework in their hands. Do it yourself. There’s step number two there in the process. Now after somebody buys that, now Peng immediately starts moving them up the value ladder within the same framework. He moves to upsell number one. His first upsell is like, “Cool, you just got the book. I’m shipping it out to you. You’re going to be able to read and learn how to do it yourself. But how would you like to learn it with me? I actually created a whole entire video course, it’s way bigger than what’s inside the book. We can sit here and we can go for the next 6 weeks and you can do it with me. I’ll train you, you’ll listen, you go and implement it, and we go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.” It’s a done for you thing. So the upsell is the same framework, but he shifted from do it yourself to I’m going to do it with you. And this is the first one, so I think he sells this for $297, I believe. So that’s upsell number one. Now he moves to upsell number two, which by the way is the same framework, he’s just moving it up the value ladder. So upsell number two now he says, “Okay, you bought the book, how would you like for my team to just do it for you? We could create all the ads and the banners, and all the content things you need and every single month we’re going to ship you out, excuse me, every month we’ll give you a whole bunch of things you can download and we’ll do this whole process for you. You just plug your videos in and we’ve got it all done for you.” This one is, what does he charge for it? $897 a year or $97 a month. So he’s taking that same framework, the framework didn’t shift, it’s still the framework for how to get more people on video, but he’s shifting how it’s fulfilled and how it’s done for you, I’ll just do it for you, and he charges almost a thousand bucks for that. That’s upsell number two. And then on the thank you page, he has the webinar, where you come and register for the webinar and the webinar is the combination where he sells a $3000 version where they do even more for you, and it’s a combination of doing done for you, done with you and a bunch of other things like that. And that moves it through. But that’s one framework that Peng created. This framework, this funnel does really, really well. But I want you to understand that if this was his only business, it could be. This alone is a Two Comma Club business by itself, if he just focuses on that alone. From one framework. How many of you guys think that you could develop a framework to show people how to get the result in the whatever business it is that you actually do? It’s not that difficult. It’s understanding that these frameworks, that’s what they are. Most of the offers we’re creating are based on some type of framework. So we have to become really, really, really good at creating frameworks. I want you to pause for a second and look back in time at everything you’ve experienced with me before you got here today. The reason why you’re in this room is because somewhere along the line you saw a framework and clicked on it. And somewhere along the line, you opted in for a framework, some of you bought a framework and then you went through the thing. And you guys are here today. This entire event is a framework, a framework to help you guys get into the two comma club. That’s the whole goal of this event. How do we train people and educated them to get them into a spot where they can get the award onstage with us two days from now? That’s the whole framework that we built this whole event around. People ask me every single year, “Russell, I want to speak at Funnel Hacking Live. I want to speak at Funnel Hacking Live.” I’m like, ‘You don’t understand, I don’t take speakers. I build a framework and I find out who’s the best speaker for each step of the framework.” That’s how we orchestrate this entire event. You will notice as you go through, every single speaker who gets on this stage will have a framework for something. They all have received some kind of result, and they will give you their framework for that result. Here’s what you do, step one, step two, step three, step four. So I want you guys looking through all these presentations through that lens of like, ‘What’s the framework? What’s the frame we’re going to get? I have the process. I have it now and I can go back and implement it.” That’s one lens, but the other thing I want you guys through as you start seeing this, and seeing how I teach my frameworks, and how other people teach their frameworks, understanding that this is the business that we’re in. I don’t care if you’re a dentist, a chiropractor, a supplement, selling a physical product, selling info, coaching, consulting. Whatever it is, if you can understand how to package things into frameworks, now you’ve got sexy ads. Now you’ve got amazing opt ins. Now you’ve got all the things you need to generate leads to get people coming into your world. You have a proprietary thing that’s unique to you, versus everybody else. Especially if you’re selling a commodity. Especially if you’re a local business where there’s 500 other people doing exactly what you’re doin gin your home town. If you start developing your own frameworks, your own proprietary process that’s different, now you’ve got an advantage over everybody else. So this is the process of going from growth to contribution. We go from the dreamer to the reporter, to the framework creator, to the servant, to our expert and our guide. So that’s the framework about how to find your voice. Did you guys like that?

Dr. Hayes interviews Dr. DeVita about his role as Director of NCI and his time with CHOP and MOPP.   TRANSCRIPT [MUSIC PLAYING] The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories, The Art of Oncology, brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of nine programs covering a range of educational and scientific content and offering enriching insight into the role of cancer care. You can find all of the shows, including this one, at podcast.asco.org. Welcome to Cancer Stories. I'm Dr. Daniel Hayes. I'm a medical oncologist and a translational researcher at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. And I'm the past president of ASCO. I'm really privileged to be your host for a series of podcast interviews with the founders of our field. In this series of podcasts, I hope to bring appreciation of the courage and the vision and most importantly the scientific background among the leaders who founded our field of clinical cancer care over the last 70 years. I hope by understanding the background of how we got to what we now considered normal in oncology, we can all work together towards a better future for our patients and their families during and after cancer treatment. Today, my guest on this podcast is Dr. Vincent T. DeVita, best known as Vince. Dr. DeVita is generally considered one of the so-called Gang of Five, including Doctors Canellos, Young, Chabner, and Schein, who I've been trying to get on for this podcast in the future, all at the NCI, and who brought many of the concepts we now accept as standard into the clinic in the 1960s and '70s. Dr. DeVita is currently a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Medicine. I think it's also fair to say, Dr. DeVita was instrumental in the passage of the 1971 National Cancer Act. And I want to hear more about that as we get into this. He was director of the NCI and the National Cancer Program from 1980 to 1988 and then moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as Physician in Chief and subsequently became the Director of the Yale Cancer Center in 1993. Among his many honors-- and I don't have time to go through them all-- but he has served as President of the American Cancer Society. And I think most dear to me, he was President of ASCO in 1977 and 1978. Dr. DeVita, welcome to our program. Nice to be here, Dan. I've done a little background. I know you grew up in the Bronx. And I know you went to William and Mary for undergrad and George Washington Medical School. And I also read what I didn't know, which is that you did your internship and residency at the University of Michigan. We're recording this just before the NCAA basketball tourney. And I have to say, go blue. We're all excited here in Ann Arbor about our basketball team. [LAUGHTER] What I'm really interested in is, were your parents physicians? Or what made you choose medicine out of the Bronx? Well, no, my father was a banker. And my mother was an interior decorator. So it was kind of a funny mix. But I think it's kind of peculiar. I was growing up, and my mother-- I tell this story in my book. My mother was kind of frightened by the fact that I really, as a seven- or eight-year-old kid, really thought the guy who delivered the ice-- in those days, we had ice boxes-- was terrific. And I wanted to be like Nunzi the iceman. And she panicked and said, no, no. You're going to be a doctor. And every time someone asked me what I was going to be, I just said I was going to be a doctor. And when I went to school, I decided I'd be a doctor. It was sort of Mama driving me in that direction. So you had a choice of being an iceman or a doctor [LAUGHS]. Right. I like-- I mean, biology was always a favorite subject of mine. So it was a good fit. And tell me about how you ended up going to the NIH and choosing oncology. Was that serendipitous? I talked to Bob Young the other day. And he said, fundamentally, he hadn't planned to be an oncologist and got to the NIH and liked it. Was that your role, or did you know you wanted to do cancer from the start? No, I was going to be a cardiologist. In fact, when I was a first-year resident, I did cardiac catheterizations and was a co-author on a paper that for a long time was well-cited in the field. So I applied to both the Heart and Lung Institute and the Cancer Institute. And those are very competitive positions. And I had an interview with Robert Berliner, which didn't go well [LAUGHS]. So I didn't get invited to the Heart Institute. And I went to the Cancer Institute. And when I walked in, Dr. David Rall was the chief of the pharmacology branch. And I asked him if I could work on the pharmacology of digoxin. And he, wise person that he was, said, sure. Go ahead if that's what you want to do. And I was surrounded by people who were working on anti-cancer drugs. And I actually became fascinated with them. And it was only a few months, because I was also on the wards at the time, that I said, oncology is the way to go. It was an exciting new field. It was kind of a funny field in those days. But I found it exciting, so I switched. So just to give you a plug here, I think many of us know that you wrote a book, The Death of Cancer, published a couple of years ago, co-written with your daughter Elizabeth by the way. But in it, you described a number of things. And one of those that I loved were your stories about Gordon Zubrod. And I trained with Dr. Frei at the Dana-Farber. He always had great things to say about Dr. Zubrod. And I wonder if you could tell the folks listening in who he was-- I think most people don't even know that-- and the impact he had on our field. Yeah, I used to call him the great umbrella. The field was very controversial at the time. And so the people who were doing things like saying, I'm going to try to cure this cancer-- leukemia in Frei's case and Hodgkin's in our case-- were considered just a little bit this side of insane. He was somebody who was distinguished. Now, Frei had-- Zubrod had been at St. Louis as a professor and also at Johns Hopkins. And he was a very distinguished-looking man and a very polite, careful man. And so he used to provide sort of the umbrella for all of us, so that [INAUDIBLE] he'd take the heat. And we could go on and do our work. So he was-- he did enormous number of things. I mean, the whole clinical trial structure was established by Gordon Zubrod. The phase I, II, III trials was all done in a paper by Gordon Zubrod in the late 1950s. So I think he was just a guy who had foresight and was a great leader. I ultimately took his job. He got tired of bucking the bureaucracy and retired and went to Florida as the director of their cancer center there. So I got to know him pretty well. And like Frei, I have great admiration with him. I mean, it's interesting how we take phase I, II, and III for granted. And when he came in, and not too long before you came in, those things weren't-- nobody really knew how to do this stuff. Doctors Frei and Freireich were already at the NCI when you got there, correct? Yes, indeed. Yeah, they were. Yeah. And so they must have been inspirational. They were, and especially Freireich. Freireich was always on the wards. And Tom didn't come over to the wards very much. He was sort of the direct-- he was chief of medicine. And Freireich was the chief of the leukemia service. So we saw Freireich all the time. Tom came over once in a while. And Jay was a super doctor. And it was very hard to stay ahead of him. You'd get an x-ray on a patient. And he'd call you up 20 minutes later and tell you what it was. He was already down looking at it. So you had to stay on your toes with Jay. And of course he was, as everybody knows-- Jay-- he was a bold guy, who-- I mean, he looked like he could walk through a wall. So he frightened a lot of people. But he was an inspiration. So I'm always grateful for what Jay Freireich taught me. There's a great story in your book, that Dr. Frei has told me as well, about the first platelet transfusion at the NCI. Can you elaborate on that? I think most folks don't know about that story. Platelet transfusion was, again, one of those radical departures. But Freireich reasoned that we were losing more people from bleeding than we were from leukemia. So he worked out a way of plasma pheresing people and collecting platelets. And we didn't have a lot of the expertise we have now. And they came in quart bags. I mean, they were plasma bags that were huge. And we were treating little kids. So they were-- throwing them into heart failure was a problem. So it was pretty radical. And he was told to stop doing it by the clinical director at that time. And in fact, he was told that if he didn't stop doing it, he was going to be fired. And he told me-- he said, I went back to my office, sat down, and thought about it. And I decided I didn't want to work at a place where I couldn't do that. So I just kept on doing it. And the person who said he was going to fire him never did. But that was Jay Freireich. [LAUGHS] He believed so strongly in it. And when I went to Yale right after I left the Cancer Institute-- I finished my residency up there. And I told them-- when I saw leukemia patients who were bleeding-- and I said, what you should do is platelet transfusions. And they said, they don't work. And I said, I used them. And I saw them work. So I think we're losing patients unnecessarily. It was just very controversial. So eventually I left the program. I was going to take a residency and then a fellowship in hematology there. And I decided to go back to the Cancer Institute where these adventurous things were going on. Times are different now, of course. Dr. Frei once told me a story that he-- you may have been with him-- that he was making rounds in the clinical center. And in those days, apparently, the adults and the kids were in the same ward. And there was a child with essentially no white cells, who'd been induced for leukemia, and a man next to him with CML. And so-- and actually, when Dr. Frei told me this, I kind of said, I don't think I want to hear this story, because he said, well, you know, the kid didn't have any white cells. And the guy next to him had way too many white cells. So [LAUGHS] I said, tell me you didn't do this. He said, yeah, we took platelets out from the guy and gave them to the kid. And the kid got better for a while. It was really exciting. I thought, boy, you don't see that anymore. Yeah, I mean, it was a very reasonable thing to do, because the white cells in a chronic myelogenous leukemia patient work very well in terms of fighting infection. Yeah. So there was no reason. And the kids, otherwise, wouldn't survive. And so, yeah, I was there when we got these-- we gave these. I mean, they weren't easy to give, because they stuck in the lungs. And we didn't have HLA matching at the time. So they were-- a lot of them were mismatched. But for a while, they were effective. And then we went to collecting white cells from normal people. But the white cells had not worked as well as platelets had worked. Platelets have been a lifesaver. Now it's a couple of hundred million dollar business each year now. So it's routinely done, as many things that Jay started are routinely done now. Of the many things for which you are credited, I think it's the use of combination chemotherapy for Hodgkin's and then subsequently non-Hodgkin's that is one of your lasting legacies. There must have been a lot of drama around doing that. I mean, I think we all just assume you're going to start protocol. You write the protocol. You get funding for it. And you go forward. But can you give us some stories about sitting around at night and thinking about how to do this? Or how did you choose those drugs and why and how to give them and the obstacles that were involved? Yeah, actually, it was a very complicated process. And we didn't have the information we have now. What we had was-- I was doing this with Jack Moxley, who left active medicine and became a dean after he left the Cancer Institute. But we're still in touch. And Jack was working with [? Sy ?] [? Perry ?] using the new isotope, tritiated thymidine, looking at the bone marrow of CML patients and also of mice. And I was doing the same thing with the leukemia 1210, which was a model that we used for chemotherapy all the time. And what we were trying to do was figure out the kinetics of human versus mouse marrow, so we could develop schedules that humans would survive. We quickly found out that you can't use the mouse as a model, because their blood cells went through a kinetic phase about half the length of humans. So you had to schedule in a different way. So we worked that out. And then we looked at very simple-- something that people really ignored is that when you give a chemotherapy agent that is toxic to the marrow, you don't get abnormal blood counts right away. For a week, you'll have a normal white cell. And then on day seven or eight, it begins to fall, because the storage compartment in the marrow works well for about a week. And then there's no replenishment. And the white count falls. So between the two, looking at the marrow and looking at the white cells in the periphery, we came up with a schedule for MOPP. And then the other things were simple. We just decided that you'd have to have three or four drugs that worked by themselves. There had been people doing combination chemotherapy before-- Tom Hall in Boston and [? Alan ?] [INAUDIBLE] at Yale. And their rationale was they're looking at a sequential biochemical blockade. But they ignored whether the drugs actually worked against the tumor, assuming that if you gave them together, that the biochemical blockade would dominate. And it didn't work. In fact, it was very discouraging. But we decided the way to do it was take drugs that had some activity in the disease and use them together and use them in full doses in the schedules that we worked out because of the prior work I was telling you about. So it took a while to put that together. And then Jack Moxley and I used to do this at a bar in Georgetown called the Lehigh Grill, where we used to-- my cardiology desire-- I used to go to Georgetown where there was a wonderful cardiologist Proctor Harvey, who used to hold Thursday night sessions. You had an auditorium that was wired. So you could hear heart sounds. And after that, we'd go to the Lehigh Grill. And we sort of put together the protocol. When we presented it to Tom, he thought it was a good idea. But the other people around him thought it was insane and really tried to stop it. Tom Frei? Yeah. Tom Frei, yeah, yeah. Well, Tom was supportive. Yeah, Emil Frei was his real name. But everybody called him Tom. Yeah, he was supportive. But the people around him and my immediate boss was very much against it, because he thought it would interfere with the protocol that they were doing and so forth. So Tom worked out a solution worthy of Solomon. He said, OK, we could do-- the magic number for phase I trials in those days was 14. If you got nothing in 14 patients, then you didn't go any further. So we could do 14 patients with the first protocol, which was called MOMP-- M-O-M-P. And we had to do the workups ourselves. We couldn't use other colleagues to work up the patients. And we had to go get the patients ourselves. So Jack Moxley and I did all those things. And the results were very encouraging. And then Jack left. And I sat down and decided that we'd put procarbazine. I was working on procarbazine. It was then called [INAUDIBLE]. And I was working on it and doing the pharmacology in the phase I study with it in Hodgkin's disease. It was a promising candidate. So we put it in. And that became MOPP. Also in those days, six weeks of therapy was it. They didn't get more than six weeks. We reasoned that the marrow problems would be acute. But you'd have to give it probably for a long period of time to affect the tumor. So we gave it for at least six months or to a complete remission plus two months. And we assumed that there were cells left after we couldn't see them. So it was a lot of good thinking that went into it that turned out to be correct, because most of the-- since then, a lot of protocols follow the same sort of routine. And it really works for a lot of cancers. But it was controversial. I went to the AACR meeting. This was before ASCO. And I presented it as an abstract. And David Karnofsky, who was sort of a god at that time at Memorial Sloan Kettering, just tore me apart. And what was I doing using the term complete remission for a solid tumor. He said, that was a term that was used in leukemia. Now, I didn't say it. But I'm thinking, the reason you use them is you can get complete remission. So we had complete remissions. And I was kind of shaking with the microphone in my hand at the time. So it was a scary but it was a good experience. I have to say-- So it just gives you an idea that people were not receptive [INAUDIBLE]. Those of us who are junior to you can't imagine that you were intimidated by somebody else [LAUGHS]. Well, I was a youngster, then. I was-- Jack Moxley and I, I would say, thinking back, we were cocky. But the big guys in the field could scare me. And Zubrod was a-- I mean, Karnofsky was a big guy in the field. Yeah. He just had a hard time getting out of the leukemia mind frame. And so of course, we've used complete remission since then in any kind of solid tumor where you can get one. In your book, you have a great quote that you presented somewhere. And Dr. Frei was there. And Wayne Rundles was there. Wayne, of course, has been at Duke for 100 years. And he said, do your patients speak with you after you're done? Well, Wayne Rundles-- when he first saw the MOPP protocol, Wayne Rundles said, that's nonsense. He said, I get the same thing with nitrogen mustard by myself. Well, nobody had ever got that with nitrogen mustard. So we actually had to set up a controlled trial and do it and prove that MOPP was better. So when I presented it when we were first starting it-- at a meeting. Tom had arranged this meeting with all the bigwigs in the field. And when I presented it at that, everybody was sort of quiet. And then Wayne Rundles raised his hand. He looked pale. He raised his hand and said to me, Dr. DeVita, do your patients speak to you after you do this? [LAUGHS] So he-- a few years later when we were obviously getting good results, he invited me to grand rounds. And by then, we were good friends. And I was up on the podium. And after I gave the talk, he was sitting down below smiling at me. And I said, Dr. Rundles, if you remember, you asked me if your patients speak to you when you do this. And I can tell you that they do for a lot longer. So it was fun. But it was fun. He was a good friend by then. And I had great respect for him. Actually, he was a very nice man. He was. When did you start thinking that you had a success? Was it during those first 13 patients or 14 patients that you treated? I mean, was it obvious right away, or did you start [INAUDIBLE]-- Well, it was obvious-- --you were in the wrong place? We put-- no. We thought it pretty early, because we were worried. We put patients in reverse isolation. Nobody knew whether you were going to kill them if you gave them all these drugs together. And it turned out the first surprise was, yeah, they had the usual toxicity. But it really wasn't that bad. So it was doable. And the second was-- we had a small number. But we had-- something like 80% of the patients went into a complete remission. And I think nobody had seen that. Now, the question was, how long were they going to last? So we were optimistic. And when we put patients on it, there was no cure for them at that time. And we said, we're optimistic that this is going to be something that will last. But we don't know. And then by three years, it looked pretty good. And I think I presented the first abstract four years after we started. And by that time, we had relapse-free survival curves. And again, nobody before that time had presented relapse-free survival curves in any of the lymphomas. So by then, by four years, I think we felt we had probably cured some patients with the disease. I asked Bob Young this same question. Did you feel a sense of history at the time, that this was really historical? Or did that come later when you looked backwards? I think what people don't realize about those days is neither Freireich nor ourselves were treating leukemia and Hodgkin's disease. In other words, we weren't out to develop a treatment for those diseases. We were out to prove you could cure cancer with drugs, because nobody believed it. If you said that, they really thought you had gone balmy. So we were out to look-- so we knew if we could do it, it would be historic. So we were excited when we looked like maybe it was going to happen. By that time, when we had first reported it, the VAMP program that Freireich did, which was an historic program-- he only had 17 patients. And they actually never published a paper on VAMP. And I asked Jay why they never did that. And he said because he didn't think they would accept it anywhere. So but by that time, they were getting about a 50% complete remission rate going four or five years. And they were thinking they're curing leukemia. And we were getting 80% complete remission rates. So I think everybody felt that we were going to prove that you could cure cancer with the drugs. And we did. So yes, in a sense, we set out to do something that would be historic. And so when it happened, I think, it is. It was a sort of a door opener for medical oncology in Hodgkin's disease. I'd like to turn now for just a minute to your role in politics. You were pretty instrumental, I think, when the National Cancer Act was signed in 1971. And that also sounds like a TV drama to me. It sounds like-- and I know this anyway, but in reading your book, it was not clear that was going to get through. Can you give us some of the playground behind that and Mary Lasker's role and how that happened? Well, Mary Lasker played a big role. The MOPP program actually played a big role, because Mary Lasker was sort of working in the background. Cancer was always a cause for her. But when we did the MOPP program, there was a guy named Luke Quinn, who she had hired to be a lobbyist, who was sort of hidden in the American Cancer Society so they wouldn't realize it was Mary Laskers' lobbyist. And he was referred to me by Sidney Farber. And I didn't want to take him at first, because he was diagnosed as having gall bladder cancer. And I said to them, you know-- I said to Sidney Farber, I don't really treat patients with gall bladder cancer. And there was silence on the phone. And he said, (SOMBER, COMMANDING VOICE) you will take this patient. [LAUGHS] So I took the patient. And when I examined him, when he came down and I examined him, he had adenopathy in both axillae. And gall bladder cancer just doesn't do that. So I had to do another biopsy. He was not a pleasant guy. So it was not easy to do these things. I had to get another biopsy. And it turned out that my pathologist at the time, Costan Berard, when he compared the biopsy, he said, it's a lymphoma, clearly. It was a diffuse, large cell lymphoma. What they had done is, because Claude Welch did the surgery-- a very famous abdominal surgeon-- and he said it was gall bladder cancer, that the pathologist sort of assumed it was. And it was a compression artifact. Long story short, he went into remission. And Mary Lasker went gaga. Wait a minute. We got something here. And that was what pushed her to get her friend, Senator Ralph Yarborough, to put up a committee on cancer to come up with the Cancer Act. And-- So it must have been quite a day when President Nixon signed that. Yeah, well, it was-- I wasn't at the signing. I wasn't high enough up in the chain to be invited to the signing. But yeah, I have all the photos of him signing it. And later when I met him-- I have a picture in the book of he and I shaking hands and him looking like he's having a roaring laugh. People ask me what I said that was funny. And I have no idea. But when I asked him, I said what is your greatest achievement as a president? He said two-- opening up China and signing the Cancer Act. So he was-- Really? Yeah, so I think he was proud that he did that. That's a great story. Actually, the other story I had not heard, but read in your book-- I'd like you to tell me about your lunch with Mr. Featherstone. [LAUGHS] Featherstone Reid, his name was. Well, this was a very-- this was a regular occurrence. Mary Lasker, when she came to town, would stay with Deeda Blair, Mrs. William McCormick Blair, who was a Washington socialite and had a lovely house on Foxhall Road. And they would have lunches and dinners. And they always arranged it so that people-- the scientists sat next to somebody with influence. And this is how they influenced the Congress to put more money into the cancer program. So one time, I got a call in the morning from Deeda Blair, saying, I'm having a lunch. We'd like to have you there. And I said, gee, I-- it's too short notice. I can't do it. And she said, well, Mary really wants you to be there. Mary was hard to say no to. So I rearranged my schedule, drove down to Deeda's house. And there was a big black limo sitting in the front of the house. I went in, and they introduced me to Featherstone Reid. I had no idea who he was. And every time Mary would say, we want more money for research with leukemias and lymphomas. Vince, tell him about what's going on. And I would tell him about. At the end of the lunch, he left. And Mary and I sat down on the couch to have a cup of coffee. And I said, Mary, who is Featherstone Reid? And she said, he's Warren Magnuson's driver. And when she saw the shock on my face-- Senator Warren Magnuson was the chairman of the appropriations committee of the Senate. When she saw the shock on my face, she said, wait a minute. When Mrs. Maggie-- he takes Mrs. Maggie shopping during the day. And Mrs. Maggie-- he fills her with all this information we're giving him. And then Mrs. Maggie is the last person to put her head down on the pillow next to Warren Magnuson. This is the way she worked. She would take someone like Magnuson, who was a good friend, but she would surround him with extraneous people who would say the same thing. So it was sort of like subliminal stimulation for him. He was always hearing these positive things. And then he supported the program. She was a piece of work. I never got to meet her. But it sounds like she was a force of nature. She was. And of course, the Lasker Award is now named for her and her husband and sort of the American Nobel Prize. She's had such [INAUDIBLE]. Yeah, and our crew won it in 1972-- Frei, Freireich, myself, and other people for other things. So I'm very fond of Mary Lasker, obviously. It's just a wonderful story. And I got to know her pretty well, so. I have one other question. And I'm not sure you'll want-- if you don't want to go off on it, we can edit it out. But in your book, you talked about Howard Skipper and Frank Schabel. And Dr. Frei used to talk about them all the time. And I think it's worthwhile to bring them into the history of what we do. Did you actually work with them or collaborate with them, or just base some of your ideas on what they had in mind? When I was starting at the Cancer Institute, I thought Schabel worked at the Cancer Institute-- I mean, Skipper worked at the Cancer Institute, because I would be working in the lab. I was doing the tritiated thymidine studies on L1210 mice. And he would be looking over my shoulder. He was doing the similar studies, but he was just doing it with cell counts in the abdomen of the mice. And he thought that was good enough. And he was there at a weekly meeting we had, which George Canellos named the Society of Jabbering Idiots. It was a great, great meeting, actually. [LAUGHS] And he was there all the time. And my view and Tom's view differ a little bit on Skipper. I think he was a real driving force, that he did the studies in mice that we were doing in the clinic with people. And he actually-- in 1964, he wrote a paper showing that you could cure L1210 leukemia. It was the first example of curing a mouse with leukemia. And I think-- so it was sort of a feedback mechanism between the Cancer Institute and the Southern Research Institute. So and he did-- he used to do these booklets. And I think he published hundreds of these booklets. Some of them, we convinced him to actually publish as papers. But I have the collection. There may be 100 booklets he wrote. And he would take a concept that we were working on and then work through it in mice. It was very, very important. And he was a wonderful person. His only problem was he smoked like a chimney. But he was-- I liked Frank and Howard. Yeah, Dr. Frei had the entire set of monographs on his bookshelf in his office and would encourage us to come in and borrow them and read them and come back. And frankly, he basically predicted what you've done with combination therapy. He predicted adjuvant therapy working. There were just a number of things he saw in these mice that we've gone on to apply in the clinic. It's pretty remarkable, I think, so. Yeah, I mean, it's not only he predicted it. But he actually showed the concept worked in mice. So as we know, mice and human are very different [INAUDIBLE]. There was a guy in Boston, Stuart Schlossman, a very fine scientist. And he didn't like mouse models. And when asked what he would do when he saw a tumor-bearing mouse, he would say, I would step on it, because he didn't believe mouse models. And but Frank and Howard did experiments and made allowances for the difference between humans and mice. So it was always good to know. I mean, I have the summary he wrote on Hodgkin's disease after he saw the MOPP program. So I think they're very instructive booklets. So I kept them. Like Tom, I think that we sort of live by them. Well, thanks for discussing them. I think our listeners need to remember these two guys. They were great. We're running out of time. I've really just touched the surface of what you've done and contributed to the field. And the people you've trained is sort of a who's who of oncology, frankly. But at the end of the day, what's your-- I'll ask you the same question you asked President Nixon. And that is, what is your legacy? What do you want people to remember that Vince DeVita did? I get asked that question a lot. And I don't have one thing that I can say. I mean, I've been lucky in my career that I've had a chance to do many things. Being the Director of the Cancer Institute was wonderful. You could sit on top of the whole field and just sort of scan it and see what's going on. And it was very important, because you've become the spokesman of practicing physicians at the same time. MOPP, of course, was important. Putting out the first comprehensive textbook in the field and watching it-- we just came out with the 11th edition-- is also very exciting. So there-- we were the first to successfully treat Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. And we reported it in a paper in the New England Journal. I mean, there were a lot of things. I'm best known, I think, for MOPP, probably, and the principles of MOP, which I'm very proud of. But there's so many that I have a hard time. I like opera. And people ask me, what's my favorite opera? And I usually say, it's the one I just saw. It's very hard for me to pick one opera. There's so many that I like. So I'm not dodging it. But I just never can say, well, it's this. That's very fair. Frankly, I think, without your contributions, I probably wouldn't be sitting here doing what I do. And I think there are thousands of us who would say that. So we're-- Well, that's very flattering. Well, not only are we appreciative, more importantly, there are a lot of people who are alive who wouldn't have been without what you and your colleagues did at the NCI that so many years ago, so-- [INTERPOSING VOICES] I was involved in the training of 93 medical oncologist. At one time, something like 40% of all the [INAUDIBLE] directors were our graduates. So they have gotten around. And that was good for the field. They went out with the same principles we were developing at the Cancer Institute, so that's very gratifying. Have you kept in touch with any of the patients that you're treated back at the NCI? I talked to Saul Rosenberg. And he told me he still sees people that he treated 30 or 40 years ago when he first moved to Stanford. We're writing a paper on the 45-year follow-up of the first 188 patients. Again, nobody has 45-year follow-ups. And we called every one of the survivors. And there's something like 60% or so of the complete remissions are alive. So I talked to some of them. But we had a nurse talk to a lot of them. And I got messages from them after the call. And some of them still contact me, after sort of an anniversary of their treatment. So yeah, I've kept up with them. The gratifying thing is most of them are suffering from the same illness as most people who are getting into their 70s or some of them 80s. They have hip problems and so on and prostate cancer. But there doesn't seem to be any really major increase in anything in these long survivors. Now, mind you, these were patients who got MOPP as their only treatment. And so when you see second tumors in these kinds of patients, it's usually patients who got radiation therapy plus MOPP. So these patients who are 45 years had just got MOPP. And they seem to be perfectly fine. That's remarkable. I love your comment that they are getting the same illness as the rest of us get as they get older. That's great. Yeah, we don't cure bad hips and bad knees and-- Yeah, we can't cure old age. When I was at the Dana-Farber, I had a patient who had been one of Sydney Farbor's original patients from the early '50s. And by this time he was obviously an adult. He was older than I was. And he was fine, as you've said. Although he said Dr. Farber kept treating him and treating him and treating him. And then finally, when Dr. Farber passed away, someone else picked up his chair. And they said, why are you still getting this? And they stopped it. Yeah. So he got a lot of treatment. I had one of Freireich's VAMP patients. She was a girl in her early teens. And she was a wildcat. But she had had something else, and it failed. And she was one of the first patients on VAMP. And she went into remission. And she stayed in remission. And I followed her for many years. She went to college. She got married. She had children. She brought her children in to see me. And last time I had any follow-up with her, she was in her 60s. And she was one of the really first long survivors of that particular program. So it's really neat to see these patients. And it's not rare for me to go to a meeting and have people walk up to me and say they got MOPP 25 years ago. Someone else gave it to them. And they're alive and well. So that's one of the great gifts of having a chance to do this kind of work. What a privilege. Well, I think we need to end. Again, I want to thank you for being on with us today and filling us in with some of these stories. Had really good feedback for my podcast series. And it's because of the people I've had on it. So thank you very much for all you've done. It's really good talking to you. And I look forward to listening to all your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] Until next time, thank you for listening to this JCO's Cancer Stories, The Art of Oncology podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. While you're there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. JCO's Cancer Stories, The Art of Oncology podcast is just one of ASCO's many podcasts. You can find all the shows at podcast.asco.org. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Hello - happy Thursday AND Happy 2020! A new year, a new decade and a new PYP! Tom is wishing everyone a healthy and happy New Year and hoping this finds all, in a good place mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Tom had a little more time during the holidays. More time to think and reflect. Although he did an episode reflecting on 2019 this episode came to Tom when he saw a quote asking what 2019 had taught someone. So Tom kept that thought and tried his best to define what lessons he learned over this past year. Tom encourages everyone to stop, reflect, journal and look back simply to see all that they got through and how courageous and strong they really were in lieu of how they felt at the time. Enjoy, and as always thanks for listening! Be sure to like Pro You on Facebook, follow along @ProYouPodcast on Twitter and Instagram and check out @tomjdeters on Instagram for daily inspiration! *Not all exercises are suitable for everyone and this, or any other exercise program, may result in injury. Any user of the exercise program assumes the risk of injury resulting from performing the exercise. You should always speak to your doctor before you change, start or stop any part of your healthcare plan, including physical activity or exercise.*

Hey guys and Welcome to the Pacing & Racing Podcast. The Canadian Triathlon Podcast Made In Mind for the Age Group Triathletes. Now I’m excited to say today’s guest is a jack of many trades, including being an elite triathlete, Super League & ITU Photographer and content creator, and has even been featured on TV Show Tiny House Nations; and that is Tommy Zaferes! So Most may know already that Tom is married to Katie Zaferes who has already been on a previous episode of the pacing and racing podcast! I thought it would be awesome for today to talk to Tom about the Super League from a slightly different angle than most, and that is through the lens of his camera! So Tom plays an integral part in filming and photography at the ITU races and Super League races and sees these events from a much different angle then we do. He connects with all the triathletes on a personal level, he’s great friends with all of them and will be there throughout all the travels, the downtime, the race preparation, and even snapping pictures at the finish line and post-race celebrations! He’s a big part of Super League and I thought it would be great to hear about it from his perspective and hear what he has to say about the inside scoop in triathlon! What goes on behind the scenes that we don’t often get to see and hear about! Of course, like all episodes, I like to dig for some great training tips and key takeaways and Tom definitely gave us some great answers so I look forward to sharing all that with you guys in today's episode! So sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode!

Tom is President of Swampfox Aerial, which provides professional aerial imaging & mapping for construction and real estate development companies. Tom got into the business almost by accident. He’d run an investment fund and did some investment banking. During that time, he represented a drone company that was being bought by an engineering company and he fell in love with drones. He propositioned becoming part of the company but they didn’t want the infrastructure, so Tom told them he might become a competitor. He’d found out what drones could do—how they are changing how things are done in so many businesses. He also figured the drone industry was a good idea because it was changing rapidly so he got a couple of partners, founded a company and started a business. He says they jumped into survey grade lidar (certified surveys) which made it like graduating from college and jumping into brain surgery. Tom went straight to mapping with lidar as a niche. They had to raise capital to buy a Riegl miniVux, which goes for over $260K. Tom finds this drone fascinating—it shoots thousands of laser beams per second and registers and returns at the speed of light. You can capture returns right to the ground through the trees, making surveying in an afternoon with data back within a week. The business itself has grown, he now has a partner processor, a head of business development, a head of operations and two pilots. They also have a network of pilots for outsourcing. How does Tom use Lidar or why do people hire him to do Lidar? Surveyors may feel Tom is doing his/her work, but Tom says he actually cuts that surveyor’s costs. For example, with a difficult job, he can use Lidar to get topographical data much more quickly. It’s really rich data, carpeting the ground. Surveyors can use it to create 3D point data in a survey program and then do topographical maps. They can also screen through the trees. So they do the work for the surveyor’s programs and save them time. For landowners, for example, their drone can get 4-6 points of accuracy for a prospective buyer. This information can be gotten fairly quickly without paying for a survey. Developers and builders can find something later that makes their project more difficult, so Tom helps them avoid problems.  Tom works with surveyors and builders alike—builders see the immediate economic benefit, surveyors may be not as receptive as quickly. Tom’s partner also has a lot of ties into the real estate industry, which gives them easier entry into that business. So Tom’s advice is to have ties but also, to get business, since drones are really just a way of getting a camera or sensor into a way that it hadn’t before, he says that business owners need to focus on what they will provide. Through experience, he says SwampFox has defined the best business model for them. They are also trying to get themselves into easier and regular jobs to offset the Lidar jobs. “Make sure you keep your drones in the air; the lower-end applications are a more predictable revenue stream. Focus on the product.” How Lidar jobs are typically priced depends on the accuracy and the processing. For example, flat land is less complex and less costly. If they have to do a tree survey, they price it by the day, as well as how much processing they’ll put into it. They’ve had jobs for $20,000/day or less than $10,000/day and the much of that goes to the processor. Questions to consider for pricing are: Who puts out boundaries? Who does process control? Are diagrams necessary? Tom says the irony is that the jobs they’ve charged the most, they’ve made the least amount of money. David says it’s good for people to understand what the investment Tom made nets him in general; for Tom, this is still part of his learning curve. The biggest or least expected challenge for Tom was finding the right partners. Because the industry is new and fragmented, there’s no one out there with brand recognition. Tom says he works a lot with competitors. It makes things fun but if you have a bad partner, there is a lot of strife and loss of money. Tom says anyone you partner with should be vetted and will do what they say they will do. Tom does not fly drones—they scare him. But he does go out on site to make sure he can see what’s happening. He wants to be able to explain things to customers. He’s been trained how to fly but he is not overly comfortable doing it. As President, he feels lucky that he has a great CEO because everything he’s doing is being done for the first time—insurance, taxes, agreements, etc. Tom says he has some big contracts they are competing for and may need subcontractors with specific experience. When they do big jobs, they have to recruits pilots from networks (see their Instagram page below for an application). Tom’s advice: “Find your niche and where you want to be and figure out your business around that. It’s easy to get caught up chasing different ideas and to lose focus. Balance interplay between ALL business opportunities and YOUR business opportunity.” Connect with Tom Website: www.swampfoxaerial.com Facebook: www.facebook.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com Instagram: www.instagram.com Swampfox Aerial Email: info@swampfoxaerial.com Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 2? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to 1K Business Owner Application Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course (20% off) Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Google Play Spotify TuneIn

A conversation with Tom Boss from the Marin County Bike Coalition announcing the Adventure Revival Event in September. Later we talk to Juan De La Roca about the concept of a gravel destination. Adventure Revival Event Registration  Marin County Bicycle Coalition Website  Explore Las Animas Website (routes and more!)    Automated Transcription. Please forgive all errors. TOM BOSS -- Marin County Bicycle Coalition: All right. Tom, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me, Craig. Yeah, I always like to start off, Tom by learning a little bit more about your background as a cyclist and how you came to gravel riding. Sure. Um, well at first let me start by saying, um, it's a real pleasure to be on your show. Um, I, yeah, I am generally an early adapter. Uh, when it comes to bikes. I was one of the first in my group together, a full suspension bike first to get a single speed first to go 29 or um, but I was a little late on the gravel, the gravel scene and um, I, I jumped on board, uh, at the end of last year, started to really get interested and I actually discovered your podcast serendipitously about the same time, listen to a lot of your older, I'm your archives and, and it was really nice. It was kind of a roadmap for me as I, as I jumped into gravel and I'm learning quite a bit. So just wanting to give you a shout out and thank you for, for the work you're doing. Thank you. I appreciate the kind words. Okay. Yeah. So I grew up here in Moran and, uh, I was bombing down with my friends, uh, on Mount Tam on a 20 inch BMX bike. Um, when Gary and Joe and Otis, we're inventing mountain biking. We're a few years younger and so, uh, those bikes were too big for us. But, um, I've been pretty much riding Mount Tam on a, on some form of a bicycle since, uh, since the 70s. And I'm really lucked out in finding a job at the Greene County Bicycle Coalition, uh, heading up the off road program. Uh, I get to basically promote and, uh, expand bicycling here in Marin, uh, for myself and for everybody else who, who cherishes this, uh, this wonderful place that we live in and visit and enjoy. So it sounds like an ideal job. You certainly, yeah. I consider a Marin county to be an ideal location to be an off road rider. Yeah, we have, uh, as we point out in our, uh, uh, and many of our correspondence, we have 50% of marines land is open as Parkland open to the public, whether it's Mount Tam or China camp. We've got national parks, the CV shore, and lots of open space. And so it really, uh, provides almost, you know, almost everybody that lives in Moran is a few miles away from, you know, amazing trails and, uh, and beautiful scenery. And, uh, so yeah, it's just, it's part of our, uh, it's part of the quality of life here in Ryan for sure. From your perspective at the Marin county bicycle coalition, when did you start seeing the influence of gravel athletes start take over the trails in Marin? That's a, that's a good question. So we, seven, eight years ago we started another bike ride, the, um, or a bike ride, the MCPC dirt fondant, which is primarily a mountain bike ride from the Marin headlands to the top of Mount Tam and back. And, um, right from the start, um, you know, we get a few emails, hey, is this route, you know, are these trails singlespeed friendly or are these trails, uh, uh, cross bike friendly? So, um, so there's, I think the cross in particular, there's a lot of people coming out to our mountain bike events, riding cross bikes and uh, so you could see, um, you know, first you scratched your head, this doesn't make much sense, but then you saw the bikes, you know, get the, some of the wider spacing so they can put bigger tires. And then we saw from that kind of this, this evolution of gravel. And uh, so yeah, just seems like every, every year we have more and more people showing up on different styles of bikes. And last year on the dirt Fondo, you know, I'd say a third of the people where we're not on mountain bikes Ranita or gravel or across or, or a single speed bike. So, yeah, I, for one, have found that some of the trails in southern Marin, they're just more exciting on the gravel bike because they're not, they weren't pushing the limits of mountain bike technology. Once you had a full suspension bike, you were really kind of overprepared for the headlines, if you will. When you're riding on a lot of fire road trails, all of a sudden you get on a drop bar bike and you know, descending a fire fast fire road in the headlands, uh, could give you a thrill again. Okay. Yeah, it really does. You know, without the suspension and what those skinny or tires you have to pay a little more attention and pick your lines again. I used to, you know, focus on lines and in the last 10 years I, with these, you know, big tires and full suspension bikes, uh, you just, I just kind of point and shoot and uh, and, and the gravel has really kind of, I rediscovered a lot of my favorite trails, um, kind of either remembering how it used to be or discovering a whole new, uh, way of traversing them. Yeah, that's the exact same journey I've been on. Just things that I had written for the last 15, 20 years. All of a sudden felt, knew I'd always loved them and had an affinity for them, but now they're pushing my skills technically and made them new again. Yeah, it's real fun. For sure. I caught wind of this year's upcoming dirt Fondo, which is why I reached out to you originally and I was super excited when the team at Studio Vella mentioned that you hadn't announced it yet, but you guys had a big gravel event planned up your sleeve. So can you introduce that event Tom, and we'll start talking a little bit about it. Yeah, so glinted La. It was actually kind of born a little bit out of, out of, from the dirt Fondo we had, um, Erie Oswald and Vanessa, his wife had been coming out to our dirt Fondo for, for years and a few years ago, um, Erie offered, he said, if you guys ever want to do and Gramble event, let me know, I'd be happy to help you plan one. And, uh, so this year we decided to take them up on the offer and we had a meeting with him and we learned that the nor cal league was also wanting to do and gravel events here in Marine County. And so, uh, it was just a no brainer that, hey, we should just join forces and work together and make one really great day on gravel here in Marin. So what's it called? What's the date and what can we expect? So it's called the adventure revival. And we did a lot of thinking about the name. We talked about calling it a gravel, this or that, and uh, but what we are, what we realized in, in thinking about the name and, and developing this ride that Moran has a little bit of a, uh, a history in, in this, in this style of writing. And it is a matter of fact that the guys that started mountain biking, uh, Joe Breeze and Carrie Fisher, notice guy and Tom Richey, uh, back in the 70s, these guys were actually, they started basically on the road and they discovered they found some early cyclocross tires and started taking those bikes on some of the fire roads back in the 70s. And then from there it really evolved, uh, into Ma, you know, then they found the fat tire bikes and, and, and, and started mountain biking. But, um, so, but there's been kind of a history of gravel or, or adventure cycling, uh, more skinny tire drop were bar writing here in Moran for, for a long time. And in the, in the, in the northern California in general. Um, so we decided that we think of it more as adventure cycling. And so we call it the adventure revival to kind of a little tip of the hat to some of those early rides on Belinas Ridge, uh, and also Tom Richey and, uh, Yost brands. We're doing rides down on the Santa Cruz about the Santa Cruz, uh, up in the mountains above Santa Cruz, uh, back in the 70s. So the adventure revival is the name of our ride. It is on Saturday, September 7th, and it will be a journey, uh, from Fairfax, uh, out into the fire roads, trails and roads of last Moran, uh, before coming back to a big party in downtown Fairfax. That's really exciting. I'm super excited about that. And it also, it's, there's a, there's a nice synergy between the dirt Fondo, which kind of predominantly is around the headlands and this side of Tam to starting something over in Fairfax. It's sort of the far end of my normal riding range. I'm really excited to explore with you guys that part of Marin. So are we starting in downtown Fairfax and where do we go from there? Yeah, we'll be starting at the Fairfax pavilion, which is right, right downtown and we'll be heading west on, uh, Sir Francis Drake for a bit and then we'll be going into the marine county open space. Lands will be riding, uh, up on two. Um, Sandra on my red and, uh, two of the routes. We'll take people on to some of the new trails and the Giacomini open space preserve, which are really grapple, friendly and beautiful. You know, you're immersed in redwood forest. Um, and then, uh, then our, our journey, I'll continue west out towards point raise, uh, along Bolinas Ridge. Uh, one route we'll go down the Lima valley trail, which a lot of people don't know about is a, a beautiful trail in the and the point Reyes national seashore. A lot of, uh, interesting, uh, geography happening down there. And then we'll all join back up and, uh, come back, uh, on the Bolinas Fairfax road, uh, into town or we'll have a nice barbecue and festivities waiting for the writers. No, as soon as it is it a mixture of, of double track fire roads and single track throughout the day. Yeah, it's a pretty even mix. There's a single, you know, we start a little bit on the road, get some single track, uh, up up into the White Hill area, go past the Tamar Rancho trail system. Uh, then we're on fire road for awhile. Then like I mentioned, there's that new, some new trails down in the jockey mini preserve that we'll check out. Uh, we're on the Cross Maroon trail through the Samuel P. Taylor park up jewel trail, which is a really nice, uh, trail a lot of people don't check out. And then you're, then you're on that Bolinas Ridge where it's, it reminds me of the sound of music, those rolling green hills and the cows and the smallest band, the background, really a stunning, um, visually, uh, place to be riding. Um, then then a little bit of road down highway one to get to the five Brook's area and uh, and then on the Lima valley trail. So yeah, really it's, it's, I'd say it's a good mix of road, a fire road end and trail. That's great. And that sounds like a fun mix. Terrain adventure. Did you also mentioned to me that you were able to get access to some pieces of property that are otherwise untouchable by riders? Yeah, we're working on that. This is our first year and we're going to keep it all on public lands. But yes, but we're, we've, we've started some conversations with some of the ranchers out in West Marin and we're hopeful that in future years we'll be able to, uh, to provide some routes that will be a pretty special, uh, places, one in a once in a lifetime chance to check out some of the beautiful land. It's not part of the park system. Nice. And are all the trails that are publicly available, are they available year round to cyclists who want to explore out there? Okay. Yeah. So all of these trails that will be on our, uh, you can go out and check them out on your own. Yeah. Four. Well, at least, yeah. 365 days a year. And it sounds like, let's talk in everybody's favorite subjects, tires, wheels. Um, it sounds like with a mixed terrain route, we may not need something super aggressive as a tire. Yeah. There's there, there's enough, there's enough trail that would have roots and rocks and, uh, depending on the conditions, you know, might be a little slippery that I think, I think you're going to want to have a medium to two big tire, um, just to do avoid, you know, pinch flats or, or sidewall punctures. There's Bolinas Ridge has some, some, uh, big routes that you might hit. And, um, yeah, I know on the road, you know, there, there's, there's a, there are some roads sections, so, uh, but, but yeah, I would, I would recommend, you know, a 30, a 38 to 45 millimeter tire, uh, for this ride. Okay. And Are you characterizing it as more of a sort of grand Fonda ride or is as they're racing element to this event? This is more, it's more fondo style where we're, it's a social event. The, uh, the land managers Samarin don't, uh, embrace bike racing. Uh, so this is not a race. This is a ride. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, personally I think travel is a very conductive of more, you know, it's a very social activity. People, uh, you know, can go at whatever pace they like. Um, they'll certainly be some climbs, like a tool and up brand, all that people might want to, you know, test their, their abilities on. Um, but in the most, for the most part, we're really promoting a very fun event. Have Fun Day, we'll have a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, good, uh, support out on the station or out on the route with, with some really fun activities like we have. But there's this one very rocky section at the top of a white hill fire road where if you, there's gonna be people out there from, uh, one of our sponsors touched on climbing. If you make that section without dabbing, they're going to, they're going to give you a little prize for the effort. So we have a lot of little things like that plan to make it a fun, fun day for everybody. Nice. And I think you mentioned there was a couple of different distances, is that right? Yeah, we have three routes. Uh, we have, uh, what we call the spicy route, which is the big one. It's 48 miles was 6,000 feet of climbing. Uh, we have the medium route, which is 42 miles with 5,000 feet of climbing. And then for people new to a gravel riding, uh, we still have a punchy 23 miles of 2,500 feet of climate. And on the, on the, uh, 23 mile route, is that something that is suitable for beginners in terms of the type of terrain it is, it is suitable, but there, there's still, like I said, that one section I'd mentioned that rocky section at the, um, at the top of the wave hill fire road. Um, you know, you may have to walk that if you're, if you're new to this sport, but in general, uh, that route would be pretty beginner friendly. Yes. Great. And I just have a general question about putting on an event in Marin county. Is it pretty complicated with the various public land holders to kind of organize a re a ride like this? It is, uh, Craig, we, one of the challenges we have is unlike, you know, places like Lake Tahoe where maybe only have one or two land managers of the National Forest Service or, um, that's who usually is the land manager. Here we have four different entities and you never know whose land are crossing. So this ride we're having to permit, um, from we're permitting through open space, marine county open space. We're from writing from state parks or permitting from MWD the watershed, uh, and also the national parks. So that's all for land managers were having to get, uh, to work with to get the permitting for this, uh, event. And uh, they're all very supportive and uh, encourage bike, uh, bicycling in their parks. Um, but yeah, it does, uh, it is a little harder than it is in some places where maybe you're only dealing with one permit and, and the whole ride isn't one on one person's land. Yeah. I think that's what's great about having them Marin county bicycle coalition involved because you have the integrity and longevity of the organization to bring to bear that these land owners can trust you, that you've got their best interests in mind for sure. And we also give back, for example, this part of the, um, one of the things we offered with the permitting for the national park was that we would commit one day of volunteer work on a trail of their choice either before or after the ride. And, uh, and we also have our, our slow and say hello message that we give to all the writers who really remind them that when they're on our, I bet when they're participating in one to borrow against their ambassadors and bicycling and they really need to, uh, be models of a good, um, trail user and you know, be very courteous and obviously obey all the rules. Yeah. Well, I think that's an important note in a important reminder just for everybody listening to support your local bicycle coalitions because they do a lot of work behind the scenes and it's great when you get to come in front of the scenes and create awesome new events for us to enjoy. Um, Tom, I appreciate you coming on the show and telling us about the event. I'm really excited to myself and explore that part of Marin. We will put information about registration up on the podcast notes, um, and we'll get this out as soon as possible, but if you're listening to this registrations already open for this event, there is a cap this year on the number of athletes that the event can hold. So definitely click the link quickly if you haven't already get your slot because Tom and his team are putting on an amazing event that I think is going to be around for a long time. So Tom, thanks for thanks again for joining us. Yeah, well thank you for having me and I look forward to riding with you in September. Juan De La Roca -- Gravel Destinations Juan, welcome to the show. Thank you Greg, really appreciate being here with you this afternoon. So this is a little bit more of a, it's an interesting segment for us at the gravel ride podcasts. Cause one actually reached out over email with a simple question like many of you do and but it was what makes a gravel destination and are there gravel destinations out there in the world? And it struck a chord with me because I certainly in my life have had places I thought were mountain bike destinations like Moab or crested Butte or whistler up in Canada. And I've certainly had rode destinations like borders on in France at the base of Alp do as we're Tuscany in Italy or May. Orca. And all these things resonated with me. But when he asked the question I just had no idea. Like what is a legitimate gravel destination? So one, thank you for bringing that question up and I'd love to have a discussion with you because you live in a place where you think has the fundamental building blocks to become a gravel destination. Yeah, absolutely. So I, I'm a little bit about my background. So I've been in Colorado now for 25 years within the Denver Boulder area, uh, left Denver in 2015. And, uh, actually thought I was going to be done living in Colorado was in that phase where everybody was kind of moving here. We saw a big jump of population and, and uh, we started to kind of pick my, I pick my head up and looked around and said, hey, maybe there might be another place. But, um, I ended up in Austin, Texas down in central Texas, which was actually a great learning lesson because in a lot of ways, you know, often experience with Denver has been experiencing over the last several years with an influx of population pushing people out more into rural areas. So while spending some time riding my bike in central Texas, I a within town outside of Boston called Fredericksburg. And it got me kind of thinking about, you know, what would this kind of look like in Colorado as things start to, you know, take shape and form. And, uh, ended up coming through the town of Trinidad, which is three hours south of Denver, three hours north of Albuquerque. So it's essentially right between the two of them, uh, right on the [inaudible] a corridor and it's an interesting area of the state in that it was sort of the undiscovered forgotten, made fun of unheard of place to go spend time, uh, area of the state. And as I started to look around, I thought to myself, this might be a place that it's going to keep them some growth and activity moving forward as a state car to becomes more popular. And when I first got here, you know, I'm more of a mountain biker. I knew that the, the mountain biking was not going to be super strong because of just the history of the area, a lot of private property, but also too, there's just wasn't a much of a cycling culture. But even a little bit of time that I've been able to spend here over the last two and a half years, I've been pleasantly surprised about the wealth of opportunities and areas to explore, especially on a bicycle. And a couple of years ago I had been doing some consulting work with the local parks and rec department and this idea of developing a product around gravel sites and really kind of jumped out at me just to kind of also take another step back. I, I come out of the advertising industry, consumer research insights trends. I'm really adept at looking at things that are happening and kind of understanding where things are gonna sort of go from there. And um, so I applied those, does that skillset to developing some cycling opportunities in this region. And, and uh, so recently in this, uh, beginning of this year in 2019, working with the Colorado tourism office with able to be in a position to create a second tourism and campaign for this region, specifically focused on the gravel category. And had you started riding gravel bikes herself at that point? You know, I, you know, I say yes because it's, it's funny, right? Cause the cycling industry, it's always been really good at coming up with new categories and products that, you know, say no, this is like the thing that you want to have or this is the direction you want to go sort of thing. So I feel like raffles and we've kind of been there, but at the same time it's never really had this sort of focus of a genre or a segment of cycling, um, like it has in the last several years. So I mean beyond my, my mouth, I can have a Tory by, uh, cyclecross bike and was, you know, just definitely somebody who likes to explore and in was open to, you know, just going out and riding dirt roads. So it was happening. It was sort of natural. But when I started to see, you know, that gravel was really starting to pick up speed and speed, uh, it was starting to get a lot of popularity and following, then that's when I started saying to myself, you know why? Like this is more than just something that you kind of just do because you just want to have fun and explore. It's actually becoming something a little more serious. That's interesting that you took your sort of professional background, your ability to analyze trends and started to see like, hey, the type of terrain which maybe isn't super technical or accessible as a pure mountain biker in Trinidad combined with this trend of drop bar off road activity happening in the bike industry came together to create an opportunity that you might not otherwise have pursued. Yeah, no, it is it interesting in Trinidad because going back to the mountain biking piece, um, so it turned out it's an interesting place. It's, it's going on or a lot of transition right now. It's a rural town. You said a population of 10,000. It's the largest campus in the largest county in Colorado with a total of 15,000 people all together. Uh, so it really has a lot of open space and little crowd. So the cycling community is fairly small here to begin with. I and the mountain biking, it's going to take some time. We, we've actually had some really cool things happen here in the recent months. Uh, the state of Colorado, along with the city of Trinidad, the Nature Conservancy and the trust republic land. It's actually just purchased a 19,000 plus Acre ranch, three miles south of the town. It actually borders the, yeah, so we're really close to the New Mexico border and the border actually goes through the property itself. And so that's something that's going to happen over the next several years, but it's just going to take a lot of work and resources because you know, building trail is a pretty labor intensive sort of scenario. However, uh, there is also a lot of dirt roads already existing on this property, so it's actually going to be something that's going to fold into the overall offering that the county has. Um, the interesting thing is this here is that we have 1500 miles of county road. Uh, when I looked at that number, I thought to myself, I'm like, you know, I know that that's not unique necessarily, but that I feel like that's pretty distinct. And that's a way of kind of talking about why you could be a destination. Because the reality is, is if there's going of your Rick graveled like destination and has to be in a world sort of setting because it, you know, the urban is constantly under the pressure of development. Rose are being lost, can you subdivisions that are being brought in. And so this idea that, you know, the southeastern portion of the state could possibly become a destination to ride a gravel bike because of the fact of its rural setting and it's dirt roads you can't really appealing. And it was really great because at the same time it was infrastructure was already in place. You know, going back to the mountain biking, you know? Right. It costs money to build trust. You've got to get grants, you've got to get, you know, a local buying from your government and all these things that go along with it. But, uh, with gravel, it's really about using existing resources already in place. And, and southeast Colorado is a place where, I mean, it's remote, it's got back country. Uh, it's got the history, you've got scenery, has got culture. It's got a very dynamic sort of, um, things on the plate and give it some substance and worthy of a meal for, for a cyclist, I get to say, right? Yeah. When I got your email and we had a couple of back and forth, I started thinking about, well what are the things in my mind that made a great cycling destination? And I came up with three things and I, the first one was the obvious, which is great writing, but information about the writing. So the available easy availability of roots. The second thing was a cycling, ambiance and a cycling infrastructure, right? I want to, I want to be able to go to a bike shop and get equipment that I need. I want there to be a vibe in town around cycling, even if it's subtle. And the third thing we're events and the reason why I listed events is cause I've, I felt like having events in the community gave people a taste of it and then would make them want to come back. So I'm curious as you, your vision for building out this community and this destination around Trinidad, of those three building blocks, where are you at with each of them? And do you agree with that at all? No, I think you're absolutely right and, uh, in all of this because, uh, you know, we, we've seen it already happened with the mountain bike destination in the road bike destination and each of those stages is found there. Um, I think for me right now with Trinidad where I see it, I think three of those four already, uh, very strongly in place. The fourth is going to take a little bit more of a, um, bit of time. But I think what's interesting is going, cause, you know, you talk about information, you, the availability of information is so fast now. We are such a digitally forward a society that, uh, whereas you know, 15, even 15, 20 years ago, it took a little bit of time. You know, maybe you read it in a magazine or there was a war, you know, word of mouth has been around forever, but there wasn't this sort of critical mass sort of way of like finding information. You're learning about new things. So, um, going back to the Colorado Tourism Office, uh, initiatives that we started at the start of the year. So the campaign is called explore last time dimensions, that dirt series. And, um, I was able to, to create a website, explore Las animas.com and then also start to populate it with content and, um, go out and, uh, get content that we'll be able to speak to people who may entice people to come here. So that would be through photography and video. Uh, right now I am working on film portions of this so that there isn't any films necessarily yet, but we've definitely gotten about three months worth of photography. Content is being pushed out through Instagram and the Facebook and your social media channels and giving people information, um, about where to go. And, and, and that's something I, I, uh, I really took the time to, to, to look at and figure out how I could, you know, best articulate what the writing opportunities look like and where you could go. And so, uh, I, I essentially created 26 different routes. They vary in length. He, there's a section, there would be 25 or less miles and then there's a 40 year last and then a 50 to 75, 75 plus 100 plus. And in the end I ended up with 16 over 1600 miles worth of routes and they're all now on ride with gps, Strava as well as ride spot that people for bikes. Yeah. Well I thought that was awesome. I put a big check mark versus, uh, around information available with your project because the site is great. The, the roots are divided amongst different lengths and there's great information. So if you were to land in that area, you, you know, you have more miles than you can do in a week easily. Yeah, exactly. You know what, it's funny too because I noticed that a little bit overwhelmed because so many people know little about Trinidad in general. It's, it's super interesting. The printed ad was probably one of the first, uh, communities, families in the state of Colorado. I believe it was 1862. Uh, it was where the Santa Fe trail came through. So we have, uh, uh, you know, this idea of traffic coming through here and then the railroad came through. And then of course the interstate though though we have this like traveler mentality, but it also had a lack of people over, especially over the last 15 years, who would actually get off the highway and look at what was here. And I think that that's what's the beauty of bicycles and how popular they are and, and, uh, how appealing they are to people. Just say it pushes people into places that they didn't think they would go into. So, you know, the, the mindset from the, from the Gecko was this was all about discovery and exploring. And so could I added that is where the great writing comes out of, right? Because the people who, you know, go down that road, they tend to have experiences and those experiences become great memories and those great memories become the things that they talk about with other people. So, uh, that's why I think for great writing pieces that we have that it's just a lot of people don't know about it necessarily. But with that information, we're really going to highlight that and, and, uh, give people a chance to get out and experience it for themselves. And then lastly, you were dot. You were talking about events do it. I think, um, we've been fortunate in that there actually has been an event that's been going on here for about five years now. It's called the Pony Express one 16. Uh, this year we actually had them, the largest field that takes place in mid May. Uh, it was started by a gentleman named Phyllis for, uh, Schweitzer, who he runs a copy off to be saddles. And then, uh, the interesting thing with him was that he was a longtime competitor in the Lego 100 as well as the Berkey Byner, uh, a cross country ski race here in Minnesota for a number of years. She's done a ton of events and he came down here on his own in 2012 and started scoping out the area and realize that he could, uh, create a, uh, a course that would be, you know, really in line with what was happening with gravel. So he's actually got a hundred mile force. It's about seven miles outside, starts an n seven miles outside of town. And uh, just last, uh, the last one, we had some really great feedback from people because it was for many of them who was their first time. So I think you're really are spot on with the events because the events are what introduce people to an area. Is there anything, you know, sometimes it's just a, you know, a friendly note from a friend and be like, Hey, let's go to this place. Let's go check this out. You know, I've never there, but let's just go see what it's all about. And you know, they come and then all of a sudden it kind of spirals from there because they start talking to other people and then we go back to the social media police peace and critical mass starts to accumulate. Yeah. Then I think that the hardest piece to kind of get to come together in a small rural community is that kind of cycling on Beyonce and infrastructure, but that, I think it comes with opportunity. Right? You know, you look at the stories around Emporia, Kansas who had dirty Kanza and how, you know, it's clear that in the bars in the, obviously in the bike shops, but the cafes, they've just started to embrace the fact that cycling is a big part of the identity of that community and it's developed this kind of world worldwide reputation for being a cycling hub. And I, and I think you know, business owners are not going to get there by themselves unless they happen to be a cyclist. But the sheer opportunity of meeting your customers where they're at, I think is where a rural community like Trinidad may see an opportunity and you'll start to see some of those cycling elements and fused in cafes and bars and different elements. Yeah, absolutely. I need at this point, I, it feels like cycling general are essentially a key ingredient in the blueprint of the economic development, revitalization of town. You know, I, I, you know, it takes to start seeing bike lanes, you start seeing signage, you start seeing people on bikes and it really starts to dovetail into this activity that happens in a community that is both positive and economically beneficial. And so, uh, you know, right now the state of Colorado in general is, is very much focused on addressing the urban rural divide. And, uh, the cycling pieces is a big piece of it because it, it brings something fresh. It brings, you know, like I say, activity in a way where it inspires people to either get out on a bicycle or maybe start a business and, and, and cater to those people. So yeah, it's going to be interesting. We do have one bike shop in town's been here for a really long time. It's called ultimate sports, uh, in nutrition. And um, you know, they're, they're the only shop here but this is definitely a tower you could virtually see, you know, several bike shops. I mean you can go to a little town like saliva, which is three hours, two and a half, three hours away from us. Uh, definitely more known for it's mountain biking, but you know, that's account or it's smaller than Trinidad, 6,000, but they have a seven bike shops. You know, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. Well this is really interesting discussion. One I, I really truly appreciate you reaching out to me and kind of putting it in my mind cause I do think it's very interesting for our listeners to think about and for the listeners out there, let me know, Ping me if you think your neck of the woods is a gravel destination and let us know if kind of the criteria that we laid out make sense. So I'll put the link to the website in the show notes so everybody can check it out. It definitely sounds like a pretty exciting region. And like I said on the website, there's plenty of rides, just spoonfed Tisa if you're within driving distance, definitely put it on your summer tour. And if it's a flight away, maybe look at the pony express one 60 as an event to be the cornerstone of your trip. But get out there and check out Trinidad and let, uh, let one know what you think. Yeah. I encourage everyone to come and check this place out because I think it's one of those places where right now everything that you wouldn't think it would be, but you want because you're on a bravo. It's got all the things that you want to, you know, find and, and see on a ride, you know, from wildlife to scenery, uh, to just, you know, history, you know, history is the big thing. I think that really distinctly puts us in a, in a different sort of place because a history, something that you know, uh, you see and you feel when you're, when you're around it. So that's the beauty of it. Well, that's super exciting. Thanks for the timeline. Okay. Thank you, Craig. I appreciate it.

Join Ken McElroy as he interviews Tom Hatten, owner of Mountainside Fitness as he reflects on founding and growing a fitness empire.   Full Transcript: Ken McElroy: 00:00 So what did you learn from, you know, losing everything, almost losing everything. Tom Hatten: 00:05 Yeah, I think, you know, I actually ended up at one point filing for bankruptcy is they're all LLC chapter eleven's. I, uh, finished it all off right before my birthday in 2000, I think 12 a file on my own, chapter 11, because at that point I had just under $100 million in personal guarantees on real estate. So just say that out loud. Right? Uh, so that had to happen. So that kind of just put everything at the baseline of, you know, what was going wrong in the, in the economy was truly effecting, you know, certainly me and, and I was trying not to let it affect the business because it was just a real estate issue. I was tough and a lot of lessons learning that. Ken McElroy: 00:44 Welcome to the real estate strategies podcast. I'm Ken McElroy and I'm here to give you creative ideas on how you can get started or continue your journey in real estate. Each week, we will bring you inspiring and informative conversations with successful people and their path to obtaining or investing in real estate. Enjoy the episode. Ken McElroy: 01:10 Hey everybody Ken McElroy here again, I'm with my good buddy Tom Hatton. Hey Tom, Tom Hatten: 01:12 How are you doing Ken? Ken McElroy: 01:13 So Tom and I have known each other a long time. Uh, we're in YPO (Young Professionals Organization) together. We were an EO together. We've got lots of mutual friends together and, we get together from time to time. He's a very busy guy. He's got a, a rags to riches story, just like a lot of us and just like myself and, and Tom. Welcome. Tom Hatten: 01:31 Thank you. Ken McElroy: 01:31 Yeah. So, and also I want to chat about your new book dream on, so I can't wait to dig into that a little bit. So, well let's talk about your story because I was always intrigued with that. Obviously, we had property now in Turkey. Yeah. Not just down the road. And I think that story, um, is the epitome of an entrepreneur. You know what I mean? When you were like sitting there and you go, well, what about this? Do you cut the deal and even I think the guy even got bought your, your your equipment. Tom Hatten: 01:58 Yeah. Yeah. There was a, that was just a really kind of a magical time, if you can even use that term when the opportunity just kind of presented itself with the right people and, and I was pretty hungry. Ken McElroy: 02:08 Yeah. But the, then you go to the owner of the center yeah. And a which was called mountain side plaza. Tom Hatten: 02:15 Yeah. And I asked him to, he did all the ties. He invested 70,000. I was 22 years old, so with no balance sheet, no credits, nothing. You know, I had a car loan and he invests, he put in 70,000 on the tees and then, he paid for the sign, our actual sign on the building and then helped me with some of the equipment. He ended up giving me a loan, um, for like 10 grand that he never asked for back when I wanted to pay him back. He said, don't pay me back. Ken McElroy: 02:39 How great is that? Tom Hatten: 02:40 Yeah. He had lost the center to, um, at that time they needed to be 92% lease. When, uh, when, uh, the ohs boy is 1993 when that crash happened and he was at 88% with two leases in tow and they said, nope, we're taking the center back. Oh, just don't worry about paying me the 10 grand. I'm like, Ken McElroy: 02:57 Wow. I don't think I knew that. So from there, right. Yeah. So tell me about that first year because I don't think I dug in on that now. Now how many, how many members do you have? Tom Hatten: 03:09 Well, we have 18 locations. 1400 employees and just under a hundred thousand members. Ken McElroy: 03:14 Yeah, well, congratulate. Tom Hatten: 03:16 Thanks. Thanks. Ken McElroy: 03:16 So let's talk about that first year. Tom Hatten: 03:18 Yeah. That was, I remember not sleeping, that was not part of the deal then. And then trying to figure out how to run a business because I'd never had done that before. How to be a boss, um, how to understand what it meant to build a culture and a product and all that was happening simultaneously while trying to, um, work on the side. I still painted houses on the side because I couldn't draw any money out of the business. Um, and because the business was open 17 hours a day, there wasn't a lot of downtime. So it was just an interesting time, but it was so full of energy. There was just a lot of good things happening all the time. And I think that's what kind of fueled getting through all that. Ken McElroy: 03:54 Good things happen in gyms, you know, people are generally trying to be healthy. And so I would imagine that's a pretty cool environment. Tom Hatten: 04:00 It is. And back when I started, it wasn't nearly like it is today. You know, the, the world changed and fitness right in the early two thousands and, uh, it was more of a, it could it be a fad? Is this a real business kind of a thing? But people were happy. And I think if we created a culture that made people feel comfortable and it wasn't just about how you look, it's about how you felt. I think that was part of the basis of our culture and how we be able to grow. Ken McElroy: 04:22 So thank you for that. Um, I know, uh, you know, then you started to expand. Obviously you're like, okay, this works, so let's go to two. Let's go to three and now you have 18. Um, and most of that you've done on your own, right? You had some investors on the real estate along the way. Tom Hatten: 04:37 Yeah, we have built about 25 altogether. Some have moved or, you know, I moved out because of the leases were up and stuff. But, uh, I learned pretty quick when I was so young that nobody was really going to keep allowing me to build bigger clubs because our balance sheet just wasn't big enough. Uh, so it was probably about five years after I opened, four years after I started looking at SBA loans and seeing if I could do that in owner occupied deals. And it did, it worked. 1996 I did my first SBA loans. So about five years after I opened the first, you know, club, um, and built an 18,000 square foot club on two and a half acres and got a million dollar SBA loan. And that's changed the game because then I did, I started to learn about sale leasebacks and that's what my partner was, you know, it was really the real estate equity flipping into another. Ken McElroy: 05:23 Yeah, that's a really smart cause. The SBA is a small business administration and they have these loans that they give up and coming entrepreneurs. But I think the rule is you have to own it. You have to occupy 51% Tom Hatten: 05:35 51% of the building and now and then have more than a majority share of the operation. Ken McElroy: 05:40 Right. What you did. So I did. That became your model. Tom Hatten: 05:43 That became my model. Yeah, it was interesting. That is something I learned from my father when we were growing up with, with houses. He would live it, we live in a house and then he would go, that's enough of this and he would sell it and trade up and that's the way we kind of did it. And I'm like, well this can kind of work in my business. And it was easier because I would say the company was the talent. So we always had that tenant ready to go in there and in that tenant would stay and we would divide, you know, define that lease and then I'd sell it, sell the building. And that worked in the tenant stayed. Ken McElroy: 06:09 So fast forwarding to today now, so you have the real estate, right? And then you have the Mountain Side, business, right? The kind of occupies the real estate. Is that how it's all set up? Tom Hatten: 06:20 It is how it was all set up. And then, you know, probably a lot of the emphasis in the book, what a life changing kind of thing. In 2008 happened and we were building six clubs, three in Arizona and three in Colorado all at the same time. And, and a whole bunch of, you know, stuff going on with that and how he, you know, got the debt and all this kind of stuff. And when everything came crashing down, when all that kind of the dust settled, it took about four years, uh, for all the subtle, that was it. I was done. I kept one building, just, uh, cause they had a lot of meaning and I talk about in this book, but everything else I sold, you know, off and said, that's it. We're, we're done on your real estate because that was just its own functioning beast on it. And it was out of my control how values would go and those things. And I didn't want that anymore. I just wanted to have the business and you know how that would work. Ken McElroy: 07:07 So that's like the perfect segue for where we are right now. Yeah. Right. Because what's happening in my space is there's a lot of people going out and expanding like you did and they never had ever, never been through a correction. You know, and they're, they're getting bank loans and they're getting equity and all that kind of stuff. And you know, I've been through it too as you know. And uh, so you got all the way down to one property, right? Tom Hatten: 07:35 One that I own. Ken McElroy: 07:36 One that you owned back in 2012. Tom Hatten: 07:38 Yeah, I kept that one. I bought that one. We built a short story here. We built, we were into it for a total of 23 million, appraised at 27 the day we broke ground, a year later we completed the project and it was 2009 that same valuation came in at 14 million. Ken McElroy: 07:55 Yeah. Tom Hatten: 07:55 And then it fell all with eight (million). Ken McElroy: 07:58 This can happen folks, you know, like right Tom Hatten: 08:00 It's insane! Ken McElroy: 08:00 Tom, I mean you've been through it. I've been through this, you know, and I think what's happened is, you know, a lot of the people listening here, um, you know, our real estate folks are entrepreneurs and a lot of the guys like you who have been through it, you just come into this next cycle. A little bit more wise. Tom Hatten: 08:15 Yes. Oh yes. Oh my gosh. Those scars are still there and how all that worked. And you know, how many people were affected down line, whether it was banks, businesses, and so, you know, you name it, people just in general, you know, my best friend killed himself. Ken McElroy: 08:31 Oh no. Tom Hatten: 08:31 So it was, uh, it was everything that you could imagine that could come out of all that turmoil happened. Yeah. Ken McElroy: 08:37 That's horrible. Sorry to hear that. So what did you learn from, you know, losing everything, almost losing everything. Tom Hatten: 08:45 Yeah. I think, you know, I actually ended up at one point filing for bankruptcy is they're all LLC chapter eleven's. I, uh, finished it all off right before by birthday in 2000, I think 2012 a file on my own, chapter 11, because at that point I had just under $100 million in personal guarantees on real estate. So just say that out loud. Right. Uh, so that had to happen. So that kind of just put everything at the baseline of, what was going wrong in the, in the economy was truly effecting, you know, certainly me and I was trying not to let it affect the business because it was just a real estate issue and I was tough and a lot of lessons learned. Ken McElroy: 09:24 I've been there. I tell you, I talk a lot about these personal guarantees with people they don't understand. So you may know, I think we've talked about this before, but I have no personal guarantees anymore anymore on anything on $800 million worth of stuff. Because of that, you know, because of having gone through that, you go in and I think what's happening right now is that I just talked to a guy yesterday, you know, he's doing, he's sold priceline.com and um, you know, they're doing mez lending and all this kind of lending. I'm like, dude, like you gotta be careful because you know, like, like this is, this is recourse debt. They're going to come after you and trust me though, they will. And, um, you know, those real estate values are, he was doing it in Austin, Texas. I'm like, Austin is pretty hot right now. So, so, you know, uh, those real estate values can go up and down pretty quickly. When you were talking about those valuations of $27 million, I went down to 14. Right. That happened in just a few months probably. Yeah. So people don't, haven't been, a lot of people haven't been through this cycle yet. I think it's a very, very important lesson. And thank you for bringing it up because it's a lot of people don't talk about that pain and those scars and, and those, the, you know, I call them, you know, a little hurdles. Tom Hatten: 10:48 Yeah. Little hurdles. Yeah. I hope people don't have memory loss. Cause I feel like that, especially in this state where we are back rolling again and you know, our growth is so much determined on credit and certainly housing, it's a little bit tweaked nowadays I think. But with that, I hope people have, Ken McElroy: 11:06 Yeah. And then, so really you've grown to 18 locations in six years. Tom Hatten: 11:12 Yeah. I think that we really hit our stride again in 2012 when the, when the dust settled, I sold my clubs in Colorado. I had, you know, the ones here that we had opened up. And then we said, okay, we're through this let's go. And we went differently. There's a different route that we took to kind of get where we are today. Certainly a lot more solid, you know, definitely based on the business, certainly increasing the brand and so forth. And I think that was the big game changer. You know, learning everything from eight to nine where I was super aggressive and didn't ever think something would happen like it did. Now that still plays in my mind and we'd go out at a different for you. Ken McElroy: 11:45 Yeah, that's exactly how I approach things now too is we were just had our investor conferences, I was telling you last week and these guys are like, what you going to buy more deals? I said, guys, we are peaking or not right. Tom Hatten: 11:57 Sometimes the best things to say no. Ken McElroy: 11:59 I know. It's hard though. It's hard with all these people. You see these cranes and everything going on. I see your gyms all over the place and congratulations on just incredible brand. You've built incredible culture. 1400 employees. Um, that's not an easy thing to do. Um, what uh, what is, uh, what, what is the best thing about owning a gym? You know, and the, the facilities that you have. Tom Hatten: 12:22 I think it's the culture. I think it really became, we're really lucky because a lot of things happen either through the, through just social media, certainly through the crash and then evolution of good health is it became a mainstream business, a real business. And I say because of the crash, because big boxes started to die and retailers started to die, Amazon started to grow and so on. So that left, you know, major boxes available to grow into its created different health club models. But it also said, hey, it's a sustainable thing. People want this, they want to go to a, you know, health clubs and do that. So I think that progression's been really nice to the sustainability of the business. And then to know if you do it right, where people truly look at it like in the crash, what we learned is that man is there stress reliever. It's, their places that are placed that they can bring their kids, they kids have fun or they can just say, hey, I'm just going to get away from everything for a minute. Where you know, I'm in a class or you know, working out. Ken McElroy: 13:18 What are you guys doing differently in the club? Because I tell you what, here locally in Arizona, you're definitely heads above any other club. Tom Hatten: 13:26 Well, thank you. I think what we learned along time ago through the, for the first days when I opened up the you and my first little club, it was how do we create a pack as much value as we can in the box. So we don't really sell price, you know, I don't sell high end, you know, let's say tennis courts or swimming pools. What we'll do is to say on a 40,000 square foot box, how can we make it feel like the highest end facility United States, by the way it looks, how can we give you the kind of amenities that you would get if you went to a specialty yoga or you know, a high performance, you know, club with your strength equipment. So we've had a smashed all that together into this box. It looks and feels very high end, but gives you all these different amenities plus a 4,000 square foot childcare that we changed diapers and you know, don't all that stuff to where say man for $44, this feels like I'm getting a deal everyday that I walk in. Ken McElroy: 14:17 Is that what it is now? 44 bucks. 44 times... Tom Hatten: 14:20 That is the highest price. That's it. That's a top price. It goes down from there. You know, couples are less stuff like that, families are less. Ken McElroy: 14:27 Well think about that. $44 times 100,000 people. Tom Hatten: 14:32 Yeah. It's okay. Ken McElroy: 14:33 Not Bad. Not a bad job buddy. Tom Hatten: 14:34 Thank you. That's good. Ken McElroy: 14:36 So what are some of the downsides of owning in a gym? Tom Hatten: 14:39 Well, I think in this day and age, it's funny, there's not a day or a week. I, oh, I that doesn't go by that I don't worry about liability. You know, when you, when you're smaller, you know, it's Kinda round front of you. But now when there's so going on, I mean will, I was like, today's Day is Wednesday, right? So we'll put in, I don't know, 22,000 workouts today will happen through the cloud. So that's 22,000 possibilities. She hasn't mentioned the kids in the childcare, which we average about 75 an hour in there. So you think of all the moving parts that could go wrong. You know, that's what Kinda keeps me up at night and I'll, thankfully we've done great. Ken McElroy: 15:14 With all your folks. Tom Hatten: 15:15 All the folks. Yeah. So, uh, and we keep the facilities really maintaining clean, but that's a worry. Yeah. People getting injured. Ken McElroy: 15:22 So, you know, we talk about a lot about this reoccurring revenue model. How great is that now? That's financeable. Tom Hatten: 15:29 That's financeable. You Bet. Yeah. It's a, you know, the old days where it used to be a contract, now it's an agreement, right? Yes. People can cancel, but it is a subscription base. But that's everything. Netflix, the HBO, and that's the way the world is. We held clubs were in front of it. Yep. Thankfully, uh, it just takes a lot of bodies, especially if you have a, you know, more expensive building to, to get to that break even. But once you do, it's really nice. Ken McElroy: 15:50 You know, it's interesting. When I in my apartment business, I used to go to health clubs and hire the salespeople. Tom Hatten: 15:56 Smart! Ken McElroy: 15:56 Well because they were always amazing. They were always incredibly well trained, and so you guys, honestly, the health club business has been way ahead of the curve in my opinion in many, many, many ways. Tom Hatten: 16:09 It's interesting, we try to sell information based and in the product, so when you come on in, you see everything that's in front of you and then we're going to inform you all the things that you're going to get and then along the way you're being sold. So it's not feeling like we're out in your face, you know, selling, you were doing it through a process the whole way through. Um, and I think that's worked really well for us. You know, we have a good closing percentage when people come in. We have a good prospect percentage and then I think everybody's kind of, everybody's a salesperson in there. Like literally from my main maintenance guys to the girls in the childcare to the my instructors. They're selling all the time. And not necessarily because there's saying that, but because of the way they're functioning. Ken McElroy: 16:49 Yeah, for sure. Well, I do want to talk to you in the next podcast about your book dream on because, um, and we've talked a lot about this and when you are writing it and there's a lot of incredible stories in here. So, uh, with that, Tom, uh, thank you for this interview and I want to dig into the book next. Tom Hatten: 17:07 You Bet. Thanks Ken.

No, Tom Knight’s episode is not about the show Seinfeld. Instead, this is an episode about nothing….well that isn’t entirely true. I mean, it is about stuff but it doesn’t have a trajectory. You see most interview style podcasts, should at least, stay away from sounding too much like a conversation and more like an event that features conversation. It shouldn’t sound like a couple of buddies hanging out with microphones. But what happens when you have a VO artist on the other end? Well that changes EVERYTHING. For me, I thought it would be fun to have Tom on again for a couple of reasons. For one, this is a real treat for folks who have been listening to the show for some time now and have heard Tom Knight’s voice on the intro over 70 times now. So part of it is a nostalgia factor for listeners, Tom, and myself. I feel very lucky to have Tom as my friend. His expertise and willingness to help me by contributing his unique skills has been a major high point in the production of the show. I know that he enjoys the things he has contributed to the show too. Thanks Tom :) The other side of it is whether a episode can feel like a couple of buddies hanging out and still have some kind of delivery that can make it a bit more than just that. So, what did we go over? Well, for starters...my BIG fuck up. (clears throat) I had interviewed Dave Langguth the night before I recorded this session with Tom and I came home with NO content. Yup! That’s right. I didn’t record the audio, by accident. I thought that I had hit record on my Zoom H6 and did not double check and to my dismay, at the end of the interview my Zoom showed 0:00:00 on the time code. In the moment I had wondered for a moment what to do. Avoid immediate embarrassment and wait until I got home to send him a message that I didn’t record it. Or bite the bullet right there and man up to what had gone wrong. I chose the latter after not much deliberation. Just like how your parents used to tell you just to “rip off the Band-Aid”. I was greeted with a brief moment of personal misery from within and a “oh well man, shit happens”, from Dave. He was totally cool about it and the truth is, we had a lot of fun hanging out in his studio. But there is something to be learned from this failure. For one, I won’t EVER not double check my shit before I get on with the interview. And secondly, I have grown up some over the last couple years. Your initial reaction tells a big part of the story about where you are at with yourself. It is as truthful as you can be with yourself, to recognize your feelings that seem to be out of your control, and your reaction when situations that are sudden and severe. In the past, I would have been unbelievably upset with myself and terribly embarrassed. The embarrassment would become the fuel for my anger and bad thoughts. This type of situation was one of the “nightmare scenarios” when I first decided to begin a podcast and could have very well prevented me from starting one in the first place. By the time I arrived home that night I had a clear head about it all and I knew how to deal with it. Sure, I was pissed off about the amount of time that I had wasted but I understood that those feelings would pass. I would have to say that this is a great sign of progress for me. I think that because of so many good things that I recognize in my life can help outweigh stressful, negative, problematic, challenging events in my life. It has been a nice place to begin arriving to. I wanted to take a moment to recognize the importance of that because from this point forward, until the end, it is just for fun. Oh, also I should add that Tom shared a story about a similar (but far worse) scenario that is absolutely heartbreaking. So Tom and I talk about Motley Crue and the biopic “The Dirt” and how Tommy Lee was a big inspiration for Tom back when he was coming up. And then it becomes a winding maze of peculiar topics including Shaq’s shoe size, Tom’s lack of body hair and average nipples, our ancestral backgrounds, Tom’s embarrassing moments with Dave Weckl, and why Tom doesn’t play sports. It is all kinds of rediculousness. Tom ends things on his new interest in gymnastics; starting as a middle aged man. That is what has always interested me about Tom. He is one of the most humble and modest people that I have met through this podcast. I still remember the AIM “anonymous” video the first time I saw it (credit to Joey “Bones” Parasole for sharing that content so I could find it). Tom is an unbelievable player and in some sense reminds me most of Dave Weckl, besides of course Dave Weckl. Considering his prowess as a drummer, he doesn’t make much fuss about himself. I think it is because his indenity as a drummer isn’t all encompassing. He is a VO artist (as many of you know), a father of three children, and a husband. He also loves tackling the impossible, which for him is gymnastics. Tom discusses how this “impossibility” is what drives his determination to continue chipping away. I guess it must have been this personality trait that drove him as hard as it did to become such a skillful drummer. A quick check in with himself to see what is lacking the most and what is the next thing to learn. Tom then scurries off to the drums/pad and works on it until it is sorted out and then moves onto the next thing he would need to learn. I can only imagine that this is how that went down.   Suffice to say, this episode is really just for fun. My intent with a lot of my stuff is to trigger contemplation and your own curiosities. Ya know what the beauty of podcasting is? It is that it’s both original and curated content at the same time. With the information coming from so many sources, you can begin to see certain concepts, thoughts, and opinions that are in agreeance among many guests and perhaps even yourself. I feel that maybe it can be more trusted because of that. It is like if you go to a doctor and they discover something wrong with you that needs treating, you may ask for a second opinion. It all becomes more convincing as you get into the 4th, 5th and 6th time that you hear a similar message. Maybe that is a morbid reference, but it’s what comes to mind at the moment. But anyways, sometimes we all need a break from the heavy stuff. I hope that you enjoy the episode and that it makes you laugh, think, and smile.   Music featured in this episode is: Adam Nitti - Skitzo Drumeo Gab’s Socials Instagram Facebook   Tom’s Socials Instagram Facebook Website

Want to see my top take-aways from the recent mastermind that I was at, with some of the top thought leaders in the world? On today’s episode Russell talks about some of the things he learned during his recent trip to Puerto Rico for Brendon Burchard’s mastermind group. Here are some of the amazing things you should listen for in this episode: Why Russell almost didn’t go to the mastermind group, and how Collette convinced him that they should go. What some of the gold nuggets were that Russell picked up from people like, David Bach, Ethan Willis, and Rachel Hollis. And what mastermind group Russell recommends for you to be a part of for you to get the most success with your business. So listen here to find out what kind of awesome tidbits Russell picked up at the Puerto Rico Mastermind. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. This episode I want to bring you behind the scenes of some of the cool takeaways, nuggets and ideas I got at the most recent Puerto Rico Mastermind with Brendon Burchard and a whole bunch of other amazing people. Hey everyone, I hope you guys are doing awesome. I know I’ve been telling you guys for the last couple of episodes that I was going to tell you about this amazing trip we had to Puerto Rico and kind of pull you into some of the cool details behind the scenes of what happened. I wish I had everything recorded and I could just sell you guys access to the videos, because that would be amazing for me and for you and for everybody. But unfortunately there were no video cameras allowed. So all I had was my notebook and my thoughts, so that’s what you’re going to get today. I hope you guys are okay with that. Kind of the preface of what this event was, so if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while I did this episode last summer, or last, I don’t even know when it was, it was probably 8 or 9 months ago about this secret illuminati mastermind meet up meeting that I had in Wyoming. We flew out and we took helicopters and all these amazing business owners were there. And it was run by Brendon Burchard and there was a whole bunch of, the list of people that were there was awesome. So I had a good time, learned a bunch of really cool things. And it was kind of almost more like a, I don’t know, I’m used to marketing meetings. I’m a hardcore marketing dude who just wants to know marketing and that’s all I care about. And then I’m around all these personal development people and they are all talking about other things and it turned into this event where we’re crying and changing our emotions and all sorts of crazy stuff that I’m not used to. But I really enjoyed it and had a great time. Anyway, now fast forward 8 months later and they were going to do a second meeting. And I wanted to go and then they were going to bring our spouses and stuff, which I thought would be really cool. But then literally the day the event starts is the same day we were getting home from our Disney Cruise with our kids and I’d already been away for like 10 days. And I was just like, I can’t do it. So I basically told Brendon, “Hey, we can’t go.” Then fast forward to Funnel Hacking Live, I don’t think Brendon got my email or my text or however I told him because he didn’t know about it. So backstage, I can’t remember if it was before or after his presentation, he’s like, “Dude, you’re coming to Puerto Rico right?” I’m like, “No.” and he’s like, “What? You’re not coming? It’s going to be amazing.” And starts naming off all the people and my beautiful wife, Collette was next me and one of the people that was at last year’s meeting was Dave Hollis and his wife is Rachel Hollis. And if you’ve read, or your spouse, I guess your wife or spouse or whatever has read Girl, Wash Your Face or Girl, Stop Apologizing, that’s written by Rachel Hollis. It was the number two bestselling book all of last year. The only person that beat her was Michelle Obama, so I think she cheated, but who knows. Anyway, the book’s awesome. I read it first, I had Collette read it, I had tons of people in my office read it. Men and women. And it’s an amazing book. And she’s blown up and just doing a bunch of stuff. Collette loves her, we listen to her podcast, we listen, her podcast is called the Rise podcast and her and Dave have a podcast together called Rise Together, which is a really great couples podcast. It’s just awesome. So over the last 7 or 8 months since the last event, we’ve really, not directly connected with them, but through their content and through what they do, I’ve had just an amazing time with that. So Dave said, or Brendon said, you know, he’s naming all the people, he said Dave. And Collette’s like, “Well, is Rachel coming.” And Brendon’s like, “Yeah, Rachel’s going to be there too.” And Collette looks at me, she’s like, “We’re going.” I’m like, “Oh great. How am I going to fit this into our busy schedules?” But we decided to go and I’m super grateful we did. We’re lucky, Brent and Amber Coppieters went on the Disney Cruise with us, their kids and our kids, and then we got back from the cruise, we just pulled into Miami or whatever and they jumped into a plane with our kids and flew them and their kids, like 9 kids, my kids and their kids, flew them home. And then Collette and I jumped into a plane and flew to Puerto Rico. And we got there a day early so we had a chance to go to the spa there, which was insane. So many cool stories. And then the next day the masterminding happened. We had a chance to hang out with everybody, get to know them all, just had a really good time. Anyway, I’m just going to kind of go through my notes here and pull out some of the cool things I got that I think you guys will benefit from. I may remember some of the people, some of these thoughts may be just completely disjointed, but I’m going to share them anyway. If you listen to my podcast, I’ll do whatever I want. And hopefully everyone will get some value, some gold out of one of the nuggets that I’m dropping behind. Alright, so with that said, I’m going to jump into my notes. So the one thing that Brendon had us do at the very beginning of the mastermind which is fascinating, he talked about a lot of times we set goals or to do’s of things we want to accomplish and he said, “Instead of thinking of things as to-do’s we need to start thinking of things like scenes.” He said, if you take a timeline and go backwards in time, what are the scenes that are most memorable of your life. So I started thinking, I remember when I won my state title as a junior in high school. That was just a scene in my life that I dreamt about, it was amazing, it happened and I can always go back. That was an amazing thing. My senior year, when I took second place high school nationals, I became an all American. That is a scene in my life. When I served a mission for my church, some experiences there are different scenes. And when I met my wife and I proposed to her and we got married and then when the twins were born, when we got pregnant with the twins after not being able to get pregnant for months and months. All these things are scenes in your life, right. When you look at a scene that’s like colorful and beautiful and you can feel it, you can experience it, it’s an emotional thing. So he said, make a timeline and in the back right all the scenes you remember in your life that were impactful that shifted your destiny. So I’m kind of writing those out. And then he said, “What I want to do for now, is write all these different, in the timeline, have all these ticks in the timeline. And then instead of having a goal, I want you to project a scene in the future.” And he said, for example instead of “I’m going to make a hundred million dollars this year.” It’s like, “When we hit our goals we’re going to go on this amazing…’ Project the scene and make it colorful and beautiful. And some of you are visualizing, and try to visualize and imagine the experiences and the celebrations you have with that thing. And what happens when you don’t just have a goal and you create these scenes in your mind of what it’s going to be like when you accomplish the goal, or the journey of the goal, whatever it means, then that thing draws a meaning to the goal. Instead of just being a goal, like why do you want to have a goal of getting into the Two Comma Club, I don’t know. The reason why someone in my world would want to get into the Two Comma Club is they were at Funnel Hacking Live, they saw people on stage and they visualized that next year they were going to be onstage getting that award. Holding it up and getting the picture taken with me, that kind of thing. They were projecting a scene of their goal, and that scene in their mind draws meaning to the goal, which is the thing that actually draws you to it. And the better you can describe this scene the better, the more real it becomes. So describing it to yourself or your spouse or on your podcast or whatever. But the power of that is really, really cool.  But what he had us do was make a timeline and back in time what are the scenes that happened, and then what were the meanings that I drew from those scenes? Then moving forward, what are the scenes that I want to experience? And then trying to visually experience those and see those, which was really, really cool. So that was something cool I learned from Brendon. Let’s see, I can’t remember who this one, oh, this was Craig Clemons who was one of the greatest, probably one of the greatest living copywriters right now. He’s amazing and he was talking about the different products in his product line. He’s got this huge media company that’s killing it, doing crazy numbers. And he said, “If you look at all the..” he published different doctors and their products and books and supplements and things like that and he says, “My goal in marketing is to rewrite the story that’s inside of people’s heads, right.” So the reason why people are struggling in any area of life, is there’s this story in their head. He says, “My job, through my copy and videos and product and everything is to rewrite the story in their head.” And as he said that I just wrote, I wrote down, “Rewrite the story.” And then I wrote next to it with a big starburst around it, “New opportunity” if you read the Expert Secrets book we talked about new opportunities. It’s all about that, right. If I had to get somebody to shift from the vehicle that they’re in right now to get them into the vehicle that I know is going to get them to their future, I’d figure out what are the false beliefs they have? What’s that story in their head? And then my job is, as a marketer and a story teller, is to rewrite that story. And you do that by writing a better story, crafting a story that they will then believe. And when you do that, then they will follow you. And I just thought it was kind of cool that he looked at what he does as a copywriter, he’s rewriting stories in people’s heads. I was like, “Yes, I get that. That’s what I do too. It’s so exciting.” Okay, alright I’m going to keep going through these notes here. Oh, one thing. So Tom and Lisa Billaboo, they are the founders initially of Quest Nutrition, which is Quest bars, which is one of my favorite companies out there. They ended up getting it valued at a billion dollars and then they sold their stuff, and then they started this thing called impact theory, which is an amazing podcast, youtube channel and a bunch of stuff. But it was funny because we were going on this hike, and everyone was doing it because we were supposed to, but no one really wanted to. We wanted to go back and we wanted to do mastermind and stuff, but we felt obligated to do it. And everyone was kind of sitting here, we were at the halfway point of like, “Do we keep going on or do we stop?” We were having some car issues and some people were getting sick, so we kind of pulled over. And he said something that was really powerful. He said, “I always ask my wife this. I say, “what are your selfish desires? Just tell me what are your selfish…do you want to do this? Do you not?’ and she says ‘My selfish desires I’d rather do blah blah blah.” He’s like, “Cool, I’d rather do that too.” And it was pretty cool. So he asked us all, “What’s your selfish desire? If you’re being selfish what’s your desire, what do you really want?” And then we all told it. So it was like, oh, we all wanted the same thing. So then we just did it. When most of the time we don’t tell people our selfish desires because we sound selfish and we hold it back and we don’t just use that as a tool. And because of that half the time we end up going on these long rants or long problems that become bigger and bigger and bigger because we don’t just communicate what we really, really want. And he said that’s a tool they use all the time when they’re both trying to decide something like, “I don’t know what to do. What do you want to do?” That kind of indecision, he stops and says, “What’s your selfish desire. If you could do anything, selfishly, what would it be.” And then boom, that’s how they are able to go and figure out that’s what they’re going to do. But it was just kind of a cool tool for me that I thought was awesome. Okay, gall I could spend days going through all this. I’m trying to find some of the really, really important things that I think will have the biggest impact for you guys here. Sorry, I just gotta make sure. Okay, one of them David Bach was there. If you know David Bach, he’s written like a billion books. They’re all like New York Times bestsellers like a million times over. And he’s got a new book coming out called the Latte Factor and I think it’s his first new book in a while. And he was asking questions on how to launch a book. And low and behold Mrs. Rachel Hollis jumped up, whose sold more books than anyone on planet earth last year and she’s like, “This is what I did.” And I’m like, ‘Oh” freakishly writing notes as fast as I could. And it was interesting, she started going through this. It made me so happy. Some of you guys know I’m writing the Traffic Secrets book right now, and in chapter two it’s called Dream 100. And she never said the word Dream 100, but what she explained was the Dream 100 concept to a T. She said, “What are the tribe that my women are already in? And we do tribe infiltration.” So she said, ‘What network marketing companies are they in? What Facebook groups? What Instagram channels? All these kind of things. What hashtags are they following.” And they find those people and say, “Who are the tribe owners that I’ve got to infiltrate? Who do I need to become friends with?” So she said, they basically went to instagram and anyone that had over 200,000 followers they would just DM them and be like, ‘Hey this is so and so, can we talk.” And it just started going crazy messaging anyone that had over 200,000 followers to build up their dream 100, their list of influencers, they’re tribe, the tribe leaders. Then they’re whole job is tribe infiltration. Anyway, I thought was so awesome. They pre-sold 200,000 copies of her new book, Girl, Stop Apologizing, before it went live, which is crazy. And then Lewis Howells jumped in and talked about how he sold his book. What he did is he went and found the 20 biggest podcasts, not the little ones, but big podcasts that moved the needle in book sales, and went and did in depth, really amazing interviews with those people on the books to get his book to become a New York Times Bestseller. So it wasn’t like, ‘I need 500 podcast interviews.” But what are the 20 most strategic, best podcasts I could be on that are going to drive a ton of book sales, which would be awesome. Alright, that was some cool stuff. So many good things here. Ethan Willis who is one of the partners at Growth.com, he talked about purpose management which was really, really cool. I’m not going to go too deep into that because, it was just like, “What’s process management? What’s your purpose management? What is your purpose? What’s the reason why you’re doing this thing and that thing?” really going deep and remembering your purpose. He said, “If I were to die in 3 years what would I have to do to get…right now it’s like, based on that, what should you do right now? Go and do those things.” So good, so many, I wish, he went on this 20 minute rift that was just, I wish I could record, that would have been amazing for everyone. A lot of these are just ideas I wrote down of like cool things we could do as we’re launching books and things like that. Yeah, I think I might be done with the stuff I’m going to share. Looking if there’s anything else really big that pops out. Okay, one thing. I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m sharing this. But Rachel Hollis’ big question was like, “Okay, we had all these goals and all these dreams and then we hit them all. Now what? Do we try to make more money? Do we just, are we okay with that? What’s okay?” I think that’s a question a lot of people, especially religious people, that we ask, “Is it okay that I’m doing this? Is it okay that I’m making more money? Should I be content? Should I….” You know what I mean? And a couple of things were really good that were said to her. One is that when you start looking at these things that are happening to you, the phrase I wrote down says, “It is not mine, I am a steward.” So I look at that like, this business, this money, it’s not mine, it’s God’s and I’m a steward of it. So if you look at it from that way, it’s like I’m a steward of it. I’ve been called to do these things, then you start looking at it differently. If I’m a steward of this money, or this platform, or this role, what does he want me to do? Does he want me to shut it down and shrink? No, that’s not what he would want. He would want you to magnify it right, bring your calling out and do the best you can and stuff like that. And then the second thing is like, am I going to run out of ideas? What’s going to happen? And it’s like, if you are the steward then, and it’s coming from God and if you are the steward, then he’s going to keep giving you light and knowledge because you’re the steward of this thing that you’re doing and you’re doing the right things, you’re moving forward. A couple of other phrases I wrote down, “It’s because of you, it’s through you.” So it wasn’t you that did, it’s not because I’m great that this thing happened through me. And I see that all the time in our community. So many good things. Mother Theresa said, “I am the pencil.” I’m not the one doing the work, I’m the instrument that’s writing the thing. Anyway, I think that’s the core part of the notes I was going to share. But I hope that gives you guys a couple of nuggets from my mastermind group. And if you’re not part of a mastermind, go and be part of one, plug into one. You should definitely join the Two Comma Club X one because that’s the best one. Or my inner circle, because that’s the next level which is even better. But as of right now, you can only sign up at Funnel Hacking Live. I think eventually we’re going to open them up to the mass public, but for right now it’s closed down. So do what you can to get into a new mastermind group. And I’d recommend getting the Two Comma Club X mastermind group, it’s an amazing program. In fact, we have our first event of the year with those guys coming up next week, which is exciting. Anyway, I’m going to go. I’ve got so many more things I want to share with you but the night is young. Actually, the night is not young, the night is late and I gotta go. So appreciate you guys all, thanks so much for everything and I will talk to you on the next episode.

Join the marriage after God movement today. https://marriageaftergod.com Quote from Marriage After God chapter 6 "Walking in autonomy is not only dangerous for your marriage, it is also rebellious. Our relationship with Christ cannot be separate from our relationship with other believers." In this chapter of marriage after God we end with this encouragement: “Don’t wait to be pursued; be the pursuers. Don’t wait to be served; be the faithful servants. Don’t wait to be loved and invited. Love and invite. Be transparent with your marriage, be honest, and love well. We are all connected. We are all one in Jesus Christ, and He is our head, leading us and guiding us to do His will in this world.” Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of your body. Thank you for the gift of fellowship and friendship. May we be people who are motivated by love to reach out and be a friend to others. We pray we would have the courage and confidence to be people who welcome others in, who are transparent, who are there for others, who lift others up and who pray for others. Use our marriages to be an encouragement to other marriages. Use us as a team to bring you glory, Lord. Help us to never live in isolation. Help us never to be divided. We pray the enemy and we pray our own flesh wouldn’t get in the way of fellowship. May our desire to participate in your body increase even more! May the way we treat one another be a light and an example to the rest of this world. In Jesus’ name, amen! READ: [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're on part six of the Marriage After God series and we're gonna be talking with Tom and Heidi Celaya about the importance of Christian fellowship. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We had been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] We just want to invite everyone that's listening to leave a review. That helps other people find the podcast. It's how iTunes works, it's how all the podcast apps work. A review helps us get reach. And also if you would like to support this podcast, we'd love to invite you to go to our store, shop.MarriageAfterGod.com, and pick up a copy of our new book, Marriage After God. It's what this whole series is about. It's our newest book and we're excited to get it into your hands. And yeah. [Jennifer] Okay. So Tom and Heidi, thank you so much for being with us today. [Heidi] Thanks for having us guys. [Jennifer] People don't know this, but we've been friends for a really long time. What is it like nine or 10 years? [Heidi] Nine years, actually this month. [Jennifer] Crazy. Okay, so why don't you just share a little bit about who you guys are, how long you've been married, and how many kids you have, what you do for work, that kind of thing. [Tom] Yeah, I guess this is my part, she said. So, we're Tom and Heidi. We've been married 11 years and three months, four months, October of '07. So we just yesterday passed our 14th dating anniversary, which she made me feel like garbage 'cause I didn't get her anything and she got me a couple things. [Heidi] I did not. [Aaron] You're like, I didn't know we were celebrating our dating anniversary-- [Heidi] I was at Sam's Club and got him a pair of shorts. [Tom] Yeah, I didn't know we were celebrating. And you got me cookies as well. But anyways, we have two kids, a nine-year-old daughter, eight-year-old son. And yeah, we've been living in our home currently for five years, and I'm in medical sales for a job and Heidi runs the house here and handles our crazy kids. So yeah, we're kind of a normal, somewhat normal family I think. [Jennifer] Awesome. Okay you guys, we're gonna go into our icebreaker question, which, Aaron, you want to ... [Aaron] Yeah. What is one of your favorite memories of us from our friendship over the years? [Heidi] Oh man. Favorite memory. [Tom] I don't know. [Jennifer] 'Cause there's so many. [Aaron] 'Cause all of your memories are your favorite of us. [Tom] Right, that's the whole-- [Woman] Yes. [Tom] I've got a few. I don't know exactly which one I would say my favorite is. Gosh. [Jennifer] I feel like when we think about this question, I was telling Aaron, all the late nights, all the late nights we spent at your guys' island eating ice cream and just chatting and laughing. [Aaron] They don't own an island. Their kitchen island. [Heidi] Yep. Thank you. I didn't understand what she was-- [Tom] I was gonna say, one of my, one of the ones I think of and laugh about, because I think it's disgusting, is the fact that we would go get ice cream and you would get a shake or a malt with half and half instead of, like, low fatter. I remember just thinking just, oh my gosh, that's disgusting, I can't believe he's drinking that. And we would probably-- [Aaron] Yeah, what was it? Circus animal ice cream? [Tom] Yes. [Heidi] Yes, with half and half. [Aaron] With half and half. Half and half cream-- [Tom] In Clairemont, yeah. And you would just, you loved it and you would feel a little sick afterwards, but it was, we were always just laughing about it for a long time. [Aaron] It was so worth it though. [Jennifer] I think that's really abnormal. I don't think a lot of people would relate to you on that, Aaron. [Tom] No. [Heidi] No. [Aaron] You're making me, I want one right now. [Heidi] I think my most-- [Aaron] That's a good memory-- [Heidi] Story of you two is how we were kind of desperate for friends, married couple friends, and when we met you at Fuse kind of offering, hey, if you guys ever want, we are about 20 minutes away, but we'd love to have you over for dinner. And you actually took us up on the offer and I think-- [Tom] A lot-- [Heidi] What was it, three to four times a week over at my house, and I loved it. I think when you throw out that, hey, we should have you guys over sometime, it never really ever happens and you kind of feel a little bit hurt that they didn't take you up on the offer, but to have you guys take us up on the offer and for us to get so close and dive so deep into both of our marriages was definitely my favorite because I mean, we both put ourselves out there and opened up so much that-- [Aaron] Yeah, we loved that-- [Heidi] It couldn't have happened otherwise. [Jennifer] And I think we were in a place in our marriage where we really needed it too. So I think that's really cool. [Aaron] We definitely were, yeah. That's what this episode's about, actually. [Jennifer] Yeah, this episode is all about friendship and fellowship and so we're gonna dive into a quote from Marriage After God from this chapter. [Aaron] And it's walking in autonomy is not only dangerous for your marriage, it is also rebellious. Our relationship with Christ cannot be separate from our relationship with other believers. [Heidi] So true. [Aaron] Yeah, so that's from chapter six of our book, Marriage After God, and the chapter title's called Walking Autonomously Doesn't Work. And when we thought about who we can interview for this episode, you guys were the first people that we thought of because in our life when we needed fellowship the most and when we were afraid of it the most, we found you guys and you found us. [Jennifer] Well, yeah, I was gonna say, it was that you guys wrapping your arms around us and inviting us to your table at that marriage bible study, which Heidi mentioned earlier, it's called Fuse. That was a turning point in our relationship and our marriage, and it just stands out to us and I think it forever will. And I'm just really excited about this because other people listening will be able to hear your guys' side of the story because if they read Unveiled Wife or if they're gonna read Marriage After God, we mention you guys and we mention your impact in our lives surrounding fellowship with other believers. And yeah-- [Aaron] Have they read what we wrote about them yet? [Jennifer] No. But now you're here and they get to hear from you guys. So I love that. [Aaron] Awesome. And you guys haven't read the chapter yet, right? [Tom] No. [Heidi] No. [Aaron] Okay, good. It's all good stuff, I promise. Yeah. [Jennifer] Okay, so speaking of that night at Fuse where we showed up, our marriage was in turmoil and we were just looking for that last ditch effort, kind of like, what are we doing? We step into this bible study, there's a lot of marriages and people there greeting one another and we're like freaking out on the inside. Kind of look at each other like, let's get out of here. [Aaron] It was terrifying. Walking into that big old, a huge open room, and how many people were there when we came? It was like probably-- [Heidi] Probably 600. [Tom] No, no. Probably about 350. [Heidi] You think so? [Tom] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, 350 people. It was a lot. It wasn't as full as it got, but it was pretty full when we came. [Tom] Yeah. [Jennifer] And anyways, we were trying to sneak out. We were trying to find a way to just walk back out the doors and Tom comes up and sticks his arms around Aaron and I and he's like, hey, you guys new? [Aaron] I remember getting startled by it actually. 'Cause we were walking backwards, which I know is-- [Heidi] And he's not a small guy either, so, big old mitts on your shoulders. [Jennifer] So you guys brought us to your table and that was kind of the beginning of our friendship together. So Tom, you've mentioned that Aaron's appearance at the time, he had plugs in his ears, he had a beard and-- [Aaron] Yeah, tattoos on my wrist. [Jennifer] Not the typical guy you would have been friends with back then. But can you just share, what was going through your mind at that moment? [Tom] Yeah, let's state for the record, clearly I'm not a very judgmental person. At least I don't think though, but yeah, at the time, just, here's ... I am the non-talkative one of Heidi and I's relationship. To be very clear, Heidi loves the talking and doesn't stop. So, and that's just not my style. And so God has placed us in this marriage, which is a story in and of itself or in this marriage ministry where we took over this table at this marriage group, and he just blessed it. It became a huge group of probably around 30 people, so about 15 couples, and they really, what they wanted was 10 couples or 10 people at each table, five couples. And so we were big and it was, it's something I loved. Most of those people are still friends to this day, but it was a lot for me and just how I like to operate, so yeah, I look up that night and see these two. And we are also one of the younger tables there at the time. [Aaron] Yeah, I remember that. [Tom] Seeing you guys walk in, I was like, oh gosh, they're our age group. They're probably our life experiences as of right now, whether it's young kids or no kids and some are looking over there and thinking, uh, no thanks. I don't know this girl who is an all American gal is standing next to this guy who's got plugs in his ear-- [Aaron] A little weird-- [Tom] Short hair, a beard, all these things, I'm looking. Like I am 100% as I said a minute ago, I'm not judgmental, I was 100% judging and thinking, I would never hang out with that guy. That gal looks like a great friend for my wife, but I would never hang out with that dude, we've got enough people at our table, I'm good. And there's those times that God whispers and you're not sure it's God, and there's other times where you just kind of move. You're like, what the heck is happening, because I don't really want to be doing this and perfectly honest, that's what was happening. Is I just felt the nudge and the pull, and so I got up and walked over and yeah, and you guys were ready to move out. You actually were on the way out. [Aaron] You saw it. [Tom] I remember Jen's face was one of sheer terror, of, oh God, we almost got out of here and this guy just ruined it. And Aaron's was more of a, okay, okay, good. This, okay, we'll do it. [Aaron] I needed it. I was, I needed someone to hold my hand in that moment because like, I wanted it, but I didn't know-- [Tom] Yeah, so we moved towards the table and that was literally one of those, it changed our life, changed our marriage, and it was one of those things, I'm darn glad I got out of my seat and went and did it. Because not only was that good for us, but I can also speak to others who have zero desire to include other people or you know, you hear a comment a lot like, I have enough friends or whatnot, which I think is a bad comment to make. One I've probably made my own, but it moved me out of my comfort zone and changed our lives for the better. [Jennifer] I love that you shared all of that. And so much of this book is about saying yes to God in moments like that where he nudges you or he pulls you out of your chair and you say yes to him and you do it anyways. And I'm just so you guys know, we still really appreciate that you did that for us. [Aaron] Yeah, and we not only have written about it extensively, but we share the story often and we, a part of the, what we talk about in this chapter, specifically with what you guys did in our life is when you, Tom and Heidi, said Yes to God in that one little moment, which was a series of yeses, becoming the leaders of that table and wherever God had led you before that, you wouldn't have known back then what kind of effect, lasting effect it would have in the fact that that one moment would not only turn into a lifetime friendship and relationship with us, but would also impact thousands and thousands of other marriages and people through your one act of obedience. [Tom] Yeah, there's-- [Aaron] So I, go ahead-- [Tom] We've met people, or not met, I shouldn't say that. Actually, we have. People we've met and then also people we knew that years later we talk to or run into or Heidi meets randomly in a grocery store and like I said, she talks to everybody. We're mentioned right, as you helped our marriage or you were instrumental and perfectly honest, we did nothing. We were fools, of sorts, used by God because we didn't even know we had any impact on these people, let alone strangers, but then people we knew years later say, you have no clue what you did for us. It's just, it's humbling, it's neat, and just to understand that if you allow God to use you, you have no clue what he's gonna do. And probably by the time Heidi and I are in graves, we'll have no clue what impact we had. But that's what we're supposed to do, we're supposed to be used by God for his greater good. [Aaron] Yeah, and I hope those that are listening right now, and that's exactly why I wanted to interview these people like you is because people don't know. They may think, what can I do? How can God use me? And you simply got up and said hi to us. Now, it's lots of laughter and tears after that, but still just that one act of obedience, the fruit from that is exactly what God's looking for from all of us and that's, I just love that you highlighted that. So, man, I'm loving this interview so far. Is this the one we want to go with? Okay. So what kind of barriers do you think keep believers from close fellowship with other believers? Because that's what we had. We grew in close fellowship with each other. What do you think it is that stops believers from making that deep connection and walking in obedience with fellowship with other believers? [Heidi] Oh, man. Honestly, I'd have to say pride. A lot of times, especially with social media age, you want to give your best face, you want to show pictures of your kids perfectly dressed and their hair perfectly done and you'll move things out of the background of the picture just so that way the background looks nice. But I think, unfortunately, I think people don't want to share their stink. They don't want to say, we're going through this issue or I have this deep seated issue or they just don't want their stuff out there for people to judge or question how perfect they thought their life was. And I think it's uncomfortable for people to let down that wall and share who they really are and share what their marriage is really going through. [Jennifer] Yeah, you guys have been really good at being an example of how to live transparently with other people, 'cause you guys were open with us and that opened the flood gates for us to be open with you guys because of that example. And I think it's so important for people to hear, how would you encourage someone to walk transparently with one another? How do you do that? [Tom] I think there's another aspect to it too, is from a good friend who joined the group as well that said he was tired of bible studies with people that weren't like him. And not necessarily weren't like him as in same exact life experiences, but as I kind of said with Aaron, looked at him and thought I'd never hang out with that guy. He was always turned off by, well, I tried this group, I tried that group, it didn't work. All those guys were nerds or none of those guys played sports or things of that nature. And there's a constant, I get that part, but if you're open to it, you might find that, as I tell my kids, right now in school, you may, there may be differences and clicks or different things like that, but as you get older, those things really do melt away. And especially if it's a brother or sister in Christ, you have a really deep bond that many don't understand. But there's a part to it too, when you hang out with those who aren't like you. For instance, Aaron, when you and I were in the men's fellowship group together, gosh, you were obviously younger than me, but we were both vastly younger than anyone else in that room and just-- [Aaron] Yeah, I remember that. [Tom] Stuff that we picked up from those guys who one was divorced, one was married, he was married but they were both from divorced families and kind of had a Brady Bunch type of union now. The things that I learned from that group, including on how not to talk to my wife and ended up actually causing some stress in my marriage when I told her how I shouldn't be talking to you, even though I have been, then all of a sudden she picked up on what a jerk I had been. [Aaron] She's like, yeah, you shouldn't talk to me like that. [Tom] Yeah, it was a total backfire move on my part. But it just, the things you learn from people when you continue to give it a shot and be open to it. If you go in with walls, you're gonna come out with walls. If you go in-- [Aaron] That's good-- [Tom] Being willing to hear or listen, I think everybody can find that community and like Heidi said, if you're willing to lower your walls and lower your pride, you'll find out everybody's just as jacked up as you are. It's just different levels, 'cause no marriage is perfect. [Aaron] Oh, I love that. And it's like the, it's this idea that recognizing what we do have in common, which is Christ, and being okay with that being the thing that we connect on because that's what God wants anyway and being able to throw out those preferences of like, well, I only want to spend time with this kind of person, which is hard to find the right person. It's rare that we have that kind of relationship, right. So I love that. How have you two navigated being a part of fellowship with the body of Christ? [Jennifer] And maybe how are you currently fellowshipping with other believers? [Tom] I got nudged, so this one's mine. So we no longer attend a church where it's facilitated by the church. So we met via a group that was facilitated by the church. And to be honest, thank God for them, they made it easy, right. Childcare and a building and all those things. So that doesn't exist where we live anymore, and so, and we don't attend a church that really has that. So now it's become harder work. It's no longer the ease of high school, seeing your friends every day and then you become an adult and go to different colleges or go to different jobs. It takes work for those relationships, and so that's where we are now. It's a lot of work to continue this. And so there's an aspect of that that's more rewarding. There's also an aspect that's more frustrating. So we totally get the part where continuing in this type of ministry or this type of group is not easy, but it's so important. When we take breaks from it, I don't want to call it a toll because it sounds negative or like it's destructive, but the toll it takes on our marriage is seen. It's very easily seen in that we just don't vibe as well. A marriage becomes more difficult than it has to be when we're not in fellowship with others. [Aaron] So even if it's not as easy as it was, you guys recognize that it's still a necessity and a vital part of your Christian faith is that you must be in fellowship, whatever that looks like. [Tom] Yeah, there's something to it when people ask, I work with so many people who will ask like, how often do you and Heidi fight or what do you do this, or how do you handle this? And yeah, and I explain that to them. There's a part where you share life with others and these can be people who are non Christians. Just when you share life with others and share your experiences, your victories, your struggles, that's what we were created for. And again, if I'm talking to a non Christian, I don't have, I throw God in there, but there's an aspect for them too, that even if you're not a believer in Christ, if you're not fellowshipping with people who help you get better or can take some of the load off or even just share life with, you're missing something. And so, yeah, there's a definite need for us every day, if not at least once a week, like a marriage group that we have now, we have to do it or else there's just a hole and there's a window that-- [Aaron] So you're saying is it's just a basic, it's the way God created us as humans is we need deep human connection, we need deep human relationships and that we can't just walk autonomously. And then especially for the believer, we need Christian fellowship to be around other Christians to sharpen us, to grow us. That's what I'm hearing you say. [Tom] Exactly what I'm saying-- [Aaron] Is that it's not something we can just, we can't just throw it out. Right, that's what, which is what a lot of Christians do. I use this word autonomous. A lot of believers are totally fine with autonomy because that seems easier. Like, oh, just, you can have what Heidi said. You can have this facade and long as you, let's be cordial and we'll be nice and all, we'll hug on Sundays, but then you're not allowed to know who I am, you're not allowed to see the dirt in my life, you're not allowed to call me out on anything, you're not allowed to know that the dark parts of me. [Jennifer] How do we grow and mature if we're not letting people see who we are? [Aaron] Well, we can't. [Heidi] We don't. [Aaron] That's the point is, I don't want to grow and therefore I don't tell anyone or show anyone who I am. [Jennifer] But a marriage after God wants to grow. [Aaron] Exactly. [Jennifer] So a marriage after God's going to be doing this. You touched on a point about your church not facilitating that easy fellowship time currently. And so for people who are listening right now, what would you say is an action step for them to be an initiator in this, so that they're not waiting around, waiting for an invitation or waiting for it to be easy. What can someone do today? What can a couple do today to-- [Aaron] Be the starters-- [Jennifer] To be the starters of-- [Aaron] Be the initiator. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Do what Tom did and get up and walk over and put his arm around us. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Tom] Yeah, I think the first and easy start for me would be at a church you're at, you obviously, if you don't, if you go in and out of that building and don't connect or talk to anybody, you're doing yourself and that body a disservice. So it'd be just connecting very simply with people at the church. Again, maybe somebody that you have, when you pick up your kids from childcare, obviously there's somewhere you can connect. There's so many spots to just start there. The other might be just friends in general. And Aaron, you brought up a point, the autonomy. There's something to it, right, where there's a couple of good friends of mine who I'm not as extreme as this, but literally don't like to talk to somebody. And it's funny though when you ask the question, well, what happens when you're out in public and there's a Christian connection of sorts, like somebody mentions something or you see somebody praying and somebody mentions it to you. There's an instant spark, there's an instant connection because out in the world when you find somebody who has that fearlessness of being able to say, yeah, I'm a Christian, or lives it out in front of you, there's a spark that you automatically have a bond. And so at your church, I think it's the easiest spot to have where it's reached out, somebody needs somebody or friends that you have now that you know are believers. Talk to them about getting together in a marriage study, whether it be one of your guys' books, whether it be something on DVD where there's a series going on, just starting somewhere or getting together on a bi-weekly basis just to hang, to chat. Because from that, as you guys know we used to do, we used to have dinners at the house, from that just hanging out, will spur those conversations and start something that you can then morph into, hey, why don't we start getting together on a weekly basis or bi-weekly basis. [Aaron] So true. I'm gonna take one of your guys' strategies. You guys had an open invitation to us to come over to eat with you guys. And not everyone is gonna, like you said, not everyone takes you up, but you said, hey, come over. And we said yes. So there was times that we went over and you didn't even know we were coming over. We just, we just texted you when we were around the corner. Was like, hey, hope dinner's ready. [Tom] You guys make it sound like that's the exception. That might've been the rule, that it was, you guys popped in a lot, and again, we loved it. It was not, we do it to people now. We'll just show up at their house with ice cream or something. [Aaron] They're like, uh-- [Tom] Yeah, their faces, they're not happy to see us. And then it ends up being a half hour, hour visit and laughing and fun and then we leave, and we'll get a, hey, thanks for stopping by, even though we showed up at the door. There's been many wives who looked at me like, what are you doing here? So yeah, it's-- [Aaron] Yeah. I think it's just the, it's not common for people 'cause we think like, oh no, you don't want to bother, you don't want to invade someone's privacy. You don't want to. But I think that's what we're supposed to do as brothers and sisters. Now, we don't want to step over boundaries and be rude and be, but like actually go into, hey, I'm in the neighborhood, would you love, I'd love to bring you a coffee. Hey, I'm grabbing a doughnut, you want one? Or a breakfast sandwich or whatever it is, just to spark that. You guys were a great example of that, opening up your home to us, giving us an invitation to be over and actually following through with it and making a meal with us and making it a night. Like we would stay at your house until two o'clock in the morning sometimes. [Woman] Sometimes we-- [Aaron] This was before kids. [Woman] Yeah. [Aaron] But yeah, I think that's a great idea. Just starting where you're at, looking around at you and saying, hey, there's a bunch of believers around me. I should not be hiding. There should be no reason that I can't go spark up a conversation and say, who are you? How can we know each other more? [Jennifer] And in this chapter of the book, I share a story of when Heidi invited me over to her house for one of the first times that we would actually spend girl time together-- [Aaron] This is a good story, yeah. [Jennifer] And I don't want to give too much away because I want them to read it, but I basically said I was busy and felt the conviction of the Lord prompt my heart to call you back, Heidi, and I had to apologize for lying and I did go over there. And so I just want to share that briefly because I think so many times, we do excuse ourselves or justify why we can't hang out or maybe we're afraid or maybe it's too uncomfortable. But I just want the people listening right now to know it is so worth it. It's worth it to get out of your comfort zone and it's worth it to build these friendships and these relationships with other believers because they will impact our lives for the better. [Aaron] Yeah, just like you guys have impacted our life. And in what you're saying, Jennifer, it makes me think of this. How many times have I said, hey, why don't you call so and so and see if they want to hang out, and you say, no, they're doing this thing today or they have this-- [Jennifer] I give other people excuses. [Aaron] And I tell them, I'm like, did they say that? And she's like, well, no. And I'm like, so they didn't tell you no? So I think sometimes when we feel that nudge, that Holy Spirit draw to reach out and to call or to connect with, and we say, no, they're probably this or they're probably that, and we say no for people before they say no. And to avoid that, to let the person say no. [Tom] To this day, that's me and Heidi. I think one of the better compliments she was given, whether it was a compliment or not, was you're a spiritual nuisance, because she doesn't let, she won't let you off the hook. [Jennifer] That's true. [Tom] She'll keep coming-- [Aaron] It's true, Heidi's got a gift. [Tom] It's truly a gift of God to her. It annoys the heck out of me sometimes. But especially when we're trying to be somewhere. [Aaron] But look at the fruit in your life because of it. [Tom] Yeah, exactly. So I have to balance that when I do get annoyed and remember how it's blessed me. But yeah, I mean, she's very good at this and doesn't, kind of tracks people down. [Aaron] So cool. [Jennifer] Awesome. Okay you guys, well, as we wrap up this awesome interview, in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Heidi] Honestly, I think a marriage after God is putting God first and not your spouse and not other people, not celebrities, not your own image, but putting God first in your marriage to bless yourself, bless your marriage, bless other people. Just really living for God and not for the world. [Tom] What does that look like? I had a conversation with our daughter two days ago. We were driving back from somewhere and she says, so you love God first and then mommy and then us. And I said, yeah, it doesn't make sense, does it. And she says, no, it doesn't. Because one time I was a stupid dad and I answered the question honestly when she said, well, who's your favorite girl? And I answered mommy immediately. To an eight year old at the time, that was a really stupid answer on my part. But I mean, it was just not smart because it broke her heart and I had to try to come back and explain that to her because she's eight, she's not supposed to completely grasp that yet-- [Aaron] I don't have faith like that yet-- [Tom] But yes, sure, and a couple of days ago in the car, I said, it doesn't make sense and here's why. It's because God wants your focus on him. But in doing that, he opens you up to everything else and gives you a greater appreciation, gives you a greater understanding and gives you a greater love for other things. And so by mommy and daddy focusing on God first, it allows us to be better husband and wife to each other and allows us to be a better mommy and daddy to you. Even though a lot of times you probably don't think we're that great, that's what it does. And I said, and it's hard for you understand, I understand that, and you won't until you are married or have kids, but in the end, people have asked, why have we had such a great marriage. And it hasn't been perfect, but it's been the best decision I ever made in my life. And for a male to say that to another male, in our day and age is, Aaron, I'm sure you see it on people's faces when you do it. They look at you like you're crazy. And yeah, it's the absolute best thing I ever did in my life, and we just, if we focus on God first, right, though Sunday mornings you don't feel like getting up and going to church and you do and you walk into a sermon that's on marriage and you get, and God just talks to you there. It's putting him first whether you want to or not on that particular day. None of us are perfect. And then it just, everything else unlocks. Churches, I know I'm rambling. Churches know this fact. If they want to grow their church, they can get the wife, that's fine, and you'll get the kids maybe. But if you get the husband, you get the entire family and that's how you grow your church number, and that's a different topic, but again, if as a husband-- [Aaron] No, what you're saying is husbands need to be leading spiritually and setting the tone in their home. That's good. [Tom] Yeah. Before you rudely cut me off, what I was saying is, if we as husbands lead, it's infectious. It doesn't always happen, but it's infectious. The wife then follows, then the kids then follow and it's a beautiful thing. And I've noticed for me, if I slip and I'm not focusing on God, my house slips. So long winded answer to your question is both of you focusing on God, it's funny how the rest just seems to, not easily sometimes, but it does, it falls into place. [Aaron] Good. Thank you, that was really good. [Jennifer] That's so good. Thank you guys so much for sharing with us today. We just want to invite everyone to take a moment to join us in prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of your body. Thank you for the gift of fellowship and friendship. May we be people who are motivated by love to reach out and be a friend to others. We pray we would have the courage and confidence to be people who welcome others in, who are transparent, who are there for others, who lift others up and who pray for others. Use our marriages to be an encouragement to other marriages. Use us as a team to bring you glory. Help us to never live in isolation. Help us to never be divided. We pray the enemy and we pray our own flesh wouldn't get it in the way of fellowship. May our desire to participate in your body increase even more. May the way we treat one another be a light and an example to the rest of the world. In Jesus' name. Amen. [Aaron] Amen. So Tom and Heidi, we love you guys. We miss you guys. [Tom] Thanks for having us. [Aaron] We need to see you soon. [Tom] Sincerely. [Woman] Miss you guys. [Aaron] And thank you so much for giving us some time today and in blessing everyone that's listening. So hey everyone that's listening, thank you so much for joining us on this sixth week of the series, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

On today’s very special 3 episode series Russell speaks at Dream 100 Con about traffic and how to build your list. Here are some of the awesome things in this portion: Find out how Russell got started building his list, and what he learned about spam free emailing. Hear why everyone around him made half a million dollars a month with Adsense while he was still just building his list. And find out how Russell figures out and narrows down who is dream client is with a simple diagram. So listen here to part 1 or 3 of Russell’s super informative presentation at Dream 100 Con. ---Transcript--- Good morning everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to a special three part series of the Marketing Secrets podcast. Over the next three episodes I’m going to be sharing with you guys clips from a presentation I did at Dan Derricks Dream 100 con. I told you guys before that I’ve been working on the Traffic Secrets book and testing my material, so the first time I ever taught parts of this publicly was at Dana’s event. So I wanted to share it with you. It’s not the whole process, just a piece of it, but hopefully it will get the wheels in your head spinning about how Dream 100 works, how you buy your way in, and work your way in and how customer life line would work, and a whole bunch of other amazing things. I’m doing this as a tease, to get you excited for the Traffic Secrets book that’s coming out next year. So that’s kind of the game plan. Hopefully it gives you guys some ideas. This is part one of three, when we get back from the intro, we will start right into that presentation. So thanks so much you guys, I hope you enjoy behind the scenes from my presentation from Dream 100 Con. To begin with, I just want to thank Dana. It’s been so fun, I’ve been talking about Dream 100 for the last decade or so, and almost nobody ever listens to me, except for Dana. And then Dana took it and has taken it to such bigger, such a big mass level. It’s so funny, yesterday I was watching as he talked about Chet Holmes, who is kind of the originator of the Dream 100, and Chet was a personal friend of mine who passed away a few years ago, and his daughter has actually taken over his company since. I messaged her yesterday to let her know that you guys are here in this room, talking about a concept that was pioneered by her father, which is really special for her and for Chet and for everything. I’m just so grateful for everything Dana’s put together, and doing this. Isn’t he just one of the coolest humans you’ve ever met on earth? He’s always giving and always serving. Alright, to kick today off, I actually wanted to talk about something and get it on film so that when I pass away someday you guys can watch this and then fulfill what I need to be done. Does that sound good? So I have a friend in our community, his name is Mark Holverson. Does anyone know Mark Holverson? A couple of you guys. Mark Holverson’s an amazing human being in our community, one of my peers and he passed away last weekend of cancer, which was a really tragic thing. But what’s interesting is, right after he found out he had cancer, about five years ago, he was onstage speaking at an event like this, and Vince Reed actually published it on his Facebook page and I had a chance to watch his whole presentation. And it was right after Mark found out he was going to pass away. And during his presentation he talked about legacy and where he was going and all sorts of stuff. And it just got me really inspired. And I’m not going to pass away, that I know of, so don’t think that that’s what I’m saying here. But I was thinking about, if I was to pass away how do I leave this whole thing? What would I want my legacy, at the end of this? I’ve heard other people say, “My goal is to get a million people at my funeral, that’s my biggest thing.” I don’t really want. In fact, I don’t any of you guys to be at my funeral. I want my wife and kids and family to do that. But the day my funeral is over I need all of your guy’s help. So everyone’s got to remember this, someone’s going to be here and remember this part of it, and I need you to take this part out. So the day my funeral is over, I want to build out the biggest Dream 100 campaign of all time. Every single person I’ve ever had a chance to influence or impact I want to invite them to the last ever Funnel Hacking Live. I want to get, Dana, if you’re still alive at this time, I want you to be in charge of this whole thing. But I want Dream 100 voxes going out to all the biggest influencers, all the people, and I want to throw the biggest party ever. This actually happened a little while ago, there was a guy who was a legend in our industry, his name was Marty Ellison, he owned a company called Board Room. Anyone ever heard of Board Room? And he owned that company and when he passed away, his partner Brian Kurts did something similar. They threw a huge marketing party, it was called the Titans of Marketing Summit. They had all the best speakers come in and speak. And I remember listening to that event, that course and I thought, when I die this is how I want my legacy to end. So we’re going to do a big, huge Dream 100 campaign, we’re going to get everyone in the world to come to the last Funnel Hacking Live ever, and then I’m going to have all my friends and colleagues come and speak about what we’ve all learned on this journey together. So that’s my game plan, I’ve got it on video now, so that someday you guys will know my wishes. So that’s the game plan, does that sound good? There’s a little twang that keeps happening, is that from….anyway, I don’t know if it’s from I’m talking too loud. Okay, one other story and then we’ll get to the good stuff. So this is going to hopefully help you guys understand the importance of what you’re learning here at the Dream 100. So I had a chance, I actually flew here from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was in Jackson Hole at a secret Illuminati, maybe it was the Bilderberg, I don’t know a secret group of marketers who all got together for like three days and we did a whole bunch of manly stuff, which anyone who knows me, I’m not very good at manly stuff. We were shooting guns, I took last place. We were fly fishing, I caught the least amount of fish. We went hiking, all these things that I don’t normally do, but it was fun because I hung out with all these guys who were all amazing in their own spirit, in their own businesses. One of the guys who was there is a guy named Tom Bilyeu. How many of you guys know who Tom is? Oh good job, a bunch of you guys do. So Tom, he started a company called Quest. Who has ever had a Quest bar before, Quest nutrition? So he started this company and it blew up to a value of over a billion dollars before he sold his portion of the company and retired. Now he’s doing Impact theory and a bunch of other cool things. But he built his company up to over a billion dollars, and as I’m asking him, “How did you start this thing up?” And he explained how he started the entire company. And what’s cool, after he told me I talked to Dave about last night, and Dave’s like, “let me see if he said it anywhere else.” And Dave found an interview, an actual quote of this. So I want you guys to hear this. This is a quote from the podcast where he explained how he launched Quest. But what’s interesting is he did the same thing that you guys are all doing here in this room today. So this is what Tom said about launching Quest. He said, “We had a very different approach that got a lot of people excited, not just about the product, but they felt good about the way we treated them. We went old school (old school dream 100) researching several hundred health and fitness influencers, then sending them hand written letters and free samples. This was all about showing an understanding of what others were trying to achieve, that Quest was interested in helping them connect with their audiences. When people are building community they have real sense of service to that community. We would send them a free product and say, ‘if you like it, tell people about it. And if you hate it, tell them about it too.’ “Not trying to steer people’s comments, gave us a pretty good reputation. Some didn’t like it and said so. But the vast majority loved it and were grateful that we showed an understanding of who they were and what they were trying to do so they spread the word.” The foundation of his billion dollar supplement company all started here with the dream 100. Is that awesome? Okay so this is the foundation, you guys, for all these things. Alright, so what Dana’s talking about is true. Okay, so some of the, what I’m going to be talking about for the next couple of hours, so you guys can context. I’m in the middle, well not the middle, the beginning of writing my third book, which is called Traffic Secrets. So there’s Dotcom Secrets, there’s Expert Secrets, and this is the last and final book in the trilogy, and then I’ll never write a secrets book again, because I’m out of them. But the third one is called Traffic Secrets. So I’ve been working on the framework for the whole thing. And I messaged Dana about two or three months ago, “Just so you know dude, this is so good for you.” Because the entire framework for the Traffic Secrets book is based on the Dream 100. So a lot of the stuff you guys have been talking about is the foundation of everything that is going to be inside that book. But I spent all day, the last month or so, working on the outline and getting things done. And then yesterday I was sitting in the back of the room doodling out all the key frameworks for the book. And I got them back this morning at 4:30 in the morning. So I’m really excited they got done in time. So I’m going to be going through seven different images that are kind of the framework for the book, but it’s also the framework for how we do the Dream 100. There are, well you’ll see. It’s taken it to a whole other level. And hopefully this will give you guys, those who are beginning will give you guys a really good foundation. And those who are advanced, it’s going to give you the next five or six steps in the process. Does that sound like fun? Alright cool. So I’m going to start off, this is the very first core thing that you have to understand to really understand Dream 100, understand traffic, understand everything. There are three types of traffic, this is the framework for the entire book, the entire concept, if you can understand this everything else becomes really easy. So there are three types of traffic. The first type of traffic here on the top left hand, is traffic you control. This is traffic where you’re going to buy your way in. So if you think about that, how many of you guys run Facebook ads in here? So you don’t own that traffic, right. Zuckerberg owns all that traffic. He built the platform, he owns the thing, but he gave us the ability to come and to buy some of that traffic. So we can buy some of that traffic and we can control it, we can send it wherever we want to. We send it to buy a product, buy a service, listen to a podcast. We can control that traffic, but we don’t own it. How many of you guys have ever gotten a Facebook account shut down before? There’s proof you don’t own it right there. We’ve lost hundreds of them, so don’t feel bad. It’s just part of the game. So traffic control is the first thing. So whenever I got any kind of thing I’m buying, it’s traffic that I control. The second type of traffic is traffic that you earn. This is where you’re working your way in. The first one you’re buying your way in, the second one you’re working your way. So for this it means, you’re getting traffic, you’re not paying for it, but you’re earning it. You’re getting on a podcast interview, you’re doing a Facebook live with somebody, you put out really good content and people share it. You’re earning that traffic. How many of you guys, the majority of your traffic comes from traffic that you’re earning? And how many of you guys, the majority of your traffic you’re buying? About 50/50 split. So it’s important to understand, there’s traffic you control and traffic that you earn. The third type of traffic, and this is the best and most important is traffic that you own. My entire goal of our business, if you look at everything we’re doing from a traffic generation standpoint, is to convert traffic I can control, traffic that I earn, into traffic that I actually own. Because if you own the traffic, that’s the secret sauce. When I own it, I can do whatever I want with it. You can be like zuckerberg and you can rent it to people, you can do a product launch and sell your own products. You can do affiliate stuff, you can do whatever you want. But the goal is to own the traffic, that’s the big thing. You own the traffic, we own the platform, that’s how you win. How many of you guys have your own platform, your own list, your own following, your own whatever? How many of you guys don’t yet and you’re like, “That’s the thingy I think I need really bad.” Okay, cool.  This is the goal, this is the big secret about internet marketing. I remember when I first started learning this game I was struggling because I couldn’t figure it out. There were so many things that were happening. And this is pre all the stuff that you guys do every day. It was  pre-facebook, pre-myspace, it was actually pre-friendster. How many of you guys remember Friendster? Melanie was on Friendster, she’s still buying ads on that one. Just kidding. That was like the original social network and it was like, this is amazing, and then Myspace came out and crushed Friendster, and then Facebook came out and crushed Myspace, and soon the next thing is going to come out and crush Facebook someday, hopefully. Actually, I love Zuckerberg, I hope he keeps doing what he’s doing. But l was out there trying to figure out this whole game, and there’s so many things and I could not figure out how this whole game was played. And one day I was at the good old Google searching for probably how to get rich on the internet or some key word like that, like a lot of us start with. And some guy wrote an article and in this article he was talking about, he’s like, “how many of you guys have seen those stories online where people say I made $30,000 in an hour, or 100,000 in a day? You probably thought those things were lies, right?” I was like, “yeah, I’m sure they’re inflating their numbers.” He’s like, “No, actually those things are true.” And I was like, “Wait, what?” And he started explaining, he said, “This is the way it works. Imagine this, what these marketing people do is they build up a list of a thousand or ten thousand or a hundred thousand people and then they send an email to that list, and they just get a percentage, like 2 or 3% of that email to buy, and then do the math. They have 100,000 people, 2% buy a $50 product, how much is that?” It’s whatever the math is, $15,000, and if they send an email out every day, they literally can be doing what they’re talking about. And me, as a 20 year kid, sitting in my college dorm room reading this article, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that’s the secret. I just need my own platform. If I had my own list of people, that’s the magic.” Now I, unfortunately, went about it the wrong way. So I had that idea and I was like, “This is the key, I’m going to do it. It’s going to be amazing.” So the first thing I did, of course, I went to Google and I typed in, because I wanted my own email, so I typed in “buy an email list” and then I was reading about spam, I want to spam for email address. So I went to a website and I think it was, spam-free email addresses dot com. I was like, this is awesome. And they were selling DVD’s of email addresses. And you could buy like a hundred thousand, a million, 5 million. I was like, “Oh my gosh. I’m going to buy 5 million, I’m going to start with the biggest platform known to man.” So I bought, I think it was $67 or $69 for a DVD with like 5 million email addresses. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And I ordered this thing, it’s coming to me, I’m like telling my wife the math. I’m like, “Collette, okay so 5million people, let’s just say we get 1% to buy the thing we sell, 1% of 5 million,” I’m doing the math, “That’s like 100 grand every time I click send.” And then I’m like, “wait, but let’s just say I can serve only 1% of 1%..” I’m doing the math, I’m like, “Even if we screw this up it’s like $30 grand every time I send an email out.” And I’m so excited because at the time my wife’s working, making $9.50 an hour, while I’m at school wrestling and trying to not fail. So this thing comes and I get this disc, and I remember I plugged it in and there was this software that would send the emails out for you, and I put it in and I remember queuing it up and I saw the little software of all these like 5 million emails out there. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” Now, I didn’t have a product at the time, so I was like making up a product. I’m like, “What would people like to buy.” So I made up an idea for a product, I wrote an email that was probably, I don’t know, 60 words, with a link to my paypal account. Like, “Click here to send me $10 for this product.” And then that was it. I was like, “If people buy it, then I’ll go make the thing.” So I queued up the email, back then it was pre-high speed internet, so I had to crawl under the desk, unplug our phone line, plug in the internet, bleep, bleep, bleep, all that kind of stuff pops up. I’m like alright, click send. I’m like, “Collette, let’s go to bed. By morning we are going to be rich.” I see like, “Email 1 sent, number 2, 3, 4, 5….” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is it. This is going to be the greatest day of my life.” So I go to bed, all night long I’m dreaming of how many sells are going to come in the night, what’s going to happen, how amazing it’s going to be. And I wake up in the morning, and Collette’s getting ready for work because she’s still working at the time, and I’m just telling her, “I haven’t looked at the stats yet, but my guess is you can probably quit after today. If a just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction buy, that’s more than you make in an entire month. This is going to be amazing.” So I’m all excited, telling her the whole story. And then she’s like, “Okay, I gotta use the phone.” I’m like, “You can’t use the phone.” This is pre-cell phones too. “You can’t use the phone, it’s mailing..” I look at the thing, $65,000 emails have been sent. “you can’t.” She’s like, “I have to call, I have to use the phone.” I’m like, “Ugh, you’re going to ruin everything.” So I crawl under the, pause the mailing thing, I crawl under the desk, unplug the modem, plug back in our phone line, and while I’m still under the desk the phone rings. I stood up and hit my head and I’m like, “Oh, dangit.” So come out under the thing, answer the phone, and on the other end is my internet service provider cursing me out on the phone. “What are you doing? Why are you sending these?” I’m like, “No, no, no, sir, I didn’t send spam.” He’s like, “No, you sent out tons of spam.” I’m like, “No, you don’t understand, I bought this DVD, it was called spam free email addresses dot com. You can go check out the site, they’re completely spam free.” I explained the whole thing to him. I still remember he told me, he’s like, “Son, that is the definition of spam.” And I was like, “what? Their spam free.” And he’s like, “How do you think that, that’s not a thing. You can’t buy spam free email addresses.” And I’m like, “But the domain name….” and we were going back and forth. And he’s telling me he was going to sue me and a bunch of stuff, but the last thing was, “I’m shutting down your internet.” And then it was gone. I hung up the phone and then Collette’s like, “Who was that on the phone?” I’m like, “Oh just some guy who had some questions about the thing. You shouldn’t quit yet though. Let’s just go to work, enjoy it, we’ll recap in the morning or tonight when you get back.” So she leaves out the door to go to work and I’m sitting there, and I can’t even check to see what happened because our internet is now gone. I have no access to even get back on. So I’m all depressed, I get ready for school, I go to the school and I get to school and I get to the computer lab, and I’m like, “I’m going to check to see what happened.” And I log in, still in kind of a depressed state, and I open my email, and then my email though, I see order notification from paypal, order notification paypall. Boom, boom, boom, boom, probably 20-25 orders had come through for like $10 apiece through paypal. I was like, “Oh my gosh, it worked. I gotta go create a product.” So I had to go back and figure out what I sold and make something to send out to these people. And I realized at the time, what I did was wrong, I didn’t understand the ethics or how to do it, I did it wrong. But what happened was right. The goal was to get a platform, an email list, to get something. And that was the whole secret to the game. So after that was done, I went and found a new internet service provider and I spent the next year of my life trying to figure out how I build a list the right way, where it’s not going to end me up in jail. There’s got to be a way to do it. What I learned is basically this process. I can buy ads, I gotta send them somewhere to join my list, or I can go work my, do things, and get people to come to my website and give me the email, but that was the goal. So I started focusing from that point forward on building my email list. That was my core focus, building a list, building a list, building a list. And I started growing it. It’s been interesting, that concept of list building became my whole life. I started looking, over the last 15 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve see a lot of people who have built huge companies, are no longer in our industry. Now back at their day jobs trying to survive. And I’ve seen things over and over and over again. How many of you guys remember back in the day when Adsense first started and it was like Christmas every day? A couple of you guys. So let me paint this picture. So this is in the middle of me trying to build my list, my first mentor, his name is Mark Joyner. He’s like, “Focus on a list, focus on a list.” I’m like, focusing on a list. And all the sudden this shiny object pops out of nowhere called adsense, and what adsense was back in the day, you could buy this software for $97, there was a couple of them, Traffic Equalizer, there were probably a dozen or so that ended up coming out. You load up software on the computer, you click a button, it would go out there and it would pick a keyword, so let’s say whatever, it would find a keyword that people were paying a lot of money on, go to the internet, scrape all the sites that have written about that, pull them in, and then you publish a site and have like 8,000 pages in like a minute. And then it would put ads in all the site, and because of the way it structured the pages, Google would instantly index it and you started making money. It was like the easiest, most stupid way to make money. We had teams of people in the Philippians, like 30-40 people, that all day sat there and build another site, build another site, build another site. Just cranking out sites like crazy. Not me, a lot of my friends, they built these assembly lines of people doing that. I had friends making a half a million bucks a month or more just cranking out crappy little sites. And it was amazing for about a year, year and a half. And so I’m watching all these people make so much money, and I’m over here building a list, building a list, and stressing out because I’m seeing all these people make all this money. I’m like, “I’m just going to do that, that’s easy. It takes no effort at all.” And my mentor, Mark, was luckily like, “No dude, focus on building a list, this will go away.” I’m like, “No, you don’t understand. This is the greatest thing in the world. It’s going to change….$500,000 a month..” How many of you guys would that radically shift your life right now? Yeah, I was just like, “And they’re doing nothing, providing zero value to the world. They’re just clicking a button over and over and over again. I could get a million button clickers. I’m going to be the first adsense billionaire.” And he’s like, “No, build a list, build a list.” And I’m like torn. And luckily for me, I’m really coachable. So I’m like, “Fine, I’ll build the stupid list.” So I’m doing this, and sure enough about a year later, boom, the algorithm changed, Google found all the software that was building the sites, deindexed every single page, and I had friends go from half a million dollars a month to zero over night. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” But guess what I had? I had been building my list and it didn’t affect me. Now anyone who knows my story, who here thinks that I’ve always done everything right in my business? Only Dave. I haven’t. So what happened is I built my company up really, really big, and then I bankrupted it almost. Luckily both times I didn’t. The second time I built it even bigger and then I almost bankrupted, I’ve told those stories before, at Funnel Hacking Live. But what’s interesting, the thing that got me through the ups and the downs every single time was this platform I’d built, this list. I got to the point where everything is collapsing around me, I could still send emails to my list and people would buy because we have a relationship, and it kept us through the down times. So when you do this and build a platform, it’s the key. I still see today, it’s unfortunate, I still see today people in our industry who get the next object where they’re like, “Oh, I can do this thing.” And they start buying Facebook ads to sell this, and doing this, and doing things like that, but they’re not focusing on the fundamentals. The fundamentals are what will protect you over the long haul. The reason why I’m still in business 15 years later, and a lot of the people I know that have made a crap ton of money along the way aren’t, is because this has been my focal point, building the platform, building the platform. So why do you need a platform? The platform is the key for so many reasons. How many of you guys watch the Apprentice, back when it was still on? How many of you saw the season where Arsenio Hall was on the show? How many of you guys have no idea who Arsenio hall is? Okay, for the younger generation, Arsenio Hall was a dude that had his own late night show. He’d come out and get everyone excited and be like, “woo, woo, woo.” And get everyone pumped up, and he was the man on late night for, I don’t know, a decade or so. So then his show got cut, and then he’s like normal Arsenio Hall, no one heard from him, and then 20 years later he pops up on Celebrity Apprentice because at one time he was a celebrity apparently. It was fascinating, they’re on celebrity apprentice, competing with all these other celebrities. And there was this one task that was like a fund raising task, where they had to go and raise money. So they’re all going through and trying to raise money for their charities and Arsenio is back there, he’s got his rolodex of people and he’s calling the first person, the second person, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and what’s interesting, while all the other celebrities were doing deals, Arsenio couldn’t get anyone to return his call, couldn’t get anyone to pick up the call or anything. And it shows him that night, sitting on the couch and he’s all depressed and frustrated and upset, and they’re talking about it. And they’re like, “dude, you’re Arsenio Hall, how come you can’t get any money?” He’s like, “I don’t know man. When I had my own show, everybody returned my call and now nobody will.” And when I heard that, I was like, “Oh my gosh, what a lesson that is.” Some of you guys are starting the dream 100 right now at the very beginning, you don’t have this platform, and it’s tough. It’s tough initially to get people to return your calls, to say yes, to look at your vox, whatever those things are. At first it’s hard right. But when you have a platform, everyone returns your call. When I first met Tony Robbins back in the day, my platform was little tiny. I even became friends with Tony, we hung out for 10 years, and Tony never promoted me, we were just kind of, I got to know him, a couple of times we hung out and helped consult him, that was while my platform got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Last year we launched Expert Secrets book, I was like, “Hey Tony, will you help me promote this book?” And Tony’s like, “Russell’s platform is huge. Yes, Russell. I would love to.” There are few people in our world right now that I couldn’t pick up the phone and be like, “Hey can you help me do this deal?” Because they know my platform is huge. And because of that, they will say yes. So the dream 100 gets better and better and better as you build your platform. At first it’s going to be more difficult, but as you focus on this building your platform, it becomes easier and easier and easier, because the bigger your platform is, the more likely people are to return your call. So this should be the focus, again, if I come back to this. Everything you focus on is this, traffic you control, buying ads, traffic I earn, earning ads and we’re going to go deeper into this in a minute, but the goal of both of those is to turn it into your own platform. Now platform can mean a lot of things. When I got started, all a platform was, was your email list. I still think focusing on email is one of the most important things because if an email service provider shuts you down you can move your email list to another. So that’s an asset that can follow you. But your platform is also different things like, how many of you guys are on Instagram right now? Your Instagram following is a platform. How many of you guys have a podcast right now? Your podcast listeners are a following. How many of you guys have a Facebook following? YouTube subscribers? All those things are platforms. So what I’m going to be talking about, and I’m going to break this down, the platform doesn’t always have to be one thing. In fact, usually there’s a platform on each of these different channels that we’re going to talk about. And you should be building more than one. But the biggest problem I have with other ones is like, the reason I like email so much is because, again, if you get shut down you can move it. If Facebook shuts you down, you’re done. If YouTube shuts down your channel because you did something aggressive, you can’t do much about it. So always focusing on email is one, but then a secondary and more as we go through is a big piece of it. So that’s the key, building your platform. Alright, so that’s the first step here. Step number two, so now that you have got this stuff figured out, and I’m going to go deeper into this. All these things will kind of layer upon each other and the end will be this beautiful picture like, oh crap, that’s what it is. This is so much easier than I thought. Okay, so this is the first part. What I want to do, I want to kind of, before we go deep back into this part right here, I want to go deeper on this right here. So you have your own platform, what most people don’t think through, all they’re thinking about is themselves initially. Like, I’m going to build a platform, have a big email list, a big podcast, a big whatever… That’s our focus, because that’s who we are as entrepreneurs. We like significance, we want a big, huge following. But what I wish I would have done, from day number one when I first got started in this business is spend more time thinking about the person. Who do I actually want on my list? If you read the Dotcom Secrets book, the very introduction in here I talk about you finding your dream customer. I talked about for me, I had 5 or 6 years in my business and one day I woke up and I was depressed. I was so upset, I wished, I remember sitting there in bed, laying there thinking, “I wish I had a boss so they could fire me, so I could separate myself from my customers.” But unfortunately I had built a company, I had built a platform, but the people who were in my platform were not people who I wanted to serve every single day, and it can be depressing. I promise you, if you build the wrong platform, it can be really, really frustrating when you show up one day and you’re like, “I hate my customers.” How many of you guys have ever hated your customers before? So many of you. Good, I’m glad I’m the only one. It’s tough. If you don’t think through who is my dream customer ahead of time, you’re going to wake up one day with a customer that you hate. So I want you thinking like, who is my dream customer? Who is that person I’m trying to serve? So what I want to do, I want to talk about your dream customer’s journey. So who is my dream customer? I want to understand their journey. So the first thing I’m going to do, I’m gonna draw a picture here. So this is your dream customer. How many of you guys know who your dream customer is in your mind? You’re like, “I know exactly who that person is.” If you don’t, I encourage you. People are like, “Uh, I want to serve awesome people.” Spend time actually thinking through this. Who do I actually want to serve? Who is that person? What do they look like? What are their fears? What are they excited about? What is the pain that they are trying to get away from, and what is the pleasure they’re trying to move towards? If you ever studied NLP you learn a really cool thing about the human mind. All humans are doing one of two things, number one they’re trying to move away from pain, and number two they try to move towards pleasure. And what’s interesting, most people are more dominant on one or the other. I’m curious, how many of you guys make most of your core decision because you’re trying to move away from pain in your life? You’re trying to lose weight so you’re moving away from pain in that. You want to make money here because you want to get rid of your boss. You’re in pain and you want to move away from pain. How many of you guys make most of your decisions based on moving away from pain? Now the other side, you make choices like, I’m moving towards pleasure. I want that nice car. I want to have six pack abs for the girls. I want to have all these things like that. How many of you guys make your choices moving towards pleasure? Interesting, it’s like 50/50 in this room. Typically, what I find in an entrepreneurial room, most entrepreneurs make their choices towards pleasure, not all but most of them do. Whereas in the real world, most humans make their decisions moving away from pain. But regardless, you as someone who is going to be serving this dream customer, you have to know what those things are. What is the pain they’re trying to get out of? You have to think about that and figure it out. What is that pain they’re trying to get out of? If you don’t know what that is, it’s going to be really hard for you to serve them. The second thing is like, what’s the pleasure they’re trying to move towards? What is it that they actually want? What’s that thing that, the biggest desires they have? You have to know that, you have to know everything about that with your dream customer. The next thing I want you guys to think about and this is going to come into a lot of the dream 100 stuff here in a minute. If you draw a timeline of your dream customer’s life, this is all the stuff that they’re dealing with before you come to them, and this is all the stuff they’re dealing with after. So as I start building out my dream 100 list, I look at my customer and I’m like, let’s say for me, I sell funnels. Do you guys know that’s what I sell? Okay, so that’s what I sell, so my dream customer, they need a funnel. But what do they need before they need a funnel? Most people more and more are like, “I need a funnel.” But what do they need before they need a funnel. Before they need a funnel they need, so I’m thinking about what’s the thing they need before they get my funnel? And what do they need before that, and before that, and before that? I’m taking them backwards on this journey. So if they’re going to get a funnel, before they get a funnel they probably need a business maybe. Somebody here got that they needed a business. Maybe they needed a logo, they need branding, they need…..there’s probably things that happened before they come to me and they’re ready for me. And then after they’ve got a funnel, what are things they need after they have a funnel? They might need traffic, they might need graphic design, they have other things afterwards. So I look at this customer journey, where’s my customer at? So this is the first phase. How many of you guys have ever thought about this before? Jay Abraham taught me this initially, he said, “Look, if you’re trying to find joint venture partners, or dream 100, the first thing you got to think about is will your product or your service fit in the timeline of your dream customer? And you gotta figure out what are all the services they need before they come to you? And what are all the services they need after they come to you?” When we identify that, we know exactly who your partners are, right? So if I go to somebody else who is selling funnel software, which is like right here, which is where most people go. If I’m selling weight loss product, why would they promote my weight loss product if they have one too? They probably won’t because they’re selling the same thing. You’ve got to go on this customer journey prior to that, before they wanted weight loss, what else did they get? What did they need? Maybe they had high blood pressure, oh my gosh, if they have high blood pressure, maybe I could dream 100 all the people who have a list with high blood pressure, because that’s something they need before they lose weight. So I’m looking at this customer journey, like what are the things that are happening before they come to me? And the things that happen after? Because that’s where you’re going to fit in. Your dream 100 partners are going to be better here and here probably, than the other place away. Alright guys, thank you for listening to the first of the three parts of my presentation at Dream 100 Con. I hope you enjoyed it. Hopefully it’s getting the wheels in your head spinning about traffic and kind of how traffic works. Tomorrow I will give you guys part two. Thanks so much and we’ll see you guys tomorrow.

Hello and happy Tuesday! *If you do not know, Live Experience is LIVE on Facebook every Friday morning at 10:30 am Pacific time.  It's another great episode of Live Experience with Kyle Clark. Now, Kyle being the young butterfly is not always aware of how well he is doing because he is a 'newer' version of himself, albeit better, still unfamiliar. So Tom talks a lot #lol - it's what he does when he gets excited and wants to drive home a point; imprint into Kyle's mind, "You are STILL better than ever before no matter how you are feeling day to day." Kyle's new understanding of weight being held and carried is driven home by Tom as well! #lol Enjoy and a s always thanks for listening! Like Pro You on Facebook, follow @ProYouPodcast on Twitter and visit the website! *Not all exercises are suitable for everyone and this or any other exercise program may result in injury. Any user of the exercise program assumes the risk of injury resulting from performing the exercise. You should always speak to your doctor before you change, start or stop any part of your healthcare plan, including physical activity or exercise.*

Jake is away this week so he can celebrate his 40th birthday.  So Tom decided to break out the big guns: Joining him once again for this episode is Matt from the dearly departed "Couch Party" podcast, as well as the legendary Ranty Bastard, former host of the greatly missed "Retail Rant". Today, the guys are delving deep into the internet and are settling the stupidest debates the can find.  "How stupid?", you ask?  They're stupid enough to wonder if a hot dog is a sandwich.  They ponder the idea of cereal being a soup.  They even try to figure out whether a baby can be considered a vegan if they're fed breast milk. Y'see...?  It really does get that stupid. But it was also a helluva lotta fun.  So hit the play button & get ready to laugh at three supposedly grown men as they argue the merits of proper toilet paper etiquette.   And, as always, be sure to help Jake and Tom in their quest for world domination by rating them highly on iTunes, sharing their stuff on social media, and by telling your Android using friends to listen to them via the Amazing And FREE Couch Party App, available exclusively on the Google Play Store! Don't forget to follow them on Twitter, join the conversation on their Facebook page, "Jake and Tom Conquer the Group", and find more great show like theirs through their partners in internet radio Geeks Worldwide & The PodFix Network!   Copyright 2018 Thomas Coe, The Ranty Bastard & Matt Mahl  Intro By HAB Cover Art By Villain Archives

We have to admit, it's not always roses. So Tom takes a break from the mumbo jumbo musical analysis to get to the heart of a very special guest, following the hot tip that Richard Mercer's daughter is also a radio announcer and more... |Find Kristie Mercer's Thinkergirls Podcast on iTunes, Facebook, or visit http://www.thethinkergirls.com.au | If you want to hear Kristie perform a cover of At Last, you can watch it here: https://www.facebook.com/kristieleemercer/videos/823930341143813Special thanks to Mel Herbert who wished to remain anonymous sort of but not really but kinda. |Songs featured in this episode include Etta James - At Last.

This is the second episode in a collaboration with Synthtopia.com, featuring open source developers of both hardware and software. More information is available at synthtopia.com... What do you call the guy behind the Turing Machine, Radio Music module, Chord Organ and more? I call him a hero, but his name is Tom Whitwell. From the humble beginnings of the Music Thing blog to the current work (particularly in conjunction with Thonk Ltd), Tom is helping us all embrace our passion for cool gear and left field ideas - and is doing it with a personal twist that is unique among all module creators. I've long been a Radio Music user; my module, replete with a bizarro collection of samples, is a goto transition tool for live performance, and a nice addition to a lot of my more relaxed pieces. So many people use the Turing Machine that it's almost a ubiquitous sight in my friends' rigs. So Tom has definitely had an impact! But perhaps more important is the dedication that Tom has to the open hardware and open source nature of these modules. By creating these devices as open tools, it has allowed people to continuously improve the result, and even for interesting extensions (like the Chord Organ alternate software for Radio Music) to be built upon existing hardware. It's an impressive body of work, and a strong addition to the DIY modular community. I hope you enjoy my chat with Tom, and that you'll forgive me a little fan-boyishness...

Tom Melcher, Founder of Show-Score, steps on to the New York Launch Pod to discuss his rating service for live theater. Like Rotten Tomatoes for movies, TripAdvisor for travel or Goodreads for Books, Show-Score empowers theater fans to rate and review shows and organizes the reviews in a crisp and straightforward manner including a score from 1-100.  Tom, an avid theater enthusiast, first conceived the idea when he moved to New York.  After seeing more than 5 shows a week (and more than 250 in a year) Tom thought there had to be a better way to discover great shows since there was no centralized site. So Tom, an entrepreneur who is now on his 10th start-up, decided to build the platform himself and it is a ‘runaway hit’.  In the first 6 months, Show-Score has over 75,000 reviews from over 50,000 users which is more than 6x the number of reviews for shows on Facebook, TripAdvisor and Twitter, combined. The reviews themselves also have an innovative design where a user answers three quick questions and gives a rating from 1-100.  The reviews, which includes reviews from professional critics, are aggregated based on an algorithm that takes into account the user’s following on the site. The success of the platform has enabled Show-Score to allow users to discover new shows and allow smaller theater companies to list their shows and quickly find an audience.  With over 150 shows on a daily basis New York truly is the theater capital and Show-Score enables users to see shows they are bound to like and discover affordable shows on Broadway and ‘Beyond Broadway’. Listen to the podcast to delve into the world of the performing arts and hear how Show-Score came about, its innovative model to grow, and the user friendly features in the platform.  At the end, Tom even provides some hints about getting tickets to the hottest shows in New York. (Hamilton) Transcript of the episode available here: http://nylaun.ch/show-scoreTr More on Show-Score: http://www.show-score.com/

In the latest episode of The Marketing Companion podcast, Tom Webster and I reveal our wishlist of what we would like to see "more of" and "less of" on the web. Among the topics we explore: Brand skepticism and brand bullying -- It seems like any time a company authentically tries to be "human" on the web it attracts an attack. If we want brands to show up in a more human way, shouldn't we reward them? Evangelism -- This word is a red flag for me. When anybody describes themselves as an evangelist for ... (fill in the latest social technology) ... I immediately wonder about the credibility of the person. "Evangelism" suggests you have a specific agenda and your goal is to "convert" instead of "lead."  The web need more business leaders and fewer evangelists. Long-term thinking -- Why Uber needs to be more like Nike. A brand develops from a collection of small interactions over time. Do brands still have the patience to be great? Whining -- Let's stop whining and start taking care of each other. Want to make the world a better place? Think about how you're showing up in your little corner of the world. ... and there's much more. Also, I have been experiencing chatbot envy. Apparently this is the way to go now, according to Facebook. So Tom and I decided we needed to get ahead of this curve by introducing Slurry™, the new Marketing Companion chatbot. It's not quite ready for primetime, but it is rather entertaining! Ready for some fun? Here we go. Resources mentioned in this podcast: New eBook from Affinio Understanding Your Alpha Audience Chevrolet Little Red Corvette tribute to Prince The speech This is Water by David Foster Wallace Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity. Many thanks to our friend Scott Monty for the awesome show intro. Be sure to check out his amazing newsletter The Full Monty, the best weekly curation of digital news. BuzzSumo is the world’s best way to discover, analyze and amplify your content. Run over to BuzzSumo today for a 14 day free trial. Beyond data, BuzzSumo offers priceless insights to take your marketing to the next level. Check out BuzzSumo’s powerful technology to look at the hottest content trends down to the hour! GoToWebinar – a leader in online events – is one of the easiest and most effective ways to connect and convert your target audience. You can generate qualified leads, establish thought leadership and build brand awareness for up to 1,000 attendees. Trusted by start-ups to global organizations worldwide, GoToWebinar helps businesses reach over 40 million people each year. Affinio is now offering a FREE eBook co-authored with Mark Schaefer called How to Identify, Understand and Grow Your Ideal Content Audience. Check it out! Affinio is an advanced audience intelligence platform that leverages the interest graph to understand today’s consumers. Using our deep learning and custom network engine, Affinio is able to analyze these connections to develop a social fingerprint for each user.  Affinio’s customers use this data to: Build in-depth data-driven personas; Understand their audience; Conduct competitive analysis; Identify ideal influencers and sponsorship opportunities; Build data-driven content strategies that resonate; Place highly targeted ads with data-backed creative.

Here's a quick taste of the in-depth radio investigation I put together for ABC Radio National. In the mid-1990s, the US Air Force considered investing $7.5 million in the development of a 'Gay Bomb'—a chemical weapon designed to alter the enemy's sexual orientation. When out-and-proud comedian Tom Ballard saw this story being referenced on one of his favourite TV shows, he thought it was hilarious. When he found out that it actually happened, he was gobsmacked. So Tom decides to do some digging… and finds out a lot more than he bargained for. After finally receiving security clearance from the very highest echelons of the American military, he can now officially bring you this unbelievable story: a story of political intrigue, secrets, betrayal, death and sex; a story that proves once and for all that truth is always stranger than fiction. Listen and download the piece in full here  

So Tom is the first ever guest to return for a second interview on the show. He was first on back in May in episode 35 so if you want to go back and find out more about his background, how he got started and some of his biggest successes and difficulties then it's definitely worth going back to check that episode out as it's one of the top 3 most popular episodes we've ever done.     Back in that episode this is how I introduced him: Until about 4 years ago, Tom was working in a job for a boss he didn't like earning less than £1,000 a month.     With entrepreneurialism burning in his heart, he stumbled across creative property investing in the United states and found people doing 30 deals a month wholesaling below market value properties, and doing lease options.     He quickly did the maths and realised if he could do even 10% of that he'd be making up to £10,000 a month, so he started applying what he'd learned to the UK market and made £40,000 in his first 4 months.   He now does 4-6 deals a month, only works when he wants, and is planning on getting up to 20 deals per month by the end of the year.     So like I say, that was back at the start of the year, and to be honest, before I recorded the interview with him I didn't really know much about Tom other than the bio he'd sent me.  He's not a regular speaker at property events, he just gets on with his business and enjoying life from his base in Barcelona.   But you're probably wondering why I've brought him back for a second interview. Well as I said, he's in the top 3 most popular episodes we've ever done so I know we all got a lot of value from what he had to share last time, but more than that I've been keeping an eye on Tom closely since we last spoke and what he's achieving and how he does it just blows me away.     I won't go into too much detail as I'll leave that to Tom, but he's going to be sharing a deeper dive into some of the investing strategies that are really working well for him and how he is able to run his business and do so well without working 40 hours a week.   Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes so you don't miss another episode, and let us know what you think at www.facebook.com/insidepropertyinvesting and www.twitter.com/MikeStenhouse.   Full show notes available at http://www.insidepropertyinvesting.com/tomwade2/