BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 12: How to Become an “Overnight” Success in 10 Short Years with David Greene

Episode Date: March 19, 2018

While David Greene is a long-time real estate investor, best-selling author, and one of the top real estate agents in California today, his career started in the most unlikely of places—as a busboy at a restaurant. Learning how hard work and hustle,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money Show, show. Show number 12. So I think I had that kind of always in the back of my mind that money isn't what, like, it's not all that matters, right? But not having it will bring a lot of stress and strain into your life that doesn't have to be there if you do. So I kind of understood that like money isn't evil. It's also not the goal of life.

It's a vehicle that can get you the goal of life. I didn't have any clue how to grow it. No one showed me anything. I just had this drive that I didn't want to be broke. It's time for a new American dream, one that doesn't involve working in a cubicle for 40 years, barely scraping by. Whether you're looking to get your financial house in order, invest the money you already have, or discover new paths for wealth creation. You're in the right place. This show is for anyone who has money or wants more.

This is the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast. How's good everybody? I'm Scott Trench, and I'm here with my co-host, Ms. Mindy. Scott, I am having an excellent day today. How are you doing today? I'm doing fantastic. This was one of my favorite shows. And I know I say that a lot, but this one was really one of my favorite shows.

I want to be David when I grew up. I want to be David when I grew up too. He's such an amazing person. He's an investor story is fabulous. He started off in this like kind of dead end job. And instead of looking at it like, oh, this job sucks. I hate it, whatever. I'm just going to show up.

And he's like, how can I be good at this? How can I master this job? And he takes that approach and puts it at everything he does. How can I master this? How can I master this? Oh, you know what? I don't want to master this. Let me go someplace else. And he didn't start off with a ton of money. He started off with a ton of drive and just took that and ran with it. And this is, yeah, absolutely one of my top two favorite shows. I really loved the Sarah Wilson show episode six, just because her story is so incredible. So if you haven't listened to that show, go to BiggerPockets.com slash Money Show 06 and listen to Sarah. But you might want to listen to David Green Show first. This is. is really inspiring. It caused me to invent a new word. At the end of the show, you will hear me

say my new word. I think I'm going to add that too. Re-invigorated. What was my, I can't even remember it. I can't remember the word. I don't know. I'll look forward to listening to it and hearing this word again too. No, this show, though, is for you. If you are ambitious, you really want to build a foundation, which is capable of sustaining an incredible career and a large investment portfolio They are a large personal net worth, right? David Green's story of hustle will work for you if you want to immediately move toward financial freedom. But more than that, it's really laying the foundation for superstar success down the line.

And so listen to this episode with that in mind and see what you can apply to your own life in order to kind of repeat those results because what he does, it's a recipe, it's a formula for success and superstar success. Superstar success. You know, we try at the beginning of the show to say who the show is really full. for. And honestly, this show is for anybody who wants to make money. Yep. For anybody who wants money or for anybody who has money or wants to have more. Yeah. And yeah, this is the approach to to get ahead quickly in life. Yeah, this is great. Okay. So let's bring David in because, again,

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Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Leen or Stronger for Fitness, the Anxious Generation for Parenting Perspective, and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful is its breadth. Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more, all accessible in one app.

If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP Money. David, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money Show. How's it going? It is going awesome. I'm excited to be here. This is a pretty cool product. Yeah, I think it's going to be great. I think your story is going to be particularly interesting because one of the things that's cool about employing the principles of personal finance and wealth building from an early age and getting started with that right foundation is it can lead

to massive success down the road, which I think it would be hard to argue that you've experienced anything other than massive success with your career. You're a famous author with your book in the background there, I see. And for those of you're watching the video, and you've got a bunch of out of long-distance real estate portfolios, you're a top agent. So today we want to hear about how you built the foundation. for that, how you started out this journey. I think you have a really cool story there. Thank you, Scott. I think in my personal opinion, like how I built the foundation is way more

important than like what I'm doing right now. I think that's my, the coolest part of the story and my favorite part to talk about. Awesome. So let's start from the beginning. How did you start your career? What was your financial position and salary going into your first job, maybe as a, or where do you see the beginning as? Honestly, the beginning for me happened before I ever graduated college. So when I was going to school, I was commuting to a college from Mindy's hometown in Turlock, CSU Stanis Loss, and I was living a home with my parents. So I didn't pay any rent. I was eating their food. I basically had to pay for gas and a gym membership. I didn't even have a cell phone for most of that time. And I was saving up as much money as I could because I knew at some point I wanted

to buy a house. I didn't know that I wanted to be a real estate investor, but I knew that I needed to own a home and no one was going to give it to me. So I needed to start. And what I would do is I just worked my butt off to be the best waiter at the restaurant that I worked at. So I worked at the most expensive place in town. I worked my way up from a bus boy to a host to a server. Then I became the top server in the restaurant. And then I would start to get like the parties of 20 or 25 that would come in. And then I kind of became like a manager of some of the other server.

So as a perk to that, the boss would give me the best tables and the biggest tables. And I just saved every dime that I could make doing that. And then I went through a reconstructive surgery where they had to put my ankle back together from a basketball injury. And when I came back, I actually drove a, instead of to a restaurant in the city I lived in, I drove to one about 50 minutes away that was even nicer, closer to San Francisco where the prices were higher. And it was kind of like a re-evolution where I had to learn all about fancy wine and how to pair meat with steak. And it was very stressful. I was the

youngest server there by far. These were like, you know, adults that had families that were supporting their kids through working at this place. But it forced me to kind of like master the situation I was in. And I did. And I did really, really well at that restaurant too. We made really good money. So long story short, when I graduated college, I had all my school paid for because I went to a cheap school. I had my car paid for so I didn't have a car payment. And I had about $95,000 in the bank that I had saved up during that period of time. Yeah, that I was in college. You were plus 95,000 as opposed to negative 95,000 graduating college. Which is where all my friends were, right? So that's kind of like the first area where I did really well that had exponential returns. Instead of graduating college in debt,

I graduated college with a lot of money that I eventually turned into even more through real estate. Holy cow. Okay, so let's go back to this restaurant, this restaurant story because I actually have this. I've heard this story before and I want you to share it with everybody because this is such an awesome story. I was a waitress. And that's a job that is not the most fun thing in the world. I think that everybody should be a waitress at least once in their waiter, not being sexist,

at least once in their life to really learn what it's like to be in the service industry, what other people are like. Sometimes people treat you like crap as, yep, I'm bringing you. food that you're putting in your mouth, you should be at least polite to me. You know, you're going to swallow this food. You might want to be a little nicer. But aside from that, how were you a successful waiter? What made you rise from Bus Boy to host to server to best server? So the first job I had at that really nice restaurant, I noticed that the owner was like obsessive, compulsive. Okay. If she walked by your table and there was a cracker wrapper that you didn't pick up from their soup cracker, she was pulling you

beside and yelling at you. And all the other employees would like hide when she would come by. They were all scared of her. They didn't like her. They didn't like her. They talked bad about her. And I felt like if she's this obsessive compulsive, then this restaurant must matter to her a lot. There's a reason she's like that, right? So rather than running away from her, I ran to her. Her name was Laurel. And I'd say, Laurel, tell me like, what is it that you want in the restaurant to make it run better? What is it you wish we were all doing more of? When you come in and you see this, what drives you crazy? Right. And she'd say like, well, I can't stand when I come in in and the wine glasses are spotted that nobody like wiped them down.

And no one's going to wipe down the wine glasses because they don't get paid for that, right? So I'd come in 15 minutes early so that she would see me wiping down wine glasses when she first walked in and I would notice the look on her face was like, I like that guy, right? And then I would go to her whenever I had free time and say, hey, teach me about whatever you think a waiter should know. So she'd take me in the kitchen and we go over the cuts of meat and she'd talk to me all about everything she learned about the restaurant. We go in the bar and I'd memorize the nine different types of glasses.

That was completely stupid. but I did not need to know what cocktail goes and what class. But learning it and then when she would hear me teaching the new people that information, it made her feel like David is looking out for me. He cares about my business. So now I care about him, right? And then the other thing I would do is most people, human beings, they care about their needs and that's all.

And we think that that's how I'm going to get ahead is by not worrying about other people. I'm just going to do me. Well, when my tables were taken care of, I'd go grab water and fill up everybody else's tables, waters. Or I'd ask the other waiters, hey, can I make your salad for you? Can I make your dessert for you? When their food was up, I would go grab it. and run it to their table and ask their customers if they need anything.

And if they did, I would go tell the waiter, hey, your table needs steak sauce or your table needs another knife or something like that. I'll drop it off for you. So now they're telling my boss every time they see her, I love David. That guy is so amazing. He's just the best, right? So what's happening is this lady who everybody couldn't stand is hearing nothing but how great I am, which now makes her feel like of everyone in this restaurant, I'm the only one

she can trust. and I'm this like 20-year-old kid working with 35, 40, 40-year-olds, and I become the favorite. And that is totally something anybody can do in any job that you have if you care about serving the person that you're working underneath and being the best you can at your position, right? I never was like thrilled to be a waiter. I was honestly like one of the most shy people you ever meet. I was terrified the first time I had to talk to the table. I was, I did not have the gift of gab at that time at all, right?

But I knew what hard work was. And, you know, like I had been a basketball. player and I was a big hustler and I always wanted to be the best basketball player I could be. When I didn't, I couldn't play basketball anymore after that surgery. I just took all that drive and applied it to the restaurant world instead. So I'm going to be the best here. And eventually, I mean, you're making working part time going to college. I was probably making $45, $50,000 a year.

And this was like, you know, 15, 20 years ago at the time, just good money for a small town where I lived. And I'm saving like almost 100% of it. So this speaks to the kind of mindset that you have that I just think is absolutely brilliant. So I worked for Laurel. I didn't work for her. I worked for like 20 of her. And my response was not the same as your response. I was not like, oh, I wonder how I can make her happy. I was like, ugh, I can't stand her. And there were several restaurants that I didn't last very long in because I didn't have that same mindset. That is brilliant to look at a job. And I mean, I don't want to

knock being a waitress because you can make a ton of money being a waitress or a waiter again. I'm being sexist. I'm sorry. But you can make a ton of money. But nobody wakes up when they're five years old, oh, I hope I get to be a waitress someday when I grow up. Like, it's not, there's no formal training for it. It's not like, it's a no brainer thing. But to look and see, oh, I don't see her as this terrible person. I see her as somebody who really cares about this. How can I make myself be very valuable to her? That's so brilliant. And there's so many things you can do with that, like take that mindset and put it into, you know, your life. And I bet you've been a successful person because of it. Well, thank you, Mindy. That'd be nice to think. No, I think what that speaks to

though, is that's a situation other people would have failed in. Other people were failing in. And you were like, hey, I'm not going to allow my circumstances to force me to be unsuccessful. I'm going to adapt to the system, the situation that I'm in and become successful. That's a recipe for success in almost any business in any field. And that's why you've been so successful, I think, in so many different careers that you've had. I think that is the number one key to success, is quit trying to make the world be what you want it to be and go figure. out where the world is and adapt and be good in that world, right? So I think the biggest thing that I did to make more money than other people in restaurants outside of everything I just said is that I would

notice that most servers were inefficient with their movements. Okay, they would go to the kitchen, get a cup of soup, bring it back. Go to the kitchen, get a knife, bring it back. Where I figured out, if I go to the kitchen and grab five things and put them on a tray and come out and go in like a circle throughout the dining room and make mental notes, they need water, they need ketchup, they need a knife, they need to have their table cleaned off, then go back into the kitchen, grab everything I needed to make another round. I was literally five times as efficient as the other servers, which is why I always had time to be filling up waters, okay? Then you would notice that when the hostess was stressed out because she had nowhere to seat people, she needed a seat. I would go see which

tables look like they were done, and I would very politely put a little bit of pressure on them, like it's time to get moving and we need your table, right? And then I could go back to the hostess and say, I'm the hero. Table five's going to be opening up. I'm going to get a bus for you because the bus boys are busy, right? So who's she leaning on? So who's she leaning on? on when she has a lot of people that she needs to seat and she doesn't know who to give them to. Everybody else is panic because they can't keep up. I'm looking cool in her pressure because I'm more efficient. And I've sort of won the hearts and minds of all the people that I'm working with.

Boom, all the tables are coming to me. When I got really good was when at the end of the night when everybody, see, in restaurants, everybody shows up like bright eye and bushy-tailed. And then after a couple hours of getting your teeth kicked in, you just want to go home and like most people don't live a very healthy life in restaurants. They want to go party. They want to go drink. They want to go whatever.

They would all be thinking about getting off and being done. and I would say, hey, do you want me to stay and pick up the last tables? And what I found is that in the beginning, they would, like, five servers were there. They would sort of seat you in a rotation, like one through five. Well, at the end of the night, when everyone wanted to go home, everything would just go to that last guy. So if I got good enough at my job that I could keep up with a large number of tables, I could literally double the number of tables that I had in a night, which would double my income, right? And it was like, I didn't understand why they were always going to, like, why do you even come

into work if you're just going to leave after four or five tables when I can do nine or ten and make twice as much money as you. And then I would just pay the busboys extra so they could help me keep up if I got busy, right? And I'm telling you a lot of those principles work in the rural state world now. I don't try to skimp on people's commissions. I don't try to skimp on bonuses. I make sure my wholesalers get paid. I don't try to like skimp on it because I want them bringing more deals to me just like

I wanted the bus boys to be looking after my stuff if I got busy. So I paid them a little more. Yes, that is so brilliant. And I knew very few people who would do that. They always looked at tipping out the bus boys as this thing that they had to do. I had one woman who I love her to death, but she was terrible at tipping out the busboys. She'd lie about how much money she made so she didn't have to tip them out. Like, they're working really hard.

They're cleaning my table so I can get more people. We shouldn't make this a real, all about being a waitress show. But there's a lot of hard work that goes into being a waitress that people don't understand. And I keep saying waitress, I'm sorry. Apologies to everybody who's a waiter or, you know, whatever gender you choose to identify with, Scott. But, I mean, there's a lot of these principles that go into, you know, just general. life principles. So moving on, we've, we've exhausted, well, we haven't exhausted. There's a ton of things you could talk about about being a waitress. How did you make the transition to police officer? You went to

school to be a police officer. I'm assuming I don't actually know very much about being a police officer. So when I was in college, I actually had a lot of anxiety about what to do because I just didn't know. And I hated that feeling of not knowing what path I wanted to be on. I knew I wanted to be successful. I knew I wanted to do well. And I felt like my brain was going at 20,000 RPM, but I couldn't actually get the car in gear to go anywhere. It was just, I was like, I just want to do something. And it was driving me crazy. I didn't know. My last semester there, these women came in and they were, what would you call it? Like recruiters for the Department of Health and Human Services looking for fraud investigators. And it was like, we need people to do a job. And I said, I need a job. What do you need to do? They said, you need to have your minor in criminal justice and then apply by the state. So I was a psychology major. And I realized if I needed a minor in criminal justice, I needed to take new classes.

I was supposed to graduate after the next semester. So I had like, you know, one more semester left. And I went to the chair of criminology and she said, I'll tell you what, David, if you can have this many units in criminal justice, I will let you have a minor. They won't have to come from all these different categories. So I realized I had already taken one class and I needed eight. So I had to take seven classes on top of the two or three that I had to take already. I had to get like the dean of the school to sign off on letting me take 30 units or whatever

it was, right, in order to get that degree. And the cool thing was, by the time I was a senior, I had figured out how college works. Okay. I knew when a teacher says you need to go read chapter three tonight. That doesn't mean you need to read chapter three, right? That just means they're telling me that. I needed to know when the tests were. I needed to know when the papers were. And that was an insanely high workload to try to keep up, especially like commuting to school. But what I would do is I would go to class. I'd make friends with like a nerd. I'd have them take notes for me. And while we were in class, I'd be typing my paper for the next class. I'd print it off at the library, go turn it in to that class, get the notes from the nerd that had taken them

for me. And that's what I would study for the test that was coming up like next week. And I just got really good at knowing what's the 20% of things I need to do to be able to pass college rather than thinking I had to do all of it. And I was able to do that and still work like four days a week at this restaurant and keep saving money because honestly, that was more important to me than the degree. I didn't know what I was even going to do with a degree, but I knew I could be making money at this restaurant. So when I graduated, I found out that I missed the deadline by a week. I couldn't apply for that job. It was like incredibly discouraging.

I had just done all that and I missed it for a week. I spent about two weeks just like soaking around and hating the world because of it. And then my grandma saw an ad for the newspaper that said they're hiring deputy sheriffs. I decided I want to be in the FBI. So I thought, eh, I'll just go be a deputy for a couple years. And then like, I'll just go to the FBI. I thought it would be that easy. That's how that works.

Yeah, basically. That was kind of how I backed into being a cop. And then when I decided I wanted to do it, it just this like overwhelming fire. took over. It was like I wanted it so bad. I could not stop thinking about it. At that point of my life, I was very afraid of rejection. I hated doing anything I wasn't going to be good at. I avoided anything I thought I would fail at. I was very insecure in a lot of ways. And I had to apply it like 11 different apartments and go through like a pretty lengthy application process, tons of written tests and physical agility tests and backgrounds and all kinds of stuff before I finally found someone that would

hire me. The day that I got hired, I just knew like I've worked so hard to get here. There's no way I'm not just going to go give everything I have to this department. And that was kind of how I ended up becoming a police officer. So were you in a city or were you a county deputy? I was a county deputy and I started off working in the jail. So I worked in like the high security jail in the county, which was kind of where all the top recruits got to go. And eventually I worked my way to getting work in the intake. That's where like they bring in the people that just got arrested and usually have like the most rebellious attitude still. Like it's kind of the hardest place to work. Once they get up to like a module or a pod. They've kind of been like indoctrinated a little bit with what they can and can't get away with. And for the most part,

they're pretty well behave. But when they're first coming in intake, you're like trying to break wild stallions all day long. So that also had like a really big impact on my personality and areas that I had to grow in ways that I had to realize like, man, I am just not strong enough to live in this environment. I'm going to have to make changes if I want to adapt to And an experience like that is really good for a young man as far as like, I think I was able to do it because of those experiences I had before with basketball and being a waiter where I knew I can adapt to an environment that you put me in. I don't have to run and hide from things that are hard and find something that's easy, which allowed me to grow even stronger in that world, which taken that kind of a mindset into the business world helps me a lot now. I think it's fantastic. I mean, everything you do, you do 100% it sounds like just in terms of your career, life, everything. Let's talk about the financial side of this. So you graduated college with, 95 grand and you get you get this job at the jail or you know as a deputy what are you thinking financially how are you thinking I'm going to grow my financial position and what is your reason behind wanting to do that we grew up not having a ton of money and I would remember seeing my mom go ask my dad for money for new shoes or to take us McDonald's and then I'd see them fight like viciously about how we

couldn't afford it and I just hated knowing that I felt like I was sending my mom to the chopping block to go on our behalf and that sick feeling of guilt that I would have like every time I asked for a toy, mom gets yelled at. And I somehow knew as a little kid, this all has to do with money. If we had money, this would not be a problem. And I just made these like agreements with myself that I will never be broke. I will never get to the point where money can cause this much pain again. So I think I had that kind of always in the back of my mind that money isn't what like, it's not all that matters, right? But not having it will bring a lot of stress and strain into your life that doesn't have to be there if you do. So I kind of understood that like money isn't evil.

It's also not the goal of life. It's a vehicle that can get you the goal of life. I didn't have any clue how to grow it. No one showed me anything. I just had this drive that I didn't want to be broke. I ended up getting my first rental property. I talked about that on the Bigger Pockets podcast episode 169. Just backed into that too.

Had a buddy who was buying a house and he ended up not able to buy it and he was going to lose his deposit. So I went and looked at it and I bought it instead and boom, I'm a landlord. But this was in like 2009 when I was, the market had just crashed. So I'm saving, I'm saving. I'm saving as I'm watching home prices go up. Like, I got to catch up with it. And then they crash. And now I have all this money that I don't have to just spend on one house. I could go buy like four of them. Right. So I'm saving money as a deputy and I had saved up all this money from working in restaurants. And I'm buying like a rental

property or two every year. Just not sure this is what I want to do, but kind of like, hey, this is cool. It works. I'm renting out. So I got a couple of questions here real quick. So what year did you start in the workforce? I started as a deputy. In 2008. So that was the year, you graduated at college a year before around. I graduated in like 2006. So there was like a year of trying to get hired and then a six-month police academy and then a little bit of a wait and then you actually go into work. Is it like the movie?

Which movie? Which one? Police Academy? Yeah, I wish it was like the movie. It was like six months of hell. So you're in the police academy and what's your financial position when you start the job and what's your savings rate as your. you know, in that position. So when I joined the academy, I moved and I rented a room from someone on Craigslist for 500 bucks a month. So I was really close to the academy. And they paid us like, I think it was like 3,200 a month or 3,300, which is not very much in the Bay Area at all.

That's like more than half of that would have went to rent for just an apartment. All of that would have gone to rent. Yeah, pretty much. It's really bad. And then I, this is, I'm not really proud of this, but like I was so thrifty that I think I used the same sandwich bag for like all six months of that academy because I didn't want to have. have to drive safe way. And buy new ones, I was like, I need to go home and study because I don't want to get yelled at the next day. So I would just buy lunch meat and bread and like a granola bar or something. And I would take it in a bag every single day. And you would only get like 22 minutes to eat your lunch and change out for the next part of the day. So you'd be like eating and changing

at the same time. So a sandwich was like all that I would have had time to eat anyways. And I was so focused on doing well in the academy that I didn't think about what do I want to go spend money on this weekend. I'm bored. What should I buy? It was literally like, that doesn't matter. I just need to do the best I can with where I am now. So I was saving money throughout the academy when everybody else was kind of dipping into their savings. Then I start working as a deputy and you get a healthy raise. We probably went up to more like $4,000 a month or something at that time, maybe up to $4,500 or so. And I just kept renting a room, but I ran it from a different cop. So I found a guy, everyone was at work saying, hey, Juan just bought a house. He bought this huge house. Juan was stupid with

money. He did not need a house that big. So I called him when they congratulate him on his house. And I'm like, hey, what are you doing with it? He's like, oh, it's just me and my wife. He actually had a wife that would like travel on cruises and work as a contortionist and like the circus on the cruise. So she'd be gone for like nine, 10 months at a time. And he just has this like five bedroom house that he just lives in himself. So do you want to make another 300 bucks a month? He said, how? I said, let me rent a room for me. He said, okay. Like 300 months a month was stupid. Like he could have got two to three times that by renting it. But he just didn't care about money, right? He didn't know how it worked. So I got to move in with him and I actually dropped my rent, got closer to work and had a

better living situation. I didn't have five people living in a house with me. It was just me and him. And I just started working overtime, right? We'd get three days off every weekend and I usually work two of them and then take one day off. And so I got close to probably increasing my income by 30 or 40 percent by working that overtime. And I just kept saving money. Now, I didn't know exactly what I was going to do with it, but I knew I wanted to do something great and I was going to need money to do that. That answered my question. How long were you working before you bought your first property? You said you started working in 08 and you bought your first property in 2009? It was like one year after I started working, which was

right about how long I needed to get a loan. I had to be one year in that profession. So I bought my first one at 09. I bought my second one in 2010. I bought one in 2011 and then a fourplex in 2012. And right around the time I bought that fourplex is when I realized, dude, this is where it's at. Like this thing's making me like a 30% return on my money. I need a lot of these. And that was actually how I learned what R.O. I even was. I didn't read bigger pockets at that time. I didn't know much about it. I just like did the calculation in my head and realized I'm going to make this money back in three years. That's got to be pretty good. And at that time is when California prices took off on me. It goes too late. You couldn't buy houses anymore. They were just

raising like 20 grand a month. It was stupid. And that ultimately led to me learning how to invest out estate because now that I had this bug, I wanted to buy real estate, but it was too expensive where I lived. I had to find another way. Okay. So let's talk about your first couple of properties. Let's just gloss over the numbers really quick. What did you buy them for? What were they renting out at? have you had any problems with these properties? Yeah. So the first one I bought, I paid $1.95 for. It rented for about $1,400.

So it's still cash flowed at that point because interest rates were really, really low. And my only problem I've ever had was that first house that I decided manage on my own. Stupid idea. It was worried about the hundred bucks I was spending on property management, not the thousands of dollars I could go make it work for working overtime and letting somebody else deal with it. The tenant took me for a run. I talked about that on the podcast 169. He was just better at being a tenant than I was a landlord. He was a professional and I was not. So he ripped me off pretty good. And then the next time I use a property manager for everything. And I paid $183,000 for the second one. That one rented for about $1,500. And then the third one I bought for $1.35. And that one rented at the time for $1,100. My fourplex I bought for $250. And then that, That one at the time that each unit rented out for 800. So I had a total $3,200 on that fourplex. Where's the fourplex that for $250,000 in the Bay Area?

Yeah. Well, that was in Mantica. So that's probably like an hour and hour and some change east of the Bay Area. And this was still like, it was very distressed. It had him in rehab. The tenants were rough. The agent who was showing me the home. She actually owned it got bit by a dog of one of the tenants while we were looking at the

house. And I went and sat with her at the hospital for a couple. couple hours as they like cleaned it out. And she sold us me for like 20 grand less than she was asking because she was so happy. I took out with her that whole time. But those rents since then Mindy have like, they've skyrocketed so much. The one that I first bought and I was renting for 14 or 1,500, that one's at 2150 now. The one that I bought for 183 and rented it for 1,500, it's at 1950. The third one I rented for like 1100. That one's up to 1650. So they cash load good at the time, but they're like extremely good now, right? What was two or three hundred bucks a month is

now like 900 bucks a month on some of them. So I've been able to refinance those, put them on 15 year notes, pay them off a lot quicker and they still cash flow really, really strong. And that's one of the cool things about being ready with having capital is like you put yourself in a position where you can enjoy that future gain instead of looking back and saying, oh, I wish that I had bought when I could. So how did you, you know, you got these properties. I mean, what an incredible story of just how you hustled, saved up the money, continued to be frugal and found opportunities and exploited them. How did you transition out of your profession as a police officer? What was that? What was the tipping point where you're like, I need to leave and go do pursue this new career? Yeah, that's a really good

question. So what I did is once I realized I wanted to be an investor at a state and I bought my first couple and I realized like, hey, I'm actually getting kind of good at this and I'm starting to get some attention for it. It was right around the same time that being a police officer changed in the country. Like the political landscape changed a lot. We went from being people that like, you know, little kids would wave at to like three year olds would flip you off because their mom and dad were teaching them. Cops hate them. So we were getting in trouble just because it was like trendy to show, hey, I got a cop in trouble. You should vote for me. Like the mayors were putting a lot of pressure on police. So the job was becoming less fun, much less rewarding. It actually started to feel like self

preservation. You're just trying to keep your job all the time. And at the same time, I'm seeing like real estate is actually a happy place. So I kind of switched around. and I started working as much as I could, like trying to set records for the most hours that anybody had ever worked, working 90 hours a week, sleeping in my car, saving every dime. I'm still renting rooms from cops at this time. So there were periods of times where I could be saving like $10,000 a month because I would just live at work beyond the clock all the time and I had like zero expenses, right? So at that rate, I could buy a house like every three or four months with the houses

I was buying in Arizona. Then Arizona got to be too expensive. So then I moved over to Florida. And that's when I learned how to burr. And when I learned how to burr, it was like what I thought was doing well, completely just supercharged exponentially increased. Right. I went from buying two to three houses a year to two or three a month if I could get the financing, right? And I got more affiliate with bigger pockets. I did the podcast. I started getting a lot of people calling me all the time and wanting advice. And my buddies would start to hit me up when they wanted to sell their

house and ask who I knew. And I realized like, I should just get my license and start helping these people. And when I did that, like a year into it, I got so busy doing that that I couldn't keep up with that job and my police job and I had to make the decision. And I just finally realized like there's not really much more I'm learning being a cop at this point. I've done everything I wanted to do. I'm not growing anymore. It's just comfortable. Being an agent is super scary, but I think that that's like the new situation I need to be in that's going to force me to grow and adapt and get better. So about a year ago is when I made that decision like, hey, I'm going to go be a real estate agent instead of being a cop and continue to use that money to buy real estate.

For me, a lot of the stuff I learned as an investor works being an agent. Like there's a synergy to how those two things work together. And so I've done really good being a real estate agent. And then the things I learned being an agent, like the business skills, work really good in my investing world. The way I've learned to talk to people, the way I've learned to incentivize people, the way I've learned to guide people. I start taking that to my property managers, my lenders, my contractors, their business goes better. I get a better result.

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I think about what you just went through here. You started with frugality. You saved everything you could and you made the best of the situation that you were in, which was as a waiter. You didn't take the highest income producing route after that and go into something else. You got a salaried a median income job as a police officer and continued, you know,

busting your butt, living frugally and giving yourself the opportunity for success. Then you began investing that systematically in things that you learned as much as you could about. And then eventually began seeing clear side streams that you could exploit alongside that. And you've just continued to do that and grow and grow and grow. And now you're a overnight success entrepreneur with tons of properties around the country. I mean, that's how you do it, right?

There's no other way. I don't think there's anything else you could have done to increase your odds of success. Or is there? You know, was there something that you messed up here? The only thing I would have done different is that I've learned a burr sooner, right? So if I'd have focused a little more on education and a little less on just pure hard work, I might have been exposed to some ideas that would have made more sense.

And then maybe connecting with people that had done this like before that liked me would have probably helped a little bit because they might have come up with some ideas. But the reality is if I would have tried to go big quickly, I probably would have. and had a foundation in place to sustain me and I would have lost a lot of it. When I hear people telling me, David, I want to do what you're doing in real estate. I want to kind of copy your shoes. I'll then ask them what are they doing right now. And very few of them are trying to crush it at the spot they're in.

In fact, most of them are unhappy where they are. And they're looking at real estate to be like their escape route. Like I want to get out of my unhappiness and I want to go into real estate. They haven't learned to control themselves. They haven't learned to control their budget. They haven't learned to control their work ethic or their emotions. And they think that they're going to walk in and they're going to control an asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that could potentially break them.

And they're going to lose. Like, you have to be already doing good in what you're doing before you try to take the next step up or that step isn't going to sustain you. And that is where I feel like bigger pockets. That's why I love like the podcast you guys are doing. That's the skills people need. I mean, yes, real estate is a vehicle to get you there, but it doesn't mean you know how to drive it just because it's been handed to you.

I love it. I completely agree with what everything you just said. The whole point of this is real estate should be something that helps you advance your financial position. When you become dependent on it exclusively for your sustenance or that's when you're at risk. That's when I think the danger occurs is when you're over leveraged and you're allowing real estate to control you versus real estate to advance your position and be a part of it. You're going to be successful regardless of this, right?

You're saving $10,000 a month. Your next property, you know, maybe you win, maybe you lose on it. You're doing everything you can to give yourself an advantage and have it advance your position. But if it does go badly, you're fine. That's one bad piece of the puzzle, right? A lot of people I feel like are doing exactly what you said. They're not in control of themselves and they're investing from a position that of financial weakness instead of strength.

Yeah, and you're going to have a bad experience if you do that. You're going to live in fear and anxiety. You're going to worry about everything. Those are the people that when you hear like the naysayers, like, oh, real estate's a scam. You're going to lose a lot of money. It's because they're doing what you're discussing, right? Even the types of properties that you buy it, I talk about it in the book, long distance, real estate investing.

If you're just starting off, go to a market with a really low barrier to entry, very low price points, high price and rent ratios where even if you screw up really bad, you're still going to end up with a strong cash filling property and kind of like learn how to swim in the shallow end. Don't just jump into the big end and try to start a syndication on your first deal and then worry why you hate your life and you're terrified all the time, right? I'm in a position now where I have enough cash flow. I could retire if I wanted, but I couldn't have the life that I want to have, right? So what happens is the security and the safety that comes from that cash flow allows me to take

bigger risks that are no longer risky, right? That risk is mitigated by the cash flow that I have coming in. And then as I play in that medium shallow or medium area of the pool and I get good at it, that will open up doors to take bigger risk. Furthermore, that I don't have to worry about losing everything because I just gave it my all on one shot. And by the way, you consider that the shallow end because you saved up $95,000 in college on a median, you know, income waiter job and we're had a huge savings rate, right? that's not the shallow end for the guy who's making the same income, but saving $400 a month, right? That's everything he's got and then some. So that's a key distinction that you kind of approach this whole thing from a position of such strength. Yes, you need to change the way you look at money. That needs to be the first thing that you do. I wrote a blog post on my website,

greenincome.com, and I talked about money is like an apple. There's people that look at an apple like a source of food that I can eat and feel good right now. And there's people that look at an apple like a source of seeds that I can take out and I can go plant, right? And if you start to look at at the seed aspect and you plant more trees that grow to produce more apples that have more trees, you get into this exponential return of money. If you look at it like it's a food that I deserve to eat and be immediately gratified, you're eating your future. It's like a horrible way to think, right? I remember one day in the restaurant when we were slow talking to my buddies who would all smoke weed and drink beer. That's what everybody did when they were like, you know, in college working in a restaurant.

And I calculated how much money they spent a year on just alcohol and weed, nothing else, okay, not even food. And for four out of the five of them, they were spending $22,000 a year, okay? As crazy as that sounds, that's how much they were spending on that stuff. Now, if you took that times the four or five years you're in college, boom, you're leaving with $80,000 to $100,000 that anyone could save with the money that we were making. So what about the guy who's not willing to do this, right? So, you know, I kind of approached my life from a similar perspective of you. it. How can I optimize on all these different fronts and give myself the strongest possible financial

foundation, right? I agree completely. But what about the person who's already got that lifestyle that wants to kind of repeat the success? What do they have to do to give themselves the good odds of doing that? So let's look at an organization that's already really successful and try to model. And that's what I think when you're saying. So what I hear you saying is, hey, I want to have the success of the New England Patriots, but I don't really like getting tackled. It hurts. I'm not willing to put my body on the line, right? That's not my thing, bro. I don't have that chain of toughness. I can't work that many hours. I like to have my leisure time, whatever. I don't want to put myself in a position of uncomfortability. You can still make it, but if you're not willing to get tackled, you're not

willing to run at practice. You're not really to put the work in. You better learn to be the best damn, like, coach that you can on that team. And you better understand that sport better than the athletes that are playing it. So you can still bring value to the owner, get hired and work in that industry, right? There are people that will be much more successful than me because they're lazy, but they have the confidence to go learn like one thing so good that they become the guy that can do that thing and they're hired to be the quarterback coach. That's all they do is they just work with quarterbacks. And they will always have a job because there's always going to be a need for like a quarterback who has the skills. He's willing to put in the work, but he doesn't know it. He doesn't

want to learn it, right? There's guys that can do that with investing. You can be the guy that's like good at raising money or get super good at analyzing deals, right? You go find someone that has a ton of money You have such a good presentation for analyzing properties and finding deals that they partner with you. And all you have to do is that part. You can't do it if you're also not willing to get really good at understanding the vehicle, right? You either have to be willing to work really hard or you have to be able to become a super sharp knife that can just slice right through this stuff. But it's going to have to be one or the other.

You can't just be a fan sitting in the stands and wondering, well, why can't I get on the team and playing the game? That's such a good analogy. I was going to say if you're not willing to get tackled and be the New England Patriots and you're going to turn into the Chicago Bears. That answered my question, by the way. What a thorough response is to these. Yes. So what I'm hearing, what I'm hearing you say, David, is that you have to do the work.

You can't just sit there and do nothing. Yeah, but there's so much different work you can do, right? Like it doesn't have to be the work you hate. I'm not a super social butterfly type. of a guy. I go very deep in the relationships I have, but I have a hard time meeting new people, right? Like, we just did the meetup the other day. I don't believe you at all. Right? I had to turn it on for like three hours of that. And when I got done, I just laid on my bed, staring at the sitting of the hotel. Like, I felt like I just worked out and I had nothing left to give. I'm the same way. Yeah. Yeah.

I can do it for a period of time, but it will drain me and I'm exhausted. And if you try to talk to me that point, I'll probably snap at you or be really short. You'd be like, David seems so nice. Now he's really rude, right? I just don't have that much to give. So what I'm I do is I pick and choose my spots in the areas where I know I'm not strong. And I only worry about the stuff for the most part, my 20% that I really love, analyzing deals, putting together like a big picture type of a look at things, building a system, identifying talent and teaching it how to help me accomplish whatever my goal is and helping it in its place, right? Everybody has something that they like about investing. You might not be good with numbers. You might not be good at analyzing

properties, but you're a great people person and you can connect people. I know lots of people that make way more money than me and they're just really good at connecting people. It kind of makes me sick. I wish I could do that sometimes, but that's not me, right? You might be incredibly shy. I have zero people skills like stare at your shoes and chew on like cardboard or something because you're weird, but you're a genius when it comes to analyzing things, right? Like you can look at a spreadsheet and feel like a fish in the water and do something that other people are intimidated by. Strengthen whatever that one skill is that you do have and then find someone a partner with that needs you and you won't mind putting in the work when you like the work, I guess is what I'm saying, right?

Some people can't work 90 hours a week like I could. They would just go crazy. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't do anything. There is something that you like doing that you could do 90 hours a week. So you do have to put in the work, but that doesn't mean it has to be something that you hate, right? Like there's so many things when it comes to business and real estate investing that there's something out there that you do like and you're good at.

Otherwise, you wouldn't be like listening to these podcasts in the first place. Such a good. Wow. I'm so glad I had you on, David. I'm so glad it was my brilliant idea to bring you on to the show. So you have mentioned Burr a couple of times. And not everybody listening is a bigger pockets member. Can you explain Burr and how you use that?

You said once you discovered Burr, you just took off. Can you explain how that works? Yeah. So Burr is a way of purchasing property. It's like the order in which you do the work. And when I combine that with long distance investing is where I started like my net worth just started growing incredibly fast. They're two underutilized ways of understanding how to invest in real estate that when you master

them, doors open for you that you didn't even know we're there. Okay. So Burr is an acronym and it stands for buy rehab, rent, refinance, and repeat. And all it is is the order in which you go through the process. First, you buy a house, then you rehab it, then you rinse it out, then you refinance, then you repeat the process. Now, that's in direct opposition to the traditional method, which is buy a house with financing up front, then fix it up, then rent it up, then rent, it out, then go to repeat it. And the difference is when you do the traditional method, you add value to the property, but your value is stuck in the property as equity. When you use the Burr method, you add value to the property, then you pull that money back out of it so that

you can reinvest it again. This is something that I'm spending a lot of time teaching on and studying and really like drilling down on how I become a master at all five of those levels of the B, R, R, R, and R. Because I know that like, that forces me to become the best investor I can. Like buy, how do I buy the best deals paying the least amount of money in the areas that have the most potential upside? The rehab. How do I get cheaper rehab for more value? How do I add values to the house through my rehab? How do I add bedrooms?

What's the cheapest way to add a bedroom or a bathroom? When do I put a roof on? When do I not put a roof on, right? The rent it out. How do I know what areas the rents are going to be increasing in over the next five years versus the ones that will be staying stagnant, etc? So by forcing yourself to master the Burr method, you will eventually force yourself to master real estate investing overall. I love it. Can you give us a quick example of a recent deal so that people can kind of grasp the concept in practical sense? Like how much money you put into a deal? You fix it up. What's it worth?

That's a great point. Right. And I could never do this in California. So I have to go to other states where this works. So the last deal I bought was a really, really good one. I bought it in an area that is like up and coming in Florida. It's kind of like where all the hipsters are moving into. Like it used to be a rough area. And now all these like 22, 23 year old hipster kids, they all want to move there. So values are increasing and there's not a lot of inventory. I bought a two bedroom, one bathroom house that is like completely tore up. Needs completely new flooring, holes in the drywall, needs a new roof.

HVAC doesn't exist. The kitchen was half remodeled and they didn't finish it. It was like a flip somebody ran out of money to buy. Okay. So I think I bought this thing for like $47,000. Horrible, right? The ARV on it as it stands right now is about 95,000. After repair value for- Yeah, sorry.

Exactly. The after repair value, what it will be worth when it's completely fixed up, right? So right away, that's a really good deal. It needs probably, I'd say, $30,000 as is to get that thing fixed up without a new roof, maybe 38 if I add the roof. But what I'm doing is it has a Florida room. So in Florida, they have these areas of the house that are not part of the square footage of the home.

They're like an enclosed patio so that you can sit outside and the bugs won't chew you up, right? The cool thing with Florida rooms is you've got a foundation laid, you've got framing put up, and you've got the roof that extends over it. It's basically just no drywall, but it just windows. And this one has electrical already run to it. And it's a big size Florida room. So what we're doing is we're taking that Florida room.

We're attaching the plumbing from the other bathroom that's very close to it, making it into a master suite. So we're creating a bedroom and a bathroom. And it's only going to be like $6,500 to do the actual addition and maybe another $5,000 for the bathroom. So for $11,500, I'm adding about 400 square feet to this house, adding a bedroom and adding a bathroom. Now, on these houses that you're buying these like 21, 1, 1,100 square feet type things,

now I'm making it a 3-2 closer to 1450 square feet. The comps that the appraisers are going to use to determine the after-market value, after repair value, just jumped up at huge because a 2-1 sells for way less than a 3-2. Nobody really wants a 2-1 anymore, right? So now instead of having an ARV of 95, I'm probably looking more about, 135. So I added, what's the difference? Like 40 grand more in value to that house by spending 11,500 to add this bedroom and this bathroom on. Okay. That's a deal that once it's fixed up and I pull my money out, I'll be all in for around, what's the math on that, 80 or 90, and it's probably going to be worth

135 on the conservative end. So I'm going to get back more money than I put into it after I go get a loan on it. The bank's going to let me borrow 75% of what the praise value is, which is my after repair value. I'm going to get back more. cash than I put in and have a place of cash flows and has basically been rebuilt from the ground up. So my CAPEX is going to be very minimal for the next 10 years. Now, that is a way better way to invest, but it takes more work. You got to be willing to do a big rehab. You can't be scared about it. You got to have the vision to see, can I add a bedroom or a bathroom. You got to have good agents they can tell you they know this area and they know that three twos would sell for this much

money. And you got to be willing to go for a four to five month period of rehab without having any income coming in, right? There's a lot of things you got to have in order to do it, but it's so worth building up to get that because like this is, I mean, who wouldn't want a rental property that you're getting paid to own the cash flows? And and you got to have the 80 to, you know, $70,000 to go in and buy the deal, which comes right back to that whole financial foundation thing, right? This is a tougher deal if you don't have that money in the first place, right? And you have to do all that work at the same time. Yes, the only reason I can buy that house for the price I'm paying for is that it won't qualify for conventional financing because it's in such bad shape.

Okay. So as a cash buyer, immediately, I eliminated 95% of my competition because only 5% of the investors out there can pay all cash, right? And I'm in Florida where 50 grand goes really far. That's a lot of money in Florida. It's nothing in Denver or in California. So I've basically found inefficiencies at every single level, and I've maximized each one of them. And then at the end, they all come rolling back to me and I get way more money back than what I put in and this cash-filling property. Now, you multiply that times two or three houses a month and consider how much money you're adding to your net worth and your cash flow every year.

You are remarkable, sir. Thanks, God. What's the name of your book again? Long distance real estate investing, how to buy rehab and manage out-of-state rental properties. And I talk in that book about these systems that we're talking about, like how you maximize them at every level. That book, by the way, is fantastic. I read it recently.

I read it and then I listened to the audible version as well. And it blew my mind. And it's something that I'm going to attempt to transition and replicate. over the next couple of years myself. Thank you, Scott. Wow. Yeah. So I just want to add before we get to the last segment of our show, which is the new

famous for, I want to add that I am so excited about real estate just every single day. And I am renewed, renewedly excited. That's not even a word. I'm going to wake it a word. I use it in a sentence. It's a word. I am renewedly excited again. I want to be like, what is this city in Florida?

Because I want to have a second house, but I can't afford San Diego. and Florida is just as warm. I want to go, I want to go do this. I want to go. And I'm excited to do this. And so, yeah, let's talk after. That's awesome. That means I did my job.

Yeah, you did. I'm like so excited again. Like re-energize. That's a better word than renewedly, whatever I used. Okay. So with that awkward transition, let's go to the segment that we call the famous for. These are questions that we ask every guest every single time. What is your favorite finance book?

Besides your head. Richest man in Babylon. Yes, yes, yes. That's mine too. I'm telling you, like, every kid should have to read that in school. So many of the world's finance problems would be fixed. And people just read this super short, easy to understand, easy to read book. It's like a magic pill.

And it's 100 years old and every single bit of it is still relevant today. It's crazy. You can, I have for like $3 on Amazon. Like, it's the cheapest book I've ever seen. I thought it was 4,000 years old. It might be 4,000 years old, but it was first published in 1920. You'll get that terrible joke after you read the book. What was your biggest money mistake?

Biggest money mistake was, oh God, that's a really good one. This is going to sound odd to a lot of people. It was thinking that being conservative was the same as being safe. And they're not. I was scared. I should have been buying houses in the downturn as fast as I could because everything I bought cash flowed and needed like zero work. I mean, it was like the best time in the history that I've ever seen to buy homes. And I didn't buy them because I talked myself into thinking I need to be able to

pay every single mortgage for six months at all the same time. If every tenant quits going in, there's no reason to be that conservative. I thought being conservative was keeping me safe. And what it did is it ended up costing me a ton of money. Realistically, like when you're saving $10,000 a month, there's no reason that you should be scared of a vacancy in a property, right, where I'm going to spend $900,000 a month if I have a vacancy. What I should have done was had more confidence in myself, bet on myself, and trusted that I would find a way as a single guy who is willing to do whatever it took to make those payments. I probably, if I would have bought four houses a year instead of one, every one of those houses has gone up by a minimum of a quarter million since I bought them.

I mean, some of them more than that, right? So you can imagine over three years buying three extra houses a year, each of them going up a quarter million, the difference that that would have made in my future. And what it taught me is that like don't confuse being conservative for like safety. It's not buying a deal, which you can convince yourself as the safest way to not lose money. It can actually cost you a ton of money if you like a what it would have made you over a period of 30 years. That's awesome. The way I look at that concept is in the debt is in terms of risk, right? And risk is not the probability of having volatility in your portfolio. It's the risky option is the one that's going to leave you definitely like far less wealthy over time.

And you took more risk by not buying more properties when you had a good thing going than you would have if you just stayed out of it in that particular scenario. And you were keeping your risk, your volatility risk manageable because of how you were living your life and running your personal finances at the same time. Yep. That's exactly right. So now moving forward, I try to ask those questions rather than saying, what could I lose by doing this? I try to say, okay, and what could I lose by not doing this? right? Like some things that grow exponentially, just getting a six-month head start can have a huge impact on your future financial situation. I love it. I love it too. Wow. Okay. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out? My best piece of advice is to stop looking at your money like an apple and start looking at it like a seed. Change the way you think about money, right? I'm a very competitive guy. Scott, you play rugby, so I'm sure you can kind of relate to it,

right? In order for me to do my best, I have to turn everything into a game. I have to find some way to keep score. That brings out my competitive juices. So what I did was I said, every dollar I make is mine to keep until I give it to somebody else. How do I limit the ways that I'm letting other people get their hands into my money? Going out to eat, going to movies, taking a girl on a date when you know that this isn't really going to turn into very much, right? Those are all things you just throw away. And if you multiply it over the next five years, it's a lot of money that you're dumping. Find a way to keep as much of your money as you possibly can and then to make as much of it as you possibly can so that when the opportunity comes, you're ready and you don't miss it.

I think everybody's biggest fear shouldn't be what if I lose money. It should be what if an opportunity comes and I can't get it because I was $5,000 short. Love it. Love it. Yeah, I didn't buy anything in 2008 because all of my money was stuck in one house. And that probably burns you alive now. I wish I had a different 2008. All right, well, here's the toughest question of the famous four. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? Oh, man, I usually try to avoid jokes at parties. I told you the toughest question.

I know. If I find myself in a situation where I got to tell a joke, like I've said something stupid and I'm trying to back my way out of it. What is my favorite joke to tell at a party? I don't really have much coming to mind right now. I usually get like asked for cop stories. So I can usually get out of it. Like, that's an easy way as a cop to get out of something.

somebody will want to know. What's your favorite cop story? That's a funny one that I can actually say on the air. Something that happened. Oh, man, I'm going to blank. Like Super troopers hazing, you know? Oh, I know. There's so many good ones, but I can't share a lot of what.

All right. So in the police academy, we had a recruit that was not really much of a physical specimen. He was kind of like a very short, dumpy, bald white guy. He looked a lot like those little, um, You know those little Ukrainian toys where there's like a doll inside of another doll? Have you seen those? Oh, like the Russian. Yeah, like the Russian.

Whatever they call those. He was shaped like one of those. And he would run. How to get the police academy? Well, they were like, it's hard to find cops right now. This is a side note. They're literally recruiting from Best Buy Geek Squad right now to find police officers because they do not want like aggressive take charge people because they're so afraid of the bad

publicity. So they're going to Best Buy and trying to get Geek Squad guys to sign up to be cops. Kind of a crazy world. But this guy, he would have this like waddle when he ran. he didn't move his arm. So he looked like a tiny little T-Rex that would just like move side to side as he ran, right? So one day we were all like lined up and he had forgot to take off his hat when he went inside the building. There's like a million things you got to learn and they're kind of teaching you to always have your brain like you're never on autopilot. So we run in the building and everyone takes up their hat. He forgets to take his off.

So he gets called out while we're all standing in attention and we're standing there for like 20 minutes, not moving, not breathing, not breathing. Can't scratch an itch. Can't like make any sudden movements. Can't scratch an itch. Can't like get your weight off your feet. nothing. And then we hear, and you better buckle that chin strap too. And like the door flies open and he comes waddling at a very fast pace right into the room. And he's wearing this like ridiculous plastic helmet like a little child's Halloween costume of like an English Bobby type of a cop, right? Like a really shiny. It didn't have a bill on it. It was just like a straight like little helmet and a little plastic chin strap that he then grabs and he's trying to buckle it as he's running. Everybody is like trying as hard as they can not to laugh. And and like you're hearing this like explosive laugh coming out of people's mouth and like they're

spitting on each other as they're trying not to laugh and then like they come in and yelled us for laughing and we're all doing pushups and as you're doing the pushup you cannot stop laughing like it was the funniest visual that you could ever imagine right and I remember doing pushups and thinking like I think my abs are going to give out before my chest because this is like the funny I can't even think about it without laughing it was just so and that's like our rallying cry for the rest of the year and you better buckle that chin strap too it was like I can't remember the Alamo. That was awesome.

I love it. That's much better than the jokes that we usually get on this show. Scott is a very big fan of the pun. A pun is a terrible thing. I can see the kind of guy that would like read a book of jokes or puns before he went to a party just because you're never going to catch him unprepared. He hopes he never has to use. But if it does come up, he's like got like four waiting that he can employ at any moment. I don't have to buckle down and.

figure that out for next time. Buckle that chin strap. Scott is very smart and Scott has a hundred just tucked in the back of his head and he makes the worst puns all the time and they're just like right on. You can't, he's very prepared. He's the Boy Scout of puns. Okay. Where can people find out more about you, David? My website is greenincome.com. It has the E at the end of green. That's where I usually post like articles that I write. All the stuff I submit on bigger pockets goes on there. that I've been on. We started doing is every time I buy a house, we're like once a month, I release a house and I say how I bought it, what I paid, how the rehab went, here's some pictures, this is my ROI, this is the plan, this is what we're doing. So the people who are

trying to get used to real estate investing, but they're scared can kind of follow along and see how my deals look and give them like a sense of confidence. I mean, you're maybe not going to hit these on your first try. But this is like the gist of how you should start processing information when looking at deals. And then I'm also on Facebook at David Green 24. That's my handle. Honestly, like bigger pockets is a really good way to get hold of me too. I love that community. I remember when I was first getting into real estate investing that bigger pockets was a source of confidence and comfort that like, hey, I'm not crazy. There's other people doing it too. And I think every time I do one of these podcasts, that's my goal is to create that with the listeners. Like, hey, man, like you should pursue

this. It's worth it. There's a way you can lose money, but there's also lots of ways that you can make money. And really, real estate can seem risky, but of any investment vehicle there is. This is probably like the safest one that you can get into. So I like to be a big part of bigger pockets. And hitting me up on their likely to get a response. Awesome. Awesome. And we will put links to all of this in the show notes for this show, which can be found at BiggerPockets.com slash Money Show 12.

So, David, thank you so much for being a guest on our show today. Thank you for sharing your money story. I think that's the mindset ideas that you have are just phenomenal. I wish I would have met you when I was a waitress. Wow, that's very nice, Minnie. Thank you. I appreciate you guys. Yeah.

This was a legendary show with every possible aspect of personal finance and showing how what you're doing, all these things right, just puts you at such good position to have great opportunity and huge success down the road. So I hope you enjoy it. Thank you, guys. Nothing I did is something that only I could do. Anybody could do the same stuff that I did. And I hope that the listeners understand that. I hope so too. Okay.

Well, shall we get out of here? All right, guys. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you so much. Bye. Have a good day. Bye.

All right. That was Mr. David Green, author of the book on long-distance real estate investing. Where is that available, Scott? That is available on biggerpockets.com slash something. We'll put it in the show notes. But here's the copy of the book. Again, I thought it was a fantastic book. It just, you know, the guy besides putting together his approach to personal finances,

once you have that financial foundation built, you know, this is definitely something to consider. and it's something that I'm going to seriously consider for myself in the future, although I have not taken action on the book quite yet. I just finished it like two weeks ago. Yes. And I just looked that up. It is biggerpockets.com slash long distance book. Ah, thank you. But yeah, I mean, this is an approach and a mindset and a person that I really admire and I think it embodies the correct way to kind of go about giving yourself super high odds of success in finance, in life, in your career, in everything. And if you are starting with, with a median income or around that, this is something that you need to kind of keep in mind

about just doing all the things that David just talked about. Yeah, I like his, one of the last things he said before he left was this isn't something that I'm the only person can do. This is absolutely repeatable. This is repeatable many times over. And I'm just so inspired after talking to him. Like I said, I am always excited about real estate. Now I'm renewedly excited about real estate.

And just from talking to David for an hour, I can't wait to go out and talk about real estate again. So on that note, Scott, shall we get out of here? Let's do it. Okay. For episode 12 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, this is Mindy Jensen over and out.