BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 296: From Farm Boy Beginnings to $15M in Real Estate Holdings with Rock Thomas

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

What does it take to truly find financial independence? Money? Deals? Mentors? Or could it be something else entirely… something intangible? In this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, we sit down with Rock Thomas, a real estate investor and agent who shows others the simple mindset shifts needed to achieve financial freedom. In other words, it’s time to work on YOUR “money blueprint.” Through Rock’s story, you’ll learn the most important skills any individual needs to achieve in any field, the best way to find and attract mentors who can teach you the path, how to change your “operating system” to one that is far more successful, and so much more. With powerful stories, humor, and insight, Rock’s story is one you won’t want to miss! In This Episode We Cover: Rock’s backstory as a worker on a farm What mentors look for into someone How he used pain to propel himself forward Saying yes to opportunities, no matter how difficult The importance of having what it takes Why you should seek out people with energy Being the guy who solves any problem The 4 money personality types The type of properties he invests in And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinar GoBundance How to Change the Way You See Yourself | Rock Thomas | Goalcast BiggerPockets Podcast 250: Grant Cardone on Multifamily Investing and Why You Should Never Buy a House! BiggerPockets Podcast 108: Building a $350 Million Real Estate Empire Using the 10X Rule with Grant Cardone BiggerPockets Podcast 226: From “D-Student” to $400,000 in Annual Rental Property Cash Flow with David Osborn Books Mentioned in this Show Nothing Down for the 2000s by Robert G. Allen Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki Why the Rich Are Getting Richer by Robert Kiyosaki E- Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman & Mark Winters Fire Round Questions Any ideas on how I get get financing for my first deal? What are some methods/strategies to lower my upfront costs for the down payment, while not getting beat up on interest rates? What should I have in my contract and what should I look for in doing a seller finance deal? Can a landlord evict a tenant for not paying all of the security deposit? What qualities define a great mentor? Tweetable Topics: “Mentors, you want to admire them and you want to be them.” (Tweet This!) “When you step in the room and you feel you’re not the smartest guy, you’re in the right room.” (Tweet This!) “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” (Tweet This!) “You can get anything you want in life as long as you are committed and creative.” (Tweet This!) “Find what pisses people off and solve it for them.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Rock Rock Thomas’ Personal Website Rock Thomas’ Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 296. So there's four money personality types. You're either a spender, a saver, an avoider, or a money monk. So we have these patterns that we learn from our parents. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online.

What's going on, everyone? This is Brandon Turner. Today's host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here in the flesh. Is that the right phrase? With my buddy David Green reporting from Hawaii. What's up, David? What is up, B? We are here in Hawaii and we're having a blast. I just closed on a property yesterday. Brandon and I had to go find a mobile notary.

so that we could sign the paperwork, which was actually surprisingly easy. Like, I'm telling you guys, once you hit a point where you get financial freedom and you can travel, it's way more fun buying real estate from Hawaii than it is from North Dakota or Wisconsin. That is so true. Yeah, we're having a good time here. We went snorkeling yesterday and saw a bunch of cool stuff and I saw some turtles, you know, whatever. It's a good time. And this show is not about us.

This show is about you and especially today's guest. Today we're talking with Rock Thomas, who is a rock star, no pun intended. He's one of like my favorite people. He's just an awesome guy. And of course, it's a garbage truck driving by right as I'm talking. We're actually recording this on the front deck of my house because it was too echoey inside because I have no furniture. But anyway, yeah, today's show. It's fantastic.

Rock, I mean, super, super successful real estate agent, super, super successful real estate investor. And while we do talk a lot about real estate investing today, the bulk of today's show is different. It's on the mindset and the kind of, Little shifts and the change in operating system that we have to go through to become financially independent. It's just fantastic. I love everything he said today. You guys are going to love this interview. And hopefully you're going to leave this thing just fired up and inspired. But before we actually get to the interview, we got a few things of housekeeping to take care of. So let's go over today's quick tip. Today's quick tip is very simple. And David Green has it. Go.

Today's quick tip is going to be pay attention to what frustrates you in life. Okay. So if something is frustrating you. That is a key that there is a tweak in your operating system that needs to happen. Frustration should not stop us. Frustration should fuel us. Every single time something's frustrating you. I mean, something's getting in the way of you and your goal. And you have to change something in yourself to overcome that obstacle, which makes you that much better. That's actually the path that weightlifters take to get stronger is they lift heavier weights. And this is the same way it works with being successful. So quit saying, oh, I'm frustrated. That didn't work. That's my excuse to quit. That'd be like saying, oh, that weight is heavy. I refuse to lift it. I'm not going to go

to the gym anymore and start saying, hey, the more that I overcome these obstacles, the stronger I will get and the better life will be. Boom, I just threw that at you on the spot. Do you like that? That was good. You did a good job, though. Yeah, that's why he's here because he's, yeah, he's quick on his feet. A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs.

That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips, and your trust slips too. And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different.

They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. Go to mind.com slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment like an investment. Here's the thing about traveling. If you buy food at the airport, a burrito, salad, bag of peanuts, you start wondering if you should have opened a savings account for snacks. So wouldn't it be great if you could actually earn money while you're traveling?

Well, you can. Airbnb has something called the co-host network. While you're away, you can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience to help take care of things, communicating with guests, preparing your space, managing reservations, everything runs smoothly while you're off making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle,

active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value in the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what rent to retirement does. They're a full service turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement to learn more. All right, let's get back to today's show. Again, today's guest is Rock Thomas. He is, like I said,

a real estate agent, a real estate investor. He is a member of Gobundance with both David and I are part of. He is the leader of a group called M1, which is a group that helps people who do not have a million dollar net worth, become a million dollar net worther. He just is like on top of, he actually had like a video go viral like a few months ago. Has like 70 million views of his story.

We'll put the link to that in the show notes. And without further ado, let's get to our discussion with Rock. All right, Rock. Thomas, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. How you doing? I'm excited to be here, man. Good, good. All right. So today, we're going to go through your story, kind of how you got into real estate. I know you got a really, really unique, cool story kind of share. So I'll just let you just jump in and start. Like, who are you? You know, how'd you get into this whole real estate thing? Walk us through the beginning of your life. I mean, like, who you are. Yeah, well, the quick story,

Brandon, is a farm boy to financially free by 40. And I grew up in an environment that created a lot of stress and a lot of strain. And my out was mentally to become a millionaire. I didn't know how I was going to do it. But I started selling hot dogs and coffees to the rich folk that came out to our farm while they were watching their kids ride. I set up a little stand and I sold this food to them. And the entrepreneurial spirit was born.

I went on to drive taxis, to wait on tables, to cut lawns and to hire my friends. And I even rented a room in a house when I was about 19 or 20. where I had to be in the house at 10 o'clock at night till 7 o'clock in the morning to take care in case there was a fire of this 88-year-old woman. And every day she would put $5 on the table and I would pick it up in the morning. And it was the first house hack that I did, believe it or not. I didn't know I was doing it, but I didn't pay rent. So I had no rent and $150 a month.

You're talking 30 years ago, which is maybe $600 today. And I went on to realize that real estate was fascinating to me. I was intimidated by it. So I still stayed in what I knew growing up as a farm boy, which was two by fours and goats and painting and carpentry until I was 28 when my father got diagnosed with cancer and I lost everything, taking care of him. I had no passive income. And I didn't know about Robert Kiyosaki's cash flow quadrants or anything like that. So I just started to work hard. And my life changed when I met my first mentor, Wayne Jordan. And I tell you something about mentors that fascinated me is I think a mentor, you have to admire them and you have to want to be them. This guy

wore beautiful back in the day, three piece suits. He drove a Mercedes 500 SL. He had a super hot wife. And I'm like, that's who I want to be. So I hung around with him and he looked at me and he says, you have the two characteristics that I see and I want to work with when I mentor somebody. Number one, you got a great work ethic. Number two, you're passionately curious. You like to learn and you listen and you apply. I bet you if I work with you, I could turn you into a great salesperson. Now, I don't know about you guys, and I know, David, you kind of went through this evolution,

is I had massive doubt. I didn't have anybody in my life tell me that they saw something in me that was beyond what I saw in myself. In fact, I had the opposite growing up where my brothers bullied me. My father told me it was never good enough. It was the first person who said, I see something in you that I didn't see myself. I remember literally looking around like, you're talking to me? Like, you believe in me?

And he says, yes. Long story short, I went from one sale in my first year, 101 sales four years later. And then he mentored me to buy the company, 94 agents. And I brought it to 274. We sold a billion dollars a year. And I bought the building that I was in. And that was one of my first tastes of major real estate, although I hadn't experienced before. If we have time, I'd love to share with you.

I think, man, you make such good points, especially about the nature of mentors and how you have to want to be that person and you have to respect them. We can all find somebody that we're like, man, I'd love to be that guy, but we don't really respect their character or their values or their work ethic. And on the other side, you can say, man, I really respect that person. But man, there's nothing about his life. I really want, right? Like, I don't want to stay a farm boy forever.

You might respect the guy in the farm. that outworks to everyone, but that doesn't mean that's a life you want, right? And a lot of people on Bigger Pockets understand they need a mentor, but they don't understand enough about how people work to approach them the right way. Like, you'll get a message from someone or Brandon Will that will say, hey, can you look over this deal for me? And then it's like a 20,000 page note that you're getting like with all the details of it and for someone you've never talked to. I think that's really important is that your mentor needs to like you too, right? You want to find someone who has the life that you want and see something of themselves in you because they're giving up a lot to want to work

with you and you want to do that when you see a piece of yourself and someone else. So that's a great point is it's not enough that they're successful and you say, oh, they're successful. I want to be them. The way they're successful, how their life looks and if you respect them is very, very important. And then you mentioned too a bit ago that you understand I had mindset problems. It wasn't until I kind of got around some of the guys in Go Abundance that Rock and I are both a member of and Brandon as well that started saying, man, you are so smart.

Why are you working as a cop? Why aren't you doing more with your real estate investing? And I did not understand that I was. To me, that was just common sense. I just worked hard and bought rental properties with it. I didn't know there was much to it. And I had all these guys that I respected a lot that had lives that I wanted, telling me, you should take another step and you should become a real estate agent and you should

become a full-time investor. And before people planted those thoughts in my mind, it just never would have occurred to me. I was like, you rock just out there. My version of like picking up two-by-fords and carrying them from one side of the farm to the other. I was working 20-hour days, sleeping in my car, thinking this is the only way you get ahead. And then my mind got open because I got around people that were a little more successful than me and had been through a little more than me. And they understood it was a mindset issue. Like David's problems are not that he won't work hard or he doesn't want it.

His problems are that his mind's in the wrong place and they kind of help pull me out of that. And I see that's exactly what you're alluding to. There's nothing more important than deciding consciously to put yourself in the VIP room, as I like to call it, is the room that is the room that the smart people are in, the wealthy people are in, the hungry people are in. You're going to be uncomfortable. When you step in a room and you feel like, you're not the smartest guy, you're in the right room. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable and watch your life open up. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think that for a lot of my, a lot of my life, I found myself like I was the guy that was, yeah, I was the hardest working in the room or I was the smartest in the room because like I, it was comfortable there, right? We like to be in that spot because it makes us feel good. It's not challenging anymore.

Well, when you push yourself, yeah, that's when you really see a lot of change. So, all right, let's move back to your real estate a little bit. You got, you started building this real estate agent business. You started, you know, working. So the mentor, he was the agent guy. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, I've had several mentors along the way, but he was the guy that taught me about business, financial statements, how to read them, how to think bigger and took me under his wing. Yeah. Okay. So when, so you had this big agency. You eventually bought it. You were doing, you said a billion dollars in sales in the whole. I mean, that's just massive. When did you start shifting some of that money into some kind of investment of some kind, like, or did you? Like,

Talk us. Walk us through that. Yeah. So I was, I was in a building where we were renting half the building for the real estate office doctors in the other half of the building. And I started to look at the numbers and I thought if I own this building, I'm going to start to build real wealth. When I was younger, I was 23. I'd borrowed $20,000 from my mom to get into the restaurant business because of course I knew so much about the restaurant business. And six months later, bankrupt, lost everything. In fact, I'd worked the last three months for free. So I had absolutely nothing, just a rickety red Toyota's Corolla. And I left there with my tail between my legs and out of desperation was offered a job in the airlines from the guy who partnered with me.

And I moved to Quebec City in Montreal, which is 100% French. And fortunately I was brought up on a farm where integrity is a big thing. And the number one thing for me to do was to pay back my mother. She was a social worker. She never made more than $20,000 a year. And she'd saved of her entire savings and loaned me the money. And I was just felt terrible inside. I mean, I was devastated. It wasn't a day I didn't wake up that I thought I got to pay mom back. I got to pay her back. Which gave, you know, pain can birth incredible passion. Pain is actually something that people cover up with pills and drugs and medication and they rob themselves of the richness of transformation. So when it gives me pain, I turn on and I go, what do I have to learn? How can I create and use this to

drive myself. So I went to Quebec City. I rented a room in a house from an old woman who was wealthy down in the basement. I got this job as a flight attendant. Now it's dated a little bit. I was making $13,500 a year as a flight attendant. Oh, rolling in it. Oh, rolling. And I started parking cars at night for a hotel to make a little extra cash. And I bought my very first real estate book. And even though when I bought it, I didn't believe the concept. I was so desperate. I felt like I didn't have a choice. And some people may remember this book as old as I am. It was called Nothing Down by Robert G. Allen. Yep. And you remember that? I do. I mean, not from when it was originally published, but I've read it. Right. You've heard of the concept,

right? So I started driving around following the instructions and I came across this for sale by owner. and it was on a terrible street. It was an ugly house and had a little rickety sign. And I thought, this is perfect for me. Yes. Nobody wants it. Maybe I'll qualify. So I had no money.

I walked in and I made them an offer of 62,500. I negotiated them all the way down from $65,000. And with a $2,000 payment from my credit card and a $60,000 approximately mortgage from the vendor, I was in the business of owning a piece of real estate, which by the way was a revenue property. There was four people in there that were physically handicapped that I had to figure out how to weigh to take care of them. Oh, wow. But again, I was so desperate. I thought, okay, I can learn how to give insulin shots. I can learn how to wash an older person. I mean, I'll do whatever it takes. So I hired somebody to take care of them during the day while I was

working at the airlines, and I did the carpentry and cut the grass, et cetera, and took care of them at night. And the numbers worked. And it was really, really great start for me. You know, one thing you mentioned in there is you originally talked about how pain has the power to transform you, but we rob ourselves of that when we just numb our pain, right? And then you refer to desperation, which could be a form of pain. It does not feel good when you feel desperate at all. But that desperation is what drove you to, I will do whatever it takes to fix this problem. And I love that because I don't think you would have gone through it if you weren't in pain. If you were just bored, I got really nothing going on, maybe I'll buy this thing. And then you see that come up. You're like, never mind. I don't want to deal with

that. Right. But when you're desperate, you're like, whatever it takes, I'll do it. Tell us like how that deal ended up for you and how your desperation paid off. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that I believe is a concept is that you can do anything you want in your life as long as you're committed and creative. As long as you come in with that mindset, it doesn't matter what the obstacle is you turn into an ant, the wall comes up. You just go in the different direction. Another wall comes up. You go in a different direction. You dig a hole.

You go up a while. It doesn't matter. So I come from that. And I came from that, fortunately, because when you're on a farm, when the pipes freeze and you can't have the pipes deliver the water to the horses in the field, you carry buckets to the field. You make it work no matter what. So I develop that resolve. And I used to sometimes say to my dad, you know, well, it doesn't work.

I can't do it. And you'd lock the door and say, get out until you figure it out. I thought, what an A, you know what. But he gave me something that most people don't have. It's called resourcefulness. The greatest gift a parent could give a child is resourcefulness. Don't do the homework for them. Ask them questions until they can get it done.

Don't do the deal for them. Ask them questions on how they can get there, come to the conclusion themselves. So there I am, I'm looking at this opportunity. And I said yes to it. So now I had to find somebody to take care of them during. the day. Well, when you're in it and you've got that situation, you become resourceful. I found somebody for $1,000 a month to take care of them during the day. I babysat them at night. The mortgage was $410 a month. The taxes and insurance was $150, which puts me at $560 plus the payment of the staff puts me at $1,500.

my revenue, 2,400. Nice. Now, what were my living expenses? Zero. Yeah. So now my third. It's like house hacking in a adult home. So adult home hacking, I guess we'll call that.

Yes, exactly. I'm writing the book on that. I'm doing it. I telling you, it's brilliant. And it gets better because I was, I was, all the food that I consume now became a tax deduction. So I parked cars at night and I had the money from my job and I was able to pay my mom back and now my confidence went up. That's us.

It was a very, very good first step for me into real estate. What I love is that just perfectly shows that you're talking about resourcefulness. Tony Robbins says you don't lack resources. You lack resourcefulness, right? Like, I've always loved that quote because like, yeah, people are always saying, I can't do it, right? That's like what's probably the biggest mind-blown thing when I read a rich dad, poor dad back in the way. He said, rich people or poor people say, I can't afford it.

Rich people ask, how can I afford it, right? that concept of I'm going to figure it out no matter what that you said committed and creative I wrote that down in here because I'm like I love that I want to get like a sign in my you know my office is committed and creative is like yeah if you got those two things you can do everything it did so many people though just give up way too easy on everything right like they don't they say like even right now people are listening to this probably going well you know that worked out great for rock but I don't want to work in an adult group home to get started I have a nice you know, house right now or a nice condo. And they're not willing to do what it takes in order to get

there, probably because they're not committed, right? Like what do you say to those people who are like, yeah, that sounds great for you, Rock, but, you know, for me, that's just not going to work. Yeah, I get that a lot. You know, Mark Twain said that there's two days that the most important days in your life is the day you're born and the day that you figure out why. And for me, I believe my belief system is something that serves me, a belief we make them all up, right? You believe that real estate is difficult or you believe that you're skinny or you're you're fat, you're smart. It's just a belief. It's an accumulation of references that either serve you or enslave you. So I choose to believe that in this life, my journey is about evolving my soul

as far as I can so that when I get to the next iteration of it, I get to be in the VIP room. And that's just a belief that serves me. So I show up in every environment trying to add value. That's how I think. How do I leave the spot of that? How do I put a smile on somebody's face? compliment them, make them feel good, serve them. And that's why Wayne Jordan mentored me because I added value to his life. When I was in the restaurant business, the reason they offered me partnership, although it didn't turn out like a lesson, is the guy that ran it had young kids. He didn't want to come in the restaurant early in the morning or late at night. So I said yes to those shifts. I said yes to everything he didn't want to do. He mentored me, taught me how to deal with

people, spoke five languages, help me learn languages, because I solved a problem for him. If you want to attract brilliant people into your life, find out what pisses them off or bothers them and solve the freaking problem for him, right? I know. Yeah, David's like mic drop. Just like right there. I love that. Find what pisses people off and solve that for them.

That is so incredibly true. Fantastic. All right. So let's go back to your real estate of libiz. You bought this first four, or was, you know, like four bedroom situation. your adult home hacking, which by the way, I actually started in a similar way. I won't go into it long, but like I worked at a group home for a mentally challenged adults and I would work overnight there. So I didn't have to live and I didn't have to have a bedroom. And so I worked like overnight

there and I worked all my way through college that way. So I rented an apartment, rented out all four bedrooms. And I just stopped at work while I was working. So I did a similar adult home hacking in a way. So yeah, you do what you got to do. Brothers from another mother. There you go. And I think the point we were talking about is how for some people that don't have what they would call is the energy, the drive or the passion that some people may look at you or me and say, well, I can't be rock. I don't have his energy. I don't want to work. I don't want to learn how to give insulin or wash an older.

I just don't want to do that. So how do you get to that? Because 80% of the population don't like their job. 77% are paycheck to paycheck. These people actually are so unhappy with their 40 hours during the week that they spend what they have left over to numb the pain of hating their life. And then they have no money to invest. So you have two ways out of that, in my opinion. Number one is you turn into Justin Bieber and you find something that you freaking love and you do it endlessly and you get lucky, you know,

or an athlete or something. But that's like for the 1% of the 1%. Sure. So for the rest of us, regular people, here's what I tell people. Whatever you're doing, cleaning toilets, scrubbing the road, whatever the job is, the position you're in is develop the passion to do it at 100%. And as you do that, you build your own muscle of integrity, self-respect. And then when the next opportunity comes along, you've now got momentum. A lot of people unfortunately say, oh, I hate my job. I'm just going to go through the motions. Then they get to the job that they really like when they're on stage.

When it really matters, they don't have the muscle. So what I do is I have the habit of paying the price of practicing in private so I can perform in public like a pro whether anybody's watching or not. And that creates a congruency that I think a lot of people never give themselves a chance at. I'm a huge, huge fan of what you're saying. I articulate it very similarly. I just tell people you need to crush it where you are before you worry about where you want to go, right? And I feel like when you do that, when you know I am the very, very best of all my colleagues at what I'm doing. you give yourself permission to take the next step.

Like your mind doesn't hold you back and say you don't deserve that because you know you do it. It kind of removes some of that blocks that we're all putting on ourselves. People are always saying, oh, you got to believe you deserve it. And that frustrates me sometimes because I can't just flip a switch and make myself believe I deserve it. But I can trick myself into believing I deserve it if I know I'm giving so much value to my boss. I'm giving so much value to these people. They're getting out of me the work of three other men at the job I'm doing. I deserve to go to the management position.

Then I deserve to go to ownership position. And then I deserve to open my own franchise, whatever it is. But you never get that if you're looking to climb the rank and file without working hard and doing well at what you're already doing. I feel like your mind will fight you and say, no, you don't deserve that. It should go to Bob. Bob works harder than you. He gets up earlier than you.

He cares more than you do so. I mean, it sounds like it's cheesy advice, but I swear it changes your life when, like, Rock, I know when you were working on that farm and you were working so hard, you knew when I get an opportunity that doesn't involve me being out here in this hot sun. lugging this stuff around, I'm going to take advantage of it. I don't want to go back to this anymore. And then when you got to that job, they probably said, this dude is just an animal.

He worked so hard. And you were like, well, my dad wouldn't let me in the house if I didn't work this hard. So this is easier. I'm in air conditioning doing it now. And he just took off from there. What I'd like to ask you is, how did you apply those principles to your next real estate deal? Like, can you talk to us and help our listeners see how this very simple concept led to huge results for you in your own portfolio?

Yeah. I think that the answers are in the questions you ask yourself. So when I was working in the airlines, I thought, what's the next step for me? How do I get further along the road? And I remember when I was 13 years old, my brother who was two years older than me, stepbrother at the time, he had this little QA 50 motorcycle and I wanted to drive it like crazy. It was just like, it was so cool. And he would taunt me.

He'd like, do you want to drive it? And I go, yes, you could come sit on it. So I sit on it, be all excited. And you go, pull the throttle, just like, boom, well, it's in neutral. feel of the feeling of that and I'd like oh that's so cool he goes do you think you can handle it and I'd be like yes and he goes okay hold on a second and then he'd shove me off of it jump on it spin literally the same in my face while I'm lying on the ground and peel off laughing ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and I was like lying literally in the grass in the dirt thinking oh my god what a you know what so then a week would go by and he'd say no no this time I'll let you do it. This time, no problem. This time, I promise. I'm like, no, no, I'm not getting sucked in. And I think you know where this story is going. Over and over and over and over again until one day I said, no more. No more. That's it. I'm done. I don't care what you say. And I took every

moment and I worked at jobs to save up money and by the time I was 14, I got my own motorcycle. It taught me to be resourceful. It taught me to use pain to propel myself forward. So when I sold that property in Quebec City, I thought, what's the next iteration? And I looked for a big property that I bought for $165,000. And it was two families that had merged. And they had six kids. So there was six bedrooms in it with the potential to convert the garage if I was creative.

Eventually, I made nine rooms. We put nine seniors in them. I lived in the basement. my mother, who was in social care, took care of the older people and cut their nails and chit-chatted with them. I hired somebody to cook the food again. And I took care of the lawn and the renovations because that's what I was good at. And voila, we had a team. And now I was making $110,000 in my day job, which I'd gotten a promotion to, to run the entire on-flight department because I showed up with a work ethic and a willingness to learn to say yes to everything.

and now I was making 40,000 there 110 in my house. And I went on to buy a townhouse and then another home. And I rented all those out, but I didn't know what I was doing. And that's when my father got sick with cancer. And I went through a divorce and liquidated everything and ended up on my mom's couch before I reinvented myself into real estate. Wow. Wow.

All right. So you basically started by almost like building a business. I mean, like technically it is real estate investing, right? Because you own the property. But it really was like a business that you owned. Can we talk about that for a minute when there's people listening to the show right now who are trying to figure out how to get financially free. And again, like we we talked about financially free by 40, right? So do you think going that route, the business route, whether it's a restaurant, whether it's, you know, a restaurant or something, you know, like a group home like that, an adult home and an older folk? Do you think that's a good way or should they just start with real estate right now and just go that way and buy rentals or flip houses or something? It goes back to how badly they want it. I was desperate. I was motivated. and I was going to become a millionaire no matter what.

So you've got to check in with your mindset and you've got to have rituals. I remember that the day I met Diego, if you remember Diego Corso, you know him. One of the reasons I mentored him was because he had a willingness to do whatever it took. We were at this event and I don't know if I could say this on the air, but we were at a spa and one guy had to whip off in one of the cars to go do a conference call. And the only way we could get the rest of us home was by putting Diego in the trunk. I've heard this is great. Yeah.

And the interesting thing was that there was no hesitation on his side. He said, yeah, no problem, whatever it takes to, you know, to be part of this group. He knew he was hanging out with millionaires and how often would he get that chance? So he said yes. So I can't decide that for people, Brandon. People have to decide what they're willing to do. Here's what I can tell you is if you're willing to do whatever it takes, you won't have to do whatever it takes. but the moment you say,

well, I don't want to work Fridays, I don't want to work with seniors, I don't do that, you're going to be a lot longer until you get to the top of the mountain. That's really good. You know, there's this common theme I get from you

is the idea of saying yes to things, right? Like, so many people out there are afraid of everything or they question everything or they just don't want to do it. Can you talk about just the power of yes? Like, why is that such an important thing? So great question. Great question.

And here's the deal. Your brain will say no to you to protect you. That's its strategy. So no, what if, careful, you know, it might not work. She might say no, blah, blah, blah. So that's a given. When you say yes to things, your brain immediately goes, but what if you do succeed all the responsibility of owning all those properties?

And then people aren't going to like you anymore. You're going to be a big wig and blah, blah, blah. So the brain will always find a way to try to keep you from the unknown, the new. When you understand that, the say yes and figure it out philosophy is to get you past the initial barbed wire protection for your safety that is two million years old, your brain. Once it says yes, and like, yes, I want to be on a podcast. Yes, I want to buy my first property. Yes, I put an offer in.

There's always ways to get out of things in life. But if you never say yes to getting in the conversation, you condition yourself to not take action. So I've conditioned myself to take action. And when you do that, opportunities come up. Your confidence grow. and you push past, what, 99% of the population never get past. They're sitting on their couch waiting for the perfect deal.

They're waiting to know how to do it without having a reason why to do it. And I know it's cliche, but it's something that you've got to learn in your core. Yeah, and the best things in life don't come with an instruction book that tells you how to do it. I mean, that's just the honest, you got truth. In fact, if you look at what does come with an instruction book, it's usually a very simple job that they can pay someone $10 an hour to do because they've already figured out all the hard parts and you just have to follow, you know, the IKEA instructions to build this couch, but that's not going to be a great couch. When you were mentioning

earlier that you built this like business and the senior care home and then the second thing you did where you were cutting the grass and everyone was playing a role in this, you said you lost it because you had to care for your father. And I know there's a lot of people that would hear this and say, see, that's why you don't want to do it because you could lose all your hard work. You could lose the asset you had. You could lose all your money. But what you didn't lose was the confidence you built doing that. That's what I love about this story is you said, I have a blueprint. I have done this twice now. I know how to do it and like, damn it, I'm going to go do it. Right. Like you, no one can take that away from you. And that's what's really important. Much more than just your

balance sheet or like your net worth at that moment is the ability to go create it and make it much bigger. If Elon Musk lost Tesla and lost Space X in a huge accident today, he could build another company that probably be even better in like a couple years. And that's what I wish people understood is that the process of what you're going through is so much more important than just what you have in that moment. Brandon and I were talking yesterday about a Jerry Seinfeld skit where he's talking about weightlifters. And he's like, I don't get what the point is of picking a weight up and then putting it right back down again. Like you should pick it up and put it on the wall and show everyone like, look, I picked up that weight and I stuck it right there for everyone to

see. Right? Because the fact is it's just doing this. Like you can pick it. You can pick up a weight and then you can put it right back down again and you can lose what you had. But the muscle that you built is what's going to stay. And that's going to make it easier to lift the next weight. And that's what I hear when you're talking right now. That was a stretch of it. It was good. We'll give it to you.

Yeah, that's what you've done, Rock, is you've built up these muscles and you're like, okay, if I lose, if it doesn't work out, I just got smarter, stronger, better, and I'm going to come back the next time and do it that much better. Yeah, I mean, we've all seen the rookie quarterback come into the league and do well for a year or two and then under pressure, you know, he just pancakes. We've seen a golfer lead for two or three rounds and then on the fourth day, he just collapses. It takes years to develop the references of what it's like to be under the gun. The journey as cliche as it is is what we want. Life is about growing, actually. It's not about creating results. Somebody wants to win the Super Bowl because everything

is going to be required. Team effort, analyzing film, staying in condition, eating the right food. That provides them with the obstacles of choice. The person who lives in average life, the obstacles are chosen for them by their boss or by life. What I try to do is say, listen, if I'm going to live a big life, my choice is to learn about investing in real estate. I'm going to study that and learn it better. I'm going to have to look at 100 deals to buy one. That's a choice of obstacle I choose because it lights me up, but I'm interested. You wouldn't be in Hawaii, Brandon, if you didn't choose to go and look at properties out there and deal with all the obstacles required. And some people are going to look at you and go, oh, poor Brandon in Hawaii,

but you paid the price and did what you were willing to do to get the vision that you created in your heart and your mind for your family to make your life better. And people should applaud that. They should celebrate that. They should look at that as an inspiration. And unfortunately, most people go, you know what? I can't be him or compare you to you and they compare your outer to their inner and they end up going, I can't do it. And it should be the exact opposite. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think there's kind of like two reactions people have when they see something somebody else has. That's awesome. Right. Some people say, you know, they're negative about it. Right. They're like, well, that person, you know, like must have cheated or lied their way there. Or yeah, maybe it worked for

them. They got lucky or, you know, oh, look at them. And other people are like, well, that's a model. If they can do it, I can do it. Actually, Grant Cardone, we had them on our show years ago, the first time he was on our show, He talked about that about how like when he sees somebody else, he's never, he's never angry at somebody, a competitor who does better because if they can do it, it means that he can do it too. And I love that mentality.

Yeah, just looking at that and saying, like, that's where I want to get to. So very cool. But yeah, yeah, I mean, definitely there is, there was a ton of hurdles in getting to that and say that. In any result, whether it's winning the Super Bowl, what have you,

there's a strategy that was employed that was the winning strategy. Buying a property and getting it for the right price and flipping it or rehabbing it, whatever, The thing that stops people is the story they tell themselves about why they can't do that strategy. I'm not rich enough. I don't have the contacts. I don't know the deal, et cetera.

The way that you change that, or one of the best ways is to put yourself in an environment with people that have overcome those circumstances mentally. If you hang around me, you are going to be working out. You are going to be having more energy. You're going to reach higher because I live my frickin' life in that. energy. It's going to happen through osmosis. If I stand beside you, I use a graphic example, and I fart, you're probably going to, through osmosis, have a new experience. Osmosis, osmosis is the transfer of energy, liquid, in any shape or form, oxygen, right,

without your defense against it. So I purposely surround myself with people that through Cosmosis are going to make my life better. Most people hang around people. And I'll give you this reference is your friends are comfortable with your present and your mentors are comfortable with your future. You want to be around mentors that go, you know what, Brandon, you could do more. The same way Wayne Jordan did it for me and that's what shifted. And the same way that through go abundance, you know, some of the people turned a police

officer into a real estate badass. And that's what you need. Yeah, that's so true. You know, I was, I was looking back on, I don't want to sound like I'm giving like this as an advertisement for go abundance. But like when I was looking at my life on like, like, what has changed in the past like two and a half, three years since being part of it. And it's not necessarily it was just, it was just being around people who were way better than me, being the dumbest guy, the poorest guy in the room, right? Being around these people like, I was looking at my life on like how much has happened the last few years. And I attribute a ton of it, if, you know, most of it, to being around that peer group, but people that are pushing me to get to the next level and saying, well,

we're here. Why don't you come up here? So whatever way you can get into a group like that, it's so important. It doesn't mean you have to be in that group or this group, but just get around people who are crushing it that are doing good things and stop being happy with the people that are, you know, that you're above. I don't want to say above like, you know, like hierarchy-wise, but that you're beyond. Like you've passed them up in terms of either your education or whether your personal

development or whatever. Yeah, get around those people. So let's give some tangible example. Like how can somebody who's listened to the show right now do that? How do they get into a group like a peer group around their area? How do they find a mentor? How do they find people that are crushing it? Well, the way I did it and the way that worked for me, I went to a Tony Robbins event.

And then I went up to Tony and I said, I want to spend time with you. And he goes, well, then cut a check for $65,000 and you can hang with me. Oh, wow. So I did. And I became a platinum partner and I worked out with him in his gym and I've been a trainer for him for 15 years. Wow. But when I met David Osborne, he was doing a talk at a conference and I went up to him and I said, you're super cool. I want to hang out with you.

And he kind of looked me up and down and went, who the heck are you? And long story short, he says, one of you in Austin, Texas. And I said in about three weeks, he said, book your flight one day early. Let's go golfing. Because David is looking for talent. He's always looking for a way to fit people into his world. And GoBundance was born. Today, you know, if you want to be part of a group, there's many, many organizations.

but I say going to events is the best way. You can certainly look online. And one of the things that happened out of Go Abundance was we just found a lot of people that had a great work ethic and were passionately curious. So we created a mastermind of helping people march to their first million. So there's lots of groups out there. It just depends on, you know, what resonates with you. And like we talked about at the beginning, I said,

it's really important that you respect the person and you admire them. And then deliver incredible value. Find out how you can solve. problems and you will find that they will then pour into you and it'll be a win-win relationship. You bring the work ethic and the curiosity and somebody will pour into you and over time, you may have a partnership and we've had a lot of that happening in GoBundance actually where we've mentored people to work with them and you guys have helped a lot of people in the group with your leadership and through your books and things like that.

I mean, at the end of the day, life is about growth. Choose which vehicles you want to overcome to grow. And real estate, to me, is the best vehicle for overcoming having to work. Yeah, I love that. All right, so let's go back to the real estate. Like, maybe can you summarize the next like, you know, after the beginning, the bankruptcy, the next 20 years, like getting to financially free by 40? Like, what did that look like in terms of real estate investing?

Did you focus on the agent business for the bulk of that? Did you also invest in real estate during that time? What are the next, you know, 20 years of your life look like? Yeah, I mean, Gary Keller wrote a great book called The One Thing. and in that it's really about zoning in and I've worked very diligently most of my life. So a lot of people hope to get lucky. I say, look, in life, if you do it as easy, life will be difficult. If you do it as difficult, life will be easy. So you might as well get the difficult out of the way. So I worked many times, you know, 60, 70, 80 hours a week. And from 1997 to 2006, I spent 10 years building

my real estate business from 94 agents to 260. I served them at the highest possible level when I was a broker in the office. I said, there's no problem that I cannot solve for you. Bring me every problem you had. And every problem for the 10 years I ran that office, I solved every single one of them. Did I have the solution? No. Did I give a crap? No, I found it. There was not one. That was my value proposition to my client. I will solve every problem you have. So guess how many people wanted to work for me. Everybody. Right? The industry has as a 30 to 35 percent attrition. When I ran the office, we were 7 percent attrition because I gave incredible value, right? And we taught them how to change their mindset. I had agents that had made $80,000 a year for 14, 15 years. I started to teach them

what allowed me to sell 101 homes. And I noticed nothing changed because I gave them the strategy. when I realized that the story they had around the strategy was what had to change. I started to change their belief systems, their habits and their rituals, expand their money blueprint about what they were worth and what their delivery to their family value proposition was. We watch people go from 80,000 to 140 to 250 and never look back. We completely and radically changed their blueprint. I was the number one office in my area forever. And then in 2006, fortunately, I had written a book and started to spend.

speaking and I started to feel because I was traveling around people suffering. So I went back home and I sold my office for $4 million in October 2006. And I was very, very fortunate. And I took that money. I moved to Florida. I went golfing 150 times a year with my son, got my handicapped on a three. And then two years later, I got back into speaking and traveling. And I bought a lot more real estate. That's when I got more into the investment piece, commercial real estate, revenue properties. Unfortunately, I thought I was so shit hot that I put a million dollars into the stock market and lost it all. So I had to pay it backwards. Yeah, real estate honestly is there's nothing better.

All right. So I want to touch on that. I want to move into the bigger stuff that you've been doing lately. But before we do, you mentioned that you change people's internal beliefs and their money blueprint, I think you said. Can we talk about that for a minute? What do you mean by that? People might be listening going, well, I'm not. That sounds lofty out.

What does that mean? Can you go through that little? Yeah, sure I can. So there's four money personality types. You're either a spender, a saver, an avoider, or a money monk. So we have these patterns that we learn from our parents. So my mother, she would go through people's garbage to get cans because she never made more than 20,000. She was a money monk.

She believed that if you worship money, you couldn't be spiritual. So that was her patterning that she downloaded to me. My father, on the other hand, made a lot of money, but he was an avoider. He didn't look at his taxes. He didn't take care of his money so that we always had the wrong strategies with money and we always lacked money. So I learned from them that, you know, money doesn't grow on trees, that you have to work hard for your money.

So you are only your programming. It doesn't make it right or wrong or good or bad. You are just garbage in, garbage out. 95% of the population are indoctrinated by. society. So you go to university or school, you're taught to get a job, get a good education, get a job, work hard and hopefully retire and blah, blah, blah. That doesn't work in today's world anymore. So what you have to do is you have to change your blueprint by being around people that think differently. And it starts with, you know, an abundance mindset because most people are in

scarcity. And it starts with changing your education. So what I do is I help people understand what are the beliefs below that they've been taught by their mom or dad? What have they witnessed or whoever raised them or their broke uncle? And then we install new beliefs like real estate is a great vehicle. When people understand that you can easily make 25 to 33% in real estate through education in a year or maybe an infinite amount using the Burr method that you guys talk about. And they understand that and you teach them that, then now their belief system starts to shift.

So I work on the unconscious belief systems to elevate their mindset so that they can think like a millionaire, which is only 3% of the population. It's an inside job. You got to change the inside before you change the outside. The invisible is much more powerful than the visible. Yeah, that's really, really good. All right. Yeah, that's fantastic. And again, I think it's almost like reminds me.

And maybe you, maybe I even got this from your book. I'm not sure. but like there's like an operating system we have almost like you know a computer has an operating system and we we have a many people have a maybe i don't call it faulty but a operating system that won't lead them to the results that they're trying to get to right so their operating system will only give them what their parents had because their parents install the operating system or their background or whatever so when we install that new operating which is hard work right so how does somebody install a new operating system in their life well i mean you You can use David as an example. The culture of a police officer is an operating system. There's an ecosystem that exists there on how hard they're going to work. My ex-wife was a police officer. And when she became a police officer, she started to get more arrests than anybody else. And she got bullied by the other police officers because they wanted to sleep at night and they wanted to take it easy. And she was making them look bad. There's an operating system wherever you are. So the

first and most important thing, if you're going to create lasting transformation, is to find a peer group, people that are living and vibrating in the level that you want. That's number one, because of the osmosis we talked about before. Number two is to examine your own programming. And that is a little bit of hard work. But when you start to dig into it, it actually can be exciting because you'll notice that joy comes from, and you guys have bought many properties. It's not the property putting the deal together. It's what it gives you and you look at your portfolio and you look at the numbers that gives you this sense of pride. And the emotional payoff is what we're after.

So the work that we get to do is actually fun once you roll up your sleeves and you commit to it. Yeah, that process of like recoding your operating system to make it work the way you want it to can become addicting. And it's so much better than anything that people think they're addicted to right now. You know, the way the thing I tell people is when you catch yourself really, really frustrated, like why isn't this working the way that I want? In psychology, we learned that the definition of frustration is interference with the desire. goal. So you have a goal, something's stopping you, you're experiencing frustration. That's like, that's basically revealing errors in your code, right? There's something wrong with the way you think, and that's why you're experiencing frustration. And then you have the opportunity to recode it or ignore it

and let the code take you in the direction that you've been going that you're already not happy with, and that's why you're in this new situation. And that's just what I wish people would kind of understand, is that the best, the highest chance of how you're living is that the operating system that you have was developed to keep you safe because you were hurt as a child, as a teen, as a youth, and you developed this system of thinking around preventing you from being hurt. It's not like, man, this would be the best way to live and let me go put that life together, it almost was as a response to something negative to happen. And do you really want that to be controlling your life?

Do you want to be living a life that's controlled by an operating system that's put together just because you got hurt? Like, it's kind of cowardly to continue living that way. So I love what you're saying. I love it. I love it. I love it. We would be so much better if we spent way more time talking about this and less time talking about how to analyze ROI because a spreadsheet can do that for you. This is different.

Can you tell us a little bit about now, Rock, like what are you working on right now? What's the new stuff you're putting together? What deals are you looking to do? What are your goals? That kind of stuff. Yeah, I want to piggyback on that too is we all go around updating our computers and our phones with a new operating system. And we're like, what, that's a iPhone 7. You didn't get the 10 yet? What's the matter with you, dude? Are you broke? Right? Yeah, people are like, well, I finished college. I got a PhD. I don't need to learn anything else. It's ridiculous, right? The best thing you can do is to pour into your brain with new ideas and to remain passionately curious. But for me, the things I'm working on now, my son is 26 years old. He runs,

he works in my real estate office and the deals we're looking on a lot are purchasing properties that have the possibility of either knocking them down or adding square footage to them. So we'll buy a 2,000 square foot property that some old lady happens to own with a parking lot in the backyard and we can apply for a permit. We can now add 5,000 square feet and take it from a million dollar we buy it for and sell it for $5 million in a year and a half. So those are the projects that we're looking at. I'm really just the capital behind it because my passion is around the mindset piece, you know, with my mastermind groups and helping people change their mindset from struggling to that of a millionaire internally. So that's where I spend all my time.

Okay. Yeah. So and that makes sense, right? You have somebody in your team who's the one responsible for like doing the bolts and the nuts and bolts and like putting things together. You're kind of driving the, I don't know, I don't know if you call it the spiritual or like the emotional side of things like making sure everyone's on track. But I'm curious like when you talk about these property. Like, are you mostly, I mean, these office buildings or these multi-family like residential? Like, overall, like, what do you like to focus on? Or what do you like to buy? So we have one building actually that we're building micro units because that seems to be a bit of a new wave here in Montreal where you have units that are literally somebody is buying

180 square feet. And we're selling it for like 99,000. So that the kid who wants to finally leave home, who had a, you know, a tough home environment, but he wants to own something. he can now actually afford it. So we have a building that we're redoing there in an area that's up and coming. But a lot of it is student housing areas. Okay. So we'll buy places that could be turned into student housing. I don't mind commercial real estate either.

So I have a few commercial properties. So I'm into that. But anything where the numbers work and I do hard money loans as well. So at my stage, I don't want to be out in the field looking for the deals. But I have enough experience that when I look at them, I know what to look for and it can go, yes, I'll put the money into it and I'll build up some equity. I was doing an event in Regina, Canada, and they had me on a shark tank panel. And I bought a nine unit building on stage and partnered with, yeah, I was doing it as a joke.

I was like, let me be a little bit of a spirited character on here and go hard on them. No, I'll never do it for that. They'll never do it for that. You want to give me 25% equity? I want 50% and eight points. And I'll do the deal. and they go, okay. Okay.

I'm like, oh shit. I'm in. That's awesome. So we went an hour later. We looked at the deal and we're halfway through it and looks like we bought it for 855, put 110 into it. And it looks like we're getting an offer for around 1.3. So I put in 400,000, probably make close to 40 or 50% of my money back in about

six or seven months. So I'm okay with that. Yeah, that's not a bad thing. So are you buying mostly in Canada? or do you guys do the U.S. stuff as well? Because don't you live, or unless you're down in Phoenix right now, right? I'm down in Phoenix.

I have a place in Santa Monica in L.A. in a place in Montreal. Okay. I just actually bought a property in Montreal last year, and it was very, very lucky because the agent that sold it to me knocked on my door, I paid a million $35 for it. Then I came across a buddy of mine in my M1 group that teaches how to Airbnb.

I took his class last year. I started Airbnbing my place for 300, hundred bucks a night before I took his class and realized when you do a market analysis, duh, and I got up to $1,000 a night. I earned over, that was a 5,700 square foot place up near a ski resort. And I ended up making in the 13 months I owned it. I generated $156,000 of revenue. Wow.

Netted 100 and I think 121 while living there during the times that it wasn't rented for free. and I just sold it for 1.29. The agent knocked on my door and says, I have an artist that wants to buy it. And I'm like, it's not for sale. And she goes, I'm going to make you a crazy offer. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, people say that. But God's being on my side lately.

And so I've made a quarter of a million dollars there. And life has been pretty good. I mean, if you just keep on getting in the game, eventually you're going to hit a home run. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. Yeah. I mean, like eventually they don't always home runs.

They're not always home runs. We talk about like our awesome deals. But the truth is like, when you're in the game, you eventually do hit him. Just like you said, like if you're always, you know, swing in, you know, sometimes there's a base hit. Sometimes it's a go home run. But you're not going to get anything. I can tell you about my jerkeys.

Yeah. I'll tell you about my jerkeys. Trust America plenty. Well, I want to actually shift here and head over the next segment of the show, which we lovingly refer to as our deal deep dive. Wouldn't it be great if your houseplants paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist like a bun. a bunch of leafy loafers.

But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods,

you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations.

So everything runs smoothly. It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host.

People love to call real estate passive income, which is interesting because most of the investors I know are very busy. Busy finding deals, busy managing teams, busy worrying they pick the wrong market. Rent to retirement flips that model. They help investors buy turnkey new construction homes, often 10% below more. market value in top rental markets across the country. Their local teams handle the build, the property management, and the details, so you don't have to. In some cases, investors even receive 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, and there are interest rates as low as

3.75%. They've been trusted partners with BiggerPockets for over a decade, and if you want to learn more, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement. Wouldn't it be great if your houseplants paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist like a bunch of leafy loafers. But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts

are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations. So everything runs smoothly. It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. All right, with that, let's get to the deep dive. All right. So these are seven questions we're just going to ask you. They're just like quick fire, you know, fire answer, fire answer. Number one, you have a deal in mind, right? I was sure.

forget that. Yes. All right. How did you find this real estate? Actually, I should add another question here. What is the real estate deal? Like, what was it? So it was a commercial building 1100 square feet that I was renting. Renting in. Oh, you were renting in the deal. Okay. Like in the property and then, okay. I was a tenant in the property. Perfect. All right. So how did you find it? So I just kept on paying rent to the landlord and thinking to myself, it would be really nice to be paying myself and developed a relationship with the landlord and found out that he wanted to move back to the Middle East. And I just said to him, whenever you're ready to sell, you know, give me a shout. I don't think I have the money, but I'll find a way. And about 18 months after I started that first conversation, one day when I hand him the rent check,

he goes, you know, I think I'm ready. So it's just ask, ask, ask, ask, and keep on asking. Okay. And how much did he want to sell it to you for? So he was asking 895 at the time. And I had just, it was 1999 that I bought it. It was 1997 that I started the real estate company. I was still paying the balance of sale in the real estate company. I was just kind of making things work. And I had very, very little cash.

So we worked it down to $781,000. I put $150,000 down. And the rest of it, believe it or not, again, was owner finance. at the time the interest rates for somewhere around 11 or 12%. Don't ask me how. He felt sorry for me or something. I got vendor financing at 5%. Wow, that's awesome.

That is amazing. I mean, I've heard, like, you can maybe do that today when rates are down to 4 and 5%, maybe, but back when they were up that high, especially, even today, though, that's really, really hard to find. That's super cool. All right, so was there any, looking back, was there any negotiation, like I ask, like, the question is, how do you negotiate it? So was there anything that you did there that got him for?

from 895 to 781, that's a, you know, a big drop. Yeah, got down on my knees and begged. The best negotiating strategy ever. I mean, here's the deal is that every once in a while, again, if you're going to do enough real estate and you create a relationship with people, there's some people that eventually they want the legacy to continue. And he really wanted to see me succeed. I was hungry.

I was enthusiastic. I paid my rent on time. When I bought the real estate business that was in that business, I prepaid my real estate bill as an agent six months in advance. And I had this habit of treating people responsibly. And somewhere along the line, I think karma, whatever you want, eventually people are like, you know what, this is a good kid. I want to help them out.

So I wish I could tell you there was a better strategy in that particular case. But in this case, I think it was just one of those things where he's like, you know what, I'm going to help anybody. I'm going to help this kid. and I was just consider myself fortunate. That is such a good tip. Like I wish more people like realized like, and I say this a lot, but like realize that when you're young and new to real estate and ambitious, like that is a skill.

Like that is a strength because you can attract people, mentors and other investors who want to help you out. Like your age is not a bad thing. It's not a liability. It's a huge asset to you. But only if you're enthusiastic and you want to learn and you have proven yourself kind of going full circle on today's show. You've proven that you are willing to work hard and hustle and do what it takes to get things done.

Like, I love helping out people when I feel like, it sounds like worthy, but like when they like, like I know they deserve it because they've been working so dang hard. I want to help them out. Even if it means me losing money, I want to help them out because I just love to see young people getting started. So super cool. All right. So what did you do with the property? I mean, you rent it.

I'm assuming you just continue renting inside of it. I still own it today. I'm very, very proud to say that. About four or five years after I owned it, I was able to go to the bank and remortgage it and get a traditional mortgage and get an additional $600,000 and bought another property with it. About four or five years after that, I got another $600,000, bought another property with it.

And recently I just took out $900,000 and bought a few properties with it. That's awesome. I have $1.8 million on it right now. I literally just renewed about last week. week. It's worth between 3.5 and 4 million. And I make about $10,000 to $15,000 cash per month plus the pay down. So maybe close to $20,000 a month. And that was all with the original $150,000 investment. So if you do the math on that, it's limitless returns. I bought other properties. It's been an ATM for me. It's a place of pride and joy. And I have an office that's still

in it's now not remax. It's Keller Williams. I have a chiropractor. a bunch of different people that rent space and a gym and all kinds of cool stuff. So one of the greatest investments I've done. Yeah, I have an analogy for you, if you don't mind. We're going to get a button. Like somebody told us the other day, an analogy button. What, what you did was you bought this tree that grew much bigger than it was when you bought it.

And now these birds are paying you rent to come sit on your branches. And it's dropping off fruit that you're like able to eat, right? And then every once in a while, you cut off a couple branches and sell them. for firewood. That's like when you refinance it and you go buy a bunch of new trees and then the branches grow back again. Because as time, real estate becomes worth more. Like that one move rock could be a life-changing thing for almost everyone who's listening to this. And when you put several of those together, you start to realize that I don't really have to be very smart to make real estate where I just have to be like dedicated and persistent because I'm sure when you did this, you knew that could happen,

but you were not believing that was going to happen, right? You were probably worried about I had to find $150,000 for a down payment. You probably borrowed that from someone or did something that you were scared. Like, well, what if something goes wrong, right? Yes. And now you never even remember that that's what you went through. You're like, oh, do I want to pull $900,000 out and turn that into another $12,000 and passive income from a property that's going to grow bigger?

And I'm going to go refinance that one. I mean, that's why I love this story so much. So I hope I didn't just steal your shine because my next question is, what lessons did you learn? And I kind of just talked about that for the last five minutes. You pretty much stole them all. Dang, that's perfect. And in a perfect analogy, I don't think I need to add anything to that other than the sense

that I've told my children that, you know, this is one property that our family should never sell. You just keep on keeping it in the family called old money and called giving yourself the opportunity to live like a rock star and you don't need to. What I love about your point, I'll just highlight it is you don't really have to be that smart. And it was scary as hell when it happened. That 150 was the hardest 150 to come up within my life.

I had three kids under the age of four. I scraped. I borrowed. I scrimped. I was scared out of my pants. Every day I woke up. It was like, what if I fail? What if it goes south?

What if I can't make the payments? I'm going to lose everything. I'm going to be the biggest loser in the world. My wife is going to leave me. My kids are going to abandon. I mean, it was all of that and more. But if you've read the millionaire next door, it says that every millionaire has taken virtually a calculated risk.

and you've got to take those calculated risks. You've got to have some faith in yourself and then go for it. And you will figure it up. So yeah, it was awesome. That's so good. All right. Well, that was fantastic. I love hearing stories like that.

But we're not quite done yet. Next segment of the show we're moving on to is going to be the world famous fire round. It's time for the fire round. All right. Let's get to it. These are the fire on questions. These come direct out of the Bigger Pockets forums. we're going to fire them at you and you're going to fire us an answer right back.

Sound good? All right. All right. Number one, hey, friends, I'm 22 years old. I'm from San Antonio. I want to start investing, but I don't really have a lot going on for me right now. Any ideas how to get financing for my first deal? I want to start soon.

Yeah. Find somebody that's experienced and solve a problem for them and then partner with them on the deal that you find and take 50% of something instead of trying to get 100% of everything and learn. to earn. Learn to earn. I like it a lot. All right. Question number two. What qualities define a great mentor? How do you know if you have a great mentor or if you should keep searching for one? So somebody that walks their talk, somebody that's congruent and consistent and that you admire and respect. Somebody that when you look at them, you go, I would like to be that person. And when you

communicate with them, they ask you good questions. One other thing that always amazes me, I mentor people, or I go playing off with somebody that is learning, and then they don't take that time to ask me a thousand questions. When I coach people, I charge $1,500 an hour. If you're going to spend 45 minutes with me, you should be asking me all the questions. You should not be talking if you're not as far down the road as me. And when I'm sitting around Robert Hergefeck or, you know, Robert Kiyosaki, I'm the one that's not speaking. I'm asking the questions. So if your mentor is talking all the time and not asking you questions, then probably is not a great mentor. You should be asking the questions and they will answer, but they'll probably

ask you questions too to see, are you a good student? All right, good one. All right. Next one. I've got a few good real estate deals in front of me, but I'm always nervous to pull the trigger. And I've been doing this for years. How do I finally get over that fear and do it? The words that follow I am, follow you. How are you defining yourself? Are you saying I'm a badass investor or are you saying that I'm always nervous? I'm afraid. What if this one fails? Change your language, your internal dialogue, say, look back on your past success and say, I've had massive success. This next one, I'm going to win or learn. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait to get into it. And again, surround yourself with people. They're going to

echo that for you. All righty. Last question. You want to take it? No, you go ahead. I've got literally no time to invest, to learn nothing. I've got kids. I've got a full-time job. I've got a full-time life. How do I make time? So everybody has 24 hours in a day. Saying you have no time is a mindset. So I don't believe in no time. If you're saying that you haven't learned how to prioritize. There's a thing called net time, no extra time. Look at the time you're spending in your car, waiting in line, brushing your teeth. I will listen to audiobooks, podcasts, et cetera, in my net time, which accelerates it. And that's where you're going to start to maximize your time. It's a mindset. Find a way to leverage things you shouldn't be doing. If you're worth $30 an hour or $40 an hour,

why are you cutting your lawn when you could pay somebody $10 an hour? So find a way to get somebody to do the things you shouldn't be doing and move from a scarcity mindset to more of an abundance mindset. I have a do not do list. There's things I no longer do that I shouldn't be doing that my old me that got me there wants me to do still because I think smaller. But today I have a chef. I have somebody that gases my car, fills my car up. I couldn't always do that. But now that's not the best use of my time.

So everybody has that Y in the road where whether it's $8, $10, $15, leverage it out to somebody else and step into your dollar productive activities. Yesterday I went to Target and I bought two chairs like bar stools, right? And of course, on the rack, it's like this nice chair, right? But then I get it and it's a box. That's like a shoe box, right? And there's 100 little parts in it. So I'm sitting on the floor for like, I don't know, an hour and a half.

And the entire time David here, I don't know if you guys noticed, David's in the same place as me, he's sitting there watching me put together his chair and he just is mocking me for a good 90 minutes while I'm putting together this chair. And he reminds me that my time is worth, you know, I don't know, let's call it $1,000 an hour. So that chair cost me $1,500 to put together. You know, and I'm like, yeah, well, maybe a Fred could come and help me put it together when we get done faster. And he said he's not going to enable me. Yeah. I love Brandon too much to enable him and this horrible behavior of putting together Arizona chairs when we talk about leverage all the time, Rock.

And I just love what you said. And in my opinion, this doesn't do it, Brandon, but most people, the reason they don't leverage things off is it puts pressure on you to now go make something out of that time you would have been gassing your car. And you don't want to bet on yourself. You're afraid of the expectations and pressure that it creates. If I leverage this off of me, well, now I got to go perform and I don't really believe I can do it.

So we say it's about, oh, I don't need to do that or whatever the case may be. that the reality is we don't want the spotlight on us. We don't want to be in game seven of the playoffs where everybody's relying on us. And so we play smaller. And I do that too. It's not like I'm immune to this type of a thing. There's a lot of things I do. I shouldn't do.

And you made a great point, Rock, that it's what the person who got you here thinks that way. And it's hard to let that person go and trust that the person's going to take you where you're going things differently. But I at least like to be honest with myself when I'm doing it and say, you know what I'm playing a coward right now. I don't want to leverage off this part of my real estate business. because then I got to go lead generate and find more leads.

And what if I can't do that? Then I'm going to look like a failure in front of everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Number one is that it's sometimes nice just to tinker around and put a chair together and be with yourself and have your own little thoughts. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's when it consumes too much of your space.

It's consuming 30% of your space because let's face it. You're going to go lead generate. There's a risk that you get rejected. That somebody tells you something you don't want to hear where that chair isn't going to reject you. The antidote to that, in my opinion, is massive vision of what your life is about. When you keep on going back, I would dare. I remember once an interview on Tom Brady and they go, hey, Tom, do you want a beer?

And he goes, no, I'm training. He goes, it's March, dude. You don't start training for four months. He goes, no, I'm in training. He has a vision for what his freaking life is about. And it doesn't make it difficult for him to decide what he's going. going to do. Lack of a vision creates doubt. You're like, should I do the chair? Should I not? So if it's part of that five or 10 percent where you have your time with yourself and you're just

kind of downloading and you're, you know, putting it around, I mean, I used to like to cut the lawn. I took my shirt off. I got a tin. I enjoyed it. But as my properties got bigger and bigger, I enjoyed it less. Yeah. So it shifts, you know. Yeah, that's so true. Very true. Yeah, I had a buddy when we you were growing up. I think I've told this on the podcast before, but I'll say it again, who his parents owned a plumbing company. They made good money. And my buddy once admitted to me that his parents hired a house cleaner. And I just thought that was like the most pompous like, you can't clean your own house like freaking rich people. Like can't even clean their own house. Like, you know, and I realize now like just what an idiot I was. I'm like, the reason they

owned a multimillion dollar plumbing business is because they didn't clean their own house. because they were out there making money as owning the largest plumbing business in town. Yeah, and I'll take it one step further and say your friend is actually helping somebody else put food on the table for their family by being a house cleaner, right? And maybe that house cleaner gets good at cleaning houses

and gets a lot of houses and they can start a business and they can employ more people. This whole concept of leveraging things off does not make you selfish or pompous. It actually means that you're contributing to more people's lives. And that's something that when you grasp that,

the bigger I get, the better I do, the more opportunity I bring to more people, people and I can help their lives better through letting them help themselves, the more you start to realize it's not just you and your fears that you're struggling with. It's like all the future people who will never get where they were going to get if you didn't give them the like that tree that you built allows these other birds to come nest there, right? And now they can have babies and those other birds can go and do things. And you're giving opportunity to people that wouldn't have been there if you wouldn't have taken that risk. And so that's one of the things I remind myself when

I start to struggle with these same things is it's not just me I'm letting down. It's everyone who wouldn't have done it if David wouldn't have taken the first step. and create the world for them to live in. Yeah, and it's an ecosystem, right? The birds poop and the grass grows and then shade for people. And it's all this system that happens. And that's why I think that if you're going to really be successful, you want to spend a 30-year time with people that are smarter, faster,

ahead of you, a 30-year time with people that you're running with because you're like, yo, bro, what's up? Yeah, you know, we've got two miles to go. Let's go. And a 30-year time mentoring other people. A lot of people say, well, why should I help somebody else? And I give you a couple of points I think that are important. Number one is it's an amazing feeling when you see somebody light up with the lessons that you learned.

Warren Buffett said that you've got to learn from your mistakes. But if you can learn from other people's mistakes, you accelerate success. And people don't realize that you can tap into the oldest principle, which is mentorship. And the other thing is that when you teach what happens, you remember the lessons. You groove them in. You have moments of going, yeah, I am a badass. It's true. I forgot how badass I am.

Because the person's like, if they're really, they're like, really? You could get 100% return. And you're like, yeah, my wife doesn't tell me that every week, but it's nice to hear it from you, kid. So there's so many benefits. If you choose to lead an epic life and you choose to give back and grab everything you possibly can. The obstacles now are just merely toys and opportunities for you to sculpt your soul and to give back and contribute. And this journey can become so fascinating if we're willing to be vulnerable and open and just really put yourself out there. Yeah, that's so good. Rock,

I love that. All right, well, before we get out of here, we got a last segment of the show, which we lovingly call our famous four. Famous for question number one. What is your favorite real estate specific, like real estate related book. You know, I'm not going to have anything sexy for people here. I think Robert Kiyosaki's cash flow quadrants. I'm a big believer in fundamentals. And it's something that if you really date into it. I got to stage with Robert about a month a half ago and he wrote a new book called Why the Rich are Getting Richer. That might be a good follow up if you haven't read that. And combining those too, I'm like, you know, I knew the concepts, but you got to refresh yourself and go into them and really become that professional investor, not just an investor,

a professional investor understands cash flow, financial statements, bad debt, structuring companies, taxes. So I'd say for people, it's not the book that you read, the next book you read, it's the book you reread that gets you deeper into the content and gets you the mastery. That's really good. Okay. How about your favorite business book? You know, as I've built my companies, I had to realize that I'm not a really good manager.

I did it because I had to. And if you look at the E-Mith or Tony Robbins concept, it talks about the different personalities, the artist, the manager-leader, and the entrepreneur. And I'm an entrepreneur. I start things, but I don't like to finish them. So I need to surround myself with people that are the manager-leader type that can recruit and hold people accountable and guide the path and find all the, artists that are going to do the work. So the e-myth is a really good one for that and rocket fuel is a

really good one for that because I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is they're really good at selling real estate, but they're not good at hiring training and running a team. And then they try to do that and they get really frustrated. Know who you are, what the elements are and then surround yourself with the missing pieces and you can build an empire. Wow, that was really good. That might be like the best answer I've ever heard to that question. Okay. What are some of your hobbies? So everything that has to do with movement, I believe that the first hour of your day creates two things. It enhances your body and it enhances your mind. So this morning, I meditated, I worked out, I swam after this call. I'm going to go play golf or ride my bike. I try to move

my body four hours a day. It could be volleyball. It could be kayaking. It could be just about anything. And hopefully a lot of sex is involved in that. So that's a big hobby of mine. Nobody has ever said that in 300 episodes. I love that. All right. Number four. That's the best. All right.

Number four. What sets apart. And by the way, for those people who are not watching the YouTube version, yeah, our video here and you're listening to the audio. Yeah, Rocky is like one of the most in-shaped people I've ever met.

That's why we call them Rock. That's why we call them Rock. That is your official real name though, right, Rock? No, it isn't. I actually changed my name from Arvin to Rock because those people had difficulty. hearing that. And when I learned that the strongest force in human nature is the desire to remain consistent with how you describe yourself, I decided to change my name so that when I said it and other people heard it, it resonated and made me feel good. Oh, that's awesome. I didn't

know that. I learned something new about you today. A lot of things new about you actually. All right, the last question. The final thing I want to learn from you. What do you believe, final question from me, David's got more. What do you believe separates successful people, investors, or even we can go agents or whatever, just people from those who give up, from those who fail and from those who never get started. Yeah, I would say two things. Number one is that they don't believe in themselves. In other words, they're not able to take the initial step. They quit before they start. And the whole say yes and figure out later is the antidote to that is to build that muscle. And the second piece is that they're unable to reframe themselves when the shit hits the fan.

So they get disappointed. They do an investment that they lose $20,000 on and they mope on it. They look at it and they grind on that. I have this philosophy that there's no winning and losing. There's winning and learning. When I lost all my hair to alipatia when I was 40 years old, I went into panic thinking I was dying at cancer and I was asking this question, why me feeling started for myself? I couldn't focus on my work and I was terrified.

I couldn't function. And then I remembered that focus creates meaning. And I started to ask myself a better question. Well, what could this mean? I started to research it and found out that alipatia is just an autoimmune disease that affects only your hair follicles. And then I started to ask a better question. What's great about this? Well, I'll never have a bad hair day again in my life.

I don't have to spend money on shampoo. My Greek friend has hair removed. That's very painful and costly. I'll never have that problem. So the ability to reframe and not be the victim, you know, my brother who story of the motorcycle, I use that today to drive me and I'm incredibly grateful. My father locking me out of my house.

I've gone through the work. I've done the work to go from hating him and feeling completely unloved to going, okay forgiving him. And now incredible gratitude. Gratitude that he gave me resources. He loved me enough to teach me to be strong at a very young age. So the biggest reason people fail is they look at their problems as problems instead of looking at them as opportunities to develop their soul and learn how to learn or win. Change your mindset on your problems. Look at them and go, what's the lesson? How grateful can I be. It makes me stronger for the next time I lose $20,000 or do something stupid. I'll be that

much better prepared. That's really good too. So I'm sure there's a lot of people who are saying, I want to find out more about this rock guy. I know you're involved with a group like M1 and you've written some books. Can you tell us where people can find out more about you and then maybe touch a little bit on these groups that you lead and how people can get around you more if that's what they want. Sure. I've written a few books. I'm happy if people want to go to my website, rockthomas.com. You can get a free copy of my book. I just trying to get information out there on people's identity. The words that follow I am, follow you. It's a big concept. They can go to go m1.com if they want to learn more about getting into an ecosystem or a mastermind group where we

help people become millionaires. Very, very passionate about that. I think there's way too many people out there suffering, doing stuff they hate, not having access. We say that access creates acceleration. So we give people not just the content, but the network to work with. I'm on Instagram. I'm all over the place. I had a goalcast video come out that was seen by 70 million people. Yeah, that was nuts. That was awesome. So my message is really about your programming is generally messed up, but you have a choice to upgrade that phone. You also have a choice to upgrade your programming. And if a farm boy from Canada became financially free, today I have 36 streams of income. I make more in a month that I did in some of the best years in real estate in a year.

And most of it's passively. I just want to pass that on to people and give them the opportunity to grab life big. And the only things is you got to have a work ethic and a willingness to learn. And you can enter our ecosystem and we'll take you to the next level. Man, I love it. All right, Rockwood, this is fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today. And I will see you around. Look forward to, you know, hanging out with you. I think it's theme boat this year, this coming in, what, January. Yes. So at the Go Abundance event. So we'll see you there. We'll see you there, man. It's been an honor and a privilege, guys. Thanks for creating something great that's changed a lot of lives. Thank you very much, Rock. This is David Green for Brandon I Fix Chairs Turner. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing with

out all the height. You're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value in the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job. That's exactly what rent to retirement does. They're a full service, turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 to 75% of our down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade,

helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement to learn more.