BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 421: Family Over Everything: How Life Forced BP Founder Joshua Dorkin to Reevaluate His Choices

Episode Date: November 29, 2020

Many avid members of the BiggerPockets forum, listeners to the podcast, or readers of our articles may know our founder, Joshua Dorkin. What you may not know is Joshua’s journey in founding, building, scaling, and finally leaving BiggerPockets. It was a hard decision for Joshua to leave, but thanks to his amazing team, he was able to (even during a time of tribulation in his personal life). You’ll hear how Joshua was cranking out 100 hour weeks, working 7 straight days, for the first 6 years of BiggerPocket’s existence. He later transitioned to building a team, starting with the BiggerPocket Podcast’s very own host, Brandon Turner. This later snowballed into more hirings, with the BiggerPockets growing faster and faster, and being able to scale larger and larger. Just at the time when things were starting to go from big to bigger, Joshua had to take time off to take care of his daughter’s medical emergency. This caused a shift in Joshua’s reality, so he dropped everything. This keynote speech goes deep into what really matters most. It’s not money, it’s not success, but it’s something that matters even more: fulfillment and family. Check out the video on our Youtube channel, and be sure to give Joshua a follow on Twitter at @jrdorkin. In This Episode We Cover: The history of BiggerPockets and how it grew to what it is today Why “knowing everything” usually means knowing nothing The importance of hiring smart, capable people How to listen to your body and mind, to find out what you need most Why you shouldn’t work 6 years straight with no time off Why you need to do the “Big Scary Thing” How life forces you to account for what matters most Why Joshua Dorkin has 3 dads And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets book store Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show421 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a special edition of the Bigger Pockets podcast show 421. You have your own path. You have your own path. You have your own path. We all have our own paths. And we have to figure out how that path is going to work. And there's not any single person that is out there that's going to tell you this is what you have to do. You have to figure that out for yourself. 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 is Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with a very special show because we are bringing back someone that you probably have no idea who it is if you haven't been listening to the show in the last year. Welcome back to the Seashed, Mr. Josh Dorkin. Thanks for having me, man.

Yeah, and of course, David Green's still here as well. What's up, Dave? Hey, guys, thanks for remembering me. I mean, this just, it doesn't feel right, man. Dave, you're talking about my lack of relevance, Brandon, is. Yeah, making fun of nobody knows you. Wow, it's just, it's awful. Yeah, it's been a few years.

So, for those who are brand new to the show, let me give a quick rundown. So Josh Dorkin started bigger pockets back in like, I don't know, 1912. And he built it in his basement for like 40, years before he finally wised up and decided to hire somebody smart and good looking and talented. And then I fired them. And then he hired that guy. Then he hired me. And so early on, I came on at Bigger Pockets. Josh and I, one of the first things we did is we launched a little show called the Bigger Pockets podcast, which, do you remember our goal was like within the first year? We want to be in the top. I said, I want to be in the top 100 of all business podcasts within the first year.

and it took like 12 seconds. And it was pretty fast. It's been a ride since then. Anyway, thanks for starting BP. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's been fun. And I'm excited to be back.

Last show we did was Jesse Itzler. I think January of last year. Yeah, that's been a while. Was it last year or two years ago? I don't know. It's been a while. I think two years ago, actually. It's been a minute.

I think so, yeah, because I don't think you've been on since BPCon last year. Oh, that's right. Speaking of BPCon last year. Yes. Today is actually episode. We are going to be revisiting. visiting Josh's speech from last year BPCon in a little bit. First, we're going to chat with Josh.

It was a keynote. It wasn't just... It was your keynote. Sorry. Sorry. Give me some credit. All right. Your keynote. I love how Josh is the keynote at his own conference. Whatever. You know, we're not going to pick on you for that. I didn't plan the conference. I was invited. You were invited. You were invited. Yes. It was very nice.

This is true. You were recruited to give a keynote speech. You were pursued. Highly sought after. Highly sought after. Right. I just got up there and talked. Josh, he gave a keynote. That needs to be shared. There you go. Thank you, David.

David's getting a bonus. Yes, all right. Well, before we get into today's show, we're going to find out what Josh's been up to. We're going to talk about COVID. We're going to talk about his kind of what the crazy last year has been for him. Let's get to today's quick tip. All right. Today's quick tip is brought to you by Josh.

Josh, take it away. Way to put me on the spot. Holy Moses. Today's quick tip is if you're a Bigger Pockets listener and you have not yet created an account on Bigger Pockets, because there's a lot of you guys who just love the show and are out here listening, trying to pick up information. I highly recommend creating an account on Bigger Pockets so you can start networking and getting access to everything that Bigger Pockets provides because there's a lot of you who don't actually know that Bigger Pockets is not just a podcast. It's also a website and community. So check it out. Let me ask you, Josh.

Yeah. Why should somebody create an account on bigger pockets? What does they do for that? Oh, wow. Well, you know. Do we send them money? Give them massages? What?

I don't know what you do. But Dave here certainly gives massages. He's got to go with it. You have to just send him a friend request. Yep. Wait, no, this isn't Tinder. No, just swipe right. Is that, we should be a swipe left.

Yeah, we should have that option to be. Yep. Oh, they've only done three deals. Swipe left. Oh, burr. Swipe right. So you would create an account so that you can actually start to network with people. It's amazing how many people over the years have created accounts started to make friends, colleagues, connections, build their business on the platform. It's not just about observing conversations that are happening in the community. But to be able to engage, you actually can start to build your own personal brand. And by creating your own personal brand, obviously, you can start to build your business as well. So yeah, have you noticed that theme lately? I mean, David specifically because, you know,

we've been hosting this podcast now. I feel like the last like dozen guests we've interviewed have all said like somehow we've gotten into networking and your personal brand with like every single person pretty much. Everyone just keeps talking about the importance of networking, getting out there talking to people, getting no people. Do you notice that too?

Yeah. And we talked about this briefly when we had our last guess on the author of essentialism. When Greg was discussing or we kind of brought up the point. that technology is trying to push people out of real estate. It's essentially trying to replace people in some form. But relationships are not something they can ever be replaced. So the people that are doing very good in real estate right now have double tripled, quadrupled down on relationship, their integrity, understanding what they're doing, coming up with win-win solutions for other people and they're drawing opportunities to them. And the people that sort of had a transactional based approach,

they're just being out-transacted by technology. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we're talking about Greg McKeehan. That's an episode. I think that still comes out in a few weeks. I don't think that's been released yet. I don't think.

I'm not sure. Kevin decides when these episodes. He's awesome. Either way, yeah, great episode. So, very cool stuff. So yeah, that is today's not so quick. That was good. A little rusty, but...

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Did you know your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to

handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications. It can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taking care of and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. And now let's get into today's show. What I want to go and start with here is Josh, the last two years, you know, a lot of people know that you were on the podcast for years, for what, six, six-ish years. I created it. Yep, you created it. And then something happened to your life. Dave showed up. Dave showed up at some point and kicked you out.

Put his police gun into my head. Exactly. That's what I'm not just kidding. Just my show. Good me. I am the captain now. Yes. So you left and you're going to tell the story of what happened today on the podcast. We're going to hear that story as we play your keynote, not your speech, your keynote speech from BPCon. It's a phenomenal story, a sad story with a good ending. I will say that. I'll tease this a little bit. And it ended up with you actually sitting in my sea shed here out in Hawaii. It's a little hot and steamy in here. Yeah. It's kind of nasty. Yeah, it's a little gross. I got some sweat. But that's what happens when you're in Hawaii. So Josh is now, you know, him and I, the other day, Josh and I, true story, Josh and I were sitting there out at this beach with Frank.

With Frank. And we were sitting there surfing together, watching whales like breach out in the water, like a mom and a baby. And we're just like look at each other like, how did we get here? Yeah. Like, this is crazy. And today's keynote is kind of like how we got there, I guess. Like, you know, especially how you kind of got here. I think it's the mindset behind it.

Or at least it's more like, you know, what do you do when opportunity presents itself, for example, right? And so how did we get here where we are in time? And how did we get here where we are physically? I mean, you would not be here in Hawaii, if not for bigger pockets. I would not be in Hawaii, if not for bigger pockets. I think I think it's really important that we dive into what I dive into in my keynote. Keynote. The idea of just seizing opportunity and not letting other people kind of dictate the terms of the life that you want to live for yourself.

Yeah. Right. Because we all go through life having all these influences, starting from our parents, right? Our parents are telling us, do this, don't do that. You get to school. Suddenly your peers, you know, dictate through various forms of influence, how you should act or not. act, you know, bullying or whatever it is, right? And that's how we all live our life, right? We all make our decisions based upon those external influences until some point. Now, you can make a decision,

right? At each step along the way, I'm going to allow these influences to dictate how I go, or you can make that decision say, you know what, I'm going to take control of my life. And so that's kind of what we dive into here. An example might be. be, I know that, you know, my two buddies are throwing a party and I really want to be there because, you know, I'll be the cool kid, but my parents say absolutely not. And so, you know, I have this choice, right? Do I go and seize the opportunity to go and have fun or do I, you know, do something that's against what my parents are talking about? I mean, that's one level, but at another level as in a career, which is what we more specifically talk about, decisions that you make as an adult, you have the same influence, right?

My parents, when I graduated from college, I had to tell them at some point, hey, mom and dad, I'm moving back into the house for a little while because I want to be an actor, right? And what do you think they said? I'm going to guess they didn't love that. No, they weren't happy, right? aren't you supposed to go to law school. Be a lawyer. Josh. Be a lawyer.

Be a doctor. Dave, that is a good impression of my mom. That was impressive. So, you know, now I have that influence, right? So I have to move forward

making a decision based upon the fact that I'm either going to stand up for myself and do what I want to do or I'm going to disappoint somebody. Yeah. Right. And so we all make those choices as we move along. And it may not be our parents. Oftentimes it is. I would ask you, Brandon and Dave, you know, were you're, have you ever made a career decision that disappointed a parent? That's a yes. Yeah. Yes. Right. But, but you made it regardless, right? Yes. Okay. So what was it? Well, they told me not to go to BP. They said that Josh Storking guy. Yeah, he's got something wrong with him. I'm glad you didn't listen to him. I'm glad you didn't. So what was it that that helped you make that decision or what was it that,

made you make the decision to go over or violate that kind of want of somebody else. I would say deep down, I knew what I needed to do, which is exactly what your keynote's about today, right? Nicely done. How about you, Dave? That was my tease for your speech. It was good. Yeah, I had such a strong desire.

It felt like God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, was saying, this is what I have for you. and that to say no to that felt wrong, more wrong than to disappoint my parents. It was being a police officer. Obviously, no mother wants their child to go be a cop. My dad straight up told me you're not tough enough to make it as a cop. And that was always kind of a challenging relationship in my life was the way that my dad looked at me and I had this really strong feeling inside like this is what I meant to do.

And even though other people were saying don't, it felt more wrong to say no to that feeling than it did to let down my parents, which is also a very strong instinct that you have as a kid. And it was like a turning point for me where I knew I'm either going to do this with everything I have or I'm not going to do it. You can't really halfway something like this. And I think that maybe for me that resistance to that plan forced me to double down on how much I was going to give to it and really served me well in the career. And it's funny you say this because it was a very similar feeling when it came to real estate investing. All those same people were saying, why would you do that? everyone loses money. That's such a bad idea. It's safer to go be a doctor, go be a lawyer. And it was

that same, but something feels like this is the right move for me. So, and this is, I mean, it's a really important thing. We don't talk about it as often on a podcast like this, but that why, that feeling that's driving people is an incredibly powerful part of this whole process to finding financial freedom. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny when you say that, you know, I think about when I started bigger pockets, I had no support. You know, the only support I had was Julie, my wife. And, and, and, that's, That is one of the things that a lot of startup guys finally acknowledge and realize is, you know, they're often alone with the support of their spouse because really without the support of your spouse, you can't really move forward. And that's why we've had so many conversations over the years on the podcast about, so how did you get your, how'd you get your spouse? How'd you get your partner to come in and come along on this?

But it all dives back to the same thing, right? And that's the thing with real estate as well, especially, you know, it's frowned down upon by so money or it just seems so risky and so scary for people who don't understand it. And so taking that leap and making that decision that, hey, I'm going to try something that everybody I know thinks is kind of crazy and out of the box. that ultimate decision can be the decision between moving forward in early retirement or being locked in on a job that you don't like for the rest of your life. And that's what we talk about a lot. What I talk about in the speech is the keynote. It was a keynote.

There were a thousand people. I mean, I'm just saying. There's 250,000 listening right now, Josh. Wow. Let's calm down. I'm scared. No, but that's, I think that's the important thing, right? Is, is you need to find it within yourself to find a cause, a purpose, some kind of inner drive that like what Dave talked about, that's your decision and your call.

And you can't let all the other noise dictate what you're going to do. You've got to believe in, you know, and trust in yourself and your own decisions in order to move forward. And so we talk about that. we also talk about some, you know, deeply, deeply personal family stuff with my daughter. And we talk about some other crazy revelations about, you know, just a nutty story of finding my, my origins. So, yeah, it's interesting. You're touching your roots. It's good.

That's all I touch. All right. Well, I don't know. David, anything you want to add before we get into today's keynote? speech? I remember when I listened to Josh giving this speech, it had very little to do with real estate and it was probably still the most impactful speech of the entire conference. Everyone said that, yeah. It was the quietest you've ever heard that many people at one time. It was eerie how like I remember thinking if someone was texting on their phone right now, you'd hear their fingers hitting the

screen of it. So if you heard that speech, try to go back to what you felt when you were hearing in and how it moved you and motivated you to come back from that conference and double down on getting through your obstacles. And if this is your first time hearing it, let it move you. Let it like a wave in the ocean carry you with more gusto towards the obstacles that we all face. There's real estate investing is not something you get into without obstacles. We do it because there are obstacles because that allows opportunity. And so anything you can grab that kind of gives you momentum or motivation to push through those is really valuable. So that's what I'm hoping people take out of the speech. That's great. Now, I'll just add, you know, and if you have no interest in real estate investing at all,

it influences you and how you live your life. And I would just say if folks, after listening to this, I would love to, you know, hear your take and your feedback. Yeah, where's the best place to hit you at? The best place is probably Twitter. I'm at J.R. Dorkin. It's at J.R. D-O-R. K-I-N. What does R stand for? Reed.

Not Richard. Richard. Not Richard. Like mine. We both have an R middle name. What's your middle name, David? I'm not speaking that. Josephine.

I was trying to throw that in there. He does. He gets him to say it. Yeah, he never says it. All right. Mr. J.R. Dorkin. Yeah, or just you could at Joshua Dorkin.com. Or you can call him.

His number is. Let's see how this goes for Brandon and his career path. Yeah, there we go. All right, y'all. Well, with that said, let's get to today's keynote from Mr. Josh Dorkin. Founder and host of Figger Pockets. The Godfather. All right.

With that said, let's cue the tape. Oh, oh, I do want to say this. Josh had COVID. After the show, we're going to talk to Josh about what that was like because I want to know what that was like. But I want to get to the show now. But we'll talk about him and his family's experience with COVID right afterwards. Let's get to the episode.

When the team asked me to come out and speak today, I push back a little bit. I was like, I don't know. you know, things, I'm transitioning, I'm moving towards the next stage of my life. And my wife came up to me and she said, Josh, this is an opportunity to share a story that a lot of people want to hear. A lot of people care. You've been out there. You've put yourself out there for all these years. You've given back to all these people. And now it's time for you to, you know, to kind of wrap it, wrap things up, put a little bow on it and let people feel good that life is going okay for you. And then you, and then you, you know, you know, to kind of wrap it, wrap things up, put it, put a little bow on it and let people on it.

and then you can also teach them a couple lessons while you're at it. And I said, okay, you know, push back, push, push, push. And finally she convinced me now. So I'm very excited. So I'm happy to be here. I am going to be telling you a fairly emotional story. So if I lose it, the entire Bigger Pockets team is already expecting this to happen. They know that I like to cry.

So, you know, whatever. Takes a big guy to cry. I'm a big guy. Giraff, remember, giraffe. So my speech today is actually, though, you know what to do. This morning I was having breakfast with somebody who was on the podcast, and he was talking about his business, and he was talking about how he's known for the last year and a half that he needed to hire somebody to be his property manager. He's known this for a year and a half, and he hasn't done anything about it.

Who here has known for a year and a half that they had to do something but didn't do it? Okay, just making sure. I got the right audience. All right. So let's start with this quote here. I'm the wisest man alive, for I know one thing. And that is that I know nothing. A lot of you guys turn and you look at me, Brandon, Jay, all these brilliant speakers up

all these wonderful people, all the people within the community. And one of the things that stood out to me when I started Bigger Pockets was there was this group of people who were teaching real estate education. And they knew everything. They knew exactly how you had to run your business. They know exactly what you needed to do, the path you had to take. But guess what? they didn't know anything.

They were selling you on that. You have your own path. You have your own path. You have your own path. We all have our own paths. And we have to figure out how that path is going to work. And there's not any single person that is out there that's going to tell you this is what you have to do. You have to figure that out for yourself.

So for starters, please don't listen to anybody who thinks they know everything about everything. Because they don't. and if their ego is so big that they think so, you want to move on and learn from somebody else. So what have you been up to for the last few years? Kind of fell off the earth, right? Josh was there, he was out and about, and all of a sudden, I disappeared.

Now, a lot of you guys know, I'm on the podcast, I've been running the site for 14 years, and out of the blue, we had this family tragedy, we had these things happen, but haven't been super forthcoming in everything just for privacy purposes, really wanted to kind of deal with stuff. I'm going to talk a little bit about that.

But before I do, I'm going to dive into a very brief history of Bigger Pockets. Bigger Pockets was founded almost 15 years ago. I believe it's 15 years ago in the next week or so. It'll be our 15-year birthday. I was teaching special ed high school in Los Angeles. I had a brief failed career in the entertainment business. Wasn't that failed.

I got to sport this amazing Mohawk, which is obviously sexier than the one that you saw yesterday. Obviously. That the homeless man in the middle there, that was actually me in a film. that was not what happened to me as a result of teaching special ed for four years. And the last photo is actually me in the very first stages of bigger pockets on that big old IMac, and just kicking things off. So early days, I'm investing in real estate. Things are really exciting, and I'm starting to make mistakes, and I need help,

and I look out, and I can't find anything to help me that I feel like. I can trust. And I say, all right, you know what, let me see what I can do. Let me see if I can build something on the side. Now, mind you, back in the day, I had been building websites for fun. I was like, all right, let's see what I can do, right? So I'm investing, I'm teaching, and nights, weekends, in between classes, I start my side hustle. So who here started their real estate business as a side hustle? All right. All of a sudden my side hustle hobby starts to take over my life.

Here I am, not in my boxer shorts, unfortunately. The rumors are not true. But here I am in my living room. All of a sudden, I've transitioned. I've quit my job teaching high school. I moved to Colorado. I got married. and this is pretty much how I spent my days in between feeding a baby and taking care of them

and doing all these other things. I did that for eight years. So for eight years, the first two years while I was teaching, next six years I worked 100-hour weeks every single week, relentlessly. When my children were born, I had my laptop in the hospital. When my kids were sick, I had my laptop in the hospital. When I traveled, I had my laptop, not in the hospital. Wherever I was.

Hopefully it wasn't the hospital. So I went eight years without taking a single day off. I work seven days a week, 365 days a year for eight years. Who here thinks that's a healthy thing to do? Thank you. Good. All right. Not super smart. I burnt out and realized that I needed to change. I needed to do something different. So I decided it was time to hire and went forth and hired this skinny little boy, handsome without facial hair. You've really got to lose the beard, man. Things change very quickly. Things change very, very, very quickly. We launched a podcast.

Who here listens to the Bigger Pockets podcast? Yeah. Yeah. We launched a book business. Who here has read a Bigger Pockets book? Yeah. All of a sudden, we could start scaling. I didn't have to work 100 hours a week.

It was awesome. I was working 95. My hair was falling out less quickly. things continue to scale, things continue to scale, things continue to grow, and all of a sudden, I have enough money to hire the next person, my next employee. All of a sudden, I have a team. So before we go further, I'd like everybody here to give a rousing round of applause for the entire Bigger Pockets team. Stand up.

Stand up, guys. BP, stand up. Come on. These guys are unbelievable. And they're not all here. The whole team isn't here. We've actually got somebody down with food poisoning, unfortunately. And then there's folks back home and otherwise.

But these guys are amazing. So this is a photo of the early team. You got Brandon next to Brandon. Who knows who John Holdman is? One hand. So John Holman, the guy with the funny beard, he was our first moderator. He was literally one of the first hundred.

people on the site and continue to stay with us for years and years and years and years as a moderator. Then you got Scott next to him. You got this guy, Hillary Katten, the most amazing customer support person on Earth. Allison Leung. And that was Rob, our head of engineering for a very, very long time. So the team starts growing. We start scaling.

We hire some phenomenal employees still with us today. and then we made some mistakes. We didn't hire all amazing people. We learned. We screwed up. And it was okay. It was okay. But we continue to scale this business.

And little by little, this thing got a life of its own. Overnight success, right? Year 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. We're at 30-something employees. the business is growing. We're catering to you guys, hopefully. And things are going great. But then I needed to step away. I needed to step away because life forced me to. But here's the thing. I probably should have done that sooner. So in 2017, I had three panic attacks.

And I don't know if anyone here has had them. And if you have, you don't have to raise your hand. But who here has had some form of anxiety or panic attack? It's scary. It's scary. And my panic attacks, I knew in my heart and I knew in my soul, that my body was telling me something, but I didn't listen,

and I kept going. And I'm not 20 anymore. A panic attack at 20 is one thing. A panic attack in your 40s, suddenly you're having a heart attack. I got three kids. Life is not worth it. Let me continue forward.

Bigger pockets was in this stage where I had to step aside, and we're going to talk about that in a second. But then we move on to this next stage. So as I step aside, somebody had to step in in my interim. And this drunken man here. Scott Trench, everybody. CEO of Bigger Pockets.

By the way, that is Scott sitting in the first row of first class next to me. I think that was the only time I've ever flown first class. Scott's rocking his gym shorts. He's got his sandals on, I think. and I don't know how you can quite fall asleep like that. Don't ever let him forget that. So, this, if you've never seen this before, these are the core values that we've established for bigger pockets.

Family over everything. Serve others with purpose. Build authentic relationships. Be insatiably curious. Keep things fun and get it done. Challenge what's possible and value unique perspectives. By the way, if you have not written core values for your business, this proved to be one of the most important exercises we've ever done. Back to Allison, who really helped take the lead on this, Alison Leone, and worked with me very closely and the rest of the team.

This was extremely important for us and has helped to guide the business forward, and we'll continue to help the guide the business forward. So the ironic thing is the top thing there says, family over everything. Here's the problem. I was putting bigger pockets over everything instead of family over everything. I was trying, but you do that long enough and it takes its toll. Something wasn't right. And I just ignored it. So that's me, that's my business.

In your business, I guarantee every single one of you has something happening in your business that you know you need to do. And it's usually the big scary thing. And you sit and you wait and you procrastinate and say, I'm going to get there one day, I'm going to do it, let me knock these little easy things out because they're easy. And then you wait. And guess what happens? you never do the big scary thing.

And it's the big scary thing that helps you to move forward. It's the big scary thing that brings you progress in your business and in your life. Now, in my case, it was, I was just working relentlessly. What movie is this from? All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, I was becoming a dull boy, and I wasn't aware of it. I didn't even realize it. November 2017, November 27th, 2017.

I've got three little girls who are amazing, amazing wife. My eldest, Zoe, up until this point, had had, I believe it's six surgeries. She got Seminella when she was three, spent eight days in isolation in the hospital. We thought she was going to die. She tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy, and she had two eye muscle surgeries to straighten her eyes out. She had something called strabizness, so kind of like a lazy eye. So they do these eye muscle surgeries. They detach one of the muscles.

There's an outer inner. They detach one. They move it. like millimeters, and then reattach it. Suddenly your eyes are straight, and your brain's like, cool, we're going to keep your eyes corrected. 80% success rate. Well, we were in the 20% the first time, and then 20% the next time. November 27, 2017, we took her in for her third eye muscle surgery.

So routine surgery, in and out. We had done it twice before. We knew what we were in for. And so, yeah, I took the day off of work to take care of her, and we did the surgery, and we took her home, and we knew the next day she'd wake up. Her eyes would both be open, and she'd be fine. Except the next day she woke up, and her eye did not open, so I didn't go into work. And the next day, and the next day.

Her By Wednesday So Monday was the surgery By Wednesday We knew something Just really wasn't right We had called the doctor on Tuesday He said wait Wednesday

He said let me see her We brought her in He said I think she might have an infection Her face had started to swell up Thursday it didn't get any better She's on antibiotics Friday it's getting worse We go in again

Now things have picked up. We are going to need to admit her to the hospital. So they admit her to the hospital. They put her on IV antibiotics. And these IV antibiotics are obviously going to hopefully help take this infection away. The problem is your eye is really close to your brain. And an infection can spread very quickly from your eye to your brain. So they watched her. And what they told us was, Josh, you know, and Julie, we think there's a chance we may have to do a surgery. Well, this is scary. This is really scary. They decide that we're going to just wait and watch her. Saturday comes. We may take her in this afternoon. We may not. We're not sure. You know, imagine the waiting, right?

Imagine thinking, hey, any second this thing could go into my kid's brain. What are you going to do? Sunday comes. By the way, Julie is homesick. She cannot be in the hospital. hospital. I'm alone. She's got my two kids. I'm with Zoe. And all of a sudden, the doctors come in Sunday morning. A second doctor we hadn't met comes in, and she says, it's time. So come with us. So we go downstairs. They roll her down into the surgical area. There's not a single person there. It's a Sunday. They don't do surgeries on Sunday. They wheel her downstairs. They bring us into this room, and they say, you know, they start prepping her, and they say,

you know, we're going to take her off. Now, when they take kids for surgery, normally it's a calm, relaxing thing, as scary as it is. And the parent gets to go into the room with them. Well, once we went downstairs and they prepped us, they rushed her off. She was crying. She was freaked. I was crying. I was freaked.

No info on how long it was going to take. no info on what was going to happen. Off she went. As I pace here, nervously, I did the same that day for the next two-plus hours in a hospital waiting area with no doctors, no nurses,

no patients, no parents, nobody. Just by myself. They finally came out, by the way, unimaginable fears, scenarios spinning through your head. They come out. We did the surgery, she's going to be okay. We had to cut into her eyeball. We had to drain the fluid out of her eyeball.

And we found all this necrotic dead tissue in her eyeball. Scary. Is she going to see again? Is she going to be okay? Yes. She is. Okay. Okay. So she's going to be okay. Everything's going to be great. They admit us, you know, we're back in the hospital. We're there for the next few days. And she's doing okay. But there's kind of some weird stuff happening, and I couldn't quite explain it. And the doctors kind of poo-poohed everything I was saying and everything my wife was saying. Now, I don't know if there's any physicians in here. And no offense to anything I'm going to say, but a lot of doctors are full of shit. You know, the challenge is they, unlike my first quote, they know everything.

And the challenge is there's oftentimes difficulty in admitting that you don't know everything. And so when we had these weird things happened, everybody kind of poo-pooed us, the whole team pooped us, and they actually sent us home. So we went home a few days later and nervously agreed to do so. And we were happy. We're excited. Her eyes still closed, but we're home. And then the next day, still kind of acting funny. And then the next day.

Zoe, what are you doing? Nothing. Zoe, what are you doing? Nothing. Why are you walking? funny. It was too late in the day. We called the doc. He said, just watch it, wait till tomorrow. If nothing changes, bring her in. We tentatively agreed the next day came. We brought her to the emergency room. It was Saturday. She wasn't walking anymore. They scanned her, checked her brain,

checked her eyeball, poo-poot us all along the way. Everything's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay. We don't see anything wrong. She can't walk. What do you mean there's nothing wrong? We think it's something in the brain. Well, she didn't have anything in the brain before she went into the surgery. What did you do? What happened? We think it's this thing. Go see your primary care doctor on Monday. It's Saturday. Excuse me. So they send us home for the next 48 hours, I've got a kid who can't walk, can't hold her torso up anymore, and I have zero answers, and I have doctors telling me everything's going to be okay. Imagine that feeling, that absolute terror that you go through. We went into the doc. Doc says, this is horrifying, we're sorry,

we need to bring in the psychologist. We think there may be something from a psychological standpoint, and then they make this ruling, they say, hey, we think it's this, we got to get you into the hospital. They start calling the hospital. Hospital says we're not going to admit her. They continue to call. We start calling. They're not going to admit us. Tuesday comes.

Same thing. Wednesday comes. Same thing. Thank goodness. I have political aspirations, and I've befriended several politicians in my area. and I have some friends who are on the board of the hospital. I call, I say, tell them my story, what's going on, and within an hour, we get admitted to the hospital.

So let me stand on my soapbox for a second here. That's bullshit. And no one deserves that, and that is absolutely one of the biggest reasons our health care needs to be reformed. Absolutely insanity. Because I'm lucky, privileged, and connected is no reason that my kid should get treated better than anyone else. And it goes further because they made a diagnosis. They diagnosed her with something called conversion disorder,

a condition in which a person has blindness, paralysis, or other nervous system, neurologic symptoms that cannot be explained by medical evaluation. The recovery ratio on conversion disorder is not very good. And there's a reason for it. It's costly to treat. And there's not really a great explanation for it yet. So in the case of Zoe, she's in the hospital. And over the next couple of days, her legs aren't working, her torso is not working.

Her eyes already closed. She can't hold her head up anymore. And she stops being able to use her arms. They give us this bullshit explanation, which is we ruled everything else out. We got nothing left to call it. This is an actual disorder, by the way, conversion disorder. But they're going to find out in 10 or 20 years that conversion disorder is one of like 30 things. They rule her with conversion.

I don't believe it. One day I'm laying in bed with her in the hospital. She's sleeping. It's the middle of the night. She sits up. Wait, wait. She lays back down. We thought there was something physically wrong with her.

Well, my daughter was a sleepwalker. She would wake up in the middle of night and walk around and talk and blabber. All of a sudden, I bought into it. We now knew that it wasn't something physical, that it was something psychological. we actually bought into conversion disorder. Start making phone calls while we're at the hospital. They give her a little bit of treatment here and there because that's what they do because they're just not equipped

unless they're a specialty facility, which there was one in Rhode Island. It would cost us like $75,000 to put her on an ambulance plane to get her there because she can't hold her body up. She can't get treated at lots of the facilities because she could not bathroom herself because she could not hold her body up. And she could not get the full level of care

that she absolutely deserved because of her condition. And so we started making calls, talk to some experts, and decided it was time to get her the hell out of the hospital. We needed to bring her home. We needed to put her in a normal, regular home environment,

and we were going to build a team. We were going to, We were going to overcome the statistics on this, and we were going to win. Family above all else. Well, I finally started following that. 50%. 50%. It was a really scary numbers.

So we've got our plan together. We build our team. Seven days a week of occupational therapy. Seven days a week of physical therapy in the home. therapy weekly, we started seeing a psychiatrist. I turned my living room into a gymnasium. There were mats, mats on the floor. I got one of these electrical, like, bike things that you click a, you know, they're for all the old people. You click it and, you know, it automatically does this for you, right? We strap her in and let her go. We didn't want her to atrophy, right? We worked on her body,

we worked on her mind every single day. My full-time job was to care for this child, and that is what I did. So this is Zoe in therapy, trying to learn how to use her legs. Unimaginable fear. I thought my daughter could be a paraplegic for life. We worked with her constantly, relentlessly,

did not quit. In the same way that I relentlessly built this business, I now had a new focus. And it was this child. And I was not going to lose this battle. Because I don't like to lose battles, and I especially don't like to lose battles when it comes to my family.

After weeks and weeks, we started to see some improvement. Before we got her out of the hospital, we actually got her hands moving. We just kept buying Lego sets. She loves Legos. So, Legos constantly, we bribed the hell out of her. Stuffies.

I mean, she's got to have three, 400 stuffies. Like, move your finger an inch. You got a stuffy. You know, you name it. This is her in school. We tried to normalize her life. Nine years old, You go from a healthy kid and all of a sudden you're in a wheelchair.

I don't care how awkward you feel. You are going to school. Maybe not all day, but you're going to go in and we're going to normalize your life. We saw things get better. And little by little, there would be light at the end of the tunnel. Here's your walker, nice and decorated, blinged out, rocked the walker for a while. And two weeks before the end of school, the walker was gone. August 23rd, 2019, those of you guys who know me, know I like to go out.

I like to play in the woods. Getting the goods in the woods, as one of my friends likes to say. And Mount Bierstadt, August 23rd, 2019, 14,065 feet. That little girl did. with the big hairy bearded guy in the back struggled to do last year with me. She made it to the top of a 14,000 foot peak in Colorado. That's her on skis. So for the last two years, I've spent my time with that kid, with my other kids, with my family.

in so doing, I pondered. I thought about life. I thought about death. And I mostly thought about happiness. And I read, and I read, and I tried to figure out what it is that matters. There's nothing more important than finding your happiness. Life has a way of giving you signals. In my case, I might have been working a little too hard. I was having panic attacks. It was frustrated, stressed out. Who here in their work is stressed out from time to time. That's okay. Who here gets frustrated with how things are going from time to time? sure. Now, even a perfect business, there's going to be frustration and stress, right? But these are signs. These are symbols. These are things that are telling you maybe you've got to tweak things. Maybe you've got to change how you do it. Maybe you need to alter. Maybe you have to find processes. Maybe you have to simplify your business. Well, a funny thing happened. Despite stepping away to be with my family, bigger pockets continue to grow. and thrive. I guess 14 years of creating a great foundation allow something to foster and grow.

Bigger pockets would be okay without me. It was time for me to start the new act. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action. The footsteps, the last. late-night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that

possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications, it can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taking care of and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host, but could use some help find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. All right, rental property investors, listen up.

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So I'm figuring out what's next. I'm working through it. My family, things are starting to get better. We're mid-2017 and some new information comes. to light. My brother calls me up. Josh, I just took a 23-and-me test. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, the girls, so he's got two adopted daughters. The girls really wanted to learn more about their background, their past, so we did that. And I took it. And Alex, his wife, took it. That was cool. And, you know, got all this info and all this stuff. And our half-brother

this and all this stuff. And I don't know, half what? Half what? What? Half-brother? Wait, say that again. You got half-brother. At least that's what the site says. Now, that's not possible. How could we have a half-brother? No, no, no, that doesn't work.

Now, let me rewind for a second here. So, when I was a year-old, my dad passed away from testicular cancer. Thank goodness, people don't really die from testicular cancer today, but I didn't know that. So if you've ever seen me doing things, you know, I was scared for a really long time that I was going to die of testicular cancer. My hands were there a lot. A lot. Anyway, my dad died when I was a year old. He actually died on my brother's fourth birthday, which is crazy.

But he died. and my mom remarried, and Dorkin is the name of my stepdad. He's my dad. He raised me. And so we get this information about this half-brother. Well, half-brother, dad's been dead for 40 years. We know it's not mom, because mom is a overbearing Jewish mom. And those of you who have overbearing Jewish or otherwise mothers, would know that no overbearing Jewish mom would let their boy go. And so it had to be dad. Well, maybe he had a kid before mom, maybe while with mom, maybe afterwards. Uh-oh.

Let's call mom. So we call mom. Hey, mom. What's up? How you doing? Hi, Josh. Is that good, Brandon? That was good.

Hey, Mom, there's this whole DNA test that Dave took and says we've got a half-brother. DNA. What's that? Wasn't that bad. So, do the DNA. We explain it to her and say, hey, what's the story? She denies. No, nothing.

There's no, it's impossible. Mom, it's not possible. DNA is science. It's impossible. She hangs up the next day we call her again. Mom, DNA. What's DNA? It's science.

It's not possible. And we relented. And we relented. And out of the blue, she says, well, there's this one thing. What's the one thing, Mom? Well, your father and I couldn't have kids. We struggled. So we went to a fertility clinic.

and they took your father's stuff and they mixed it with another guy's stuff. They mixed it? What? Mom, science. Do you know how it works? What do you mean? I had to explain the ones that can swim. They're the ones that are going to win.

Mom. So what you're telling me is, by the way, step back. for two seconds, the guy that I had been my birth dad, so there was like a family separation. We literally my entire life knew nothing about him or his family. So there was a hole in my life. By the way, this is a big part of my speech, so I probably shouldn't forget it. Big hole in my life. And my whole life, we are searching for this family and we can't find this family.

Well, now all of a sudden, we've got this new information. We are all of a sudden not trying to figure. out about my birth dad's family. We got DNA Dad. Yeah. By the way, I'm going to create a new television show called My Three Dads. I think it's brilliant, where I find out about my 600 stepbrothers that I never knew about. That'll be a comedy. Anyway, I've got all this new information. I've got this giant hole in my life. And all of a sudden, the whole kind of went away. But here is the weird thing. I don't know who my bio-dad is. So how did that whole go away? Well, I didn't need to search for my birth dad anymore. He was there. Sadly, you know, in the last

year of his life, as I was growing, he spent most of that time in the hospital. My father raised me, my stepdad. And the guy who allowed me to live. live, planted his seed, so to speak. You know, I'm grateful. I didn't need to really figure out who he was, besides the fact that it would be close to impossible. Because I called some people, and was like, hey, what are the odds? And they're like, well, you've got to take a 23-Me test, and you can probably try and find the clinic. But you may have to pay lawyers a whole hell of a lot of money to open up court records on all this. And I'm like, it sounds like a lot of work. I don't care. And when I said that, I realized that I actually didn't care. This is my life. I am not my father. I am not

my father. Hopefully there's not a fourth. I'm not my mother. I'm not my mother, my brother. I'm not my mother, my brother. I am me. And this is my life. And I'm going to live this life. And I'm going to live this life the way I want to live this life. And I have lived this life the way I want to live this life. And I'm proud of the way I've lived this life. I've lived a great life. And that hole, that hole is gone. And so I'm sure all of you guys have folks out there who tell you what to do. Oh, you shouldn't do that. Come on, man. You're really going to do that with your business? Really? Really? You're going to hire a property manager and not save all that money? Wait a second. You're going to flip houses? Are you crazy? Who here has heard something like that? Guess what? You are going to continue to hear something like that forever.

The reason this room is so special, at least in the world of real estate, is that nobody here is going to say that. to you and if they do go back to my second slide about people knowing more than they think they know right so this is your life you know what you need to do you know what's important you know what's necessary i love this quote we cannot change the cards we're dealt just how we play the hand so i learn all this information about my three dads my daughter's getting better And as I said, I decided it was time to make a change. Bigger Pockets was doing well. I needed to kind of, I needed to figure out what mattered to me again.

I needed to figure out what was next. So I set forth, got together with Scott and Brandon, who at this point were pretty much running the day-to-day along with Dave and the rest of the team. and we put together a search. And midsummer, we found a group that we thought was going to be spectacular. We met lots of folks. And it was a private equity shop out of Omaha, Nebraska, a company called McCarthy Capital. Well, McCarthy was going to come in and become my new partner. I was going to step down.

14 years of building my baby, and it was time to step away. So, along with McCarthy, we put together a board, of which I am a part. We hired a chairman of the board, Mr. Mike Zawalski, and built an incredible, incredible team. Scott Trench, our new CEO, has done a phenomenal job along with the rest of the team. I was so scared. I was so scared of letting my baby go. But I realized it was time.

It was ready. And I realized that I found the right people to help continue the path of my company. So here's to the future of bigger pockets and the amazing team that we already applauded, who's currently running it. As for me, I'm pursuing my happy. I'm spending time with my kids. I'm finding hobbies. For the first time in years, I'm getting fit.

I'm getting the goods in the woods. I'm taking care of my mental health. I'm taking care of my family. and I'm focusing on me. I haven't done that in a really, really, really long time. So here's a few takeaways. One, do not wait until life decides for you. You know what you need to do.

You know what is important. Make it happen. Two, map and plan. write down, write down. Is it your family? What part of your family life needs help? Make a list. I have a book. That book, Monk Ferrari, actually really helped me with this. I literally, I've got a page that says family. And it's, hey, make sure I do this, you know, write love letters to my wife, do this with my kids, all the things I aspire to do on my family. Health. Run a 5K, did that. Run a 10K, did that. Run a marathon. Haven't done that yet. Climb a 14er. I've done many of those. I actually did four a few weeks ago in one day.

Take action. You can't just write things down. You've got to do it. You got to do it. Do not wait for permission. This is your life. This is nobody else's life. It's nobody's business telling you what to do. You know what to do. In your heart, I see you guys. I see the brains spinning. All of you guys.

Think about all that stuff. You know in your heart what it is that you need to do. Do not wait for permission. Take action and do it. Life is short. You can die tomorrow. Gary Vaynerchuk is very famous in saying this. And whenever people text him for advice,

that's his response. He's right. I like to live my life as if I'm going to die tomorrow. Well, what are you waiting for? Because you can die tomorrow. Or your kid can get conversion disorder. Or you can get hit by a bus. and I know it's sad and I know it's scary

and I know 90% of you are afraid to stop and think about it but I implore you guys to think about it you can die tomorrow and if you're going to die tomorrow what the hell are you going to do today you better start changing your life go out and find your path everybody's got their own figure it out you know it

put it down, write it, follow it, do it. Good luck to you. You guys, great, great, great quote from a very, very smart man. Your time is limited. So don't waste it living someone else's life. Thank you very much. All right, that was even better the second time around than it was the first time, Josh. I was good. Thank you.

Yeah. I know you weren't really listening the first or the second time. So, you know. I listened carefully, Josh. Yeah. I was not texting the whole time. Thank you for paying attention.

I appreciate you. Yeah, whatever. I love that you called him out on that. It was so much better for him the second time because that was the first time. Guy was engaged in a vigorous game of snake on his cell phone during the entire first. That was a great game. Oh, my God. The countless hours I played that.

Yeah. No, it was, uh, you know, so I worked. So I worked with you. Let me be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with me a minute here. I worked with you ahead of time on your speech. And I think two hours before you went on stage, you were like,

I'm not really sure where I should go with this one. I'm not sure if I should tell this story. And I was like thinking, Josh is going to, he's going to blow this. He has no idea what he's going to talk about today. And then you just came out of nowhere with an amazing speech. I was like,

what? Like, because like you, I think you were pretending that you had no idea what we were going to do. Like up until like a minute before we went on stage. And then you're just like, here, I'm just an awesome speaker. Anyway, I was very fearful for you.

So I was not playing snake. I was sitting there like shaking. Like Josh, don't mess up of what you're going to say here. And then you didn't. So I had, you know, I had a number of stories that I had potential to go through. And essentially I had constructed this thing and,

you know, decided as things were going forward and as I kind of felt the crowd's energy or whatever, you know, which way I was going to go with it. So yeah, I had it mostly outlined. but yeah, we did good. I think it turned out all right.

Well, speaking of turning out all right. I love transition. I love trying to things like that. What's the worst? Let's talk about COVID. Let's talk about you. So Josh here, this is back in, how you feeling, Dave? Like, yeah, yeah.

Speaking of COVID. Yeah, speaking of COVID, how you feeling, David? I'm still alive and kicking. Oh, good. Okay. David has a cold, but we think he probably, well, now every time you get a cold. Now, everybody gets a cold. Exactly.

Did you sign your will? Well, the fact that you're not around anybody and you got a cold. magically. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, David's got a cold. Yeah. It's, if you've got to say that meme online, it's like every day I wake up now and go, is that, is that, is that what a throat feels like? Like, oh, yeah, that what I, like, anyway, but that's a thousand times worse when you have COVID and after you have COVID, just so you know. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, we'll talk about that. So you, so I'm not, I'm, I'll be honest with you again. Sometimes, is this is shocking, by the way, David. He's been honest twice in the last one conversation, which.

rarely happens with this. Now I'm wondering if Brandon has COVID and he's on his deathbed here and it's well, the fact that I'm two feet away from him. Yes, we are troubling. We are five feet. We are a foot short of social distancing standards right here in the sea shed. But back in February, I think it was, maybe even early March. Was it March?

But you March when you got it. But even before that, you were the very first of anybody in my circle of anybody I knew who was like, this is a big deal. We need a social distance. I think it was maybe January. You were like, we need to stay inside. And you like locked your family in. And I was like, there goes Josh.

Been Josh. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I was like, I was all going to blow over in like a week. And Joshua just missed out on three weeks of life because he was like social. I didn't quite think that bad. But like I assumed you were just being a little hypochondriac a little bit.

You know? You know, I was assuming that. And then the whole world falls apart. And then of everybody in my entire life that I knew, you were the first one to get COVID. Like, how did that happen? How did that happen? I don't even know. It sucked.

You must have got it from like a box from Amazon or something because you were like locked down. I, well, so I wasn't locked down per se. I was prepping in January. I was starting to order materials. You should see a toilet paper stack. I had a lot of toilet paper. I, I, I was that guy. Yeah, there was.

But that was before like everyone was hoarding. I was like, I was pre hoarding. Yeah, you were a pre hoarder. But, yeah, you know, I, I was. why. I don't know what that means. I don't either. There's a show called pre-horters.

Pre-horners. But it was scary. I was watching what was happening in China. They were like, you know, they were welding people into apartment buildings. And I'm like, this is not going to end well for anyone on earth. And so far it has not. And we're laughing about it. And obviously, it's extremely serious.

It's crazy. You had it. You were laughing when you were in your house. No. So I, you know, we had a family event in Los Angeles. We were at, we were locked down at home. home and there was a family event. It was a bat mitzvah. And like, we had to go to this bat mitzv and I told Julie, my wife, I'm like, this is a terrible idea. We should not get on an airplane. Oh,

blaming the wife now. And we got, we got into a debate. And, you know, like there was an expectation, which goes back to the speech. There was an expectation that we need to be there. And we had to live up to that expectation, right? And so ultimately, we relented, you know, I did not want to, but I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do for my family. We relented. We got an airplane. We went to Los Angeles. We were super careful.

We were the only one who was like wiping the seat down and the armrests and everybody thought we were crazy. We were not wearing masks though. Yeah. And obviously this is an airborne ailment here. So when we got back, you know, we had finished our grocery shopping and that we got back. I think it was Sunday or Monday that Thursday or Friday was when Tom Hank's, you know, announced that he had this disease and suddenly, like, the world shut down

the next day. Yeah. That was Friday. Sunday, I started feeling sick. And I actually started charting it because I was so worried that I had actually had it. And turns out I did. And it was pretty awful. You know, it started feeling like kind of a cold with this weird dizziness and had lots of

other, pretty much every symptom. I lost my smell. I lost my sense of taste. I had the low-grade, annoying fevers for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. After week two, I developed the lung stuff and this cough that just wouldn't go away. I finally stopped charting after, I think it was 94 days. So I was what they call a long hauler. But that was the early days.

That was when, like, going to the hospital was a death sentence, right? Anybody who would go into the hospital, you were probably. probably going to die. Did you go in? And no, but I, you know, I was sick and then I got to this point where there were two days, everybody in my house got it. There were two days where Julie and I could not get off the couch. We got up from our bed, got down to the couch, like we could not do anything else.

Our kids made all three meals for us. We had a, you know, we had a six, eight, and 11, 10 year old. And they prepared three meals a day for two days for us for all five. of us. We just, we couldn't do anything now. And it, and it got to a point where I think the, the worst thing was when I had gotten the cough, I was having trouble breathing and ultimately ended up in a place where I was really struggling breathing. I was coughing. I had no energy and, you know, really could barely do anything. And I freaked out. The next thing I've got to do, I'm going to have to check myself in the hospital, you know, and I, I, you know, and I, I,

I kind of started having just, and I talked about on the show, panic attacks, I talked about in the keynote here today about these panic attacks. I had, the last time I had a panic attack was, was, you know, before everything in the speech, the next time, and I've not had one since, was when COVID hit. I thought, I thought I was going to die. I legitimately was like, I need to go to the hospital today. This is the last time I'm going to actually see my kids. This is the last time I'm going to see my wife again. And I just, just lost it. Yeah, I bet. It was horrifying.

Before I did that, I decided to call a few friends who were physicians and said, hey, you know, am I at that point that I need to go and get intubated and go to the hospital? And they walked me through kind of what I was feeling. They're like, you're kind of at the cusp. You know, if it goes even a drop more, you need to go and check yourself in. And thank goodness, you know, I was able to recover. I'm here, obviously, unlike, you know, the 250,000 plus others who've died from this thing horribly. But, yeah, it was a pretty terrible experience. And the big thing we were joking about, which is like everybody has like a sniffle and they're like, hey, do I have COVID?

Well, what happens when you actually get it is, and when you get it bad, at least it happened to me and it's happened to other people I've talked to is I still get sniffles. And now when I get my sniffle again, I'm thinking, oh, no, it's back. And that's like a serious PTSD. So we're all going through this crazy PTSD right now. Like everybody's going through it. It's considerably worse for those people who've had it pretty bad. And I'm just, you know, hope everybody stay safe. And I'm excited that we've got so far three vaccines that are coming hopefully soon.

and hopefully we'll get back to normal in the next year or so. Yeah. Crazy, man. That's nuts. Yeah. It's been a long two years since we last were here. But things are going well. We're in Hawaii.

Life is all right right now. So, you know, despite. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah. What do you think, Dave? I think this is a great indication of what the year 2020 has been for a lot of people.

Is a wake-up call. Nothing's guaranteed. there's been a ton of uncertainty. I don't think any of us have known from who was going to be president to what COVID-19 was going to do, to the wildfires that were in California, to are we going to have stimulus? Is the economy going into a recession? It's just been nonstop, not status as usual.

And it's forced a lot of people who are in a comfort zone to be shaken out of it. And I think that being shaken out of your comfort zone, whether it's voluntarily or involuntarily, is usually a good thing. And it can be dangerous when you slip into one for too long. So while it's been an unpleasant year, it's also healthy in the way that exercise when you are out of shape is very unpleasant, but it's still really good for you. And so there is definitely a lot of scary things that we can take out of a story like that. But on the other end of that is what you talked about in your speech. Don't live your life according to other people's standards.

Make sure you know what's really important to you and design your life to support what you want it to be. and this was a year that really brought a lot of the importance of that to the to the surface. Yeah, I think it's great. And what I would add is I would plead to everybody listening to use this time, especially as this is about to come out, we're going back into lockdowns again, hardcore, right? This is the third wave, so to speak. I don't know. Who knows what wave we're in. But take this time, take this opportunity to really evaluate your life. Take this opportunity to look at not just your career path, right? Because, you know, this is a real estate show. It's a show where we talk about careers. But, but every aspect of your life. Look at your friendships. Look at your family. Look at your relationship with your spouse or significant another. Look at how you behave around your kids, the time you spend with your kids, right?

Look at your parents. You know, look at those folks. Look at your neighbors. Look at your community. And, you know, I would, Brandon and I, one of the things that you've done for me, the most important thing you've done for me besides, you know, this show and the frequent backrubs. is Brandon does this thing at the end of every year with Heather, where they evaluate,

kind of they look forward, they look at the year ahead and talk about what they're planning to do. And then they look at, you know, they break their life down into various verticals, right? When he told me about that, I was blown away and I started doing the same thing. And so I would just tell people, take this time to self-evaluate and really consider what's important to you, what's important to your family, and everything else is kind of noise. I mean, it really is. And then use that to dictate and shape the path that you want to take forward. That's a good quick tip right there. It wasn't so quick. A long tip. A lot of bruises

got me there. Yeah. All right, man. Well, we need to have you back on the show more often, so come back anytime. It's the sea shed. You know where it's at. We're like six blocks from each other now. So it's easy. Awesome. David Green, anything you want to close the show with? Oh, that's a nice, tall order after a show like this. Now I got to figure out a way to move to Hawaii because I don't like being the odd man out over here. Come join the dark side. Yeah, come hang out. Exactly. Well, you need as a good integrator, David, like somebody who can run your business in California that runs everything. That's like the best of the best. They run California for you. you can come back and forth to Hawaii whenever you want or wherever I'm so he's saying hire your

CEO your life I need the CEO and a CFO I need an integrator if that's you please contact me I can selfishly be in Hawaii with Brandon and Josh frolicing in the waves and looking for whales on battleboards I will pay you handsomely frolicing I will pay you handsomely all right well thank you Josh for joining us today yeah J.R. Dorkin on Twitter J.R. Dorkin at J.R. Dorkin on Twitter and Joshua Dorkin.com. And of course, we did not talk a lot about real estate investing today, but Josh and I did write a real estate book and it's called How to Invest in Real Estate. It's great book. It is a great book. So you can pick that up wherever books are sold, including BiggerPockets.com slash store. It is meant to be the book.

We actually really call it what start here. Because it was meant to be the book that people start with. Yep. So if you're starting with real estate, you're not exactly sure what niche to go and do? Should relaunch it as start here. We could relaunch it and see how that does. You heard it here today. Start here. You can buy it for $29.99. No, I think it's cheaper than that. It's a much cheaper than that. It's a good book. All right, David Green, I'll let you take us out the way you usually do. Thank you very much. This is David for Brandon the Ocean Frolliker Turner and Josh, the Godfather Dorkin. 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, without all the hype, you're in the right place.

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