BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 522: From “No Comma Paychecks” to 7-Figures Using These 5 Skills w/ Nasar El Arabi

Episode Date: October 24, 2021

Nasar El-Arabi is a self-proclaimed “failure” when it comes to being employed. He wasn’t cut out for the banking industry, the call center, or the classroom. Some people aren’t meant to be employed, and Nasar was one of them. As soon as he was able to get his start in real estate investing, he realized that this was a path that could help him succeed, all while challenging him in ways the W2 world didn’t. Nasar has been wholesaling, flipping, and landlording for over a decade. He has amassed a seven-figure net worth, due to his sweat, grind, and problem-solving. Nasar has put together his list of the five most important traits of any successful real estate investor. These traits aren’t what you’d hear at corporate, and they require those who are interested in investing to put in the time, energy, and creativity to thrive. If you’re interested not only in real estate investing, but becoming a full-time investor doing what you love, make sure you pay careful attention to Nasar’s advice. While these aren’t traits you can simply switch on or off overnight, they are things that you can develop over the years you are investing, which can help you build wealth, reach financial freedom, and give you the life you’ve dreamed of. In This Episode We Cover: How to invest in real estate while making a median income  Diversifying your portfolio so you have multiple exit strategies and streams of income Why every investor needs to “become a rookie all over again” Using creative financing to structure deals that benefit the buyer and seller Leveraging partnerships to find cash, divvy up responsibilities, and purchase more real estate Owning a business and learning the skills that every leader needs to succeed And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Publishing BiggerPockets Bookstore Brandon's Instagram David’s Instagram BiggerPockets Podcast 116: How to Quit Your Job Through Wholesaling, Flipping, and Taking Action with Nasar Elarabi BiggerPockets Podcast 500: Robert Kiyosaki: America’s ‘Rich Dad’ Sees a Real Estate Crash Coming BiggerPockets Podcast 330: How to Ditch Distractions and Get WAY More Done With Cal Newport Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show522 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockest Podcast Show, 522. I have no comma in my paycheck, bro. No comma in my joint, bro. Ain't nothing motivated to not having a comma in your paycheck. So anyway, I had no comment in my joint. They want to fight me. They call it. However, I had to sit there and listen.

I had to listen to what their problem was so I can put them in touch on the right department. So we went from, you know, no comma to no limits, man, because of my mindset. 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, everybody? It is me, David Green, your host of today's Bigger Pockets podcast. I've got some news to share. I think I may have officially worn out my co-host, Brandon Turner. He hasn't been able to keep up with me, and he needs a little bit of time off. So while Brandon is recovering from the strain that I've put him through, we're going to be trying out some different co-hosts here on this show,

who bring a different perspective and a lot of wisdom along with them. Today I'll be sharing the ball with Nasser L. Rabe, and we get into a very good conversation about just what he did to leave the W-2 world and go full-time into real estate investing. I know this is a question on many people's hearts who are trying to figure out if that is for them. So there should be a ton of really good content in there, as well as if you just want to be better at the job that you have. Nasser gives some really good information from that front too.

Nasser, what is going on, my man? Hey, I'm doing okay. First thing first, first I just want to say thank you for having me on the show. I'm excited. and I think the people will love this show. Yeah, so we're going to get into the five skills that you had to develop to pursue your dream of being a full-time real estate investing. We're going to talk about how you got fired from your job.

You're very transparent about how that went down and how that felt. I thought that was really cool. What skills you brought from that job into the world of full-time real estate investing and two concepts that people need to understand when it comes to marketing and to find deals. All that and more in today's show. But before we get into that, let's get into that. today's quick tip. All right, here's what I want to say for today's quick tip. If you yourself are in a position where you don't feel on fire about your job, you don't like where you're working,

you don't like what you do for work, you don't like who you work for, you don't like your commute. There's a lot of reasons that people are unhappy. Sometimes that's something inside of you that you need to fix. There's some people that are just bitter or it colors their perspective. They're not grateful for what they have. But other times, it's like Nasser says in this episode, you may be a fish who's trying to climb a wall. And no fish is ever going to be happy if they're trying to climb a wall. So what we want to help you do is find out where you can get in that water and where you can swim using the skills you have, the knowledge you have, and maybe even the vision you have to further the company you work for, which may be yourself. So I would like for everybody here to ask

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at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors.

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Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. Nassar, is there anything that you'd like to say before we get into this thing? Listen, when you stay ready, you don't got to get ready. Now let's get into the show. Nosser, my man, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. How are you today? Man, thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it. So for those who don't remember, we actually had you on the podcast long before I was the host of it. So it was show 116. 116. Can you give us a little recap about your story, what you talked about on the show, and then maybe what you've been up to since then?

Yes, absolutely. From 116, I was basically telling my story of how I was a corporate failure, you know, working the banking industry for four years, for those who don't know, Charlotte, North Carolina had the number two biggest, is the number two biggest banking hub in the country. So I worked in banking for four years. Definitely got fired, man. It wasn't no surprise. don't feel bad for me. I knew that was coming. I was a terrible employee. You know, I apologize to those good people who tried to give me an opportunity to work for them. But that didn't work. So I got fired and I've been wholesaling houses full time since September of 2012. And yeah, that's like my background. But actually, I bought my first house in 2007. And me and my man, we bought the house.

We ended up losing 7,000 apiece. We figured flipping houses was easy. because we was watching the shows on TV at the time. And all you had to do is buy an ugly house, yell out some contractors and make a bunch of money. Man, then we had to deal with reality of the situation. You know, I was before, when I bought that house, man, I actually already had my money spent. I was about to go give me a Bentley GT coup.

But unfortunately, well, fortunately, we lost, you know, because I definitely didn't need no Bentley at that age and living at home. But we lost money, $7,000 apiece. And I end up, you know, packing up leaving New Jersey and from North Jersey. And we flipped that house in East Orange and from Elizabeth. And I end up moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, man. And, yeah, been pursuing real estate since. So tell me what your pursuit of real estate looks like right now.

What kind of a business are you involved in and what kind of properties are you buying? Yeah. So, yeah, my highest paying job, man, well, I got fired from, man. It was $38,000 a year. You know, again, I don't tell those people that I can work Microsoft Excel and do all that stuff, man. Because I found this nice resume on the internet, man. And it, you know, the Microsoft sweet joint that you find on the internet.

So I figured like, yo, man, this is sound good. Let me put on my resume. So I did that, man. A copy of pace. And those people firing me, man. My highest job was 38,000. The most of having done this business per year is 1.8 mil. But basically, you know, we have a team of cold callers.

Some BAs doing follow up. and I have about three acquisition managers right now. We're mainly focused on wholesale houses in Charlotte metro area. All right. And how many deals would you say you're doing in a year right now? Oh, last year we did about 66. But, you know, normally, as high as you probably did, about 80, you know, 80 a year. You know, we definitely don't have the biggest wholesale operation in the country.

But, you know, we do enough whereas, you know, we make it work. You know, one year, we did 100. But our whole thing now is like, you know, lifestyle and work towards the goals properly. So, but that's where we're at right now. That's impressive. That's a lot of properties you're putting under contract. As far as your main means of getting them locked up in contract and then obviously

later you figure out if you're going to wholesale it, if you're going to keep it, if you're going to flip it, what methods are you using to contact these sellers? As far as the methods, man, you know, right now. believe it not, man, we got two main focus, man, like, which is cold calling and texting. You know, we're killing it, man, just doing those. For those, no testing is SMS marketing and cold calling. Yep. That's our main source.

But you know what? If that's the, I mean, really a lot of businesses, I feel like start off doing everything and then they whittle down to what actually works. So I feel like that's a healthy business model as you get into something and you just do all of it and then you learn and then you start cutting out the stuff. that doesn't work and you just narrow it down to what's most efficient. So I feel like that's a good stage that you're at in your business right now. What are your goals for what you want this thing to look like in the future? Are you trying to scale bigger or are you just trying to get time back

and kind of enjoy life more? More right now, man. My most important thing is Tom, you know, since I was 19 years old, man, I wanted to be a real estate investor, man. So since I was 19 and, and, you know, 19 years later, most important me, you know, I got the freedom. So the time and just moving up with the asset classes. That's all it is. That's all it is. You know, I just want to move up. I do own a commercial building and, you know, it's not moving as fast as I want. Slow motion is better than no motion. But, you know, I just always wanted to be a real estate investor. So for me, the end goal is maybe, you know, apartment complex, commercial real estate, you know, getting a passive income, maybe doing some bigger developments. I built from ground up

but in infill lots, but it would be cool, you know, if I can just develop a corner. you know, in a major city somewhere. So that's where I, I see my future going. And how many hours a week would you say you're working on this business right now? Right now, man, I'm probably put in 30, 30 hours a week or so. You know, I pretty much work on it. I do have to, I do have some rehabs I manage, but I'm at like 30 hours a week. I don't, at one point, I was 50, 60, but, you know, I was able to, when you hire a team, you don't have to do that as much. That's a very good segue for us to get into what we're going to talk about today. Would you mind sharing what you're going to be sharing with our listeners? Yeah, man, I'm going to be sharing the five skills I had to develop to become a

full-time real estate investor that you need so you can take off, man? Yeah, now, before we get into what those five things are, can you tell me a little bit about your story, just what your life was like when you were working for someone else? What made you realize you wanted to run your own business and maybe a little bit about what that transition looked like? Basically, man, I was in a call center. I started out my first job after college, man, bachelor's degree. I was making $10 an hour. Now, I don't know if any listeners, you know, ever worked in the car center for those who have not worked in the car center, be extremely grateful for those who worked in the car center. I get it.

I was there. And listen, this is going to sound crazy to some people, but when you work in the call center, man, people are literally getting rolled out in stretches. I think I'm exaggerating. Like, it was people that was coming in with doctor's note saying, like, yo, my doctor said, I can't work at this job no more. You know, and, you know, I'm from the low-income area in New Jersey. So I've seen some wild stuff. And I'm like, what?

Like, man, it's crazy. So I just knew. I looked at people five and 10 years my senior. And I just realized like, yo, not me, man. Like, I can't go out like that. This can't be my life. So a lot of people I find look to real estate to be this magic. pill to save them from a job they don't like or a life they don't like. So there's this idea that if I

get a couple rental properties, I could go tell my boss to shove it. I could quit. I could be my own boss. And in a year or two, I'll be on that yacht with the girls in bikinis, drinking champagne and living the good life. I kind of wanted to hear because you didn't like your job and now you're in real estate full time. Was that what your experience was like? Is you learned how to buy rental properties and it just developed into this? Or did you find that you were sort of trading one set of challenges for another. Okay. That's really interesting. The reason why people think like that is because that's the way it's framed. All right. So fast forward. You coming up when I was coming up, you're seeing the information, which you see the yacht, the guy, the real estate. And this is what inspired me, right?

And I talked about this on episode 116. This is what inspired me to get in the real estate. I was 19 years old. I overheard my father talking to his friend about how the neighbor sold his house to the investor for 150, the investor put 20,000 into it and sold it for 270. And I'm 19, so I'm like, man, I got to do real estate. But me being 19, I asked somebody how to get real estate who didn't do real estate, which was my father. He told me, hey, just go over here and you get your credit fix. But one day I'm sitting on the porch. And this guy rose up, whatever year was, he had that year range from him and the mother girlfriend hop out. So I'm really sold. You know, like, yo, this is it. Like, this is, like, I knew the $100,000, you know, that's all I need to hear.

And this is before I knew anything about real estate. Real estate comes with taxes. They come with, you know, commissions, closing costs, et cetera. But, you know, I was, I was just calculating that money, man. So that's the way it's framed. As far as my journey in real estate, I thought that I was going to be able to accumulate rental properties and walk away from my job. And it did not happen like that. You know, I didn't walk away. They put me up, you know. So with that being said, man, I had some rental properties. I bought a rental property, oh, wait, the traditional way.

I bought another one in 09 because I realized like, Charlotte is cheap. Then when I went to go buy one in 2010, what happened was they said my debt to income was too high. So I thought my real estate investing career was over. But I was reading the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And from me and rich dad, poor dad, it pointed me to the Ria. And I joined my local Ria.

And that's when I found out that's a problem only if I wanted to be a problem. And I learned about wholesaling. And eventually, then my first wholesale due in 2011, got fired from my job in 2012. I had asked them, Dave, I asked them, can I go to my grandfather's funeral? So I was already going to find a write-up. You know, they used to call me in the office every Friday, like, you know, the principal office when you were a kid. So I was, you know, a grown man getting called in the office a Friday.

Terrible experience felt very small. So anyway, but I used to play along with it. They said, let me look at your progress this week. All right, we're going to extend this for another week and we'll see you next Friday. So, you know, eventually they cut the puppet strings. That sounds like an incredibly painful experience. I mean, no man ever wants to be fired. It's like getting cut from a team.

It's one of the worst feelings you could ever have. I'm not going to say that. I've been in five since I was 16. Okay. So maybe you got some thick skin when it comes to that. But I think for a lot of people, there's some pain associated with being told like, hey, I don't want you. And at minimum, there was some pain associated with every Friday.

You got to go in there and sit in front of people that are like, well, maybe we'll let you stick around another week. So you don't have security. You're not appreciated. It sounds like you were just a bad fit for that job. And I think what I like about your story is that rather than draft. Browning yourself and self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself, blaming the employers, you just took that pain and said, I'm going to put this towards where I want to go. I'm going to let this fuel me to get into the new thing I want to do instead of just getting drunk or getting high or eating bad food or all the things that we do, right, to feel better.

You didn't waste that pain. That's what I want to highlight because you went on to build an incredible company. And I wonder if you'd have been able to without some of that frustration and pain to motivate you. No, I wouldn't be able to do it, bro. Because all that, you know, they, man, they used to talk to me terribly, you know, and not that it's that job. And I get it. I wasn't the best person, man. I was in my 20s.

I was a little wow. You know what I mean? So, yeah, and I don't blame all of them, you know, everybody had to do what they had to do. You know, they had to go separate and I had to go separate. I'm not, I didn't dislike anybody. Now, where there are times when I was at my job and I realized I was going to be fired, I had some stress on my face? Absolutely. I had some stress on my face.

But when it actually happened, it was like a little. leave, you know, because I knew it was coming. It happened. I tried to do right. But, you know, and it just didn't work for me. But with that being said, absolutely, that played a major part, man. One thing about it, right? This is where a lot of thoughts go wrong, right? You got to live in your reality, man. I lived in my reality, and my reality suck. That's not the life I envisioned. That's not the life I wanted. I didn't go to work because I said, oh, I'm happy. Look at it. I lived me, I'm happy. Oh, I like driving my 01 tour as I don't know if it's going to work with tomorrow. I like it. Oh, I got a flat

tire. Oh, how wonderful. No, you know what I mean? I wanted a car where at least I get in. I know I can make it to work, bro. Like, is that too much to ask for, bro? Like, no, I'm not happy being poor. That just wasn't my thing. I didn't grow up around well-to-do poor people. The poor people I grew up around, man, they wanted to kill you, You know, I had to dress up like a cop just to go to my house when I was growing up, bro. So, yeah, it was crazy, man. You know, so I just dealt with reality, man, because I grew up in an environment where you had to deal with reality of your situation or you can find yourself in a traumatic situation.

So I just, you know, applied that, kept that with me and realized, you know, I, you know, I always was a hustling. You know what I mean? I always made things shake. And I just, but I had to make this will estate work. And that was it. Now, one thing I love about your story is that you actually, you're going to share five things, five skills you had to develop that helped you become a full-time investor. But each of these skills, you were not able to apply when you were working for somebody else.

At different situations in life, you knew you had a skill or a vision or you could see something that needed to be done. And you had no control over getting that thing done because you were working in somebody else's company. And now that you're running the company, there's nothing that stops you from executing on some of these things, right? Especially because you consider yourself the do-ro. Like you get out there and get stuff done. There's no obstacles in your way. When you're working at a call center, you have a script that you're going to say, and you're going to make that same call a million times. And there's one thing that they want you to do. So what I love about what you're

saying is that you believed in yourself enough that you said, hey, this is not working out for me in these situations, but I'm not going to quit. I'm just going to find the situation where these skills do work. And it reminds me of like an athlete on a team where they know they have skill, but they just don't get playing time on that team or that offense or defense that they run is not conducive to what this player is good at, but you put them on another team and boom, all of a sudden they look great. So that's one of the reasons I would just encourage people don't quit because it might not be you. It might be the situation that you're, and do you have any insight you want to offer on that before we get into these five skills? Yeah, I just want to say, man, if you

judge a fish on its ability to crawl a wall, that fish will go through life thinking it's stupid. Okay? So what that means, man, but if you put that fish in water, that fish going to thrive. So like you said, man, sometimes we're just in the wrong environments, man. And unfortunately, some people are not successful because they're in the wrong environments. They have the wrong friends. And I hate to say it, they're in the wrong marriage and the wrong relationships. so they're not successful.

You put those people in the right situation, they're going to start shining. Like, I don't know if you watch sports, but, you know, the Carolina Panthers, shout out to the Panthers. You know, they play here in Charlotte, and the Carolina Panthers just picked up San Dhan who played for the Jets.

So the Jets, you know, he never made it to the postseason. He couldn't do much. Now he's with us, two games in. This guy's looked like a straight stud because we have the right pieces for him. And sometimes that's what you guys need, just a change of environment, man.

You know, at the age of 24, I moved 10 hours away from home. I had no contacts. I had no friends in my new place. I just knew I had to get out of that environment, man. And, yeah, I moved away in, oh, wait, okay? When moved to Charlotte, I would say about the following year or two, my associates that, you know, were from my neighbor, they got wrapped up in a big investigation

and ended up going to jail, you know. But I see, sir, I see not coming. That's the type of environment I grew in. And I just knew I wanted more of the life, man. And I had to get away, man. So if y'all listen to man, just apply that to your life, man. You know, just sometimes it's the environment, man. That's a great point.

And that applies to anybody in any environment. Those principles exist for all people, right? don't stay there banging your head against the wall, wishing that the world around you would change when you could just leave the world that you're in. You can go start somewhere else. So, all right, what I want to hear about now are the skills that you had being fostered in you when you were in the wrong environment that then helped you to flourish when you got into the right one. So what is the first skill that you believe that you had to develop to become a full-time real estate investor? People skills, man. People skills, right? And listen, I talk bad about my job. I make jokes about my job.

I'm in reality, man, those terrible jobs made who I am, may who I am the person I am today. You know, I worked in the call center from 08 to 2011. And with those roles prepared me for in real estate, I had to talk to people. And you got one mouth and two ears. You had to listen. And when I was in the call center, I'm taking 100 calls a day in the call center, right? So I'm taking 100 calls a day. and people, when I was, this is when I was at the bank, people up there cursing me out

because they got $4 in their account. You know what I mean? They want to know what the $15 go. You know what I mean? Like, so they got $4 in their account. They mad at me, you know, the ones who, you know, were in love and they put their girlfriend and a boyfriend, name on the account. They didn't realize that that person can call in or go to the branch and take out all the money

and close the account. That happens more often than you think, believe you or not. So they didn't realize that. So now they want to fight me. Why are you going to fight me? I'm already making 12 hours. You want to just beat me up. I mean,

look, I have no comma in my paycheck, bro. No comma in my joint, bro. Ain't nothing motivating to not having a comma in your paycheck. So anyway, I had no comment in my joint. They want to fight me. They call it.

However, I had to sit there and listen. I had to listen to what their problem was. So I can put them in touch with the right, in the right department, you know. So yeah, man, and it went from no comma to no limits, man, because of my mindset, I took those skills. So when I was making calls beating up that phone,

I knew I had to listen. I had to have good phone etiquette. And I had to be, I had to put them at ease, you know. If they had concerns, I had to address those concerns. And I learned that in the call center, you know, taking those 100 plus calls, man. So, you know, I got paid to learn for this business, man. And I'm glad I went through that, man, because if you would have gave me some money at 24, 25, Dave, I would have bought a car and had to pulled up in front of the club, you know, got the Bentley, the bins, whatever, Bima Bens, Bentley, yeah, yeah, you know, the vibes and drove in front of the clubs and VIP all drinks on me while my gas take was on E.

Brother, man, I was all messed up in the head. But, you know, God didn't give me no money then because God is the all-knowing, man. So thank you for not giving me no money at 24. That's such a beautiful perspective to you because I think about this all the time that many times in life, if I got what I wanted at the time, it would have been the worst thing that could have happened. Worst thing, right? Like a lot of times we pray that or we ask for money like because we think we need it. But if we got money, we would lose it the second we got it, right?

What we really need is discipline, a work ethic, humility. And I've seen this so many times. that when you get what you need but you didn't want, then the money will follow, right? Like sometimes you have a mentality where you've got this bucket with holes in it, the money's going to drain out. And the universe,

God, whatever you're looking at, is waiting for those holes to get plugged. And as soon as they are, the money comes. Yeah, I was saying it, man. Like, yeah, man, they're waiting for it to get, you know, for you to fill those holes, man. That's what I love about your mindset.

Because have you seen the movie Karate Kid, like the original one? Absolutely, bro. Comedy kid. You remember where Mr. Miyagi, dog. Mr. Miyagi was. teaching Daniel karate, but Daniel didn't know it. He thought he was just learning how to clean his car. But really, he was being humbled. He was being disciplined. If he just knew karate right off the bat,

he'd have went out there and got himself into fights and created a bigger mess for himself, right? He had to learn how to develop some of his own character. But he was learning karate while he was doing other things. And when you talk about being in that call center and taking these calls and dealing with angry people, if you had taken a negative attitude and said, this is not my problem. This is stupid. I'm not going to deal with it. you would have been robbing yourself. But it was the skills that you built with this person coming and yelling at you because their girlfriend stole their money and you learned how to sort of like absorb their anger, calm them down, get them to think about it from another perspective that now make you money

when you're actually trying to put a seller under contract, right? There's a lot of people going through life that say, I want to quit this job. I don't like it. It's hard. But they don't realize that the skills they could be building in that job is exactly what would the karate that's going to get them into the next level. So can you give us a couple maybe examples of ways that you have developed people skills or ways that you've learned to talk to human beings as specific as you're able to share that investors would want to copy in their own business? Yes, absolutely.

And first thing first, let me say shout out to Coach Carson, so I'm known as Chad Carson. And I would see him speak at the local Ria here in Charlotte. And he recommended Toastmasters, again, people skills. And if you're at any Fortune 500 companies, you guys are still going in. They normally have toastmasters with me and there. But just knowing how to present yourself because you're going to go, sometimes you're going to be face-to-face with sellers, right? So your people skills come intact, right?

I don't go in the house, Dave, and beat up the house. Oh, my God, this house is terrible. Oh, my God. Do you see that wall? What's that? I don't go beat up the house. I don't do that. You know, instead, I talk to him.

And, you know, I don't want them to feel ashamed. I don't want them to feel embarrassed. No, I want you to do business with me. Hey, man, this is all right. Man, I see worse. Don't even worry about it. The house could be, you know, the worst house ever I've been in. Hey, man, don't worry about it.

I'm saying worse. You know, I'm used to this. It's all right. And, you know, I might stare at an issue, you know, so I might stare at it and rub it and pulled down. And today said, oh, yeah, that crack came from the water was coming in the roof. that way and so yeah, we believe the foundation cracked. And, you know, so I just used this skill just being a people person, talking, talking to them

and not talking at them, if that makes sense. You know, you want to be the expert, but you want them to trust you to be the expert. You want them to address their concerns because even if you dictate the situation after you sign the, they signed the contract, yeah, they can change their mind because they had a bad feeling about you. But I don't want them to change them. I want to, I want to put their concerns at ease up front. And that's how I use it by just dealing with sellers, man, directly and going belly, be able to talk to them and communicate effectively. Sounds like you're aware of how your words would impact them. Absolutely. The people that go in and beat up a house, they don't realize that the

seller isn't sitting there thinking, oh, man, I better give it to you for a great deal because I got a crack in it. The opposite happens. The seller now doesn't like you and looks for problems with you to blame, similar to that person that comes in yelling at you because their girlfriend cleared out their account and they want to blame you that you almost learn that ability to absorb somebody else's negative emotions. Many times it's a seller. It's embarrassment or shame because they know this house is not in good shape. You're building a connection where they feel safe. And now they're safe to tell you, oh, yeah, the foundation's cracked. And there's a big hole in the roof that let water in, which everyone knows means that it's going to affect the price of the home. But you didn't have to force that on them.

They willingly provided that information to you. So I think that that's, I mean, that's brilliant. Just the ability to be aware of how what we say affects other people, that emotional intelligence that you developed in these other areas. What would you say would be the second skill that you had to develop in order to become a full-time investor? You know, vision for how to improve processes and the ability to foresee problems, man. When I foresee a problem, I could address it.

And let me, and, you know, let me give you a example. Yeah, I was about to ask, what are some examples of things in your business that you were able to foresee and change that made you more successful? Absolutely. So we all, you know, work from, you know, my operation, we all work from home right now. And so we always work from home. But if I got some during team meetings and stuff like that, somebody who's just always negative. And the WhatsApp group chat, somebody's always negative. And that I know we just got to get rid of them. You know, oh, there's just no leaves.

It's just that. No, I foresee that, man. If I see a contractor, he cutting corners. Listen, this foundation is not done right. If we do this house and the buyer gets his inspection and that foundation is messed up, I'm going to have to spend a lot of money getting his fits to make this, to make this person feel comfortable. But if we do it, the right the first time.

I put that buyer's mind at ease. So let's do the right thing. You're going to do the right thing like Spike Lee. You know what I mean? So if they're not doing it so now, I can just cut it short if they're doing the wrong thing. You know, so when I was at the job, you know, it was like, hey, look, man, you're employee number 88. So just you shut up and take calls. That's a great example.

So what I hear you saying is that when you see small red flags, like, hey, no one's paying attention to the contract. so he's cutting corners. I make this mistake all the time. I want to say, hey, don't do that again and tell myself I resolved it. But human nature says when I'm not looking, they're going to go right back to doing that same thing. And that could cost you, your reputation, the buyer's peace of mind, some negative impact because they cut corners in the beginning. So now when you see that, you just address it right away and put a new contractor in there

and explain what your standards are. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. That's exactly what we do, bro. just, you know, if we could catch it early, let's catch it early. Let's not wait until, you know, we're in front of the Supreme Court. And what about when you mentioned in a WhatsApp when you have an employee in the company that's speaking negatively or complaining all the time? Can you share me a little bit about why that is something that's important that has to be

addressed right away? Oh, man, that's spread, bro. That spread over, man. If I go outside right now saying, man, Charlotte's a beautiful city, man. We got to stay in the middle of downtown, man. I have to pay $90 to park. You know, parking is pretty affordable. I can park in this neighborhood over here and walk to the stadium. Man, this is great. You know, I have more people chip in. Like, yeah, Charles is a beautiful city.

Charles is a great city. If I come outside and say, man, man, you know, you know what the man should be doing. The man should be over here doing this. And it's, yeah, man, you know, this is terrible. They should widen these sidewalks up. They should plant more trees, man. What's up, man? This oxygen is corrupt.

And being that this oxygen is corrupted, is messing up my senses, and I can't breathe properly, you know, through my nostrils. So, you know, with you, that it spreads. If you go out there and be positive, it's going to spread. You go out there and be negative, it's going to spread. So you don't want people who are going to be consistently negative. Now, of course, you want team to be honest. And long as, you know, was there honest with you, you properly address that concern. If it continues to go on, like, okay, all right, because more people are picking up on this.

just to give you a clear example, I'm talking to my hardwood guy. The plumber was there. My hardwood guy was saying, it's too hot to work the side. I can't work as hot. It's too hot. I come back in the evenings or early in the mornings

because I had no air at this place they're working at. Guess what? The plumber started using the same excuse. Because that spread like that. So, you know, you just got to like, you know, address those things. things up front because if you don't, others will use the same excuse not to get things done.

That is such a good point. I just had to talk with two of my main employees about if one person asked for a special privilege that others don't have. You may be tempted to say yes and maybe you really like that one person and you believe they can handle that. But what happens is everybody around you sees they got it and then they want to come ask for it. And even if you tell them all know and you successfully argue and explain why they can't have that same perk, you just burned a ton of energy to get yourself back to where you were in the beginning, which was not energy that you spent creating revenue, improving processes, making people money. And it hit me just very clearly that when we give that one person, yeah, you can work from home and get paid. But then everybody else says,

well, I want to work from home and get paid. Well, a lot of those jobs, they can't be successful if they're at home. There's no accountability. They're not learning what they need to learn. And now I'm spending hours and hours of time and energy to get them to be okay with where we were when we started. So I do love that idea that sometimes when you give in a little bit, you're not just giving in a little bit. You're allowing that to become sort of like the standard that everybody can expect. And you spend a lot of energy not moving the business forward. Absolutely. So thank you for sharing that.

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Man, you have to learn marketing, whether you like it or not. I'm not saying you have to deep dive into it and study great marketers, but you do have to learn marketing. It's extremely important. And at my job, right, man. And I don't know if I ever said this on the podcast before. So let just be the first, man. Shout out to Bigger Pockets, man. Shout out to the founder, Josh Dalkman.

Shout out to my man, Bid at Brandon. But anyway, and definitely you, Dave. And I appreciate you just giving me this opportunity to sit next to you. You know, I'm not exactly breathing your air because, you know, I mean, I'm in Charlotte and you're where you are. But you know what I mean, man. Just appreciative to be here. So anyway, marketing, man.

So let me tell you something. Man, I never passed a business class at a collegiate level. I failed everything at a collegiate, a business class at a collegiate level. I was failing. You know what I mean? And never passed a business collegiate. class. But fast forward, have a seven-figure net worth. My business does seven figures. So for the person listening, man, don't quit. Don't let society tell you that you're less than because you did not

pass a standardized test. Okay. Do not let them do that to you, bro. If you believe it, you could achieve it. So back to this marketing point, man. So marketing was something I wanted to get in. I wanted to get into the marketing department from one of these companies, but none of these companies took me serious, man. So I learned it on my own. I did it for myself, man. I started out, man, collecting my own data driving for dollars, man. It took me eight months to get my first deal. But then once I learned how, like, that's how you stay in business by having sellers, no matter what the market do, if you got sellers in any market or any class of real estate,

if you got good deals, you're going to make money. And that's why I love wholesale. I know some people knock it, you know what I mean? But, you know, I make more than some of the flippers. You know what I mean? That knock it. So whatever. But anyway, so some people knock wholesale, but this is why I love it because that skill of wholesale, you could apply to any asset class in real estate.

But anyway, just basically finding a good deal. So I had to learn marketing, man. At one point, direct mail, man, I was spending between 15 to 20,000 a month. And that's in like two counties in Charlotte. You know, I was hitting every absentee owner, man. We was killing it. You know, that's probably back when I did the $100 deal year or whatever. So that's not working.

So if the market is not working, what do you do? Do you quit? You give up? Man, we don't quit over here. You know what I mean? So with that being said, man, you know, I had to adapt. What's new. I had to go get a coach.

So, you know, what I'm doing is I had to adapt. Now I'm doing a cold calling estimate word of mouth, which is people just bringing me deals and things with that nature, man. And, you know, that's what I had to do, man. I had to learn marketing with, you know. So when something's not working, man, just got to change up the product or the service, man, and just make it happen. So you mentioned three things that you look for with marketing in there, tracking,

consistency, and adaptability. Can you share how those concepts apply to the business that you're running now? Absolutely, because you have to track. If you don't track, you don't know what's working and who's coming from where. So that's the important. You want to know that where you're spending your dollars is actually going to the right place. Consistency. You have to say consistent. Sometimes people spend money marketing for two months. nothing happens and they give up, well, that's, that's really normal for that to happen. You know, you're paying your dues, is what I tell them. It's a part of your story.

So you have to have that consistency to keep banging down, you know. If you do marketing in October, right, so this is October, you do market in October, and they say, well, no, I'm not right. Well, that type of no, no, no, not right now. I don't want to sell. Hey, can I follow up with you? in 30 days? Yeah, sure, go ahead.

You know, put them on a follow-up schedule. Follow up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. You know, you've got to have that consistency with the lead, not just the marketing as well. Sometimes I talked to somebody for, you know, I had deals where it took us two, three years before we got to deal. You know, adaptability. You got to know how to adapt, man.

Direct mail start working. And then, you know, like, do you go home and cry? No, you don't go home and cry. You got to adapt. It was new. It was working. So that's what I had to do, man. And that's how I applied it to my business by adapting, you know, the cold calling, the testing, and the RVM ringless voicemail, which the services I used got shut down.

But, yeah, you know, just got to know how to adapt. So what you're saying is that when you were originally in this, you were doing direct mail to absentee owners, you did great. That changed. It stopped working. Other people started doing it for whatever reason it wasn't effective. So you, instead of just saying, well, I guess I can't wholesale anymore, you moved into. the SMS, cold calling, word of mouth, and the ringless voicemail. But then ringless voicemail stopped working.

So you had to come up with another thing. And I'm sure your mind's already thinking about what the next step is going to be when these things get shut down, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. That's really good. And you have to stay ahead of the curve, man. You know, you're not, you know, when, yeah, you just have to solve problems, man.

That's basically it. So solving problems is what you're describing. And that's the thing is when you're in a W-2 job, you often don't have to solve problems. You can make it somebody else's problem to solve that problem, right? Right. Like this air isn't good enough like you were saying. Somebody needs to fix this as opposed to when you're the business owner. Well, you're the one that got to fix the air. So that's why adaptability is so important. And then to the point of consistency, I've always said you can't chop a tree down with one swing, at least any tree that you would want. If you could chop a tree down with one swing, it's usually not that great of a tree. It's not going to give you good wood. So when you finally, when you first talk to a prospect, a seller, a lead, whatever it is, not many people in the first phone call are going to say, you know what? Here's a listing agreement. it's signed you sell my house i don't want to ask you anything again there are several attempts that have to be made to get any good progress and if we approach problems like that we won't be discouraged by the fact consistency is needed i think a lot of people their expectation is that in the first call

yes or no they'll get an answer and when that doesn't happen then they give up absolutely absolutely all right now we kind of touched on number four when you were answering number three but why don't we dive into a little bit deeper what's the fourth thing that somebody needs to learn if they want to be full-time investor. Man, problem solving, though. You got to know how to solve problems, man. See, at your job, right? If there was an issue with my paycheck, man, I could escalate that to my manager. I ain't got to deal with that. My manager did with all the lay work with HR and all that. But if there's a problem with your paycheck, you've got to handle that. So there ain't no escalation. You know, I can't get David Green on the phone and say, hey, Dave, bro, like, man, this seller is not showing up

to closing. You know, you have to handle that problem. And Dave, you know, like, I mean, what does it have to do with me? You know, it's calling Dave. So, and problem solving, man. You will have to use problem solving a lot in real estate investing. Keep in mind, we go after a minority of the market. What I mean by that is the majority of the market can go list their house with a realtor and get top dollar. We're dealing with that segment of the market, which they want to sell fast.

They have some type of problem there. You know, a real, and I've had this before, a realtor. tried to list it. I wrote to couldn't sell it. I wrote to say, hey, you got to fix this, that, and the third for me to list it, and I listed. And, you know, that, those happen. That stuff happens. I'm dealing, we have a deal right now.

It's about 50,000 spread on it, right? The situation is, tenant's not paying rent. I only can't get them out, right? So, what did I do? I went to the tenant and said, hey, look, I'm not on hit, hey, I'm not on nobody's side. I want to buy this house. And I need you to leave.

So how much is it going to take for us to happen? For that to happen, right? So we came up with a figure, all right? And with that particular figure we came up with, you know, I said, you know what? If this is going to save me time, there's 50,000 sprint, let's just do it, right? And I had to buy her lined up. This is just a whole deal. So then the person wasn't out and then the excuses just kept going.

So my, I thought I solved the problem, but another problem happens is the guy is still not going out. So they're not leaving. So what did I do? Okay, I hired an attorney. Hired an attorney. We did the eviction. We got awarded. Evictions in North Carolina worked pretty fast, but we got awarded the property. Now we're just in the midst of waiting for the 10 days, the 10 day period before we can do the sheriff lockout, you know, where they have a chance to appeal. So I say that to say, you know, you're always tenant not leaving. That's not. something you walk away from in this business. COVID or no COVID? That's always, I've been dealing with that situation. I've been doing real estate investors where I have to go to the tenant. I got

agrees there upon them. I have to go pay an attorney. I have to do something. I have to solve that seller's problem to get that property. Yep. All right. And that's what I have to do. But you always have to be thinking creatively to get things done. Sometimes you're going to come across sellers whereas getting a bunch of cash doesn't help them with this situation. So what do you do? You have to offer terms. Say, hey, look, what if I can't, are you open to taking your equity and monthly installments? Okay, you are. All right. So look, what if I can pay you, you know, $300 a month for this long? You still get the cash flow. You don't have the heavy hit on the capital gains. And I can cash you out this period. Or we can do it running for 30 years and your

estates gets the payment, but we can get created with it. You know, you just want to be able to solve problems. You have to think outside the box with this business. I can't tell you how many clients we've had on my real estate team where we find them a great deal, way under market value. And the reason that we got it is because it has problems. It has a tenant that doesn't want to leave. It has a foundation that has to be repaired. It has extensive rehab work. It has a roof that's needed. And the buyer gets cold feet because they focus on the problem and they lose the perspective that the problem and the equity or the upside are related. You don't get one with the other. It's a yin and a yang that is happening. Right. So I'm always reminding myself that the more money I make is

attached to the bigger and the harder and the amount of problems that I solve. In fact, that's all money is. It's the return that you get for solving problems. And if you're like Elon Musk and you solve really difficult problems, you're going to make a whole bunch of money. And if you're the person that just wants to show up and do the bare minimum work and solve no problems of value, then you can't expect to make very good money. And so in real estate, this is very clear. Like, you can't get away from it, that the money come. The whole reason the seller is willing to sell it at that price that you liked was it has

a tenant in there that they don't want to deal with. And so walking away from the problem is also walking away from the value. And I just love that attitude that you have that, no, I'm here to solve sellers problems. and I have to be creative, but at my job, I didn't have the opportunity to do that. Man, let me just type on that one more, man. I had a lender really wanted to do business with me. So I brung him a deal, okay? I said, man, this is a home run deal.

I'm getting in this particular zip code, a hot zip code. I said it's the shortage of houses under $300,000 in the zip code. The busy street, but the big issue, it has a tenant that's not leaving. So I got to take this on. So he ended up, you got, you can't get, no, I don't want a lender to the tenant, you know, and the price was 99,000. So I said, okay, and called another lender, he did it. And I end up making, this is my biggest deal today, I end up making $246,000 on that deal, man, because I dealt with the problem. I didn't, I didn't focus on the problem.

Getting the tenant out, that's, I, see what, I got to go there and grease his, because, Now, you do have to understand your tenant landlord law. Every state is different. Some states I've heard were extremely difficult to get people out. The state that I am in is not that difficult. I know either I'm going to pay this person to leave. They're going to leave willingly or I'm going to hire an attorney and get them out. So I know I have some options there.

You know, this person just needs some time to leave and, you know, they kept their word and, you know, not the first date they told me, but they eventually left. you know so eventually just left and that was that so you just have to you can't focus on the problem you have to focus on the solution to the problem and that's why we're high that's such a great story this is why we're highlighting the danger in thinking that real estate helps you avoid solving problems i don't want to work at this job because my boss doesn't like me or i don't like to have to wake up on time or i don't want to deal with stuff i just want to do with real estate so i have to deal with anything no you're going to make money in real estate because of what you're willing to deal with. And so the better attitude is exactly what you took, Nosser, where you are embracing

that I have to go solve this problem. And so, like, that's one of the things that my loan brokers that we're doing different is we're looking at what are the problems that investors have getting financing and how do we go find loans that we can give to people that don't qualify for mortgages like me. I couldn't buy real estate for a long time because I had 10 finance properties. And you can let that become, like you said earlier, it's a problem if you let it become a problem or if you decide to allow it to be a problem. But now we just look for this loan program that we're using now. And it doesn't matter what the person's that's income ratio or credit score is. They're just looking at the property.

And most people are getting qualified with that loan. And there's like probably 10 to 15 deals a month are coming through just with that one loan program because it solves everyone's problems. And so if there's one thing that I would just want everyone to take away from the episode with you, it's that embrace the problem solving. Make it your responsibility to do that. And then you will find yourself not being broke like you were saying earlier. So that moves us on to number five, which is where a lot of people get. stuck. And I feel like this is your go-to move when it comes to real estate, just like you got a basketball jersey on right now. This is your Hakeem-Elejewan dream shake. Tell us what is the fifth

thing that everyone needs skill people need to develop to become a full-time investor. I know this, I know we said this the fifth thing, but this is like the most important thing. You got to have just that no quickness to you. You can't quit, man. Some people every time life those are curbed ball, bro, they tap out. This. This is not the business for that mentality. The most important thing, man, is to fix your mentality and prepare yourself for the process whenever you're trying to achieve any big goals. For some of you come from families, whereas your parents aren't owned a house.

Your parents never made over $100,000. Nobody, you know, never made $100,000. If, you know, that type of situation, so this is going to be no to you. All right? This is no. You know, you don't know no home flippers. You don't know no whole sales. Okay, so this is no.

so it's going to be difficult. You need to embrace the process. I just had that in me since a child. You know, I was blessed to have some really great parents. One thing they instilled to me, man, never quit. They would never let me quit anything, man. One time, man, I was a kid in grade school, man, playing for the football team at the park.

And I broke my arm, dislocated my elbow. Okay? Bro my arm, dislocated my elbow, man. And I didn't want to, I had to get surgery in A. thing. My elbow was up here. You know what I was crazy? I glanced at it. You know what I mean? I couldn't even move. I'm laid out. You know, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I didn't know.

I was a kid or whatever. So I wanted to quit. I said, yo, I'm not playing. I had to get surgeries in the casse and all that. So I'm not playing football. They said, what? You're going to play. Man, they made me. I'm in the cash. You know, regular clothes. They made me go to practice every day. They made me go to the, okay, I put my jersey on, went to the, games with my cast.

But the coach used to make a reference, like, man, Nasa can't even play. And he's at practice more than the guys who don't play. You know what I mean? No more than the guys who do play. You know, so. And my parents made me. So, you know, after season was over, whatever. You know, I went to the banquet and everything.

My parents would not let me quit. So I'm like, I will look, season's over. I'm just not going to bring up with football trials, you know, football. camp starts because I'm not going to play, right? Man, they made me go out there and play. Made me, you know, no, father would always say,

if I let you quit this, every time son did you're all life, you're going to quit that too. When I became a full adult man living on my own, I've seen exactly what he was talking about. People claim to want something, but they quit so easy. Man, listen, bro,

before you get to the rainbow, you got to go through the storm. That's just the way it is. And you have to realize that's just part of the process. It's not going to come easy. You can try to aim low because I get that. Sometimes people try to aim, well, you know, I don't want to make 50 or $100,000 a mile.

I don't need to make that. That's about $5,000 a month. That puts you at $60,000 part-time outside your full-time job. Do you know how many people would like to make? know people with master degrees. I'm in the major, say, I know people with master degrees that don't make 40. And here it is, you're trying to have your full-time job with me, 60, because you think aiming low is going to get you to a deal quicker. No, you still got to go to the process. This is not a get-rich quick scheme. Real estate is get-rich slow if you do it right. And when I say do it right,

meaning holding properties and collecting cash flow and building equity, etc. But, but, But this is a long-term play. This is not a fly-by-night. Sometimes you got to turn social media off and turn on your life. But this is the most important thing, man. When I was first getting started, man, it took me eight months to get my first deal, bro. I couldn't quit month three. I couldn't quit month five because I had to deal with my reality.

My reality was my life sucked. I got tired of going to the club. And coming home to nothing. I got tired of everybody else getting a promotion. Here it is. I'm going to the principal office. They're done my job. And they sent down to tell me how bad I suck.

I got tired of, hey, okay, well, I'm an employer of the month this month. However, well, I never actually got an employee in a month. But they did recognize me in the cost of them before. And they give me a key chain. Brom, man, what I'm going to do with a key chain, bro? I need a check, bro. a check, bro, I need money, bro. I'm broke, bro. I got to eat.

So listen, don't quit. You know, you got to visualize a goal, man. You have to go after this. It's a very important thing, man. I don't think there's anything I can say to make that any better. That was awesome. You need to record that, set it to some epic music and put it on a YouTube channel as an inspirational video for everyone to listen to when they first wake up in the morning.

Because, I mean, you just couldn't say that any better than what you said. And I think that really encapsulates a lot of the advice you've given us on today's show is that you had to develop these skills in order to develop them. You had to take responsibility for what you didn't like, which you call embracing reality. And then you had to not quit. You had to stick with it so that those skills had time to be developed, just like how real estate works. So I think your dad gave you a great gift in that sense of if I let you quit this, you'll quit everything. Because that's so true. Those habits that we form will determine the quality of life that we and,

up with. And you've obviously got a great business. You did it coming from places where people around you were not doing this. You didn't have examples that you could follow. You've had an uphill battle from what you've described here at almost every turn. And you've done it with what looks like ease compared to a lot of other people. So that's just a great story, a great message. Before we move on to our Furious four here, is there any last words that you want to say just regarding how other people can kind of follow you up that hill? Man, don't focus on the goal. Focus on. the process. It's, you know, listen, you complain about your life now. But if you do nothing in four years, you'll still be complaining about your life. So just keep that in mind.

Very nice. All right. We're going to put a bow on that because that was very well said. We're going to move on to the next segment of our show, which is the Furious Four. We've got four questions that we are going to ask each other for the audience to benefit from. So I will go first What is one real estate or business book someone should read to succeed as a full-time real estate investor? All right, man. So, you know, you heard this eight million times. So I'm going to just go ahead and say it again. I said on 116, man.

You know, Robert Kyosaki, rich dad, poor dad, man, is I feel it's like a must read that pretty much put my life on track for this situation that I'm in today. So the reason being, man, he mentioned something extremely important. book, man. So I'm one of those people I just jumped off the building and said I wore wings on the way down. And yeah, so I felt that's what happened to me. So but one thing he said in the book, man, I changed my whole outlook was, yo, before you invest in real estate investor, you have to learn about real estate investing. Before you invest in stocks, you have to learn about stock investing. And I realized I never learned about real estate investor. So then I educated myself from real estate investing. And bro, the journey has been a blessing, even with all the ups and downs.

And I had my ups and downs. But, you know, everything I've been through, let me tell you this, man. It was worth it. I'd rather do this than be at a job hating my life, not being able to take a vacation. Now, Dave, let me ask you, bro. What's your number one real estate or business book, bro? So if it comes down to somebody who wants to go into real estate investing full time, it's so good they can't ignore you by Cal Newport.

So Cal paints this really good picture about the romantic mindset people have where they believe it's their right to earn money in a way that they're passionate about. And a lot of people grow up hearing, well, you should do something that you love and the money will just follow. And so you get someone that's into underwater basket weaving or, you know, they really love blogging. And so they try to force other people to fund their life because they want to provide a value through a blog. but human beings are all narcissists. We just only care about how something affects us, right? That's why you want to solve problems and provide value because it makes you valuable to other people. And you often end up frustrated trying to force life to work according to what's easiest for you.

What Cal states in that book is that you're much better off to develop a skill, the ability to solve problems, to do something at a very high level. So you are now of value to other humans. And the better you get at that, you get to a point that you can write your own check. You can tell people if you want my help, if you want to be a part of what I'm doing, whatever it is, you give me this much. This is my terms of what I'm going to do. So imagine you at the call center and you're so good on the phone that you blow everybody

away in sales and you go renegotiate the commission that you want or the hours that you want to work. And it's just a different mindset. If you want to be a full-time investor, you're going to be doing nothing but solving problems that are frankly unique and kind of difficult to solve. There's no college course you can take on how to solve real estate problems. Okay. Like there's no one to show you how to do that.

in the most cases you're going to figure that out. So adopting that attitude, I'm just going to be so damn good that nobody can tell me no, that no one could ever say I don't want you is my way that or my advice for how people can get themselves out of situations in life they don't like. Absolutely. I like that, man. You know, that sounds like a good book, man. I remember when I was in the call center from Wachovia, they were my covee, they actually

had sales guys who negotiated. They were so good at sales. It was two or three of them. I think it was two. The guy was so, two guys, they were so good at sales that they got, not only to negotiate their commission, they were able to work from home. And their reason for work to home said, hey, if I come in, it takes me 40 minutes to go, 40 minutes to come back.

That's two hours I could have been making sales. So I'd rather just sit at home and sell. But yeah, but yeah, that actually happens. So for people, you know, that think that, you know, Dave just talking, No, you become that good. People will cater to you. I have a picture of Stefan Curry that I keep on the wall in my office just to remind myself. He's from North Carolina.

There you go. If you're become the Stephen Curry of whatever you do, you write your own check. And that's just what I. It's a constant reminder to work like he worked, to focus like he focused, to look at life like he looked at basketball. And to become the Stefan Curry of real estate because that there's no way you can be denied if that's what you do. All right. So question number three, we talked about five of them, but what's one more habit or skill that a full-time investor needs to develop? Let's see.

You will have to learn time management. Again, this is new to you, all right? You've never done it. You're probably working a job. You have to learn time management, time blocking. You have to know, hey, between these hours, I'm on the phone, I'm putting into this business. Between these hours, I'm out collecting data, buying leads, etc. between these hours, I'll do that to look at emails or something,

but you will have to learn time management. It's a very good skill to have because if you don't have time management in this business, you'll be all over the place. Great advice. All right. So look, man, Dave, got a question for you, man. What's the one thing that separates successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started at all?

Oh, bro. It's listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. You're listening to something else? I just, there's no hope for you. This is the only place you're going to. I'm just kidding. I think that there's a lot of things that kind of contribute to somebody who is successful within real estate.

It's underrated, but having capital is huge. I just see the people who come into this thing with some money that they can put into the deal or into their business are less afraid of, taking action because they don't feel like, hey, this is only $8,000 I have to my name. You're never going to want to move forward if that's all that you have. They are able to make mistakes and learn from them, which is what you really need to do. Imagine going into a basketball game and you're not allowed to make a turnover. You're not going to get better.

You have to be able to go in there and in practice, make mistakes and try new things and improve yourself. So if you're someone who just doesn't have capital, the first thing I like to say is, well, why don't you, right? What is it about your mindset? what is about your approach? Are you the person going to the club every night and coming home to nothing like what you just said. No, sir. That's something the first thing you had to change because you got some holes in your own bucket that you need to fill. And the next piece is, can you partner

with someone who does have that capital? It doesn't have to be yours. And if the answer is no, well, why not? Why don't people trust me? Why don't people believe in me? Why don't people want a partner? Is there some holes in my character that I need to fill so that people would be comfortable investing with me? And I think if you take that approach, it'll put the spotlight back on yourself and you'll have to step up your game and improve the ways that you need to to get to the next level. Hey Dave, man, I think that's a great answer, bro. Let me tell the people a story because you just reminded me of something, man. Look, failure is part of the process. You're going to fail. You're going to make a fool of it. Just get comfortable with it.

It's not the end of the work, okay? Always keep this in mind, you know, when Netflix came out with the idea, which was, and Dave probably remembers this. When Netflix came out of the idea, they had an idea to let you rent DVDs with no late fees. It wasn't always a streaming service. But, and they actually got, they wanted to take out Blockbuster. That was the intention to take out Blockbuster, man. So they were laughed at a lot. But look at them today and look at what they did.

I remember, man, I was at the bank, man. I used to go to like these, I was part of all these committees and meetings, so you get some time off the phone and all that. The Fortune 500 companies normally are for that, man. I was in this meeting and the speaker was a motivational speaker. And she said, does anyone know their purpose of life? And that was 24, 25 at the time. So I was eager. And I raised my hand like, yeah, I know my purpose of life.

Big me! They said, um, so what's your purpose of life? I said, to be rich. Everybody laughed at me. Everybody laughed at me. Everybody. Then they thought I was joking, but everybody laughed at me. The whole room just bust out laughing.

And I'm thinking to myself, like, I'm not, I'm joking. You know what I was, you know, be financial free, fine, you know. But, you know, fast forward today, man, becoming financial free was something that happened to me because I believed it could happen. Nobody in that room believed that could happen for me, man. They all laughed at me, man. One guy in that room came up to me after and gave me his business card for like a network marketing thing. I'm sure, you know, everybody who tried to give me the network marketing still has a job today, you know, take that. But anyway, I chose correctly, which was the real estate thing, man, to stay in on that path, man.

So, you know, fast forward. Any of those people, Google me, Nasser L.R me, they can see my success, see what I have going on because I had a vision and I did not let them laugh me out of my vision. Go ahead, Dave. That's awesome. I think that's a great place to end this thing. So one last question. can people find out more about you? First thing first, you can find me on Instagram, real estate douru.

Duro is D-O-R-U because I actually do this business. So real estate duro on Instagram, on YouTube, it's YouTube.com slash real estate douru. And those are my two most active platforms. I have a blog of real estate duru.com. Hey, if you want to talk directly with me and you want to text me, you can text me at 704-285-1-6-00. Looking forward to hearing from me. And thank you guys for having me today.

Thank you very much, Nasser, for sharing your wisdom, your insight, the struggle that you've been through, and just your story here. Great storyteller. And I had a great time listening to you today. I know you're going to be doing a Bigger Pockets wholesale episode with Max Maxwell. So everybody listening, be sure to tune in. and catch Nasser's sequel to his interview with me today, where he and Max Maxwell are going to take on the process of wholesaling.

And you'll get even more value than you got today. That being said, this is David Green for Nassar from no commas to No Limits, El Arabi. 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 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. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calico Context.

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