BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 617: Why Every Great Investor Should Ask, “What Pisses Me Off?” w/Rich Fettke

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

Single-family rentals are where most real estate investors start. In one way or another, a new investor realizes that there is more to life than just their job. They save up, get educated, and buy their first rental property. Those who do well repeat the process, slowly growing their portfolio to double-digit numbers. But, at a certain point, they realize they can’t go any further with the system they’ve set up for themselves. What should they do? Rich Fettke, co-founder of Real Wealth, and author of The Wise Investor, fell into real estate accidentally. Over the years he’s had to fine-tune his system, scale his team, and learn how to become not only a successful investor but a successful leader. Now, he runs one of the premier real estate investing websites on the internet, manages three syndications per year, and still individually invests in rental properties. Thanks to his track record of more than two decades, he knows what does and doesn’t work when trying to scale your real estate portfolio. Most importantly, Rich knows who to hire onto your team so you can continue to build wealth, without having to do all the work yourself. In This Episode We Cover: Where new investors should look to purchase their first investment property  How to scale from single-family rental properties to syndication deals Why most investors “trap” themselves without a scalable team Turning challenges into adventure and shutting down the “inner gremlin” Asking yourself, “what pisses me off?” when defining your company’s core values And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast David’s YouTube Channel Ask David Your Real Estate Investing Question Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Real Wealth Network The Simplest Way to Successfully Scale Your Business Syndications—Everything You Need to Know BEFORE You Invest David’s Instagram David’s BiggerPockets Profile Rob's Youtube Rob's Instagram Rob's TikTok Rob's Twitter Rob's BiggerPockets Profile Books Mentioned in the Show Think Again by Adam Grant The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner The Wise Investor by Rich Fettke BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0) by Jim Collins Connect with Rich: Follow Rich on Instagram  Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-617 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockus Podcast Show 6-7. For me, it's really looking at what is my unique ability. What are my greatest strengths? And what is it that I love doing? What am I really good at? And how can I do more of that? And the only way for me to do more of that personally is to have someone else handle the other stuff. And there's people who love bookkeeping.

I can do it, but I don't love it. So hiring someone who is a bookkeeper who loves bookkeeping, who's totally, into reconciling and getting everything right. What's going on, everyone? This is David Green, your host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Joined today by my co-host, Rob Auber Solo. In today's show, Rob and I are interviewing Rich Fetke, one of the owners of the Real Wealth Network,

along with his wife, Kathy Fetke, who are both sort of in the Bigger Pockets world now as contributors and influencers. And we talk a lot about leadership, about scaling, and a little bit about where you could be putting your money. Rob, how are you doing today? I want to flip this around and ask, how are you doing, man? That was a very, very soft intro, very asthma of you. Less energy than I typically bring. I'm actually experimenting with this. Like, I typically have one speed. I come in like a Tasmanian devil and I hammer away and I'm

wondering if a softer approach might be good at times. How's it coming across so far? It's good. It's good. It's a little different, you know? It's a little different than I'm normal. but it's very like, it's very soothing, I guess, you know? I wouldn't mind it. The fear is I'm going to put our audience to sleep being too soothing rather than hammering them in the face with value. That's true, but they would sleep like a baby though. So I'm going to listen to this podcast after it comes out and I'll report back. I'll let you know. I'll let you know how my sleep was. You don't actually don't have to. I can tell what you think. You don't like it. I don't like it. I don't hate it. No, I didn't say that. Yeah, I know. But your tone set it, Rob. It's okay. I'm starting to hear you out. I love it, man. I love it. Okay. I love it. I did a show with the real estate rookie podcast yesterday, which will probably be coming out around the same time as this one. And it was just very high energy. And when I got done,

I'm like, man, I seem to only have one gear. In my regular life, I don't go that hard. So it opened up these doors of like, well, how should I be interacting? Because this was a three-hour podcast.

I probably would be more like this. But, you know, we're trying to hammer out as much value as we can in a short show. So maybe our guest could let us know in the comments below. Do you like high-energy Dave or low-energy Dave? All right. Well, speaking of delivering value, I think we've got quite the show today with Rich, man. He just wrote a book. It's called The Wise Investor. It's out now. You can go and buy the e-book on Amazon, I believe. And yeah, man, it was a really good conversation. We talked about setting your mindset, just, you know, I think this is really important whenever you're scaling a company. And he really talked about not just scaling the operations of the company, but scaling the actual culture of it, which is something that a lot of people don't talk about. And that seems to really, that resonated a lot with me, because I'm scaling a lot of my own real estate operations now. And so I'm definitely going to be taking a lot of that to heart.

We also talked about confronting your inner gremlin, which was an interesting approach, which is just like, to put it simply, not just listening to that voice in your head that tells you not to do something, but legitimately confronting it. So if it says, no, don't do that, you ask it back. You then become the voice in that voice's head and say,

why not? You tell me why not. And then from there, actually getting an answer and clarity as to what's actually like preventing you from moving on in your real estate journey. So a lot of good, a lot of good little tidbits all throughout. Yeah, and Rich has been in the game for a little bit. So this isn't a spring chicken. He's kind of giving us a good, experienced, sage perspective on how to get started, how to scale, what type of people you want in your organization. And I really liked how we talked about the values the

person brings. It's higher and fire according to the value. So this is a really relevant episode. If you've had a little bit of success, you've got a couple properties. And now you're like, how can I get more? And that is a good segue into today's quick tip. So today, Rich talked about how before he can hire someone to know if they're the right fit for the company, they have to know what their values are. He frequently talked about asking questions of the people that work for you saying, what do you want? Well, if you don't know what you want and you don't know what your values are, how can you make sure that you're aligned with the right group? So what Rob and I are recommending is that you take a minute to sit down and you ask yourself, what are the things that I value? What do I want

out of this relationship and get clear on who you are and who you want to be. So you can make a better choice about where you should be. It's really good. Can say it might. All right. Rob, before we get into the show, anything you want to add? No, that's a really good quick tip. You know why?

Because I think, look, man, for me, I'm just like, my mind is just like a floating ether of ideas. And so literally like bringing some level of organization to your life and to your values and actually writing stuff out can really just clarify. who you actually are as an investor. Didn't mean to get so profound in the intro, but here we are. Sometimes you can't help it. A man like you with the wisdom of Seneca mixed with Marcus Aurelius can't really help but be profound in stage in most of what you say.

There you have it. Oh, you're uncomfortable with compliments. Look at you. You blush a little bit there. No, no, no. That's the purple light. It looks like I'm blushing, but it's just it's the hair light that I use for my studio. Fair enough.

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I'm doing awesome, man. I started the day with a morning surf session with Kathy, my wife, and I'm pretty stoked right now and great to be here. So is this a jaco thing where you wake up at 4 a.m. You go get a workout in. Then you go surfing. You save an indigenous people from a horrible, tribal warlord, you play some guitar, you do some jiu-jitsu, and then it's 9.30, and you go have

your coffee, and the rest of the world's waking up. Exactly. Well, I also take a picture of my watch and I post it, and then I do a picture of all the sweat on the floor, too, so yeah. And then put aftermath or get some as your caption. Yeah, exactly. Get after it. Yeah, Rob, I never, are you a morning person, Rob? Um, not really. I'm kind of forced into it because I have kids. So my youngest today, Rook, he started crying at 7.30. And then my wife gave me the morning swat. You know, like the, you're up. You go do it.

It's your turn. And so I was a morning person today, but not by choice. That's how I learned to be a morning person was having kids. Yeah, the morning squat. Maybe that's how I've been able to avoid it for so long. Don't have kids. So I get to avoid that. So, Rich, for people that haven't heard about you,

can you give us a little bit of a summary of what you do, the role that you and your wife play in your business, and then we'll get into our show today. Absolutely, yeah. So my main role is the leadership of the business as far as overseeing the culture, our core values, our purpose, our mission, making sure we're on track

that everyone's communicating effectively. That's been the main focus. Definitely on the marketing side too. You know, that's when real well started, I was, my official title was Chief Support Guy. So when Kathy needed a website, I created the first website, and then the second website,

when iTunes came out with a thing called podcast. I took her radio show and burned the CD into an MP3 and uploaded it to iTunes. And so that's kind of been my role, kind of chief support guy. Every company needs a CSG. That's exactly it. That's a nice title. How would you describe what your company does? Real wealth? Two things, really. We help get, we basically, we help people create real wealth, you know, financial freedom through investing in real estate. So basically, the way we do it is we, I'm a broker. So we refer people to other brokers in markets, emerging markets, where they can buy mostly single family properties, one to four units, and that cash flow, because we started in California, and it's kind of hard to cash flow

around here. So helping investors move out of California, move their money into, usually like the southeast and things like that. So that's one part of the business. And then the other part of the business is syndicating, mostly ground up residential development. Wow. So okay, so you get to, A, advise people on it. But B, you're actually still, you're still really quite heavily. invested in the real estate space? Oh, very much. Yeah, very much. You know, and Kathy and I invest to, too, and we walk the talk. And, you know, it's, yeah, and we're depes in these syndications. So we invest in those. And yeah, yeah, we love it. About how many syndications are you guys, you know, how has that changed over the course of this company? Like, are you guys doing

more and more now? Are you doing less now, but much bigger deals? How has that really shifted since, how long has real wealth sort of been a company? We started in 2003. I can tell you the story about that, but he started way back then and started in the kind of the mortgage space. Kathy was a mortgage broker. So we started to help people get into properties that way, mostly for the, for the mortgage, helped them to, so Kathy, we did the mortgage. And then we started to help people get in, you know, with the referral system. But with the syndications, that wasn't until 2010 that we started doing that, broke all the rules, so we didn't realize SEC rules and everything back then. But it went well. And so we usually do two or three,

good-sized projects a year. Lately, right now, we don't have a really good acquisitions person. So everything's on pause. You know, if you don't have a good acquisitions person who can really underwrite a deal, which we've learned from our mistakes, don't do it. So right now, that's kind of on pause. We're just managing the current syndications that we have.

That's awesome, man. So, I mean, it starts really stacking up. Three syndications a year, you do that over and over and over again. I mean, you know, that really starts snowballing at a very, alarming rate. Yeah, because investors bring their capital back when they get their capital return. Then they say, okay, I want to invest in this next project. Yeah, it's really cool. It's a very exciting thing. I'm like finally starting to syndicate and doing funds and everything. And like I'm really year, year one on all this, but you can start to start to see the trajectory of it.

And you start to really understand that a team, you need a team, right? Like a team is so pivotal to actually successfully doing this. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. The only thing more important than a ideas is the team that can see it through. I constantly say that to my team. Yeah, anyone can think of an idea, but not everyone can execute. God, that's such a good line. Rob, that should be on your tombstone, because that's the truth. I think we always tell people, like, where I see this come up is people say, you need a system. So everyone writes down, need systems. Or I'll hear people say, I need to work on my systems. And I think what that typically appears to us as is I need to write down all the stuff that needs to be done and create like a spreadsheet of checklist, some framework to operate off.

And that is important. You do need that. But the fallacy is when people believe, well, it's done once you've did that. You're just going to hand it to someone and they're going to do it. Half of a system is having the framework. The other half is getting a human being that is good at executing that system. And I don't know why that's, we don't think of it naturally, but everything's in life like that.

You can tell a baseball player, okay, your job is hit the ball. But he gets paid on how well he can hit the ball. And that's what it's like in a business is you need a human being that can actually execute the system that you created. And that is hard. This is one of the things that stops people from scaling. So I know, Rich, you're really big in leadership. You're really big in delegating this stuff and keeping things running. Can you share with us some of the things you've learned about what it takes to make a team work and maybe what some of the common misconceptions that people believe are that turned out not to be true? Absolutely. Yeah. It's absolutely huge. It's like we as, real estate investors were always looking at creating freedom, right? Freedom of time, freedom of money. And if you don't have a team, you're not going to create freedom of time. You're going to try to do everything yourself. And I think that's the big mistake that so many people do. Like you said, they try to create systems, but they're systems for them, you know, and they're trying to do it and trying to do all the work. They're not letting go. And honestly, it's like it's finding people who

are better and more talented and more skilled and more knowledgeable in areas. Like, we have a amazing girl who does our SEO. She's phenomenal and I don't know anything about it. You know, we have someone else who just goes out and is our property team director and oversees our property team. So yeah, it's key. It's the only way to create leverage, the only way to grow something beyond yourself and the only way to leave a legacy is to have a good team that can follow through that are connected. And, you know, and the only way you're going to have that is to have a really strong, solid culture. I think that's key. So how are we defining culture? If you were, if someone says like, well, what is it I'm actually trying to do? How would you describe that?

Culture to me is, it's the vibe, right? So it's kind of the vibe that we everyone kind of connects and they feel good and you know, and not just feel good around, you know, just happy, you know, if you want that, but feel good in that, that one of our core values at real wealth is connection. That's one of our core, you know, core values. It's very important to it. Not only do we connect people with properties and connect people with education, but we are connected as a team. It's really huge. So we're like family. We're stronger and better together. So it's that that's what I see it is culture. It's when people love coming to the, coming to work. We're a remote company. We've been a remote company for about 12 years now.

Our employees are all over the, all over the country. We've been as as many as 27 employees. Right now, we're about 22. So empowering people to be leaders and to have that culture of accountability. I think that's key too, where people do what they say they're going to do. They do it on time, but they don't have someone looking over their shoulder, you know, just being that jerk manager, you know? Definitely. Well, actually, I kind of want to ask you about this because, you know, the actual culture of working has shifted significantly in the past two years. So can you tell us a little bit about how you felt the culture of your company was going? And then how did the pandemic change that? What kind of changes did that spur on in your philosophy and the way you

the company. That's a great question. It was it was reaffirming the pandemic because it was interesting because I was doing an interview soon after the pandemic hit now. And the interviewer basically is just like, so how is it being a remote company now because of the pandemic? And I've been like, we've been practicing for 10 years. It's really cool. And it's in the beginning, there was some growing pains for sure. But there's something around. So going into the pandemic, we were like, oh, we got this. The only shift for us is we used to do live events, two live events every month. We do one in San Francisco area, one down in Southern California. And obviously, we had to call those off and stop. We haven't done a live event for two and a half years now. We're doing our first live event next month. So excited about that.

But that was, you know, that was a big one. It was just shifting from that. And then we're like, okay, so how are we going to do events? How are we going to have people feel connected? How are they're going to get to meet the property teams or learn more about a syndication? And we're great. Technology, you know, it's amazing. So we use Basecamp for all our project management. We use GoToMeeting and Zoom for our meetings. Everyone has our cameras on, just like this, so we can see each other.

So I think that's a big part of the culture. So I know you talk a lot about mindset, you know, that that's one of your big philosophies. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, that pillar in your philosophy of culture or, you know, kind of in your investing strategy, walk us through your philosophy on how mindset impacts the overall culture and, you know, your personal investing strategy. I think it even goes beyond mindset. It's definitely mindset is huge, you know, that is absolutely massive and, you know, how we think creates our life. And there's no doubt about it. I think it's more about becoming the best version of yourself to run a good, solid company.

You have to be a good, solid leader. and for everyone in the company for them to be their best, it's in show up the best work wise, it's them becoming the best version of themselves. I mean, the bottom line is like, when we get better, everything around us gets better, right? It's like when you work on yourself and you really get clear about what is that best version of me,

how do I want to show up? How do I want to give? If an obstacle comes at me a challenge, do I crumble? Do I woe is me? Or do I look at that challenge as an opportunity as an adventure something that's going to make me stronger and better. And so I think it starts with you and getting really clear on who you,

who are you at your best, who is that best self and what are those core values that are important to you? What do you really believe in? What do you focus on? Get that solid first and then that carries over to your business. So Kathy and I got really clear on what are our core values. We met in a personal development workshop. So we did a lot of work on this core values and goals.

all that stuff. So we carried that over. And when we set the core values for our company, we didn't just do that from us, just saying these are the core values. We came at it and say, these are the core values that are most important to us. What about you guys? You know, this is when our team was like 10 people. But we had everyone, you know, we had a whiteboard. We were writing all the core values, what's important. And we did the combining, combining them all into one and then boil it down to just a handful of core values. So I think it starts with that. It's that mindset of becoming the best version of yourself first, and then that shows up, and then you create a great company based on awesome core values.

So when you're looking at challenges as problems, you know, that's kind of one of the things that you're talking about here and looking to them as a challenge as an adventure. Is there like an actionable tip that you can give someone here? Because on the surface, you know, it's pretty easy to say like, hey, face your challenge here and making an adventure. But is there kind of a tip you can lend to the audience? audience for actually being able to like run full force towards this this mindset if you will oh yeah absolutely so before we created real wealth i was a business and personal coach i got into that industry

early 1995 and um because of that it really just getting into it early and really learning and is a baseline and the one thing i've seen it doesn't matter i've coached CEOs and to homemakers and everything from artists to attorneys. And every single person I've ever coached, including me, has this little voice in their head. It's this little, I like to call it the gremlin. It's this itty-bitty committee inside our head, right? It just beats us up.

It tells us you're not enough. You can't do that. You're going to fail. Look at this person invested over here and they failed. Same thing's going to happen to you. All this stuff. You know, every single person. So I think it really comes down to that first.

It's identifying what is that gremlin? And the gremlin's super powerful when it's in our subconscious mind, right? And it's always been there to try to protect us, protect us from embarrassment and failure and loss. But sometimes it overprotects. So I think it's just for me, I think the best process to just kind of check in on a regular basis. If you're feeling something in your body, you're feeling butterflies, or you're feeling you're clenching your jaw or you're about this. I mean, obviously I'm going to, I had some. gremlins before this interview. It's like, Rich, you're going to be on bigger pockets. My gremlin starts

saying, you don't know enough about multifamily. You don't know about the economy, you know? It's like, okay, so I just stop. You take a super deep breath in, which actually stimulates your vagus nerve, and it affects your prefrontal cortex of your brain. It slows down your heart rate. It calms you, and it has you see things in a different way. So I think that way of processing that gremlin and just taking a deep breath and saying, okay, hey, Mr. Gremlin, or Ms. Gremlin, what's going on here? What are you need from me? What are you trying to protect me from? What's the warning signal here? And most often, that little voice will just say, I'm afraid of this, or you need to do this, or you need to be aware of this. And then you say, okay, cool, anything else. And it seems weird. It seems

kind of hokey or woo or something. But when you do it, that you get that answer from your subconscious mind, which is so much more powerful than that conscious mind. And you start to get these new answers about, oh, I see how I can move into this. So I think that's a really powerful tool that I've seen work, you know, over the last 25 years as a coach. So, Rich, if I know, hey, I need to figure out what my core values are before I know what the right team to join or that company to work for or investment strategy to pursue is, but I've got shiny object syndrome, which typically is like, I don't like where I am. So everything feels better than that. what advice do you have for somebody who could figure out what will be the right road for them

when at that point when they're that hungry everything looks good that's a really good point yeah core so core values are like they're intrinsic they're almost born with us and kind of built into us and they evolve over our life you know they get deeper and stronger so i mean one way to look at core values is like look at what pisses you off you know what is it what pisses you off what frustrates you. It's what really gets you going and then flip that over and on the other side of that is a core value. So dishonest people really piss you off. People who lie, people are manipulating stuff. Flip that over and there's going to be a core value of either honesty or integrity or both. You know, it could be something like that. For me, one of my core values is optimism, you know,

seeing a brighter future, having hope, looking at let's look for the good. Let's look for this is where things are going. That's a core value of me because flip that over. I hate it. It drives me crazy when people are victims, when they complain, when they focus on the negative. So I flip that over and it's like optimism. And that's one of our core values at real wealth. You know, in the last year or so, what did it start? I think it started with the whole COVID thing because everybody got so entrenched in their side. Rob and I were talking about this when we were in Scottsdale. It's crazy. It's clearly polarizing to say the least everything that happens, right?

Like it's very uncommon that two people will sit down and be like, this is what I see. And someone else says, I see it like this. Oh, that's interesting. How do you deal with this element of it? I do it this way. And right, it's always just you start screaming at the other side and digging yourself in deeper. And I noticed that when I watch the news, it they, I never really see somebody make something up out of thin air that is not true. all. It's more that they take a nuanced issue. They highlight the side of it that supports that

opinion and then they just pound that side and ignore the other side. Right. And I've kind of comes to the understanding that as a human being, this is the way people lie is they don't just make something up. You don't say things like the sky is green and just expect people to believe you. You take out the part of the argument that shows a different side than what you see and you just keep hammering that one side. So applying that to other parts of life, your optimism argument starts to make sense. Is life good or is life bad? It's both. There's horrible things that happen all the time. There's beautiful things that happen all the time. It's which side we choose to focus on that determines the reality we're going to have, right? So there's always a reason to be negative. And there's also

always a reason to be positive. So I wanted to kind of get, so you seem like you're interested in this topic. Can you share some of the things that you've had to overcome to get to the point you're at where you are able to use that muscle that can see the positive in a situation. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's two things that are coming up big. One is that book, Think Different. Think Again. It's called Think Again. Adam Grant. It's so good. Adam Grant. Yeah, exactly. Think again. And I just love that, I can't remember it exactly, but it's like the three pieces. There's the politician. It's like where people come from. They're either the politician. They're trying to work it, you know, to manipulate and get their way. There's the preacher who's just like, this is the way it is. And they're preaching it.

and they just don't want to hear anything else. I forget what the third P is now. Oh, the prosecutor. Yeah, so there's a prosecutor. They have all their facts and they come at it and they just start drilling down with all their facts that they've memorized and trying to make you wrong and them right and all that. And so his third, I mean, his fourth one, he says, is to be a scientist.

Be a scientist where you look at things more neutrally. You're not, you don't take that side. And you're just like, okay, oh, okay. So it's like, so I think that's a powerful one. that was a great book for me that to have me just go, you know, going through the whole COVID and just everything. I mean, just the craziness. And, you know, it's like the social dilemma, right? We get these feeds and they just start feeding us on social media and everything with all the stuff that we, that's clickbait. And then people start seeing their, their whole story, their whole narrative becomes,

goes down this way or this way. So I think that's huge. And then, you know, goes his way back, like goes way back into stoicism way, you know, 2,000 years ago. That was inspired Victor Frankel. And he said something about his, if I can remember that, he said, between stimulus and response, there is a pause. And then there's, it's that moment. And then we have the moment in that moment is our power to choose our response. So you get the stimulus and then you get the response.

But in that moment between those, you get to choose how you want to show. up how you want it to affect you. And I think that's huge. He said something about there's, you know, in that moment, in that response, lies our power and our freedom. So that is huge for me. And it has affected me in a big way going through this. And yeah, it just, you know, it gets heated. Heated with relatives, heated with friends, you know, people with their opinions. And they're so committed to being right. And they get into these arguments. And to be able to just pause and do the same thing, use that vagus nerve in to breathe deeply and calm down and just be like, huh, and just be curious. So I'm actually going to get a tattoo, my first tattoo on my wrist of a

question mark, because it's the one thing that I've learned is being curious is the most powerful response to anything. Instead of being like, I'm right, I'm trying to prove myself right, talking too much, all that stuff. It's coming back to being curious. I think that's the way to handle it. Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, you know, I think we're all recalibrating and we're finally at a place where we're, you know,

we're back a little bit, you know? We can all converse and I think there's a lot more positivity that comes from conversing in person too, you know what I mean? So that's actually one of the things that I really miss. One of the only things I really miss about my 9 to 5, was interacting with people and talking to people and meeting with people. That was a very important aspect of the culture of my company. I was really just a big fan of that.

So I actually kind of want to jump back into that a little bit and sort of talk about, you know, it seems like you have a relatively decent staff with 22 people. So I'm kind of curious, are you effectively, like when is the next hire come for you? because I know that a big part about scaling, A, both the company and the culture, you know, there's got to be some delegation that comes along. So is every new hire for you, is that just, you know, another way for you to delegate something that you can't do, you know, or is it just, you know, a numbers game where you just need more people to kind of handle some of the smaller tasks? For me, it's really looking at what is my unique ability, what are my greatest strengths,

and what is it that I love doing? What are my really, really good at and how can I do more of that? And the only way for me to do more of that personally is to have someone else handle the other stuff. And there's people who love bookkeeping, you know, I'm not, I can do it, but I don't love it. So hiring someone who is a bookkeeper who loves bookkeeping who's totally into reconciling and getting everything, right? I mean, it's a move like that. So yeah, we're we're hiring right now too. Like I said, I'm looking for a really good underwriter for our syndication, someone who really understands, um, ground up, development, residential development, to really underwrite these deals. So that's a big one. And that's

an area where I'm pretty lost in, you know, don't have me do the underwriting. It's not going to work out too well. And then we're looking for someone who is managing some of the property teams, these properties that we refer and the brokers refer people to for buying investment properties, hiring another person who's kind of like the boots on the ground out in that market where they can actually go and look at the quality of the properties, qualities of the rehab, if it's a rehab, or the quality of a new build, if it's a new build. So yeah, I think that's it. And so it's, you know, and when we do hire, we hire to our values. And when we fire, we fire to our values. So we look at when we're doing an interview, we might say something like, tell me about a time in

your life when you were challenged on the integrity side of things, when you really had to apply this core value of integrity. And boom, you put them right on the spot. And then know, and see what they come up with, see where they are with that. Sure. Yeah, higher and fire based on your values, I really like that. And I think this is a really interesting topic, certainly because I imagine when you're a little bit smaller like myself, it's really tough to let go of control because like my operation runs well, but it does require me to be there, right?

And so I feel like every new person I bring on to the team is just, it's letting go a little bit of the, it seems like the quality, but I know that that's not really how it goes. For you, can you tell me about your thoughts here? Like, when you hire someone and you're saying, you don't want to do the underwriting or you don't want to do the bookkeeping, do you ever feel like you're just letting go of control, like a small aspect of control of your company? Yes, absolutely. That's, that's part of the whole dilemma, right? You know, letting go of the wine and letting go and trusting, but there's no way to scale a company. There's no, you're not an entrepreneur if you're not letting go. And you're not building a company. You're not building a business if you're not letting

go because you're going to be just stuck. And you only have so many hours in the day. And if you're trying to do it all yourself, there's just know where you're going to do it. So that's where it's like, that's letting go of control. But it's not letting go of quality. So I think the quality piece is really onboarding someone really well. So if there's something that you're doing now, Rob, right? It's like you basically you mentor that person. You have them right there kind of, you know, they're mirroring you. And then one of the most powerful things I think is to say, instead of saying do it this way, do it this way, you give them some basic training. But then you say, okay, if you're going to do this on your own and I wasn't here, what would you do?

And then they might say, I would do it this way. You're like, ooh, that's good. That's better than I thought of. Or they might say, I'd do it this way. You go, well, okay, what's another way you could do it, right? what's another way but that empowers them to really see this new hire as someone who's creative and resourceful and not make the assumption that you have to micromanage them and tell them how to do everything so that's our whole culture at real wealth and that's you know coming from a

coaching background and seeing my clients as creative and resourceful and whole knowing that they they can find the answers we carry that and Kathy's a certified coach as well we carry that same thing over into our training and our development of our team, where we empower people to just really figure it out on their own and ask for help when they need it. But often you get surprised. You're like, whoa, okay, you figured it out. You did a better job than I would have done. So would you say then you're a relatively large believer in the idea of autonomy then? Huge. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I wanted to create a company that I would want to work at. I've always been self-employed. I've never had a regular 9 to 5, never been a W-2. And I just,

I just could not create a company where people felt like they were stuck, you know, feeling stuck, feeling talked down to, being told what to do. Freedom's a huge value for me. So that, basically, that's the approach we took. And Kathy's the same way. Don't tell her what to do. So it's just kind of like, you know, empowering people. There's the autonomy. And, you know, everyone has their three or four big goals every quarter and their deliverables every week. So there is accountability. There's no doubt about it. So we know. It's not like we're waiting it to the end of the year and being like, whoa, you didn't do anything. We're very clear on what people are doing and what they're up to and that they're moving the needle.

100%. I think one of the biggest, this is where I'm like not really great. I'm working on this, right? I'm working on hiring and delegating and building out my team. And I think the, what can really just make a big difference in that autonomy is you just really have to, actually I think David told me this, like you have to develop, not delegate. And so I think there's a really important aspect of onboarding someone and actually developing them and setting them up, right? So it's not just like, all right, go figure it out. You know, it's a pretty intensive like training, right, for the first week, two,

three, whatever you feel is appropriate. And then you give the autonomy because there have been many times where I've been hired in a company, you know, is a very important. my first day and they're like, well, you know, here you go. And I'm like, I literally don't know what this is, you know. And I was an advertising copywriter. So you can imagine if I'd get dropped into, I don't know, a Peloton group. And they're like, oh, go write an ad for this. I'm like, I don't know anything about Peloton. So I think developing someone right out the gate for me seems to be like what can really be the game changer and the idea of autonomy. Yeah. It's the more time

you put in upfront and clarity and constantly asking that person, like I was saying, you know, would you do this and show me what you've done? And do you have any questions for me? Anything you need? Am I giving you the training and development and the resources that you need? Yeah, I think a lot of time up front and all of a sudden, then it's like, then it's amazing. And then you empower this person and they learn how to be a leader. And then you got a whole culture of like awesome leaders who can figure things out on their own and they don't need you. Yeah, I've gotten over that. I'm pretty happy not being needed now. It's hard. It's hard when I'm good. But yeah, there is a point I absolutely where it feels good to be needed about something and

when that's best for the business to let go becomes a personal challenge. I wanted to ask you, let's say somebody that works with you and Kathy, they're a part of the Real Wealth Network and they decide they need to start hiring because they're doing so well with buying some single family homes. What do you think is a good first hire for that investor that's picking up some steam? Oh, I mean, it really is dependent on them, but overall. all and just broad sweep, bookkeeper, honestly. I think a lot of people don't track their numbers well. They don't know their numbers. They get behind on it. They're like, you know, it's a should.

It's like, I should really get in there and really go over my portfolio. I should really be crunching these numbers. I should really be looking at how I'm doing with returns and all this stuff. So, I mean, next to a property manager, that's number one, having a property manager. but I would say the bookkeeper would be number two, someone who's really good at it. Rob, what about you? What if you found was like the hire that made the biggest difference for you in scaling? An assistant. Okay.

I was really just bursting at the seams here, you know, just doing everything, right? Managing emails and responding to people on my rentals on Airbnb and like writing YouTube descriptions and titles and, oh man, you know, it just got to the point where I really just felt underwater all the time. And everyone always talks about how an assistant, you know, is pivotal, right? And I can really change a lot for you. And I knew it. But the problem with hiring my assistant was that I had to train her on on everything that I do as good as I do it. And that's always the hard and the scary part because you're like, can I do that? And I did. She's really, really, really, really great. And now that I don't have to worry about a lot of these much smaller tasks in

my life every single day. And she's kind of rocking and rolling with that every day, it allows, it opens up my brain power to be able to just focus on some of the bigger deals that I have, right? You know, syndications and funds and new builds and constructions. And now that I've got that time back, it's, you know, it's a game changer for me. So sometimes I want to hire another one. What's been the biggest challenge for you? I'm now, I'm asking the questions, but what was the biggest challenge for you around and around like kind of onboarding and working with an assistant. Has it been easy? Only because she has been really great about being like, you know, hey, I need this.

You tell me this now. So I told her like, yeah, I mean, I told her that it's her job literally to annoy me. Because she, you know, I was like, I don't ever want you to feel like you're annoying me. Because that is very common, right? Like I've had another assistant before and she was great too, but it was always meant to be like a two-month thing. And she was like, oh, I just didn't want to bother you. I'm like, no, no, no, no, you need to bother me. If you don't bother me, things will not get done and I will just ignore you. So I think the hard part with hiring somebody, just in general, especially someone like an assistant,

is that it forces a level of organization that I just don't have, you know, detailing the systems, right? I know the systems. I made them up, but I never wrote them down. So now I sort of have to, like, write them down or do a loom. and record a lot of just things that are so easy, but I'm like, oh, I can't believe I have to show them how to log in to this website, but I know that by doing that, that means they'll never ask me about it again. And so it's just been really hard. And this is kind of like one of the things even with, like on YouTube, like I had a lot of sponsors. Like I had 12 in a row. And that's

usually a really good thing, right? Because it's like it provides good income and everything. But it required a level of organization out of me that I didn't have because I had to be ahead of schedule with outlining and editing and getting things back to them. And so that's where I'm always most uncomfortable when I'm put in a position to, I guess it's really just delegating when I have to like give something over and actually organize my thoughts in a way that makes sense because usually it only has to make sense to me. Yeah, I mean, that's, we're huge at our company on documented processes. So just what you're saying is, and thank goodness, because when we have someone leave or someone has to move or they take a different job or something like that, having all those documented

processes. And that's why I was saying we use Basecamp, we put all of those documented processes in there. And then, yeah, like you said, loom videos and screen captures and, you know, documented step one, step two and checklist, you know, using the checklist manifesto book, kind of following that and have everything in checklist. That's been a game changer for us. I mean, it's a necessary evil, right? I mean, and I do, I definitely recognize that too, because I often think, you know, she's not going anywhere, but if she did, I'd be like, oh, no. Like, I have to redo all. I have to, like, redocument everything and teach them because even now she's learning all the things that, like, you know, now she's documenting stuff for herself.

So it's like, very pivotal, not pivotal. That's a new word that I'm working on. I'm workshopping it still, but it's very pivotal to document stuff. That way, when you do scale, like the idea is she's going to be my assistant right now, but as we continue to scale, and get dozens of more properties every single year, I want her to start leading a lot of that and training the people that, you know, are coming on to the team and training them on property management and bookkeeping

and all that type of stuff. And so the idea is if she can be really good at that, she will eventually move into the bigger role, right? And so that does require some level of organization from both of us to just make sure that, you know, we're all happy and we're all in the clear. And that's huge. And one thing I'd highly recommend,

and maybe you have done this already, but checking in with her and asking, where do you see yourself in three years with me in this company? What position would you like to be in? What do you see? What do you envision? That can be huge. I do that every single quarter with all the people who report to me. The five leaders are in a company.

And then they do the same with the people that report to them. And they ask the same thing. Where do you see yourself in three years? And sometimes you're surprised because it's not the same as the last quarterly conversation. They'll say something else. But having that picture of where this person wants to go can really help you, you know, connect into that and support that dream. No, you're right.

We definitely don't check in as much as we should. It's hard. First of all, it's hard to be a boss, okay? That's one of the difficult things with hiring a team. It's like, okay, even if you find the correct hire, being a good boss is hard. And I recognize that. And that's why I don't purposely just go out and hire five people because I could, but I want to just kind of master being decent at this whole, like, management.

thing. But it's like it's hard to be a Boston. So we do check in. I mean, and the same thing, I have a business partner that's running like my whole real estate kind of operation. And he talks with the investors and he briefs them and he's the one that's sourcing deals and doing everything. And we check in a lot. But it's, you know, it's hard because when you're loosey goosey for years, it's hard to like start saying, hey, every Monday at 2 o'clock, like we're going to check in. And when we do, you're right. Everyone's answers seem to be different because I think in the world of real estate, like as you grow, your goals change, like, daily. So it's very true that I always hear different things. I'm like, oh, I didn't know you wanted to do that. Let me help you

with that, you know? Super cool. Yeah, I had a mentor who said, do you know what? Leaders are paid, why leaders are paid so well? And what are they paid to do? And I was like, hmm, trying to think of that. He said, leaders are paid to have effective conversations. That's the most important thing than a good leader can do. So I was just like, it was like, whoa, it's like, you know, when I really thought about it, leaders are paid to have effective conversations. So it's exactly what you're doing with her, what you'll do with future employees is have those effective conversations. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate

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earlier that you help people decide where to place their money. I'm assuming as leader, you have conversations with them about what their goals are and where they want to return. Can you share a little bit about which parts of the country you are most bullish on and what types of properties you're finding success within those areas? Ever since 2003, it's been single family homes. It's one to four units and we do some small apartment buildings, you know, little ones kind of one off. A lot of time it's a 1031 exchange. We help people get into those, but mostly it's one to four units. And mostly in the southeast. Honestly,

it's like Florida's been huge. The Dallas area has been great for us for many, many years. We've done a bunch of stuff in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina.

It's been really good. Indianapolis. Yeah, it's mostly just southeast. You know, it's like where the people are going, where people are moving, where businesses are moving. Yeah,

that's a thing that I feel like 10 years ago, even maybe five years ago, in our space where we teach about real estate investing, the strategies were based on getting the property, the actual home or house, and how to find the right ones. You're kind of like sifting through garbage into like, ooh, there's something valuable and then going after it. And with as much as the world has changed, with people moving as frequently as they move, with people traveling a lot more than they used to, it seems like more and more we are having to stay ahead of where the crowds are going. So it's not just about the deal. Now it's about finding the area and the deal in the area and then trying to be a couple

years ahead of the curve before all the other investors catch up and then they start buying there and then you got to go find another place. Have you noticed a similar pattern? Definitely. Yeah. It's like location, location, location, but timing, timing, timing, right? So that's the huge thing. But But we really, most of the people that come to real wealth are busy working professionals who are making a good income. They're making solid six figures. A lot of times they're the Henrys, the high earners, not rich yet, people, right? Because they haven't invested their money.

They haven't put their money to work for them. So most of the people that we work with are buy and hold for the long term. And they just, they have a long picture, long vision on where they want to go with their investing and they just want to, a lot of people come in and they just all they've done is the 401k in the stock market, some crypto, a little of this, but they're wanting to get out of that volatility and they're wanting something that's going to be a, you know, good, hard asset. And honestly, they also want the tax benefits and the depreciation. So most of people we work with aren't so much about the timing of the market or exact, they don't have to be so concerned

about that because in the markets we're going into and how. helping them get into. It's just a long-term 10, 20, 30-year vision for the year. Yeah. And that, if we're being completely honest, I think that's the best strategy right now because there's going to be some short-term volatility, interest rates are going up. Every time, as human beings, anytime there's change, there's typically like a pause. It's just, it's kind of how we're wired. So you're walking through the forest, you hear a sound you've never heard. The first thing everyone does is freeze. What was that? Right. And then, okay, it did nothing killed me. You start walking forward to hear a different sound, you freeze again. And we're just in, from what it looks like to

me, we're starting to see these changes happening more and more and more frequently, right? There's a virus that's going to kill everybody and then that's all we're doing. And now that's done. And then do we have World War III coming up? And that while that's going on, well, now interest rates are coming up. And at the same time, they're printing a bunch of money. And at the same time, other countries are doing things too. And now the news is spreading this around. So we hear about it constantly, much more than we ever did. So there's a lot more pauses that are occurring. And when you take that five, ten, ideally 15, 20 year perspective, failure becomes almost impossible. It's very difficult to fail when you go that long. But not everyone has that luxury, right? If you don't already have

a decent amount of wealth and you can play the long game, it can be really tough. Do you have any advice to the investor who's trying to get their way into the real estate market and this is the market that they're trying to cut their chops on? You know, yeah, absolutely. That's how Kathy and I got into real estate. You know, it's like when in 1997, her dad had to do a 1031 exchange. He had partners who sold the apartment building he was invested in. They didn't tell him until too late, you know, so he didn't have much time. And so he was at the end of his 45 days to identify a property. And he was, or he was going to pay massive taxes. So he called his five kids and just said, look, I need to buy something. And if, you know, you can find it, we will, I'll put the down payment.

You can live in it as my tenant for now. And then, later on you'll inherit the property. And so Kathy jumped on it. Her siblings didn't take any action. She jumped on it. And she found a place in the San Francisco Bay Area that was a 4,200 square foot home, way more than we needed. We didn't just had one daughter at the time. But we house hacked back then, 1997. And this was right before, as you know, right before a nice uptick in real estate, and especially in the Bay Area. So we converted the lower level of that house into two different units. We even, locked off the master bedroom that had an outside entrance and turned that into a unit. So we had three units in there and we were able to cover our mortgage and pay for that home. And that's how we

basically got into real estate being a landlord and learning the lessons of that. And then that house appreciated about 100 grand, over 100 grand a year after year after year. And it went from, we got it for 547,000. And that was in 1997. And when it was 2003, it got up to $1.8 million. So we did a cash out refy. We were able to pay her dad back, all that money. He put the money back into the trust. And then we were able to use some of that cash to go and buy investment properties.

So I mean, that's, I think that, I think house hacking is just an awesome way to do it. You know, get it is what we tell our daughters too, you know, get a duplex or get a quad or something like that, you know, and rent out the other ones. I think that's the best way, especially when you can get an FHA loan, you know, that. Oh, yeah. It's so affordable to get into it these days. It all depends on where you are in the journey and how much money you're making, right? Oh, 100%. So I actually have a bit of a tactical question here. I guess in regards to, you know, scaling a bit because I was actually talking to someone earlier and she was like, hey, how do I scale? And I was like, okay, let's unpack this a little bit. So we talked about, you know, sort of like, you know, just establishing your initial portfolio. do try to just get into your first five properties right you know she has she's into her first one now

so i'm like five is going to be that goal i think that's a good way to think about it but you know at a certain point uh then you'll get to 10 and you'll start to realize that going out and acquiring single family residences are really tough it's really tough to just do it all the time it's like not super super scalable and so i was like you know at a certain point like for me where i'm at my journey. I'm starting to run more syndications and starting funds and everything. That to me is like the biggest way to scale in the real estate world, you know, and really just kind of, you know, explode your portfolio, if you will. So I'm kind of curious for you, considering you do so many syndications and you're rocking and rolling here. What is like a very like tactical step? Like what does that look like

for someone that wants to go from, you know, like let's say a 1031 purchase or a single family residence or maybe even a duplex or a house hack? How does one go? How does one go? You know, what does that look like for someone? get to that next level of syndication. Like, is there a tactical way to do that? Or is it just all luck? Like, do you just fall into a syndication? That's funny. You know, for us, it was more luck because we had a developer come to us and say,

hey, this is after 2008. And it was this project in Portland. And the guy who was building these townhomes right on the river in Portland had a, he had about 20 million into it. He was almost done. He owed $8 million to the bank. Lehman Brothers collapsed, and we were able to come in and raise $3 million to buy him out and then finish that project. So it was very much, and it was incredible.

Investors got over 20% return on their money. So that was kind of like the luck one. But coming back to your question, you know, I think the bottom line, it's learning. It's learning and being around people that know what they're doing. So I think, like you said, that one person you were talking to, she got her first. investment property, that is a game changer. That is the mindset shifter of buying your first property. There's so many people. And yeah, you know this. It's like that that's when you flick the switch and all of a sudden you go from not owning a property to being a landlord or owning an investment

property, something happens here. And then you start getting this new self-belief about, oh, I'm going to do my second, do my third. Yeah. And single families are scalable. I mean, I know people who own a hundred single family properties and they got it all down. dialed in and stuff, but way more than I would want, you know, and say, I'm happy with 20. It's cool. Right, right. And then you can go, yeah. So I think it's, I think it's, I think a single family is a great way to start and to learn and to get your chops and all that stuff.

And then it's, it's growing little by little. It's like going and saying, okay, I'm, I'm going to get a small apartment. And then, but before you do that, it's going to these conferences, it's listening. It's, it's listening to the. podcast, you know, it's reading the books. It's not signing up for the $100,000, you know, mastermind. It's taking that, you know, it's amazing what people put in so much knowledge and education into a book that costs 20 bucks. It drives me crazy when people are like spending massive amounts of money. I have one member who came to real wealth and she had spent over

50 grand just on education and didn't own a single investment property. It makes me so sad. So I think it's like getting into that first property, then. learning, connecting, talking to people, going to these conferences and saying, what are you doing, you know, and getting a mentor, honestly. And then that's what it comes down to. Get someone who, yeah, that's a huge way. Well, and I told her the same thing. I was like, look, you know, because she was like, well, yeah, I mean, you can do a syndication, but how do I? I'm like, well, yeah, you know, it's going to be different for everybody, but it's not like you're the, you may not be the GP on your first syndication. You may just be an LP, put some money in it.

And then, you know, maybe on the next one, you ask, hey, can I play a very small role in the next indication, whether that's, hey, maybe it's the bookkeeping or maybe it's the admin side of it. And you kind of work your way up. You know, you don't have to just start with like a $50 million fund or anything like that, you know. You should kind of go accordingly. Right. You shouldn't. Yeah.

It doesn't work. Work super well for the people that just jump right in. Although, I mean, obviously there have been some rock stars out there. Yeah. But usually if you look at their backstory, it's usually they didn't do it. $50 million syndication on day one, right? Yeah. Right. And also there's people who've done that and they're in jail. I'll throw this in there too. There's more of those success stories from inexperienced people in the last five to 10 years than at any other time. 100%. Because this has been the best

market ever. You can make a lot of mistakes and still make it out. And this has been known, but it's just you live in there long enough and it starts to feel normal. We could be coming into a time with interest rates going up and some of the stuff we were talking about earlier with inflation making assets more expensive, but the renters that you're going to be renting too, their ability to pay could be shrinking as their wages aren't going up at work, but everything that they have to spend money on gas, food, their rent, all that is going up. I would not be surprised if we continue to see the Fed raising rates and we're already seeing in like the multifamily space. A lot of deals are falling out of escrow. People like, yep, it doesn't work anymore. Can't get the financing. I was going to get

Just like that, either it's retrading or it's falling out at a pretty big level. And I would expect to see more of that. And this is kind of where that Warren Buffett quote, when the tide falls, you see who's been swimming naked. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if things keep going like they are to where you see which syndicators were actually doing good work and which of these 26-year-old entrepreneurs were convincing people to lend them money and they completely crashed and burned. So it's kind of something the market's been dating for a while because it's just been nonstop. everyone's hitting over and over and over. I mean, have you noticed the same thing, Rich in the world that you operate in?

Just younger people without experience are still having success. Oh, so much. Yeah. And there's just, you know, being and speaking at conferences and meeting them, they come up and they say what they're doing. And it's like, and honestly, it's like, you know, I've talked to some friends like, you know, Ken McElroy is a good friend of mine.

And he's talking about how there was this, he's got, he was offloading stuff before all this start to happen. And he had sold one of his deals. And then it was a few months later and someone was pitching him on buying this deal and talking about how great it is and how he can improve it. He can improve management and all this stuff. And it was one of the deals he sold, you know? So it's just like it's so crazy what's happening. And I'm yeah, I'm really, I'm really concerned for a lot of people, especially the ones with the short term financing. That, that I think is where it's going to really just, you know,

punch him in the gut. Yeah. Well, Rich, this has been great. I really appreciate you sharing your expertise and some of your experience here. We're going to move on to the last segment of our show. It is the world famous, famous four. In this segment of the show, we ask every guest the same four questions, and Rob and I will take turns firing them off at you. Nice. Question number one. What is your favorite real estate related book? I was going to see the book on rental property investing. I thought it was awesome. I think Brandon did a great job on that book. But my new book that just came out on 420 is called The Wise Investor. And it's a modern parable about creating financial freedom and living your best life, honestly.

And so it's different, different than a typical nonfiction. It's a parable. It's a story. It's kind of like rich dad and poor dad meets the alchemist. And Robert Kiyosaki wrote the forward for it. I'm super stoked on that. Oh, wow. That's a bragging, right?

Yeah, it's doing really well. It's been out for a month now, more than a month, and it's been on the bestseller list every day since it came out. I'm blown away. All right. Question number two, favorite business book. This is kind of a little bit of an unknown book, but it's by Jim Collins, and it's called Beyond Entrepreneurship. He just came out with a new edition, but it's been out for a long time, but it was like a lot of these things like EOS was born from a lot of Jim Collins' work

and a lot of Vern harnesses work, but Beyond Entrepreneurship by Jim Collins. Awesome. When you're not writing books, scaling the culture of your company, or running syndications, what are some of your favorite hobbies? Oh, adventure sports. I've been hooked on them ever since I was little, but skiing, mountain biking, surfing, skydiving, all that fun stuff. Yeah, I just love it.

In your opinion, what makes successful investors different from those who give up fail or never get started? It's fear. It's fear, absolutely, yeah, not being able to manage fear and move forward. It's like letting that inner gremlin run the show and having it be in the dark and control things and pull the strings and all that stuff. So yeah, that's it, bottom line. It's that inner fear. It's that inner gremlin.

And lastly, Rich, can you tell us about where people can find out more about you and your book? If they want to reach out to you on the internet, how can people learn more about you? Sure. The book is just The Wise Investor book. I get my cover right here. It's not printed yet, but that's what it looks like. Oh, I love that, man. That's a great cover. Thank you. So yeah, the wise investor book.com has all the information about the book. And then Instagram is just Rich Fetke, which is F, E, T-T-T-K-E at Rich Fetke. Awesome. What about you, David? You can find me at David Green 24 or YouTube at David Green Real Estate. I hired a company to run my social media and help make YouTube channels. So please, let me have

some feedback on what you guys think about how they're doing. Awesome. I got to tell you, it was a huge, there's a gremlin in my head about using emojis in my videos. Every time they would edit it and it would be like, do you want to make money and they'd put like a little dollar sign emoji? Do you have any good ideas and the little light bulb emoji? I was cringing. Like I cannot stand this. But everyone says like that they like it. So I'm just curious if like people could share their thoughts on how well I wear emoji. That's what I'm saying. That is that is TikTok speak, man. That is how it goes. I know it's weird, but it's just it's the way of the. the millennials and the Gen Z.

I had to do the same thing with my Instagram, right? It was like, realtor, little house thing, loan officer, little paper thing. And I was like, oh, I can't stand this. But it was so many people that all said the same thing. Like, you have to set it up like this that I finally gave in. You got to simplify, though, you know? I just watched one of your videos yesterday. It actually works because it's like it sends that quick little signal, you know,

which just makes it easy for the brain to take in. And that's why I wrote a parable because it's, you know, it just communicates information, but it connects it in an emotional way. And so that allows it to stimulate a real change. You know, you can just read a nonfiction book and it just kind of sometimes goes in one ear out the other. But a story completely shifts sometimes your mindset and how you see things. Oh, I totally agree. That's one of the reasons I love the richest man in Babylon. That book is so, so good because it communicates these principles in a way through story, which makes them stick versus my natural communication psychologist to kind of say, this is the way to do it. Bam.

smack you in the face with it, but it doesn't really like sink in like a story can. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I love parables. And Rob, if people want to know more about you, the most interesting men in the world, this mysterious vibe that you have, how they can get a quaff like yours, where can they find out more about you? Well, you know, I'm very mysterious. So I'm not going to give that information out. But if I weren't mysterious, what I would say is you can find me on Rob Built on YouTube, R-O-B-U-I-L-T, Rob Built on Instagram and Rob Biltow on the old TikTokers. Rich, I appreciate you being here. Any last words you want to leave us with before we let you go?

Oh, last words. That's good. I mean, I'm just going to come back to what I said earlier. I've just, you know, being in business for as long as I have and being a coach for as many years as I've been, there's no special secret to business or growth or scaling beyond what I shared earlier. And it's become the best version of you. when you get better, everything gets better.

So work on yourself, develop yourself, and grow, and then everything starts to get better. Thank you very much. Rob, any last words from you? No, no, I can't top that. That's great. You didn't think I was going to ask you what you thought, did you surprise you? And you weren't ready. So next time you'll have to be you.

Okay, how about this? I'll respond. My final thought, I'll leave you with an emoji. And it's the mind-blown emoji from how much I learned from this podcast. This is why Rob is a millennial can't. communicate a final thought because he could only do it if he can use text so he could send an emoji. He's like, I don't know how to put that in words. So we literally just tried to take the picture of a mind-blown thing and turn it into English, which was very difficult to do.

We're deep off back into hierophics as a society. I don't know. I'm waiting for the day when instead of laughing, people just say L-O-L. That's going to come. It's happening. It's on the way. Loll. Loll. We do that sometimes. We'll say lull sometimes. All right. Well, thank you guys very much. you get out of here. This is David Green for Rob Loll, Abasolo. Signing out. 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 Calicoe content. And editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www. www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk.

So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.