BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 648: Why Winners Quit: The 5 Factors to Leaving a Soul-Sucking Job w/Pat Hiban and Tim Rhode

Episode Date: August 14, 2022

Quitting your job is a big decision and it doesn’t always lead to the perfect outcome—at least not immediately. Most people think that you have to be miserable or make very little money to want to quit a job, but even high earners still find themselves struggling to attend their nine-to-fives. Pat Hiban is the perfect example. He quit during his prime even as he was making a high income and after owning his own company. Regardless of all the respect, responsibility, and ability to make phenomenal income, it just wasn't enough for Pat. You may be feeling the same. Maybe you’re daydreaming about multifamily investing as you sit at work, or picturing the perfect vacation rental property on your commute. Whatever your reason, quitting might be the best move for you to make, but only if it’s the right time. Don’t worry if you’re struggling with decision fatigue, Pat and fellow quitter Tim Rhode just came out with their newest book, The Quitter’s Manifesto: Quit a Job You Hate for the Work You Love. In it, Pat and Tim give stories and tools that will help you on your path to building wealth while leaving a job that you hate. The resources you’ll find in this book are exactly what our very own David Greene used when deciding to quit his highly lucrative, but mentally draining job as a police officer. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, not knowing the next step to take in your career, this book may be exactly what you need. In This Episode We Cover: How to quit your job and start investing in real estate full-time The five factors of a soul-sucking job and how to evaluate whether or not it’s time to jump ship Finding the "quitter’s trapeze” that can help you transition from W-2 to self-employed worker Building your team of quitters who will hold you accountable and take you to the next level of your career What it looks like when you’re ready to quit and how to emotionally prepare for the impact And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast Get Your Ticket for BPCon 2022 Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Learn About Real Estate, The Housing Market, and Money Management with The BiggerPockets Podcasts Get More Deals Done with The BiggerPockets Investing Tools Find a BiggerPockets Real Estate Meetup in Your Area David's BiggerPockets Profile David's Instagram Rob's BiggerPockets Profile Rob's Youtube Rob's Instagram Rob's TikTok Rob's Twitter BiggerPockets Podcast 190 with Pat BiggerPockets Podcast 353 with Tim Hear David’s Real Estate Origin Story on The “BiggerPockets Money Podcast” 10 Challenges to Seriously Consider BEFORE Quitting Your Day Job Books Mentioned in the Show: 6 Steps to 7 Figures by Pat Hiban The Quitter’s Manifesto by Tim Rhode and Pat Hiban Connect with Pat & Tim: Pat's LinkedIn Pat's BiggerPockets Profile Tim's Website Tim's LinkedIn Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-648 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Check out our sponsor page! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 648. But the difference is most people think that when they jump off a cliff, they're just going to fall straight to the ground if they don't prepare an airplane on the way down. You've heard that all add. It's entrepreneurs jump off a cliff and then they build an airplane on the way down. Well, most people think I'm not going to be able to build an airplane, so I'm not going to jump off the cliff. And what we're saying is, look, it is scary to jump off the cliff.

And we're not telling you to jump off the cliff. we're telling you to jump off the cliff, but we have a bunch of trapeze swings that you could grab onto. What's going on, everyone? This is David Green, you are host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast here today with my co-host and good friend Rob Abasolo interviewing two mentors of mine. In today's show, we bring back Tim Road and Pat Hybin, both OGs and juggernauts in the real estate space in their respective rights who are incredibly successful agents at the

top of the world in their prime and walked away from that job, quit it to find a better life for themselves that centered more around giving back to other people, working in nonprofits, pouring into others' lives, and making a whole bunch of money investing in real estate passively. In today's show, we dive deep and they share their story of the obstacles that they face when trying to overcome their fear of quitting, as well as the audit that they did on their lives that they called the soul-sucking audit to determine how happy they really were, and what could be different. It is a fantastic episode. I think this is going to resonate with 99% of the people that are listening who are here because they have their own soul-sucking

issues in their life and they don't know how to get rid of those leeches that are dragging them down. Rob, any thoughts about the show before we get into the quick tip? Yeah, two thoughts. First one, this was really fun because we get to hear the David Green origin story about how you started off as a gold miner for Tim, for Tim Rhodes. Maybe some clarification there later. And then two, this was really fun for me as someone who just quit my job about 16 months ago or so because a lot of the systems and the tools that they talk about and the terminology is all a very official way to put, you know, to put everything in perspective for me when I was doing this, when I was getting into this,

I mean, it was just crazy scatterbrained thoughts in the ether. I wish I had like talked to them so that I could at least have placed some sort of systems. in my mind to how to approach this because everything they said, I was like, oh, I did think of that. Oh, I did a thing of that. It was not nearly as organizer as cool as you just said it. I had to sort of figure that stuff out by myself. So I think for anyone in their journey right now who's thinking about quitting and becoming a full-time whatever it is they want to be, self-employed person, this will be a really good episode for you to really put things into, I don't know, into tangible steps, I guess, would be the best way to describe it.

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to where you want to be. This is not a feel-good self-help get y'all jazzed up and then say, go float your way into the ether and figure this out. No, this is actual step-by-step things that you can do, how to take an audit of her life to decide if you're happy, how to make changes so that you will be happy and get from where you are to where you want to go, just like they've done and have helped countless other people, including myself, to do the same. You can get that at biggerpockets.com slash quitters manifesto, or if you don't like spelling, just go to biggerpockes.com slash store, and you can find it there. All right, let's bring in Pat and Tim.

Tim Road and Pat Hyben. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. We've got some return guest action going on. Yeah, man, good to be here. Wow, been a while. I was trying to figure out when I was on last. Yeah, so we had you on episode, I believe it was 188.

And Tim, you were a little more recent on 353. Both of those were very highly downloaded episodes. So Bigger Pocket sought fit to have you to write a book. And we're going to talk about that a little bit later in the episode. But before we get into it, why don't we start with how we know each other and what your backgrounds are in real estate? You want to start off there, Tim? Sure.

My background is in real estate, started selling real estate. My goodness, in 1986, I sold actively until about 2000. And this is when I met David Green right around that time when he was actually. working at Isidore's restaurant and then came to work for me as a prospector. So that'll be a funny story within all of this. But yeah. And then I went, gosh, I've been a quitter for some time now. Quit many different careers. And now I've kind of quit my way to the top, if you will. So it's been a long fun ride all the way. And Tim, can you tell us briefly about your real estate holdings at this time?

So my real estate holdings at this time, I probably have about 50 different income streams. Anything from my got, I think I've got like 15 apartment complexes with our dapped-asked acquisitions. And then a bunch of businesses, a bunch of investments in other people's. assets because I don't believe in working myself and haven't for about the last 20 years. So I have about 50 different income streams at this time. Pat Hyman, former podcast host of real estate rock stars. I believe you were also the former number one real estate agent in Keller Williams at one time. Tim, I'm sure you'd be able to say the same about PMZ real estate where you dominated the market. But Pat, tell us a little bit about your history and your background in real estate.

Yeah, so real estate's my life really, or has been, I should say, it's like in one form or the other. I graduated college with a degree in sociology. I got a 2.3 GPA, and no one would hire me. And so I went to real estate sales because there was no barrier to entry. And, you know, I spent 25 years selling, slinging, and I was at probably five different companies over. 25 years, remax, KW, Long and Foster, you know, everything you think of. I had my own company. I had my own mortgage company, title company, you know, just real estate sales until I quit. You know, I quit. I bailed. I kind of, I collected the money off of the craps table and I went

back to the room and I hid it under the bed, you know? and that's really what happened. And so after that I started investing and I invested in a bunch of single families. Then I, with Tim, we started investing in multifamilies. I think we're up to over 2,000 units now multifamily-wise that were on a GP level on. We had a shopping center that we just sold. we're kind of on a little bit of a not a lot but a little bit of a selling spree we're selling some things and yeah and then of course i had that podcast which i sold to aaron amochia

steggy the only person in the world to ever be able to monetize and sell a podcast thus far um that that that that i know of and um what else uh started go abundance uh with tim and and and David and Mike McCarthy. And so, yeah, that's where I'm at. I've still got, I've got about 67 lines of horizontal income, which is income that's coming in sideways, all different types of stuff. I'd say 55% of it today is real estate, 45% of it is random other stuff. Just to be clear, that was David Osborne.

You started GoBundance with not me. David. I was like, wait a minute, David. You're hoping this for me for me for so long. No, I'm not one of the godfathers. I'm like second generation there. That's funny. But we do have two godfathers of real estate here with us. And I will say this, you two have both been a little modest there. Tim was a legend at selling real estate in Mantica where I grew up. And that's where the Isidore's restaurant he mentioned worked. If you guys want to hear more about my story there, you can look it up on the bigger pockets of money. Episode number 12, I get kind of deep into actually what I learned in that restaurant. And then Tim reached out to me from what he had heard about my work ethic and offered

me a job. And that is why I am here today in real estate at all. And then Pat was also one of the top real estate agents in the country. Like he was sitting at the top of the leaderboard for the biggest brokerages ever. And it's a little odd that each of you, sort of like Barry Sanders in his prime, just decided, I don't want to do this anymore. It's not uncommon to see people quit when they suck. They just can't get it going. They're struggling. They're not very good at it. But you two had empires that were built and you walked away. So why don't we start by asking with you, Tim, what was the motivation to quit? And what were some of the fears that you had when you were thinking about it? How did you get to that point? I think you mentioned Barry Sanders is really

interesting because he was at the top of his game when he decided to just tap out. I think he wasn't even 30 years old yet. So from 26 to 35, I loved selling real estate. It was so amazing. I never thought I'd be in a place where I'm making a lot of money and doing the things I wanted to do. And then it started to oxidate. It was kind of like the rust had gone on. And I just didn't feel like doing it anymore, candidly. And I looked up, I was in Belize, and I was 40 years old, and I was a millionaire. And it was kind of like, whoa, dude, for once in your life, I'm proud of you. How did you get here? And I kind of went for a minute of, you know, kind of looking back through my career. And it was like, well, what do you want to do next? And it was like, I never want to sell another home.

And it was like a just boom. It was like a. It was like a. a punch in the face. And it was like, well, what are you going to do? And it's like, when you just flip the home and you made a lot of money doing that? Why didn't you never list? Why did we have a new game? I'm never going to list another home. I'm only going to invest and I'll only be my best client. I won't have to worry about sellers. I can do this, you know, my way. And I went back and I did that. And it hadn't happened overnight. It took a while from like 35 to 40 to get the courage to quit. But once I decided to do that, I never looked back and I did never sell another home after that. I invested for one more like, like, you know, from 2000 to 2007. And then I played another new game.

What if I tap out and sell everything into the craze and never have to. to invest again. And then from 2008 till today, I've never personally invested in a property. I only water ski in other people's wakes. So I've had a lot of fun kind of being the original quitter and then keeping figuring out how can I use those tools to develop the next incarnation for whatever next in my life. Yeah. So, Tim, let me ask you something because a lot of people were all, you know, going for that big M goal, right? Becoming a millionaire.

And you quit right at the cusp of realizing this. So when you did this, were you at a point where you said, yeah, I'm going to quit and I can sort of coast on this? Or was there a financial motivation to keep pushing on? Or was it more of just a personal self-fulfillment? Like was money a big factor in making more money? Or was it just, hey, I want to go out and do this. a self-employed person and just keep crushing it.

I'll be honest, all the things we talk about in the book, which is very practical, very tactful, tact, we'll read do that. Not strategic, tactical. There you go. Thank you. Deep work makes the dream work. But all the things that we talk about in the book, I did not do. I tapped out when I didn't have a lot of money behind me.

and I just kind of depended on me moving forward that I'll figure stuff out. I'll find ways to make money, but it wasn't what it was about. Candidly, I went from working full-time to ski in 100 days a year, to spend a lot of time up on the coast, abalone diving, and just what I call getting the goods in the woods. And I've always played that game from then on just trying to figure out, you know, how can I make money, but that certainly wasn't what it was all about for me. Yeah, that's really great.

Thank you so much for that. Pat, what about you? What was your motivation here? Was it similar? Was it different? Walk us through that journey. Yeah, Rob, that's a good question. And I think mine's a little different than Tim's.

So I was in real estate sales. I was on a listing appointment and I fell asleep. I was talking to this lady and it was like I had a big fat lunch. you know, and it was hot and literally I just started, I just fell asleep. And, you know, and she goes, you just fell asleep. And I said, and I said, oh, oh, oh. And you know what? And then I went into the bathroom, I threw some water on my face.

Then I came back and, you know, next thing you know, I like, you know how kind of fall off a cliff. Like you put on the brake in a car, but you're sleeping or whatever. So I put on the brake and I, like, kicked her chair. and I was like, oh, God, I'm not getting this listing. So I rolled out of there and I'm driving back to the office. I'm like, man, I fell asleep twice on this lady. I was like, that is it. I'm out.

I got to get out of this business. As Tim said, I'm oxidated, you know, and I just, you know, that was terrible. And just, I just wasn't happy. I just wasn't, you know, the problem is, like, I went from such a manic state, where everything I touched turned to gold. You know what I mean? Like we had, we were doing television commercials and we, and, and, and, and, we would just do commercials and immediately, we put the commercials on and people would just start calling and say,

come list my house. It was so easy and it was so fun to, like, everything stopped. And then all that, all that happened was I was dealing with agents that were complaining about, you know, why I wasn't getting any. leads for them and sellers complaining, why don't I do an open house and all this stuff? Because the house is not selling at the price they wanted it to. And I was just like, you know what, this is, I'll just quit. I'm getting out of this.

And so it was more of a visceral thing for me, you know, than it was for Tim, I think. I can see, I can already imagine the lady there was like, you know, cutting to her. And she's like, and this is the home that I saw my kids grow up in. are you asleep? My daughter's from the first step right there. I'm telling you. No, no, I was just resting my eyes. Yeah.

I have a belamed on the pizza I had for lunch and the heat in the house because, you know, she wouldn't turn on the AC. But anyway, it's at the end of the day. It was it, that was, I could still see that lady's face. I can describe her. Like, if you hypnotize me, I could draw a picture. And so was this something that you were planning? I know you said it was visceral, but had you already considered this for years?

Like, were you one day, you know, kind of wiping everything off your desk? I'm like, I'm done. And you're like, no, not really. I'm going to give it a little bit of time. Or was it truly like a flip switch and, hey, I'm out of here? Well, I think it helped. So what happened was like 2008, you know, all the units were down, right? which is something that is a whole other subject,

a number of units, because that's what people don't talk about enough number of units, but that's what happened in the last crash, right? The number of units just stopped, like the number of pendings and settlements. And I still had a lot of rent, and I still had a lot of overhead, and I had a lot of things that I was paying for

because we were crushing it. You know, I had a $5,000 lease payment on, like, copiers that made postcards and stuff that was like eight years long. I had a long-term lease on 8,000 square foot office. You know, I had all kinds of stuff. And I had to wait like two years for all that stuff to expire and me to get out of it and out from under it

because I'd signed personally from it. So then finally when I was done that and I was liberated from the pressure of all that, that's when I wrote my book Six Steps to Seven Figures. And then what that required back then was a book tour. we didn't have podcasts, so I had to go city to city and talk to real estate agents. And I did a seven-month book tour, 53 cities in seven months. And basically I came back and my business partner, my top agent Mike Sloan at the time, had been running everything while I was gone.

And I was like, dude, you just take this. You know what I mean? This works without me. I don't like it anyways. I've been free for seven months. I don't want to come back in. you know, so it was, it was good for me. After the seven-month book tour, I was like, I'm not coming back in. And so, David, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that these guys were responsible for you,

quitting your job as well, right? I mean, I know that you started with Tim and you were mining for gold for him as a prospector, but, aka cold calling. But what was it really? What was you? I mean, what was your turning point here? Because I think, I know you had a similar experience as well. Yeah, you know, as they were talking, I started thinking about this. that we tend to, when we explained why we did what we did and we're sharing the story, there's this tendency after you're on the other side of it to express all the logical reasons why you did it. Well, I wasn't that happy and I wasn't making that money. And the industry had shifted and I knew that I wanted something to happen. And sometimes you do have a moment

like Pat described where you fall asleep and you're like, okay, this is not for me. But I feel like the more accurate way, at least in my life that it's happened, is you for years were knowing, I don't like this. I'm on a treadmill. I'm selling a lot of houses. I'm making a lot of money, but this is sucking my soul. And you don't really know how to get out of it, but you're just kind of like running this marathon that you're like, when is it going to end? When am I going to get to the end of this thing? And there really isn't an end in sight. And emotionally, your heart's not there. It's different when you first get into it. And I look at it like that's God in my life. When I'm super excited about something I'm passionate about, I have these very strong emotions

that I can't describe. So often because I feel like he's putting me in that position. and he wants me to be learning it. Then when that goes away, it's I perceive it like he's telling me it's time to move on. There's a new challenge. There's something new to learn. He has a different plan for where I should be. The problem is I get scared. I get greedy.

I don't want to move on from the thing I'm comfortable with from it's better than what I used to have, right? I'm more worried about getting sucked back into being broke, not moving on from being a cop. I'm getting a lot of my needs met like Tony Robbins, six human needs. They're all being met in the law enforcement world. And to think about leaving that is actually scary. And so you get this weird tension of I hate going to work every day. What it was like for me is I would get a call for service that there was a person with a tummy ache.

And all I have to do is drive there, get their name and date of birth and wait for the ambulance to come pick them up. And I'm done. The easiest call you could ever get. And I'm so mad that I have to go do this dumb thing that I'm just cussing out the world the whole way there. I should have been grateful. like, oh, I got an easy one. But there's this feeling like if I have to fill out one more listing agreement, which at one point was, I'm on top of the world that I got to listen. That's the best feeling ever in real estate sales. You're like, oh, another client wants to buy a house and

give me money. Gosh darn it. I didn't want to do it. So you have that feeling going on, but then there's the fear of making the jump and it just grows and it grows and it grows. And I think a lot of people listening are like, that's how I feel every day going to work in my cubicle at this job I don't like. But I got to make a car payment. I got kids to feed. I got a mortgage. I have to stay here. Well, the role that Tim and Pat played was they actually were involved in a intervention of sorts where we were, Tim was there for this. Pat came in a little bit later, but we were at our buddy Daniel Dale Reel's cabin and he and a bunch of other go-button's guys were like, David, you're too smart to be a cop, you're doing too good in real estate, you're leaving

this job. Like, it's happening. You're not healthy. It's not going well. And it's like, but, but-but-but, and I had all these reasons. And they basically were like, pick a date. What the deal was was that I was not allowed to work overtime for one year. That wasn't mandatory. I could not, because I was addicted to overtime. That was like the drug. That was how I was making good money. You're not allowed to do it.

You're going to get your real estate license. You're going to give it a try. After a year, if you can sell homes, you're leaving completely in law enforcement. And I had to be held accountable to those guys. Now, I hated every second of that because I was just internally afraid, but I needed that to get over that hump of making the jump. And so I ended up getting my license. My first year selling houses, I was the,

the top agent in the Keller Williams office that I worked at. And then from there, it just grew and grew and grew it. And then I built the David Green team. So that's how I got here. But I guess what I'm saying is that it's not always a super logical thing. It's a lot of emotions that you're feeling that the world is telling you it's time to move on. And then the other side, I was not strong enough to make that jump myself. I needed a support group, especially of people like Pat and Tim and that I looked up to and respected that were mentors in a sense that were telling me, you have what it takes and you're better than this. Quit action like a little coward.

It's time to make the jump. That's an awesome story. I forgot that story. And David, I don't remember it quite like that. How do you remember it, Tim? Yeah, I remember it more like, it was, yeah, it was Aaron West, I believe, saying, David, are you quitting Monday or could we give you until Wednesday when you turn in your resignation?

And I thought it was like, boom, next week, we're going to hear from you that you're done with the fours. He started it that way. I just didn't agree. So Daniel Ramsey stepped in and said, fine, we'll give you one year. And you're going to have to work both jobs, but you can't work any overtime. And that was sort of the compromise that I took on to give myself some runway. Because I just, I doubted that I had what it take to sell houses. Yeah.

I think it's such a great story, though, is because people know how successful you've been. but didn't know how scared you were before that and how much you hated your job. We have a thing called a soul-sucking meter. And it's a thing of one to ten. How much do you love what you do? And what would you say on this soul-sucking meter, if we had you on there, If it looks at, you know, number one to 10, how much are you making versus one to 10? How much do you love what you do?

Would you say you were a six and above or below six at that point? Oh, I was at like a two, man. I was. I'm asking you, David. Yeah, I was like working. I was sleeping two and a half hours a night, working seven days a week, eating fast food nonstop. I was at like below a six. Like, yeah.

Every day was just dragging myself. How do I get to the next one? We look at five things. Number one, your compensation, which is all people usually think about. You were probably making so much overtime and all that stuff that your compensation was holding you back. But we look at your respect, your respect of yourself and your respect that your boss gives you, right? You're fit, right? Whether you're fit for your team or fit for your organization, the police force, whatever.

your prospects for growth, how quick are you going to become the freaking police chief or whatever it's called and do you even want to be the police chief? And how do you feel in the morning every day? And we have you rate them on a scale of one to ten and based on your results. You know, it really comes to fruition really fast how bad you want to quit, how bad, how important it is for you to quit. Now, is there an actual numerical value that you're looking for? Like if you were to rank 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, right on all these different bullet points, is there a number that's like a failure score or is it really just more for self-reflection? 7, 8, 9, and 10 is what you want.

So anything below that. 7, 8, 9, 10 is, well, let's just what is a bet. if you can't clear a six on average, then your job sucks and you need to quit. So if you can't clear a six, you need to quit, if that makes sense. And so what Tim and I did with this book, just so you guys know, is we found that a lot of people were at that stage where they were afraid. They were facing the truth like David was that day. And they know that we know that we know that it's scary and it's like a jump off of a cliff. But the difference is most people think that when they jump off a cliff, they're just going to fall straight to the ground if they don't prepare an airplane

on the way down. You've heard that all add. It's entrepreneurs jump off a cliff and then they build an airplane on the way down. Well, most people think I'm not going to be able to build an airplane, so I'm not going to jump off the cliff. And what we're saying is, look, it is scary to jump off the cliff. And we're not telling you to jump off the cliff. We're telling you to jump off the cliff. We're telling you to jump off the cliff, but we have a bunch of trapeze swings that you could grab onto. And throughout the book, we're like, this is a trapeze swing. Here's another trapeze swing. And if you complete and grab on the eight of these trapeze swings, you're going to successfully have quit and you're going to be happier in your life and have a better job or have a better circumstance than you had before. Does

that make sense? Yeah, it sure does. I think this. is really interesting because a lot of people, you know, quitting your full-time job is, it's a very emotional thing. And so there is no hot or cold, sorry, there's no lukewarm. It's just hot or cold your feelings on it. And I remember for me, when I quit my job, so much was at stake for me. I had, well, really, the one thing that I was so scared of losing was health insurance because I was like, it was going to cost me $2,000 a month. And I was like, I can't, I just can't lose. I make so much more money with all my different side hustles and my Airbnb business, my real estate business. I just could not get off of the $2,000 a month.

But I think looking at the scale, you kind of talked about, of the different bullet points, certainly being a fit in the organization was what I was really starting to realize at a very alarming rate. Because for me, I was a creative copywriter, and I was good at it. But I was never going to be great. And I was always really nervous about that truth when I was in my job,

because I knew that I just wasn't going to be the can, award-winning creative copywriter that's producing all these the best commercials in the world. And I kind of saw this train heading for me that was years out where I eventually would get kicked out of the industry. But luckily for me, I felt at that time that I had already started the real estate stuff and content creation and stuff. And I was like, I think I can be great at this. And that's sort of where it started coming to life for me was this industry and this career is a, it's a fine fit, but it's not, it doesn't fit like a glove, right? It's not me. who I am. And then eventually when I did quit, you know, it was a very emotional day. I cried to both

of my bosses and they were like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm just, I'm just quitting. That's all. And they're like, oh, oh, ooh, thank God. And I was like, I know. And I felt, I felt so good. I was like, oh, all right. That was it because I could really go full force into something that I was a fit for. Yeah, in the book, we have people give the worst case scenario, kind of like you did Rob, which is like, you know, what is the worst case scenario? Like, the worst case scenario is, is, you know, you're living in your car and you're going to die from starvation because you can't buy any food or whatever. And we all know when you analyze it like that and you dumb it down and you reduce it to the ridiculous, you basically realize, well, truth be told, if I fail, I could

probably go back to my boss and he'd probably hire me back in a heartbeat. Or truth be told, I, you know, I can get another job. You know, I'm not, it's not going to be what the worst case scenario like I think it is. But the process of taking yourself through this failure path and saying this is what it looks like if I do fail and then asking yourself a really important question. And that is, am I failing now? You mentioned a little bit earlier this idea of the trapeze moving from one thing to the next. Do you mind sharing some stories either from your life or other people that you've seen

pull this off and what that look like? I think a good analogy is you, David. You know, if you look at the trapeze for yourself, the first one was making your own real estate team and then keeping up your investments and then getting with bigger pockets here. And then, you know, you've just taken it from one trapeze to the next to the next. And then the piece that goes with that is the, the, the, you know, the, you just taking it from one trapeze to the next to the next. the net below. And that's just to make sure you don't fall, you know, and that you have something to catch you if you do fall.

And that's a great piece of our book, is that net below. But the trapeze, what gets you from one, you know, one step to the next. And the tough part is you have to have trust to know you're going to let go of the trapeze and land on the next set of rungs. And that's the scary part. Yeah, one thing leads to another. So, Pat, how did you see that working out with your career? Like, what were some of the steps that you made and what was the net you had in place? During my career, you mean like from the beginning? Well, I know you didn't become a top producing realtor just on accident. There's probably several steps that you had to take to get there. But then I would imagine the biggest release was after you

went on that book tour and you got all this like, I've made it to the pinnacle of selling homes and I don't want to be here. I need to climb another mountain and that's when I believe that's when you started real estate rock stars and you got more into abundance and you started doing more investing. So would you say that was your biggest release on the trapeze? Yeah, that was a big one. But you know, here's the thing. Contrary to how you think the story might go, like I had a lot of little things that I did that didn't work out. Like right at that time, like, Like, I had been doing real estate for 25 years, and then I got out and I'm like, okay, what am I going to do now? And one of the things that I wanted to do is coach.

Like, I thought that I wanted to coach and start a coaching company of other real estate agents. And I started doing that. And then I realized that, you know, I hated it. Like, real estate agents, they take your advice and they write it down, but then they don't do anything in between calls. And I was like, this is exactly what I was doing as a broker when I was dealing with other agents. So I quit that. And then I did this, David Osborne, was friends with Ricky Williams, and he wanted me to be Ricky Williams' whatever you want to call it agent. And I flew him around the country trying to put him with marijuana companies so he could be an endorsement to marijuana companies.

and, you know, I really thought that that was going to be my identity. And after like eight months, I was like, this is just not working out. This is not juice is not worth to squeeze. And I quit that. And then I, you know, I probably did three or four goofy things like started writing a book about how to be a boss and all this stuff and it didn't work. And so finally, I did real estate rock stars. And I said, I could do this.

And the trapeze was my mentor, Howard Britton, had kind of done podcasting before it was podcasting and interviewing agents. So I kind of felt like I was taking the reins from him. And it made a lot of sense. And then I did Rebus University, which is where I was training agents and video courses. But what happened with that, too, David, is, number one, it grew to a grind for me. and number two, I wasn't making any money at it. And a lot of people might disagree with this, but I own part of what gives me joy in my work

is making a lot of money when I work. And if I'm not making money and I'm working, I just can't stop thinking in my head. I'm wasting time. I'm trading time for not even money for like, I just can't go. I just can't do it. And so, you know, those companies were losing money for me every month, and I wasn't having fun doing them, so it just didn't make sense. And it just made it even more smart for me to quit it. And then with the apartment buildings, that made sense. And we were making money, and I was getting paid with the rental properties.

It made money. It was getting paid with abundance. You know, in the beginning we didn't make any. money, but then eventually we started getting paid and getting money. So it just made it, for me, ten times more exciting that I was getting money and I liked doing what I did. Yeah, so you mentioned earlier you had about 47 streams of income, you know, in the present day today. And I'm wondering, did you have any of those, were any of those present when you did quit your job? I know you said you had a couple of companies that were losing money, but outside of those, had you already been sort of forging the way for like your financial future? I,

I had single family homes. That's all I had. Single family homes that I rented. And so they did pay me. But it's not, it wasn't bombastic, you know? It wasn't, you know how single family homes are, especially if they're older. You know, you think you make 10 grand a year, but then, you know, once you do your taxes, you're negative three grand.

you know we do know i'm laughing because there's so many people that think that uh the way they're going to get out of the job they don't like or the life they don't like is cash flow from real state there's always a guru that's going to come along and say cash flow cash flow cash flow is going to change everything and you can bake on cash flow and then all the guys like you pat that own a lot of real estate i know we've all been there that we realize it's very unreliable you could have a great year or you could have one thing break and it crushes your whole year. So that's a very good point. And I think that just goes to strengthen the argument that investing can grow wealth, but it shouldn't really be your foundation that you're living on. There's got to be

other things that you're doing. And quitting your way out of the ones that don't work and getting into the ones that do is probably what's going to bring more joy into someone's life. So where did you settle? Where did you realize, okay, this is what makes me happy. This is what I like doing. I'll tell you what where I learned a lot, David and Robb, is COVID. Like, I was very unhappy at points during COVID, and I came to a realization that really what I like and what I need are people. I had no idea. Like, I've always been a party guy, right?

I've always been gregarious and like to go to parties and like to talk to people. And I'm always viting, like my wife's, my wife will invite one. couple and then I'll go and text like three more and tell her, hey, I invited these guys too. And she's like, what the hell did you do that for? I'm like, it's just natural. I can't help it. You know, I want like a whole bunch of people around me. And so during COVID, I realized that's what I miss. Like I would like I just wanted to go to the coffee shop and talk to randoms, you know, and I could it. And so, and so now I realized that with Gobundance, like at Gobundance, I just got back from Detroit. There was like 75

Gobundance guys there. I talked the whole time. You know, I was energized the whole time. I just loved that. But I don't think I actually was conscious of that until I actually had an opportunity to have it

taken away from me. Yeah. What I like about that is you often, it's not going to be like a clear, like the trapeze transition, right? Sometimes life works it out to where your next whatever the bars are called that they swing on in the trapeze world comes right up to you. You let go of one. You grab the other one. There's a brief period of like, oh, I hope that I catch it.

Otherwise, I need that net. Other times, you're just letting go and flying through the air and hoping that something shows up or hoping that you like the trapeze you grabbed. And then you realize, I don't like this one either. And you're swinging to another one. It's not a hundred percent success. When we tell the story with hindsight, we're like, oh, yeah, I was here and I jumped over and now look where I am. It's amazing. But there might have been 15, 10, 10, 15 different attempts before you found the right one to be swinging on. And I like that you're sharing. It's okay that it's messy. It's okay that it's ugly. You work these jobs that didn't make money or there's opportunities that didn't fulfill you. And so you kept swinging. And then you realize what your thing is is people. That's probably why you did so great at real estate sales. It wasn't the real estate. It was the people. And when it wasn't fun and you realize I'm letting people down and falling asleep in the middle of a listing appointment is when you knew it's time to move on.

And now you're finding another way to connect with people just that isn't selling houses. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And like I said, people and money and like it works, right? Like I did a lot of little things after I got out of real estate that didn't work. And I think we all do that, but nobody hears about them. And then, you know, we buy an apartment complex and, you know, after three years we sell it and then you make a couple hundred grand and you're like, hey, this is. is good. Like, I'm going to stick with this. I'd be stupid not to. You know what I mean? And, and, or whatever. And so, yeah, people. And then obviously, the benefits that come with that. Because you could always find people, you can find people anywhere. But, you know, I guess it's, here's the answer. Like-minded people. I would say, Rob, would you agree that getting around

like-minded people, people that are on your frequency is a huge component to being happy in life? Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, that's how, well, like-minded, but preferably significantly smarter than you, you know. So like-minded to who you want to be kind of thing, you know, because I think for me, you know, I'm thinking through the trapezes, right? And it's very easy to say, yeah, like side income, side hustles. All those different income streams to me seems to be the only trapeze you need because if you make enough money, you're going to be fine if you quit your job. But in reality, I think the people and the personal and the social component is really as equally important because those people can help you establish a lot of those different side incomes and businesses and everything that you want to go with. So for me, when I was quitting, I had those people that I basically talked to like four or five different CEOs and, you know, quote unquote quitters, if you will. And I would Zoom with them and they were all founders of relatively successful companies and they would say, wait, you're taking a call right now during your lunch?

I didn't know you had a job. Why are you still working? And I was like, oh, I don't know because of health insurance. And legitimately, every single one of them, they told me, they said, I watch your YouTube channel. I know how much money you make because you talk about it. And you make good money. So I think, I think it's time to quit, pal. And I would go and I'd report back to my wife all the time. And I would say, hey, this person said I should quit. And she's like, yeah, they're right. You should quit. And I was like, no, no, no, don't be silly. And I was hoping that my wife would be the one that was telling me,

that I couldn't quit. But everyone in my sphere of influence, they were encouraging me to go full force at the thing that I love the most. And so getting to know them really after I quit has shaped who I am. And we were kind of talking about the messiness, right? Well, a lot of people see me and they're like, oh, you got it down. Your success is going well. I'm really happy for you.

But what they don't necessarily always realize is that it's still really hard. And the only reason I have any level of success today is because of all the catastrophic failures I've had over the last year. And it's, you know, finding the people in my influence that, that it could relate with that, that's how I grow because we can all fail together and be honest with each other and help each other grow. That's, that's, hey, Rob, I got a question. How minuscule does that seem now?

that you were worried about life, that you worried about health insurance. Oh, it was, it was honestly, it was instant because, you know, my,

my bosses, because like I said, I was a little cry baby on the, on the Zoom call. And my bosses were like, well, are you going to be okay? Like financially?

And then I was like, I kind of looked up and I was like, yeah, I make way more money doing this other stuff. And they're like, why are you crying? And I was like, I don't know.

And so I really, instantaneously math it out. And it is very funny. And you know what? I still pay that $2,000 a month because I carried that over for my company. And it's just such a, it's a funny thing to have gotten hung up on because it really wasn't the $2,000 payment. It was just that, that little, like I think it was symbolic of, of the safety and stability in my life, knowing that I had health insurance. And so if I ever got super sick or anything, that would cover me. And I felt by losing that, I now had no safety net. And obviously in retrospect, yeah, it's funny.

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That's A-V-A-I-L-C-O-Bigger Pockets. Pat, you mentioned some tools to evaluate where somebody's at. I think a lot of the emotions that Rob was just describing the stuff I felt, you get used to it. This is just life and you don't think about it. You're kind of like the frog in the water, right, that slowly gets hotter and you're not aware of it. And then you and Tim are talking about how people can kind of audit their life and figure out where they're at and maybe find if they're happy or not. So can you share what some of those tools that you're using to evaluate are? Well, there's the soul-sucking audit, which is basically the one that we talked about, we've got to get a six or more.

And what we're encouraging people to do is to kind of stop not quitting. Right. Like every day you don't do something that's not different is essentially a commitment to not change. And so what people are doing is they're just not quitting. Every day that Rob wasn't there, he was not quitting. So the tool would be to sit down in journal and look at your life now and say, what am I not quitting, right? And just stop not quitting.

Look at the worst case scenario. And the worst case scenario for him, as ridiculous as it sounds, he wouldn't have health insurance. And he seems like a young guy, so I don't know how big of a deal that was. I imagine he didn't have six kids at the time or something he had to worry about health insurance. You know, I mean, so you know what I mean? It just comes out to be absolutely ridiculous. One thing that we talk about, David, is creating a quitting team. And we actually have a chart that we have everybody fill out in the book that is a square.

where and with four blocks and in there are stakeholders, partners, mentors, and coaches. And what a stakeholder is is like your wife, like your loved ones, your spouses, your family. So that would be one. So you want to fill up that box with loved ones who say, David, I got your back. Rob, I got your back. I'm with you. I think you should quit. I think you're going to do great.

I believe in you, that sort of thing. Then the other is partners. These are going to be actual partners like investors, suppliers, maybe general partners of your business. Whatever you're going to do, these are actual people's names that you're going to go into partnership with. Then you fill in five or six mentors. And a mentor is not like this Rip Van Winkle type guy that sits under a tree that's like a long beard and a mustache. The mentor is like whatever business you're going to go into, this is someone who,

who's actually been there, cut their teeth, got their head kicked in, and has tactical things that they could teach you of how to do it. You know, the American way is to go to work for somebody else and then copy them and start your own company. That's essentially what a mentor is. Someone you're going to learn exactly how to do your specific business who's going to teach you how they did it. And then the last box that you fill names in with as coaches.

And these are actually people that you pay money too, right? Like we're starting a coaching company to coach people, how to quit. You know, bigger pockets is a coaching company, right? You pay your dues to bigger pockets and you can go in there and be coached by a million different people that are already doing it. And so once you have those boxes, once you have that team built, your chance of success is so. much higher. It's incredible. Yeah, you can't do it alone. You really can't. I mean, that, that's what I'm saying. The financial aspect of it, that was solved for me. But in retrospect now, I realize that it's exactly what you're saying. All those people along the way that are on

your team, that's what's changed my life, not the financial stuff. Well, I could second that. I would say I knew I wasn't happy and I knew I knew real estate, but I was not going to let go of that one trapeze bar. I had a white knuckle green. grip on that thing unless I had, you know, Tim and Pat and these other guys like prying my fingers off of it. It was like, we're going to break your fingers or you can let go on your own. And I think there's some personalities that probably need that. That's probably the same reason I'm good at the stuff I do is because I commit really hard, but that makes it hard to let go. And there's other people that have an easy time bouncing from job to job, but they have a hard time committing to the job that

they're at. So, Pat, what would you say is the right person to read a book like this? this. If they're listening to this show, what thoughts would they be thinking? What feelings would they be feeling? Somebody who knows deep down that they're unhappy, who doesn't like going to work. I saw this graffiti. I couldn't believe it. I just saw this yesterday. It was on Instagram. It was like, it said, it's not Mondays that suck. It's your job that sucks. And it was on a bus stop. Yeah, it's someone who just hates Mondays. And you hate Mondays because you hate your job, right? If you have a job you love, then Mondays is like, sweet, you know.

And someone who just can't get over the fear, right? We put a quote in the book, we put, there's no risk-free plan that will get you what you want. So someone who really knows what they want, they want to be, they want to teach art to kids. but instead they're an accountant, right? And they know what they want. They know what they would love, but they just can't get there. And so this book takes you, again, like Tim said,

it's not a strategic book. You're not going to look in this book and it's going to be a bunch of cliches where, you know, we're re-quoting other people and giving you inspiration. You know, it's not that book. It is a specifically, it's a tactical book. It is a one-step, two-step,

two step, three step, four step, all trapeze swings. And you could just like fill them out right there on the pages. And you could just write it all out. So when you finish the book, you'll be ready to jump off the cliff because the plane's already built for you. You didn't have to build it on the way down. You know, the trapezes are there. And not only are there, but they're locked in with handcuffs.

So you really can't fall off the trapeze because you've written it all. all out and you built it all out. So that's the person. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, I love what you're saying. There is no risk-free path from where you are to where you want to go. And you got to accept that, especially if you're listening to this podcast, because you want to invest in real estate and it works the same way. There is no risk-free way to invest in real estate. There is no risk-free way to do anything that is of any kind of substance in this world. And so re-examining that relationship with risk, making peace with it rather than just running from it is big, not just to build wealth, but to live the life that you really want to live because you only get one of them.

Thanks for sharing that, Pat. As someone who is obviously very pro-quitting, are there any things that you believe you shouldn't quit in life? Yeah, Rob, that's a great question. And that's kind of hard, too. Like, there's cliches that I could say, like, you know, relationships and things like that, but there's always exceptions to the rule. I think that what comes to mind is hobbies.

I think that hobbies make a lot of people happy, and I think that everybody has a different hobby. Like some people just love gardening, some people love music, and other people love sports. And I don't think that either of those three are right or wrong. They're all right because everybody's an individual. And the reason that they chose those hobbies probably wasn't because their mother put them in gardening classes when they were two years old, like piano and told them that they had to learn it, right?

They chose them hobbies naturally. They just kind of their soul gravitated one day to picking a weed and planting a flower. And they're like, I love this. I'm going to do another one, you know. So I would say to them do not quit a hobby unless you replace it with another one that's just as joyful, if not more joyful. So Pat, with all that in mind, what are things you wish you would have quit or left behind a little earlier in your life? You know, from a financial standpoint, I wish I had not spent as much money on non-real estate investments and just stuck with real estate. I think that all through the 90s, like I got licensed in 1987 and I bought like three houses between 1987 and 1990.

From 1990 to 2000, I didn't buy a single house. And I often look back on how flat that time was. Like the market didn't go up. It didn't go down. It was just flat. Like nobody really bought rental properties. Very few people did. And it was easy to do, right?

You know, you put 20% down and you just bought it. And the 1% rule worked all day long. It was easy to do, but no one did it. I wish that I had not quit buying, you know, like I did when I first got my license. I wish I had bought at least a house every six months or a house a year. One little single family a year I could have easily done rather than investing the money in the stock market or something. And I didn't. And I look back on that as a mistake.

Like I really wish I had just dollar cost averages houses and just had them because I would have. I'd be killing. Now, those things would be worth so much more and the rents would have just gone up so much more. It would have just been nice and I regret not doing that. So I wish I hadn't stopped. I wish I hadn't quit. I quit too soon. Now, granted in 2000s, I started buying again, but there was that whole decade and buy. Okay, so follow up to that question. What are some of those things for you, Pat? Like, what are your actual hobbies? That's great. You know, I set myself up for that. my hobbies are working out. I got three hobbies.

Working out, which I do regularly. I have a house in Maryland and a house in South Carolina, and I have a trainer in Maryland and a trainer in South Carolina. I just pay them both $2,000 a year in January, and I could just text them and show up to them, you know, sometime that day or the next day. I'm also a hiker. I just love hiking.

I just, you know, I just clear my head. I just feel so much at peace with nature. And I like to hike. I just get out there and explore. I'm always on an adventure. And then, you know, the third hobby, and a lot of people might not find this a hobby, but I find it a hobby because so many people don't do it.

So it has to be a hobby. And that's counting, counting. my money. Like it sounds like a joke, right? And you can cut this out if you want, but, but I've always been a counter like mathematically something in my left brain is like, it's always counting. So I'm always like counting my net worth, counting my rental income, counting things. And I get a lot of dopamine from that. And I, and I just enjoy it. Like I'm constantly looking at my bank accounts. Like it's just something that I enjoy doing. And I, I, I, I don't know what else to call it, but a hobby.

So I would say those three things. I like it because it is honest. And a lot of people try to pretend like they don't do that. But it's not even from the financial aspect of it, but it's just a way to feel proud of what you've accomplished. So thank you for that. Yeah, I would say that. It definitely, it keeps you motivated to keep going. Like sometimes I'll go look at my portfolio and I'll just look at all the properties that I have in it.

And I'll see what's performing and what's not. and I'll see the equity that I've created and I'll see what's cash flowing. And it's not necessarily so I can twirl my mustache and say, wow, look at it. It's more of, man, that feels good and then I want to go buy more houses.

Twirl your mustache. Is that what you do? I'll actually, little known fact. That's why. Yes, just like that. Brandon does that with his beard.

That's the only reason he grew it is so that he has something to twirl when he counts, counts all his money like Scrooge McDuck. Oh my goodness. All right. Well, we have lost. Tim to technical difficulties, but we still have you here, Pat. This has been fantastic. I really appreciate

you guys bearing your soul and sharing what your experience has been like as well as your heart to help other people to quit the life that they don't like to start one that would be a much better fit for them. Any last words about who should get this book and who you had in mind when you wrote it that we can leave our listeners with? You know, I feel for the people who are at that bus stop or at the, you know, Monday morning checking in or waking up on a Monday and just being like, this is, I hate this, you know. I talk to, you know, it's funny, my kids are 26 and 28 years old and I talk to them about their parents and I guess I have this comparison thing going on, maybe good or bad,

but they're like such and such, and he hates his job or she hates her job. And I think to myself, man, that is so foreign to me. like having somebody that hates their job or or being a kid knowing that your parent hates their job is it just it just it's so foreign to me right because I've always been lucky enough to pretty much love what I do or at least find something within it that I love that I could just go to. you know um and um and so this book is is for anybody who has ever had a monday morning that they woke up and just dreaded that it was the start of the work week that's who this book is for and and and again we're so we're going to map out how you can do it whether you do it or not is up to you but if you

know how to do it maybe you'll think twice and maybe you'll feel stronger about quitting should push gum the shove and you decided to quit. You can find the book at biggerpockets.com slash quitters manifesto. That's Q-U-I-T-E-R-S-M-A-N-I-F-E-S-T-O. And if that's too much to remember, just go to biggerpockes.com slash store, and you can find the book there.

And that was our show with Tim Rode and Pat Hybin. Rob, you got to meet my friends. What do you think? You know, I think I got a really, I got a really beautiful glimpse into the, the early years of David Green. It's, it's really nice to hear the origin story, you know. We see the origin stories on superhero movies all the time, and I feel like I got to finally see the origin story of my real estate superhero, David Green himself. What an answer.

I've never heard anyone describe it as an origin story, but I'm not mad about that. You should have asked me that. You know how you always asked me at the end of the podcast? Like, any last, any last words? And I'm like, no. I guess this was it for me. I did it. I gave you a profound to answer. You did. And see, the only key was I had to ask you after the show ended in an outro, not right before the outro. So I'm learning where you like to get the ball so you can score. I wanted to ask you because we kind of briefly touched during the interview about the emotions that go behind when you know it's time to quit. And I wanted to see if you could dive a little bit deeper. You explained the emotions when you actually quit the job, when you had to show up on

Zoom and you admitted like it was so emotional that you actually cried because it was such a big thing. But what emotions were you feeling up to that point that you knew was a signal that it's time for you to leave and go full time into your content creation project? Well, if you just break down my actual schedule every day, I had just had my daughter. Well, my wife had my daughter. I was just there for support. But I was a new dad, right? So that was really tough because I was working a full-time job. And this was during the pandemic. So it's like work from home and you're sort of figuring out how to do that with kids and then the dogs and everything. And I would basically get off of work at five. And I had just started my consultation business back when that was going,

that no longer exists now. But I was booked out basically from five, at first from five to midnight, every night. And I would take like a 30 minute break at one point so I could go put my daughter down, give her a kiss and like read a book, all that kind of stuff. And I remember that was just, it was wearing on me every single day. And then. I was like, you know what, I can't stay up until one in the morning consulting people anymore. This isn't going to work. And so I cut that in half. And I thought, okay, if I cut that in half, it's still really good money. I'll raise my rates and I'll be okay. But just day in, day out. It was the same thing. I would wake up early because newborn. And then I would get ready for work.

And then I would go to work. And then I would take consultations during my lunch break. And then I would go to work again. And then I would take consultations all night. And just after doing that for several months, like I was just physically, getting drained and I said something has to change. And that's when I sort of mathed out if I went full force at my consultation business, I was actually making a lot more than I was at my other job, but I wasn't working nearly as much. And I think I just was so, so tired. I was so anxious and I had been putting off quitting for so long until finally, like I said, a bunch of of those CEO and founders of the companies that I was talking about, they just sort of, you know,

kicked my butt a little bit and they said, you need to quit. And then I was like, okay. And I was very anxious, very, very anxious when my bosses answered the phone. It was really awkward because one jumped on the Zoom first and they're like, what's up? How are you doing? And I was like, oh, you know, good. And it was like clear I was trying to stall. It was clear probably where the conversation was going to go. And then the other boss joined. And then that's when I started crying. So it was really weird, really weird, but really fun in retrospect to psychoanalyze myself. It sounds like you had mentors too that were saying, hey, it's time for you to move along. I didn't.

That made it a lot easier. What about you, man? I know that you were sort of, it sounds like you were forced into quitting. Yeah. And that's what I needed to be fair. I have that personality that I really think long and hard before I jump into something. But when I jump in, I have just like a vice grip on whatever I'm doing. I want to be the best if I'm going to do it.

If I'm going to sell houses, I want to sell them as good as I can. If I'm going to invest in real estate, I want to do it as tight and as good as I can. The one brokerage, I want us to be the biggest loan company in the country at some point. And so I have to be careful about what I commit to because I don't let go very easily. And I had committed to law enforcement with everything I had. I was trying to be super cop. I was wanting to take every single course that I could, learn every single thing, get certified in all of it, trying to leave the department in the different stats that we used to measure our performance.

But my soul was dying. It was more than just practically speaking, oh, I could use my time for something else. It was more the relationship with the community had deteriorated so badly. That's not a surprise to anyone who's listening to this that watches the news. And you weren't really able to do the good that I thought I was going to be doing when I got there. And the people that I worked with were so negative and so cynical. And it wasn't getting better. The writing was on the wall that every year was going to be worse than the year before.

And it was like buying an investment property that your cash flow shrinks every year. It's the opposite of what we're looking for. Like you still got to manage it. You still got to do all the work. But the return is smaller every year you're doing it. And I knew I don't want to be here, but I was just terrified of what it would look like if I left. Would I still be able to buy rental properties? You know, I was making very good money.

I think my best year I worked, I took like two days off for the whole year. I worked 363 days. And most of those days were between 15 and 20 hours shifts. But I made $300,000. And that was like 2015 era. So it was very good money to be working in law enforcement. Wow. Could I do that anywhere else?

Wait, that was as a police officer? Yeah. And that was in 2015. So it was like seven years ago or eight years ago before inflation. So that's probably more like 400, $450,000, I'd say by today's dollars. But that was when I was sleeping in my car. I was all I did, like I only took time off to go wash my uniform and be, I was like a firefighter.

So lived at the police station. I would buy properties from work. I would sign the documents on my lunch break. I'd have a notary come to the station, and I would just sign the paperwork. It was 100% all in. And what these guys saw, the Tim Rhodes, the Pat Hybans, the Daniel Doheriels, Aaron West, Daniel Ramsey, was if you put that same effort into this, it's going to be so much better for you. And I'm glad I listen. I don't listen to everyone, but I'm glad I listen to them because that put me in this position of bigger pockets where now I want to have the best pocket.

where now I want to have the best podcasts in the world. And when I write books, I'm trying to write the best book that I can possibly write. And real estate pays you back for what you put into it. More than anything else. Outside of God, real estate is the only thing I've seen that pays me more than I could ever put into it. So I remember what those emotions were like. And you know, this is funny. Last night, I actually had a dream.

And I get these all the time where I'm back working in law enforcement or I'm back working in restaurants. And I'm getting all of the former anxiety that I used to have. It's like, oh, this sucks. Like in my dream, I have to go back to work as a cop. And I'm like, I was so close to getting out of this. I mean, sucked back in and I wake up and like, oh, wow, wait, that's done. My life isn't like that. I'm never going to have to go back to it.

And I think sometimes that happens just as a reminder, like, hey, don't forget where you came from. And those risks you took were worth it so that now where I am, I will continue to make those jumps, right? There's some new jumps that I have to make in my career, getting out of my comfort zone, starting new companies, getting out of the weeds and letting other people. do stuff and letting people fail that I think I'm same David I'm scared of what would happen if I make the jump but I need to quit it I need to move on wow well I hope you don't ask me for a final word

after that because that that was a truly profound statement from you yeah we just don't talk about this very much right we're usually focused on tactical stuff yeah yeah I think that's the tough part of sometimes we just want that you know like we do try to be metaphorical and symbolic and like hey the bigger picture but I think the small nuts and bolts really at the end of the day, that's a lot of the stuff that we legitimately need to put into practice before we quit outside of the actual mindset of it. So this was really fun. Yeah, and the messiness of it, right? Like, no, we're not perfect. We make mistakes. There's people that don't get the service they want from someone in one of my companies. There's times where I record a podcast and think,

oh, I didn't do a very good job with that. I didn't explain that well. Like, we are making mistakes and feeling pain or knowing that we could be doing better in areas of life and holding back just like everybody who's listening. We're actually all in the same journal. journey. We just may be on a different part of the mountain than where they are, but we're on the same mountain and we're dealing with the same stuff. So if you're listening to these shows and you're thinking, oh, I wish I could have Dave and Rob's life. Like we at one point, we're thinking the same thing about the Tim Rhodes and the Pat Hybans and the David Osbournes and the people whose lives that we saw that we want to. And there's still people that we look up to and think, oh, I wish I could

have that person's life. So don't be discouraged. It's okay that it's messy. It's okay that it's hard. sometimes you got to quit and sometimes letting go with that trapeze bar that you're hanging on to is scary and you're not doing it wrong if it feels scary. It's always scary. Like Rob had so much apprehension about letting go that job that it expressed itself through tears. And I remember I've been in situations that was just like that. Like having to tell my boss I was quitting was the hardest thing ever because so much of my heart and soul was wrapped up in that. But I've never looked back and said that was a mistake. Oh man. No, I don't I really don't know a lot of people who have done this who have quit to pursue their passion and went back to their nine to five.

Yeah, that's good point. Usually it works out because people find out how to make it work. Because I think once you break out of the nine to five, it's sort of a, like when it's your choice, you know, I think it's just one of those things where you're like, wow, this is hard, but it is really gratifying. You would never want to click into someone else's life. You don't want to look at someone else's life and say, oh, I wish I could just push a button and be there because you wouldn't enjoy it. You didn't earn it. For me, I can look back at all the hardships I've had over the past two years. And I'm really proud of where I am because of how difficult it was and how many things I had to overcome, you know, along the way. So that's what makes

it more gratifying. Not the actual number in the bank account, but as Pat said, once you've done it, and you can go count your money and you can be happy and you can be proud that way too. But I think that's also symbolic of just the hard work you put in. Well, I'm proud of you too, my man, because I get to record podcasts with you and you get to be a part of my life. And that never would have happened And if you wouldn't have made that jump on your own trapeze. So thank you for doing that. And to everybody listening, keep listening, keep fighting the good fight, keep inching forward, and then taking the leaps when you can.

You will never regret what you pour into real estate. This is David Green for Rob still paying his own medical insurance obis solo. Signing up. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stream? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value, and the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what rent-to-retirement does. They're a full-service, turnkey investment company

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