BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 737: Lewis Howes: The 3-Step Formula to Go From Broke to Millionaire in 2023

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Lewis Howes has made a career taking the insights of millionaires and masters of crafts and turning them into digestible, actionable steps that everyday Americans can use to achieve their dreams. He�...�s talked to investing moguls, sports icons, mindset authorities, and everyone in between. Through doing this, he’s become an expert on building the mental landscape that makes you successful, accountable, and ready to make meaningful action in the world. He knows what it takes to build wealth, get rich, and start eight-figure businesses. And he also understands why you may not be ready to achieve your wildest dreams. Lewis Howes knows most people aren’t ready to get rich. It’s not because they aren’t smart or savvy enough at investing. It’s because there’s something missing deep down—something they didn’t even know about. And Lewis has real-world experience with this struggle. He was flat broke only fifteen years ago, sleeping on his sister’s couch, watching his dreams of becoming a professional athlete slip away. He even got caught by his first mentor stealing food after a speaking event when he didn’t have enough money to eat. Fast forward to today, and Lewis is a best-selling author, owner of a multi-million dollar business, and gets paid more in an hour than most Americans make in a year. So what changed? What steps did Lewis take to accomplish this unbelievable feat, and what can YOU do to repeat the same system that led Lewis to greatness? All that (and more) in this episode!  In This Episode We Cover: How Lewis Howes went from flat broke to multi-millionaire  Why you’re NOT READY to get rich (and what you can do to change that) The importance of getting a coach and why tenaciously leveling up your skills is crucial to success Breaking out of rock bottom and how to build wealth when starting from zero The three steps to greatness that will help you achieve any dream  The one skill Lewis says you MUST have in today’s modern world  Pushing past fear and how judgment stops so many from fulfilling their destiny  And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Investor-Friendly Real Estate Agent BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets Merch BPCON2023 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 David’s YouTube Channel Work with David Rob’s BiggerPockets Profile Rob’s YouTube Rob’s Instagram Rob’s TikTok Rob’s Twitter BiggerPockets Podcast 405 with Lewis Howes How Can You Achieve a Mindset for Investing Success? Mastering These 2 Skills Is Critical to Success in Real Estate Investing 4 Key Ways to Build Wealth in Real Estate Book Mentioned in the Show The Greatness Mindset by Lewis Howes Connect with Lewis: Lewis' Instagram Lewis' LinkedIn Lewis' Podcast Click here to listen to the full episode: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-737 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

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the Bigger Pockets Podcast Show 737. A lot of the things around money for me is about the relationship you have with yourself, the way you feel if you're worthy and deserving of it, and also if you have the mindset to take on the pressure and weight and responsibility of money. And that's where I feel like the greatness mindset plays in perfectly with money, investing, and millions of dollars. What's up, everyone? David Green, your host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate Podcasts here today with a special episode for you. Rob and I are going to be interviewing Lewis Howes. Many of you know him from the School of Greatness.
Starting point is 00:00:40 Lewis is a very successful, sort of like online personality. He interviews some of the smartest, most successful people in the world, gleans what they are doing well, and then shares it with his audience. And we have him on today to share a lot of the lessons that he's learned about what other people have done to become great as well as himself and how that would apply to our real estate journey, as well as some of the personal elements of his own story where he went from ragged to riches in a very cool way. Rob, for someone listening who's new to real estate investing, hasn't bought their first property, maybe they're still living with roommates and just trying to make ends meet. What are you excited for them to get out of today's episode?
Starting point is 00:01:16 This was a really particularly good episode because I think he sort of broke down this idea of success, like we're all searching for success, and he immediately nixes that. And he's like, that's not what you need. What you need is greatness. And I don't want to spoil it, but it was something that really resonated with me because I think he really got into this idea of elevating everybody around you. And that, to me, is what can make your real estate career great, is if you have other people that are right alongside of you crushing it, it's a lot more fun of a journey that way, I'd say. Yeah. And for experience investors, one of the things he mentioned, because he just wrote a book that's coming out, he talks about the three steps to becoming great, was you've got to find a problem to solve.
Starting point is 00:01:56 that was part of his second step. And I think we can get bored once you've got a little bit of success. You got a little bit more money. You get comfortable. You get out of the position that you were at where you felt like, I want to move from A to B. You're at B and then you just kind of stop. And there's always this feeling like I know there's more to life.
Starting point is 00:02:11 I know there's more to me. I could do more. But you don't have the motivation to keep going. We talk about that in the show, how sometimes pain and like bad can lead to blessings. Sometimes you need that. Well, if you can focus on the problem that you're trying to solve, you can stay motivated. You can end up earning more money. in the future and your business will continue to progress as long as you keep the attention on that
Starting point is 00:02:31 and not just the ballot sheet where the money is coming from. And on that note, today's quick tip is find your greatness. What are you great at? If you can find what you're great at, you won't feel like you're working, you won't mind the energy that you're spending as you go about your day as you take on new challenges and as you take the shots that everybody takes where this is a fight and you're going to get hit in the face. And if you don't really want to be in that fight, you're going to find an excuse to stay knocked out versus getting back up and keep it going. So when you can find your area of greatness, you can find the will to stay in the fight. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex,
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Starting point is 00:04:12 night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist.
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Starting point is 00:05:14 Okay, we're going to shift gears for a minute to cover something important, especially for new landlords. The shows often talk about getting stuck doing everything ourselves and the cost of sweat equity. The key question is simple. Is my time better spent elsewhere? I use a tool that cuts down on a lot of landlord hassles. And the wild part is, it's just $12 a month. It handles rental screenings, rent collection, maintenance requests, and accounting, all in one platform via a mobile app or desktop. It saves me time and tenant communication and keeps me organized for tax season. It's called Rent Ready, and you can sign up for a six-month plan for just $1 with promo code BP 2025. Pro users get it for free because we believe in it. Just sign in through your pro account to get started.
Starting point is 00:05:55 Rent Ready helps ensure on-time rent with auto reminders, keeps communication professional, and lets you post listings to multiple sites. Check it out at rentready.com slash bigger pockets. That's Rent, R-E-D-I-com slash Bigger Pockets. All right, please allow me to welcome today's guest. We have Lewis Howes. Lewis is a podcast host, a New York Times bestselling author, a speaker, a pro athlete, all around awesome dude. And you can check out the first time we interviewed him on Bigger Pocket's podcast episode 405.
Starting point is 00:06:26 Lewis just wrote a book on greatness, a topic that is near and dear to his heart that will be dropping on March 7th. And we're going to be getting into that. Lewis, welcome back to the Bigger Pockes podcast. David Rob, thank you guys. Appreciate you. Yeah. Thank you for that. Now, usually on this show, we bring in real estate experts to help break down the real life ways people have found success in the industry. It's almost always someone who's done well with real estate investing helps real estate investors. Today's show is a little different. Lewis has interviewed, I don't know how many people, I'm sure hundreds at this point, and get a successful people and pulled out of them what made them successful. And he's here today to basically share the collective wisdom of all these different people, a bit of a hive mind. At this point, Lewis has like absorbed like I'm like Ultron in, uh,
Starting point is 00:07:08 in the Marvel universe, except not a villain. He's got all the information of the collective world and he's going to share it with our guests today so that hopefully more of us can be more successful. Lewis, welcome to the show. I'm excited. And, you know, as I was thinking about this and preparing for this, you know,
Starting point is 00:07:23 bigger pockets is the thing that I wanted a lot when I was broke. I was broke on my sister's couch and I wanted more money. I wanted to have bigger pockets to fill it up all the money of the world that I could give my hands on. And I remember a mentor of mine early on, I was on my sister's couch making no money, working for a mentor for free for about six months,
Starting point is 00:07:43 learning, developing. And I said, hey, I'll work for you for free for six months. If you let me interview you once a week during a lunchtime, like, we'll go take a walk and I'll just be able to ask you whatever I want. That was kind of my payment that I got, my spiritual payment, right? And after months of this, I remember saying to him, he ended up actually paying me a little bit to work, but eventually in the beginning it was to do it for free.
Starting point is 00:08:11 But after many months of this, I said to him, man, I could really use some money. Like I got to figure out how to make money. I don't know what to do. You know, I'm sleeping on my sister's couch,
Starting point is 00:08:21 trying to figure out what I'm going to do next. How am I going to generate this money? How can I overcome the fears that I have? How can I develop skills that bring in more money? Whatever it is, I have no clue. And he told me something I've remembered since, this day. He said, money comes to you when you're ready for it. And I remember saying at this time, I'm pretty broke. I'm ready to make some money. Like, I feel ready for the money. Like,
Starting point is 00:08:44 where is it, though? I feel ready. And this is something a Rob was just saying off camera about, you know, a lot of people don't believe they are able to be a millionaire. They don't believe they're able to generate six figures or whatever it was. For me, I didn't, I didn't feel, I felt like I was ready, but I truly wasn't ready. There was something missing inside of me. There was a mindset that was missing inside of me to be prepared for the money that was coming in, the money that I wanted, and the responsibility and the weight that money would have, right? If I wasn't prepared for it, it wouldn't come to me. And I remember saying, that didn't make sense to me when he said this, because I was like, well, I feel ready.
Starting point is 00:09:27 I am ready because I'm broke. So what do you mean? And over. the next year and a half, it probably took about a year and a half until I started to generate more money. And at the time, maybe, I don't know, three to five thousand dollars a month. And that eventually it started to come in quicker, you know, in the business that I was building, it started to multiply $20,000 a month, $30,000, $50,000 months in sales for the business. And I remember thinking back to when he first told me money comes to you when you're ready for it. I was like, oh, two years ago, if this was coming in right now, I would have been mentally ready,
Starting point is 00:10:03 prepared to deal with the weight, the pressure, the responsibility, the taxes, all the things that I don't know about money. So I want to acknowledge you guys for being a sounding board, an investment platform of education, wisdom, and knowledge to prepare people to receive more money because it only comes to us when we're ready for it.
Starting point is 00:10:23 And you guys know there's lots of examples of people who just get handed money that aren't prepared for it and they lose it all. They go bankrupt. They go whatever. You hear the stat from NFL players, you know, 78% after four years of retirement go bankrupt. They weren't ready for the money. You hear about lottery winners. They make all this money and then they go bankrupt or they commit suicide or something bad happens. They go depressed. They weren't ready for it. Very fewly, not that often do people who get a lot of money quickly know how to manage it and nurture their money and appreciate their money and invest it wisely. And so I wanted to start with that,
Starting point is 00:11:03 that a lot of the things around money for me is about the relationship you have with yourself, the way you feel if you're worthy and deserving of it. And also if you have the mindset to take on the pressure and weight and responsibility of money. And that's where I feel like the greatness mindset plays in perfectly with money, investing, and millions of dollars. God, that is so good. And to be frank, it doesn't get spoken about very often. You get a lot more YouTube clicks if you say, this is the secret. No one will tell you about how to make a million dollars in two weeks.
Starting point is 00:11:37 Everybody wants to click on that. And it doesn't work that way, like you just said. You throw 500 pounds on the bar when you're trying to bench and it's your second day in the gym. It's just going to crush your rib cage. He's not getting anything done. And money is a heavy weight. Prosperity in general is much, much more difficult to manage. That was an awesome opening.
Starting point is 00:11:54 I love that. Before we get deeper into your story, I'm going to get. give the audience a chance to get to know you. As well as I have a little bit here playing a fun game called fact or fiction. So in this game, Rob and I will take turns asking you questions. We will have to guess if we think it's fact or fiction. And then after we've guessed, you'll let us know if we're right. All right.
Starting point is 00:12:14 First question or first statement. Lewis, you will be commenting on ESPN for March Madness this year. Rob, what say you? I'm going to go yes because Lewis is a pro athlete. and considering the realm of possibilities and all the crazy things he's achieved, I think that's a very doable thing. So I'm going fact.
Starting point is 00:12:36 All right, I have a bit of an advantage here because I interviewed Lewis once before and then research stuff about him because I thought, this is a really cool guy, is he pulling the wool over my eyes? Because it can happen.
Starting point is 00:12:45 Sometimes charismatic people are complete psychos. So I did a lot of research on Lewis, and I'm happy to report. I do not believe he's a psycho at all. I think he's very genuine. I like him a lot. But in my research, even though he's a pro athlete, I did not see anything that was related to basketball.
Starting point is 00:13:01 In fact, he played sports and was very good at them that did not use the same type of skill set that basketball requires. So I'm going to go with no only because it's March Madness. Lewis, what's the truth? Well, here's the funny thing. There's nothing planned right now, but we've actually been pitching to ESPN to have me be a mindset teacher during March Madness because that's when my book, The Greatest Mindness, because that's when my book, The Greatness Mindset, comes out.
Starting point is 00:13:27 So there was a, there was some talks about it. So you guys were, you know, you're both kind of right. But there's right now, there's nothing yet. You know, I think even though you saying that, I'm going to give it to Rob. Yes. Because like, what are the odds that anyone that we know is even getting close to pitching ESPN to kind of be an analyst? Like, like that's so far ahead of everybody else that I'm going to say like you're basically, you're basically in there even if it doesn't happen. All right.
Starting point is 00:13:51 Hold on really fast. Lewis, I think we should on air cruise. create the hashtag March Mindset. Ooh, let's go. It's pretty good. That's how you know that this is a professional YouTuber because they can't stop thinking that way. It's like if you're friends with Eminem,
Starting point is 00:14:06 he probably doesn't go to the diner and just order food like everyone else, right? He's like, I'll have the eggs and bacon, make sure I'm nice and awake. Yeah, like everything has to rhyme just as he's talking. Like Rob's like that, Brandon Turner was like that. They can't stop thinking in terms of algorithm. Their brain just wired that way.
Starting point is 00:14:24 March mindset. All right. Next statement. Lewis, you are on USA's national handball team. All right, Rob, what do you think? Oh, man. Oh, I don't, you're definitely going to get the point. I think I'm going to go fact. I'm going to go fact. A lot of conviction in that. It's true because I, yeah, that's where I'm at. You've mastered the art of making a statement, but throwing a question mark on the end of it. I am. Ron Burgundy? Yeah, that's it, the Rod Burgundy thing. Yeah, I'm going to go with True on this one. Yeah, it's truth, truth. Eight years with the
Starting point is 00:14:59 USA National Team. I haven't played in the last couple years, but I've played with the USA National Team represented the America and played all over the world against other Olympic teams on my pursuit of going to the Olympics, but we never qualified. Yeah, and you recently posted
Starting point is 00:15:15 a picture of like your handball photo, right, on your social media? Yep. Yeah, it was kind of like how every kid in high school like they get down on one knee and they get that mean look on their face, you know, like they always want to look. The tough, but you're like actually kind of, yes, you're like smiling a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And there's no pads on.
Starting point is 00:15:30 It was very different. It was like, it was like the version that they would take to send a grandma. Exactly. Then they keep the mean. Or did you play high school football too? Yeah, I bet you'd play high school, college, arena football. Yeah. All right.
Starting point is 00:15:43 Next question. Now, a lot of people don't know this, but you're actually friends with Brandon Turner as well, the former co-host of this podcast. Yep. Also known as the bearded one. When in Hawaii hanging out with the bearded one, you were knocked off your surfboard and avoided being bitten by a shark while surfing with Brandon Turner. Hmm.
Starting point is 00:16:03 Fact. Fact. Fact. Wasn't there a thing in school when you have a true or false test where you would write the T but then put a little thing on it also? That's totally me right now. That's true. You try to put both in the same letter. Well, it's just so outlandish that it's like, this is a very specific fiction.
Starting point is 00:16:24 So I'm going to just go fact with the question mark. All right. I'm going to go with fiction here because it's so outlandish. It tempts you to think this could very well be true and what a cool story that would be. But I'm pretty sure if that had happened, Brandon would have shared this with me. And if this ends up being true,
Starting point is 00:16:42 that just is a reflection of the deterioration of my friendship with Brandon. It's not riding on this, Lewis. It is fiction. That did not happen. Nice. There we go. The first one, Rob's gotten wrong.
Starting point is 00:16:54 All right, and this last one we know is a fact because we teased it a little bit in the beginning. At one point, you lived on a couch and had $7 to your name, a handsome devil like you full of confidence. That would have been hard to believe, but you've already admitted that that's the truth. So we know if someone like you that was at one point a professional athlete was on the Olympic team playing against other countries, Beth athletes could still be at one point having $7 to your name sleeping on a couch. There's hope for anybody out there to do the same. Well, in a sense, that's fiction because I didn't have any money. I was delivering off three credit cards and I had student loan debt.
Starting point is 00:17:27 So I had no cash. You had OPM. You had other people's money. I had other people's money that I had to pay off. Yeah, that was not the kind that you invest in in real estate with, but the kind that you're just trying to feed yourself. Yeah. So you had $7 of change in the couch cushion somewhere.
Starting point is 00:17:44 Somewhere. Maybe I did. Yeah. You claimed it as yours. But I didn't own it because I had to pay it off. That's right. That's true. There's a lot of people with negative debt worse.
Starting point is 00:17:53 We don't talk about that. But just because there's broke and then there's worse than broke, there's owing people money broke, which is, a lot of Americans are in that situation. And I think as the economy sort of gets worse, but people spending habits stay the same, you're getting more and more people that are going to fall into that same category. So even though not everyone has gone through the same experience, not everybody has been sleeping on somebody else's couch, it did happen, right? So how did you end up there? And what was your mindset in that? You've mentioned, I didn't want to be broke anymore. Yes.
Starting point is 00:18:21 But were you struggling with personal demons at the time that kept you? you from finding your way, where you're just not sure what direction to take and you were sort of in a holding pattern until you figured out. What's going on in your head? I think I've been struggling with personal demons up until the last couple of years, if I'm being honest. And it's been a journey of overcoming the challenges, the insecurities, the doubt that it's held me back in different areas of life. At that time, I was afraid of making money because I didn't understand money. I didn't know how to make it. I was playing arena football right before that. So I got injured. I broke my wrist. and I had a surgery
Starting point is 00:18:54 and then I had to wear a cast for six months so from top of my shoulder to my fingers I was in a cast in a 90 degree angle and that caused me to not be able to work this was in August 2007 I had the surgery so this went until March 2008 in the cast and for the next year I was recovering with the wrist
Starting point is 00:19:14 with mobility and strength during that time as you guys know the housing market went through I guess the biggest crash of all the time I don't know I mean one of the biggest and just the economy was crashing. So there wasn't really jobs for average arena football players who were injured who didn't have a college degree. They weren't giving jobs to people with masters at that time.
Starting point is 00:19:37 I remember people struggling and saying, I've got a master's, I can't get a job. And I was like, there's no hope for me then. So this is 2008, going into 2009. I started to reach out to mentors and ask them about what to do. I had no clue. And I looked at my life as a sport. I got to a level of success in athletics through having great coaches. I don't understand money, making money, getting a job, starting a business, being an entrepreneur, any of this. Why do I think I could do this on my own without mentors,
Starting point is 00:20:10 coaches, or wisdom? So I started reaching out to them. And I was afraid of money in the beginning. I didn't know why anyone would hand me a dollar, $100, $1,000, $1,000. I didn't understand what value I could bring because I was very insecure. This goes back to a mindset. I felt a lot of fear and doubt. And I'm a big believer that self-doubt is the killer of all dreams of what holds us back from having the courage to act, whether that's getting the career we want, making the right investment choices, getting in shape, whatever it is, it holds us back.
Starting point is 00:20:43 But I seeked mentorship early on. And I really just said, whatever you tell me to do, I will do it to 100%, the best of best of my abilities. I will try to overcome these fears. I will develop new skills, whatever it is you tell me. And that's what I did for a couple of years. One of them told me, why don't you check out LinkedIn? Maybe you can get a job there. This is when LinkedIn had, I think, around 12 million people on the platform. Early days, 2008 social media. And I started using that at wisdom and advice, and I went all in on LinkedIn for about six hours a day, literally during that time on my sister's couch, just trying to figure out what is this platform? How do I optimize my profile? How do I connect with influencers, leaders,
Starting point is 00:21:25 CEOs, people that know more than me? And I ended up building a pretty large network of communities through LinkedIn and eventually started hosting networking events. Again, all these people were messaging me as I started to connect with them saying, I don't have a job, or it's really hard to hire the right people right now, or I'm struggling getting business and leads. So I found a problem where I said, well, let me try to connect people through LinkedIn. Then I started connect people in person and real events. And I did this for free for first few events until I realized, oh, maybe I could charge at the door of $5 because people are getting value. I started charging $5, then $10, then $20, then I started doing sponsorships. Then I wrote a book about LinkedIn. Then I started doing LinkedIn
Starting point is 00:22:10 consulting. I just said, how can I maximize the one thing I'm using to add value to people and figure out how to charge for it? That was kind of the messy. figuring it out phase until things started to click after a couple years. And what I really learned about online marketing, creating courses, webinars, and selling online. That was kind of that original journey. Sure. So you broke your arm. You're kind of in this new world where you're trying to figure out what life is like outside of being an athlete, how can you work, how can you make money? And you're reaching out the mentors. I'm curious, were there any, low points in that journey, or do you feel like as soon as you started working with mentors and
Starting point is 00:22:54 grinding, you kind of were like off to the races? I mean, I was already at the lowest point in my mind because my identity was shattered. All I thought I was going to do was be a professional athlete and eventually make it to the NFL. That didn't happen. So during this year and a half, two years, I was sad. I was really sad. I also was turned 24 around that time, and I was thinking, I am a sad, grown man. You know, I'm a 24-year-old. I can't, I don't have my own apartment. I can't afford my own food. I can't pay off my debts. I am, I don't feel proud about who I am. So the whole thing was kind of like sad, but I knew I wanted to overcome it. And so I had the hunger, the desire, the passion to at least take action and mess up. And I knew that it couldn't really get any worse for me.
Starting point is 00:23:46 I was already had three credit cards. I already had student loans. I needed to pay off. I had no money. I was on my sister's couch. I was as humiliated as I could potentially be. So all I knew was all I could go is up from here. And one of the most humiliating points, here's a low point for you. I started to go to Toastmasters, which is a public speaking class, because I was terrified to speak in front of a group of five people. I went to a number of Toastmasters groups to see which one was the scariest. to join. And one of these had, this is when I had my cast on. So imagine going to this professional setting as a 23 year old bum with a shirtless sleeve because it wouldn't fit over the cast. It was so big. So a cut off sleeve. Everyone's wearing suits and I'm wearing baggy jeans and a cut off t-shirt with a backwards cap walking in there in my early 20s. Everyone's in their late 30s, 40s and 50s, suits professionals and pro speakers. I walk into this one Toastmasters Club and there was some like cheese and crackers and bread and like whatever hummus in the back of the room for people afterwards. No joke. After the meeting, I'm thinking to myself, I don't have money to buy food. I start stacking
Starting point is 00:25:04 and stuffing in tissue paper and napkins, all the bread and all like the vegetables that were back there and shoving them in my deep pockets. I had bigger pockets then with my pants. They were big baggy pants. And I was stuffing this food in there with one hand in my my wrist like broken, like shoving it in there. And this guy comes up to me, one of the speakers of that day's session. He comes up to me. He goes, what are you doing? And I go, I don't have enough money for food. So this is probably a low point. I didn't have enough money to actually go buy food if I'm stuffing this for the food later in the day. And he goes, let me just take you to lunch right now.
Starting point is 00:25:44 He took me to lunch. And I think he just saw something in me. Here's a kid who's kind of broken, literally than a cast, like shoving food in his pockets. Let me take him to lunch right now. And he was like, it's amazing that you're actually showing up here. You're wanting to improve. You're wanting to overcome this.
Starting point is 00:26:01 Even in spite of all these things that are happening. And he became one of my mentors. He taught me public speaking. I wrote my first book with him because he had written many books. So he guided and mentored me as, because he saw that I was willing to take extreme action. And I think a lot of people who are afraid to invest or make a million dollars or increase their income, they're afraid to take the actions necessary in order to generate new skills, overcome fears or insecurities that hold them back, and figure out ways to add more value to people because usually they're afraid of rejection,
Starting point is 00:26:38 they're afraid of the no, they're afraid of looking bad and whatever it might be. That's why for me, everything around money comes back to mindset. It comes back to if you want to earn more money, you've got to increase the quality of your mindset. If you want to invest wisely and learn to understand that you're going to lose money on certain investments sometimes too. You've got to be willing to develop a stronger mindset. And so that's why it's been a powerful journey of all these different stages. since that moment.
Starting point is 00:27:09 That's so, I mean, first off, that you're willing to admit that a very successful person like you walked into a Toastmasters, just hearing that part right away, I'm like, oh, I'd have to be at rock bottom. I had to go to a Toastmasters thing for college. It was like a speaking class
Starting point is 00:27:25 and they forced us to go to one. I, like my kryptonite is having to go to events where I don't know people. Yeah. I'm incredibly introverted. You don't think so because people only experience me in an area where I'm coughing, right? Playing a sport on a podcast where I get to talk.
Starting point is 00:27:38 So much easier. If I have to go to a place like a party route, no anybody, oh, my skin is crawling. I just wanna like, turn myself inside out and hide. I can't stand it. And Toastmasters is not like that, but now you gotta talk in front of all these people. It's terrible.
Starting point is 00:27:51 So you go into that environment that I would have hated. I'm guessing you probably aren't the guy who just walks in the room. You're not Frank the tank either, right? I was just terrified. And I was also just like, I don't have the skills that all these people have. I don't dress like them. I'm not as old as them.
Starting point is 00:28:06 I'm just like this young, punk trying to figure out how to overcome my fear. So it was terrifying. You're like the fat kid at a crossbit gym walking out on the first day. It's the worst feeling ever. You're looking at all these people that are way better off than you are. And now you're also so poor that you're taking food from the thing and you're grateful that there's food, but you're humiliated that someone sees you doing it. Like that, that fighting spirit is all you can really call that. Like you don't know where you're going. You're at rock bottom, but you're not willing to just give up. You're not going to say I quit. I'm just going to slip into depression, slip into drugs, slip into just
Starting point is 00:28:39 being a loser because it's being, the world's tempting me with that every day. What is the point of trying here? And you're, you're so humble that you're willing to put yourself in that position. I think that is, when we talk about mindset, that spirit that you had, that I will humiliate myself, I will cut the shirt off my sleeve off my shirt, I will go to this place, I will be embarrassed, I don't care, I have to get better is absolutely the first steps to getting out of the place we're at. And for the people who are in a job that's comfortable, but they don't love it and they want to be an entrepreneur, that's the attitude you ought to have. When you're like, I don't care what I have to do, I will do anything to get out of the position
Starting point is 00:29:15 I'm in. Yeah. You're starting on that journey. And I think, you know, we're going to get into a deeper price. I'm going to throw it over to Rob here in a minute. But if you're trying to start the journey without thinking that way, it's like you're half committed. You can't like sign it for CrossFit unless you're completely committed something you want to do. And here's a thing. It's really hard to strive for more when things are good. When things are good, I was having a conversation yesterday with a guy who came and was having a meeting with me and they were recording some content for me. He's in his late 20s.
Starting point is 00:29:49 He had a successful business that he started when he was 21, pretty young, a coffee shop in his local town, made some good money. He's got three kids, beautiful wife. Life is really good. but he's been for two years wanting to take the leap to do something, but he's been afraid because life is good. But he knows it's not exactly what he wants. It's like there's something calling me, but I got something to lose.
Starting point is 00:30:15 Exactly, something to lose. When you have nothing to lose, when it's really, really bad, when it's bad, it's not bad enough. It's when you really go through an extreme breakdown, an extreme breakup. You go through an extreme like, you know, near-death experience or you lose, your career or you go through a divorce or something like that, that's when you can start to reflect and say, okay, it can't really get worse than this,
Starting point is 00:30:38 or I don't want it to get any worse. And that's when a lot of people start to act. When it's bad, at least we're familiar with it. And we're not willing to break through. It needs to be really, really bad in order for us, a lot of times to break through. Some people have the courage to recognize life is really good, but it's not exactly what I want.
Starting point is 00:30:59 Let me start doing all into my fears. my insecurities and overcoming these things. It's rare when that happens, but it's inspiring when people will not accept goodness and they go for greatness. That's really great. And I think it's really cool to just hear your turning point here because you did the Toastmasters thing. Someone reached out to you and they're like, let's go to lunch and they showed kindness to you and they mentor you. It's always really cool how one person who's sort of unlocked their own version of impossible and their own success, talking to them for a bit can do that for you too. Yes.
Starting point is 00:31:33 So it seems like for you, taking action is what got you off the couch and in the game. And you've built this massively successful influential business from there. Do you think you could break down the step-by-step process of how you unlock that success? Because I have a feeling that a lot of people at home need to hear this. Yeah, well, let me first define the difference between success and greatness. because I think people, I want to create context around this first. I was extremely, in my mind, I was extremely successful in sports, right? I was a two-sport, all-state in high school.
Starting point is 00:32:11 I was a two-sport, all-American in college. I was a professional athlete. I played with the Olympic handball team, like I felt like with the talents that I was given and then I nurtured and developed, I accomplished as far as I could in sports. And then I felt like I did, you know, a similar transition in the business and have accomplished. a lot of success, quote, unquote, in business in my own way, right? New York time bestseller, top podcast, you know, eight figure business, yada, yada. But here's the thing. Success for me by itself is selfish. It's about me. It's about wanting to look good. It's about wanting to look
Starting point is 00:32:47 right. It's about wanting to win so that I get celebrated and seen and feel good about me. That's what I did for a long time from sports to the business world. And it was never fulfilling. The more I would accomplish, the more money I would make, the more I would be New York Time bestseller, all this stuff. It still didn't feel enough. It didn't feel satisfying, fulfilling, and enough. And I said, well, maybe I need to accomplish more.
Starting point is 00:33:14 I need to succeed more. And it still didn't feel enough. And so that's why this whole journey started 10 years ago when I started. in my show, School of Greatness, I said, I don't know what's wrong, but I'm accomplishing success and it's not working. So let me figure out what greatness is. And to me, greatness is pursuing the goals and dreams that you still want to accomplish for you, but making sure you're in service to those around you in that pursuit, lifting others up, inspiring others around you, helping others, empowering them and celebrating others as well. And that's why it's been a journey for me because
Starting point is 00:33:54 the worst thing that you can do is win at the wrong things. The worst thing you can do is be successful and still not love yourself in my mind. Sure, money can help you solve lots of problems, but it doesn't help you solve the problem of accepting loving yourself and being a good human being. it might solve money problems but not mindset problems and emotional problems. And that's why for me, I could tell you what I did to be successful, but it wasn't enough for me to accomplish these goals. And so that's why I want to talk about what I've reinvented for myself from studying all these great minds over the last 10 years,
Starting point is 00:34:37 making a lot of the same mistakes over and over again, really until the last couple years, in order to finding peace, acceptance, and fulfillment as I'm on the journey of constantly growing and building what I'm building. So greatness, again, is going after the things that are successful to you and empowering those and being in service to those around you as well. So I'll give you the steps based on that context. I don't believe. And I don't know if you guys actually got a copy of the book, but I'll share a page for you on page 201 in the greatest mindset. There a, there's a graphic that talks about the powerless mindset versus the greatness mindset. So if you
Starting point is 00:35:19 want to have a step-by-step approach to achieving more success, making more money, and being greater in your life, this is the context of understanding where this stems from. A powerless mindset. And so think about this in terms of how you're making money, how you're investing in your real estate and building your career or building your business. A powerless mindset, lacks a meaningful mission. So if you don't in one sentence have a meaningful mission clear, it doesn't mean you can't live a good life, but it's just not stepping into your full greatness. So a powerless mindset lacks a meaningful mission is controlled by fear, is crippled by self-doubt, conceals past pains, is defined by the opinions of others, and drifts towards complacency.
Starting point is 00:36:04 For me, that is more of a powerless mindset way of thinking. Now, if we want to step into greatness, financially or any area of our life, we are driven by a meaningful mission. So we're very clear in one sentence what that is. And I'll talk about that. That is their first step. They turn fear into confidence. So anything we're afraid of,
Starting point is 00:36:26 we turn it into a superpower. For me, that was public speaking. I know, David, for you, that was something you struggled with also. But we say, this is the obstacle I'm going to overcome and actually make it a power. Something that made me feel powerless for so long
Starting point is 00:36:39 is now something I get paid, $150,000 to do in 60 minutes, right? But if I didn't turn that fear into confidence and overcome it, then I'd still be held back into a powerless mindset. Overcome self-doubt, heals past pains, creates a healthy identity, and takes action with a game plan. So again, to give you context there, Rob, this is the first step is identifying which mindset am I currently living in. Are they anything from the powerless mindset that is holding me back, or my living more in the greatness mindset. So step one is identifying where I currently am in this place. Do I have any fears? Is there anything from my past that I'm still holding on to that I haven't mended or healed yet? Do I have a healthy identity with myself?
Starting point is 00:37:26 Do I get angry, resentful, frustrated, or am I loving, kind, and generous? So what is the identity that I have of myself? And this doesn't mean you're right or wrong, good or bad. Either way. I'm just speaking into the greatness that is possible within you, identifying it and leaning into it. So step one is that step two is getting clear on what season of life we're in. When I was on my sister's couch, Rob, I was in a season of sadness, I was in a season of transition. I was in a season of denial. I was in a season of, who am I? Rediscovery. And I kind of was in that season for a while. I was trying a bunch of things. I was feeling the sadness. I was feeling bad for myself. And I was trying to discover what do I want to create next. That was the season. And all I could think of is my mission is to get off my
Starting point is 00:38:13 sister's couch. How do I make enough money to get off the couch? I couldn't think beyond. I'm going to change the world or cure cancer. That wasn't a part of my makeup. It was just how do I make money to get off the couch? And I think we have to recognize what season we're in. Because some people listening are watching right now, they may only be making a few thousand dollars a month. And it's probably hard to say, how do I become a millionaire right now? Really, we should be thinking about how do I get to six figures first. How do we get to eight grand a month? Because eight grand a month will help me break through the first emotional and mental money barrier. You guys know that six figures was probably the hardest thing to do first. For most people, six figures is the limit. It's the ceiling.
Starting point is 00:38:56 And there's an emotional and mental breakthrough that must happen in order for us to get there. Then hitting six figures again is easier. Then the next hurdle is the million dollars, seven figure mark. and it seems really hard. But six figures was harder for me than it was to seven figures, because I saw myself break through one barrier first and got me to there. So there's certain things we must get clear on it is what do we want in this season? What is the mission for this season, and that mission can evolve over time. Mine is to serve and impact a hundred million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life.
Starting point is 00:39:31 It's simple. It's clear. It's direct. It allows me to have a clear. game plan and guidelines for how I act accordingly in my days. What I do in my schedule, what I say yes and no to. It allows me to stay focused and not distracted and allows me to measure my results, right? So if we're thinking about money, just what is the clear mission you have around money in this season? I want to make my first six figures. Okay, well, you guys talk about this all the time.
Starting point is 00:40:01 All right, that's 8K a month. Okay, how much is that weekly? That's 2K a week roughly. Okay, that's, I don't know, 350, 500 bucks a day, whatever this is. I can't remember. All right. So how do I make 500 bucks a day? How do I get there? What are the steps then? Whatever the skills that I have? How can I generate more money? How do I package, position and receive the value that I want to put out in the world? There's lots of strategies. You guys talk about these things. So David or Rob, why do you think most people are limited in the way that they think and feel about breaking through and either buying their first investment deal, real estate investment deal, or getting their portfolio to a certain level of investment, what is the fear that holds people back from believing
Starting point is 00:40:45 they can actually make it happen? 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 investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Funrise Flagship Fund. Now, you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features 4,700 single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave.
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Starting point is 00:41:49 Did you know your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there. in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport, while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards.
Starting point is 00:42:21 Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with, real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications, it can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are
Starting point is 00:42:50 taken care of and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. The rise of the tech savvy investor is here. You don't need a huge team. or tons of overhead to manage rental properties. Just the right tools. So, I want to tell you about how I use rent-ready to get ahead. For landlords who treat their time like capital and recognize the cost of sweat equity,
Starting point is 00:43:14 this tool gives you everything you need to scale. Rent collection, tenant screening, maintenance accounting, so that you're organized come tax season and you can run numbers in preparation for future deals. And more. All in one platform via a mobile app or desktop. Modern landlords don't just own property.
Starting point is 00:43:29 They optimize it. Rent-ready will keep you organized, running leaner and ready to grow. Start with RentReady. Visit rentready.com slash bigger pockets. That's RentR-R-E-D-I-com slash Bigger Pockets and use code BP 2025 to get Rent Ready's six-month plan for a dollar. Real estate investors, the April 15th tax deadline is coming fast. If you own rental property and haven't done a cost segregation study yet, you could be handing thousands of dollars to the IRS that you don't have to. These studies let you write off as much as 25% of your building and
Starting point is 00:44:03 generate huge tax deductions. Costsegregation.com is an online, self-guided software that makes cost segregation fast and affordable. So it finally makes sense for smaller rental properties purchased for as low as $100,000. With pricing under $500 and an average savings of over $25,000, it's just a no-brainer. What's more, audit support is included by the number one cost segregation company in the U.S., but you must complete it before the tax deadline. Go to costsegregation.com and use code tax deadline to get 10% off your first report.
Starting point is 00:44:38 Don't overpay the IRS. Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th. This information translates really well into where most, especially beginner real estate people, are starting. There's a desire to want to have more, but then there's also a conflict that you don't really deserve it. So real estate is making money in this industry is so different than other things because you get used to this W2 mentality. I put in X hours. I made X money. And we measure our value by your dollar per hour. If I can make $20 an hour and I can get to 25, I'm now 25% better of a human being as far as the value I bring to the marketplace. And we get locked into this linear thinking. Okay. Real estate investing is much more profitable than that, but it makes no sense on that logic. There is no I put in these hours and I got this result. Sometimes you put in a whole bunch of hours and get nothing until you finally develop the skill set and then boom, you make a whole bunch of money. Sometimes you don't realize. that you even made money.
Starting point is 00:45:33 Inflation just occurred and you look back and you're like, I gained $200,000 of equity and I did nothing, right? There's this separation, kind of like when you're in the matrix and you have to believe I'm in a simulation, this isn't real and then you can fly or jump or move fast. Once you recognize that like the construct that your brain operates by was something you made is not how the world actually works, that money does not work the way that we first understood it when we were 16 years old and we babysat for four hours and made, $100. Whatever it was that we were doing, you do way better. You start to recognize patterns.
Starting point is 00:46:07 You start to understand that owning assets, making sure that they cash flow, buying in areas more likely to see rents increase. And none of that has anything to do with login in hours. So what we'll do is we'll try to teach new investors. Hey, here's what you need to do. You need to analyze X amount of deals. What we're really trying to get you to do is see patterns. Houses in this neighborhood at this price range never cash flow or short term rentals in this area do well, but they have to be this size or they have to look this way. It could be five hours. It could be 500 hours. You're not getting paid for the time. You're getting paid for the skill you build and really the pattern recognition. And then creativity comes into play. Can you look for
Starting point is 00:46:45 creative ways to find someone that has that asset that's going to let you buy it from them with all the different strategies that we teach. But this idea of you got to be ready for it before it's going to come. Like this is what stopped people from succeeding in our world. I'm so deep into real estate investing. I don't look at money the same way that I did when I started. I don't look at money as a form of currency where I trade it for something. I look at it now like a storage of energy. Yes. I traded eight hours of my time at Foot Locker for $200 of a paycheck. The government took $50. I traded eight hours for $150. But dollars was just the storage of my eight hours of time and labor. Okay. If I put that $150 into a new pair of shoes, I basically traded eight hours of my life, my time, and my energy for a pair of shoes that lost value the minute I put them on and continue to lose value, right? If I put that $150 into a stock, it will slowly become worth more over a long period time. If I put it into real estate and then I can leverage, I can borrow 80% of that $150 from a bank and I can take that $150 and turn that into, say, like, $1,000, then that $1,000 is going to grow over $10.000.
Starting point is 00:47:57 time, I'm just putting energy in places where it grows or I'm putting energy in places where it bleeds. It's one of the two things. My mind never started to look at it that way until I got out of that linear thinking you're talking about. And I think everyone listening has some form of where they're living in the matrix in some way. The way they were taught money work, the way that they saw rich people and had ideas about them. There's only so many hours in a day you can work. There's only so many years in your life you can work. There has to be a mindset change before the money's going to come. Well, also, Dale, I'm curious, you know, I've heard a lot of people say, you know, I got into buying a short-term rental or buying a place and doing the Airbnb thing.
Starting point is 00:48:35 And it was so much time, so much energy, so much hassle, ended up losing money on it. Restrictions came up. And it whole, and then they, they give up. They stop because they have a bad experience. We lose money. They realized this took me three months, six months of my life away from making money. And, you know, people said it was so easy. but I'm learning that it's extremely difficult. What would you say to someone who lost money, you know, five years of savings and said they went in there, they finally took action on their first thing.
Starting point is 00:49:07 It didn't work out. Should they give up or is it just a lesson of like, okay, now you have the information of what not to do for the next time? Yeah, Rob, that's an area that you spend a lot of time in and you've taken a lot of those Ls. What does you learn in that process? I always say that my mistakes make me millions. And that really is true.
Starting point is 00:49:26 I mean, a lot of people go into real estate. I mean, it isn't just short-term rentals, right? I know a lot of people that will go into a flip, and they lose money on that first flip, and they're ready to pack it in, and I'm always like, you have to keep pushing through that because imagine all the greats out there who wouldn't exist had they, you know, had a big failure,
Starting point is 00:49:46 like Tony Hawk, right? One of the greatest skateboarders of all time. Arguably the greatest skateboarder of all time. If he had fallen and broken whatever bone, which I'm sure he did many, many times, And he had said, you know what, I'm going to stop skateboarding. We wouldn't have the legendary Tony Hawk in part of that world, right? So real estate is very, very similar to where you meet all of these people.
Starting point is 00:50:06 I meet millionaires, mega millionaires, decadionaires, billionaires, and all of them are that level of wealth because of the amount of failures and the amount of time they ate it in real estate. So did your first deal, was it successful or did your first one, did you lose money? It was successful, but I made a lot of mistakes in the, actual hosting in the art of hosting, right? And so here's the thing. Your first one made money, and it wasn't like a failure, let's say, or a big loss. But a lot of people, they aren't as, you know, not lucky as you, but they don't have
Starting point is 00:50:39 that type of success the first time. Yours came later where you lost some money or you had some L's or whatever, but at least you knew, oh, but I've done it before so I could do it again, when it's someone's first time, and they go all in, and they study you guys or someone else and read all the books and and say, I'm doing exactly what I'm told to do in what seems like the right location and what seems like the right style of real estate investing and it doesn't work out. What would you guys say to those investors? I'm sure you get that a lot, those emails and those messages of like, you know,
Starting point is 00:51:10 a lot of people who succeed right away, but then some that don't. Well, it comes down to your step number two in finding your meaningful mission. If you get into real estate investing because you just want money and you think it's a science, like if I put in this many ccs of this thing, I'm going to get this result. you're going to fail. There has to be a passion. You has to have a power of yours behind it. And then you have to want to solve these problems. If you're going to get through that initial, you suck. Like, like, I, the example I always, I look for parallels in life where I feel like if it's a universal truth, it won't just apply to whatever we're talking about. It will apply in
Starting point is 00:51:43 relationships. It will apply with fitness. It will apply in all these other areas. Okay. Your first time in the gym, when you haven't worked out, you're going to get zero strength that you're actually going to build. It is a useless workout if that's how you're tracking it. All you're doing is conditioning your muscles to get used to what you're doing. So if you go in there and you throw yourself, you go for broke, you just spend a week in bed and you can't move because you're so sore. You didn't get any stronger. What you do is you go in there and you know I'm not going to have any success from this first workout. I'm just going to lightly hit every muscle so that I get a conditioned and working out.
Starting point is 00:52:13 And then I want to be back in a day or two so I can go do it again and get that baseline built. That's how you want your mistakes to be in real estate. You don't want to dump your whole nest egg in your first deal, crash your fingers and hope that this goes out. You know, how do I get in this thing with minimal risk? And I'm excited about the passion, the power, the problem to solve to learn about it. Because you've got to get through that initial sore phase before you start making the gains with real estate. That's what I love about what you're talking about. If you're chasing it for the money, if you're going to the gym that first time because you want to get ripped, it's going to be a useless workout.
Starting point is 00:52:41 Yeah. It's like just wanting it for the six pack as opposed to I want to live a healthy abundant lifestyle. You know what I mean? And then those things are byproducts of I want to love a healthy lifestyle. You end up with a six pack. A lot of people when they're getting into anything. You know, whether it's their career, investing money, relationship, getting clear on their meaningful mission, is using those three pieces you talked about, which has talked about in the book, your passion, your power, and then the problem you want to solve. And some people don't like real estate, but they get into it just because they say, oh, here's a way to make money.
Starting point is 00:53:12 You're probably going to make a lot more mistakes if you could care less about homes or about being of service to people and providing a home for them or whatever it is that you care about. So if you're going about it just because you see it's an opportunity to make money alone by itself, you maybe could make a lot of money, but if you don't truly have a passion or curiosity or interest, you don't have a skill set, a power around being creative, like you said, finding deal opportunities, working with people, building relationships, you know, all these different pieces that come to real estate investing. And you don't care about solving the problem that's in front of you, whether it be rehabbing or, you know, building out the portfolio.
Starting point is 00:53:53 supporting your family that way, then you're probably going to make a lot of mistakes and say this real estate thing doesn't work. That's 100% right. If you're in a fight, like you're a boxer and you don't want to be there, you just did it for the paycheck. You're going to lose. The first shot you take is a knockout. I'm not getting up. That's it. You walk in there, you get shot, you get knocked down. Okay, I'm out. I didn't really want to be in here fighting Mike Tyson anyway. Was that you in CrossFit, David? You just like. I never actually went to CrossFit. I know I was honest with myself. I like to go at a pace I want to go at, right? I'm building up to someday jumping into crowds.
Starting point is 00:54:24 But I have seen that like in a jujitsu match. If you're like, I am exhausted, I'll tap from a choke that it's not actually choking me out just because I don't want to be there. If you really, really, really want to win, you figure out a way to get through that problem. And that's like the, that's the passion that we're talking about. You're going to take L's. You're going to get knocked out. You're going to get hit in life. When you want it, you get back up, you get in the fight.
Starting point is 00:54:44 And these are the people that you hear the success stories. When you just wanted a paycheck, you won't stick with it. I'm curious for people listening and watching right now who, Maybe this is their first time here, hearing this show. Maybe they've been here for five years hearing you guys talk. What are the top three approaches to real estate to dive into at this season of life that will pay dividends five, ten years from now? And I think a lot of people get into it, wanting to make quick money, as opposed to thinking, I've got to have a meaningful mission that's beyond just quick money.
Starting point is 00:55:20 If quick money comes, great. But what is the two or three approaches to real estate investing that you see that has worked in the past and will continue to work for the next five to ten years with all the different economic challenges, wars happening, with the great reset, with the, you know, changes that are going to happen, the 2020, 2030 plan, all these different things? What are the three real estate strategies of investing today that will pay dividends? in the future for people. Is it, you know, flipping? Is it buying single properties? Is it duplexes? Is it quads?
Starting point is 00:55:58 Is it buying apartment buildings? Is it, you know, what is this? Is it, you know, Airbnb stuff? What is the top three things that most people can get into right now who are making about 80 to 130 grand a year of household income and doesn't have a ton of money right now? now, but maybe they could source money. What are those three things they could do moving forward if they're interested in this? So this ties in really well with your step three, you take massive, imperative, and perfect action, right? Once you know the direction you're going to go in,
Starting point is 00:56:35 start down that road. Rob, what are some of the things that you think are the hottest strategies for 2023? And that also are going to pay dividends for five to 10 years, with everything happening, with all regulations, with changing of the laws, all that stuff. So this is pretty topical. This is something we've discussed quite a bit in the last month, I feel like. But in my opinion, the number one way to get into real estate that will absolutely pay dividends for 5, 10, 15, 20 years is house hacking. And renting out a room or a space on your property to subsidize your mortgage, because in my opinion, the faster you stop paying a mortgage, the faster you can use those funds to reinvest into other forms of real estate. I like it. And seen.
Starting point is 00:57:14 Cool. All right. Good one. Dave, what about you? House hacking is 100% the reason. And Lewis, you hit it on the head. As the market's heating up and interest rates are rising, we're not seeing a big drop in prices because there's so much competition for these assets. It's a very strong field. So the first thing I tell people is you have to get away from this
Starting point is 00:57:29 idea. They're going to buy one house to make a bunch of money in year one. This has gone from a short-term game into the long-term game that real estate's really meant to be. It's meant to be a long-term buying whole thing. So you have to be thinking five years down the road, how is it going to be doing? So understanding that, the first strategy is picking the right location. Okay, there's a very big difference between buying in Columbus, Ohio, where it's going to be the same price 10 years from now and what it is today. And buy it in Austin, Texas, Miami, Florida, some of these markets where populations are moving into. And so it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not as crucial if it makes a ton of money right out the gate, as you know it's going to over the next five
Starting point is 00:58:04 years. Then you can combine that with house hacking, which allows you to put less money down, get a property and you're not as beholden to a lot of the, like the regulations that are being put on short-term rental owners because you own the house yourself and then combine that with short-term rental. So if you buy a house in a location that's going to blow up, you make it a primary residence and then you rent out parts of that house as a short-term rental, you really get all the benefits of real estate investing without as much of the risk that you see a lot of people struggling with today. What if people are like, well, I like the idea, but I don't want people living in my home that I'm like my family. What would be the next strategy beyond that?
Starting point is 00:58:42 I always think that a multifamily, you know, I'm starting to become a big fan of this and like an entry level multifamily, something that's like, you know, two to 10 units because the cash flow from it on a long term rental, it's not going to be a ton, right? It's not going to be quit your job money, but the appreciation that you're going to get from that in five to 10 years, I think what could make you a lot of money, right? Like hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity and appreciation that you can cash out and, you know, use over and over again for the rest of your real estate investing career. Gotcha. I love it. Louis, you talk to experts a lot about what they see in terms of the bigger social and the economic trends that are going on. What insights can you share with us about what you see happening in 2023 in the business world as well as the economic world? Where do you see opportunity? I'm going to give you a counterintuitive answer. I see opportunity and in mastering your emotions from all these interviews that I've done. And I'll get to why.
Starting point is 00:59:42 From all these interviews I've done, from therapists to doctors to world-class athletes to billionaires to brain surgeons to all of it, I usually ask people what's the number one skill that anyone should develop to help them be greater? And most people comes back to mastering their emotions or managing them, having emotional regulation. So I think the greatest opportunity is acquiring more skills inward, is learning more about how to overcome your insecurities, your fears, your triggers, so that when things happen, a war happens, a pandemic happens, something happens, you actually go into peace, you go into abundance
Starting point is 01:00:24 as opposed to scarcity and holding back. You actually expand into whatever opportunity is in front of you with courage as opposed to retreating. And I think that's something that happened to me in 2008 and the economy was going through everything. I was in kind of this phase for a year and a half, like just trying to figure it out. And I was in hoarding mode. Let me save what I have, which was nothing. Let me just like, you know, kind of keep it all together.
Starting point is 01:00:52 And I remember saying, when this happens again, never, ever again, am I going to want to feel this feeling of being broke or feeling scarce? And so I said for the net from 2008 until 2020, I prepared myself emotionally for 2020 without knowing that's what was going to happen. And my business continued to expand over the last three years because I was expanding internally, emotionally, and I was working on emotional regulation. One of the things that I talk about is really healing and mending the different things
Starting point is 01:01:26 that cause you to be reactive or scared or holding back and empowering yourself with whatever skill that is for you to be able to be ready because the next time something happens, 2023, 25, 27, and things crash, are you going to pull back, are you going to see the opportunity like you guys talk about
Starting point is 01:01:45 and actually lean in and say, this is my opportunity, now I'm going to take the risk, now I'm going to jump in at the right timing. That's what I see. It's kind of a counterintuitive approach,
Starting point is 01:01:55 but I feel like from all the people I've interviewed, and even, you know, I've been to some very powerful masterminds in the last couple of months with some of the biggest names that you guys would know in this kind of industry. And behind the scenes, even some of them are doubting themselves at this stage.
Starting point is 01:02:14 They've got all the money, they've got all the success, but they're like, well, now what do I do? And it's like, go back to working on yourself. Go back to improving the emotions that hold you back. I think that will give you power anytime anything happens in culture, society, economic crashes, to act and seize the opportunity. So it really seems like the recurring thread here, just hearing your journey and your process, the idea of going from broke to millionaire really is mindset and it's the ability to overcome just doubting that you can actually achieve what you want, right? I think it's mindset and it's, again, I go back to this analogy. You have probably both met a lot of people who've made a million dollars and then either lost it or lost a lot of it. and it's hard for them to come back and bounce back
Starting point is 01:03:05 because some people can break through to accomplishing the success of the millionaire status, of the multi-millionaire status. But I've interviewed a lot of people who have fallen back and going bankrupt after doing that. What got them there, they forgot to keep breaking through mentally. They forgot to keep breaking through and sustaining the mindset. So they fell off the wagon and they lost it all. This is why I'm a big fan of having a. coach or multiple coaches in business, having you guys as a coach for people when they listen to you
Starting point is 01:03:38 every week and they have you as mentors, guides coaching them, you're encouraging, you're bringing wisdom, you're bringing lessons, and you're keeping people on track. But when we try to just do it all on our own, I think it's really hard. It's hard to make a million dollars on your own. It's hard to invest on your own. Unless this is all you do and you obsess about it, it's really hard to sustain it at a great level. You know, we just witnessed, I don't know when you guys are airing this, but we just witnessed recently,
Starting point is 01:04:07 LeBron James breaking the all-time scoring record, right? Mm-hmm. And after his first championship, he didn't say, you know what, thanks, coach, you got me here. I don't need a coach for next year. I think I can go win this championship on my own now. He didn't say that.
Starting point is 01:04:24 He actually put millions and dollars a year into investing into more coaches, more experts to support him to stay at the top. And it's one of the reasons him, Jordan, and all these guys were able to sustain greatness and stay up there. That's why what you guys do is so important. And everyone needs to be listening. If you're investing in real estate,
Starting point is 01:04:45 you want to invest in real estate. You need to listen to this show weekly to stay on top of what's happening. What a mistake. Am I got to make sure I avoid by listening? And how do I stay on top of mind? And how do I, I need the encouragement. I need the accountability. We need these things. And that's all part of mindset. All right. So the three steps to breaking down the process of how you went from broke to
Starting point is 01:05:08 millionaire was identify your mindset, then identify your season or find your meaningful mission, right? The passion, the power, the problem to solve. It can't just be, I want money. Yes. It has to be something deeper behind it. And then number three, take massive imperfect action, which is my favorite thing because perfection creates paralysis. Like, you know, whenever it does it. LaBron James still doesn't play perfect. No. This is a thing, like, this is such a good, a little quip I'll add before you move on. When you try to play a game perfectly, you focus on minimizing mistakes.
Starting point is 01:05:39 And so if you never dribble, if you never shoot, if you never pass, if you never do anything, you can play a perfect game and be outperformed by the person who went out there and scored 50 points, but they missed some shots, they made some turnovers. They got beat on defense a couple times. When you're in the throws of the game, mistakes are going to have. but you get paid by how many things you did right, not how many wrong things that you avoided, right? That mindset hurts people when they're like engineers specifically, when they work in an industry that mistakes cause money, and then they try to get into entrepreneurship.
Starting point is 01:06:12 Like money doesn't respect that. Money doesn't flow to people who make the least mistakes. It flows to people who take the most action. Exactly. And you think of like the greatest baseball players, 70% of the time, they fail, right? They strike out, they miss, they don't hit the ball. And if you're focused on failure, you can't get into flow. You cannot get into flow of whatever action you're doing if you're focused on failure.
Starting point is 01:06:32 It's so good. If you're focused on success or if you're focused on the judgment of other people. And these are the three fears that cause us doubt ourselves the most, whether it's investing, whether it's starting a career, launching a business, the fear of failure, success, and judgment. And when we get clear on identifying which one of that is for us, for me, I was never afraid of failure of success. I was crippled by judgment, the opinions of other people. What are they going to say when I make this investment?
Starting point is 01:06:59 What if it doesn't work out? They're going to say, I told you so. You're an idiot. What would you think you're doing? I'm sure a lot of people in real estate who've made a mistake and lost money for that year heard all those things from the people in their life that said, you should have invested in this. You should have saved your money. What were you thinking about starting this real estate dream of yours?
Starting point is 01:07:18 That's crazy. And look at the results you created. You know, if you have that fear of the judgment of other people around your friends, family, peers of making the mistakes, then it will cripple you from actually taking action. And you cannot get in the flow if you're afraid of failure, success, or judgment. And that's why we've got to learn to identify which one holds us back. And then we talk about how to breakthrough that and overcome it. Perfectly said, my man, if people want to find out more about you or get your book, where can
Starting point is 01:07:47 they go? The Greatness Mindset, they can get the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or you can follow me at Lewis Howes on social media or the School of Greatness Podcast. podcast for more. And Rob, where can people find out more about you? You can find me on YouTube at Rob Built, R-O-B-U-I-L-T. Same thing on Instagram. And what about you, Dave? I am David Green 24, the most boring handle of everybody here. You can find me on all social media there. Lewis, my last question before we let you get out of here. If my goal for 2023 is to grow ahead of hair like yours, what's the first thing that I can do? Oh, man, just implants, man. You know, just do implant therapy
Starting point is 01:08:23 and you got that head of hair, man. I'm sure you got enough back hair to just pluck it and put it up on top of the head right there, you know what I'm saying? Two birds with one stone. But that's going to take you for a millionaire to broke. That's the only catch. All right, Lewis, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. It was great to see you as always.
Starting point is 01:08:41 Hopefully that book does well, and we have you back on. Appreciate you guys. This is David Green for Rob, the comedian Abas Solo, signing off. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube. 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 Calicoke 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.com.
Starting point is 01:09:38 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. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.

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