BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 926: 6 Tips to Grow Your Real Estate Portfolio While Working 9-5

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 926. What's going on, everyone? This is David Green, your host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. And I've got my good buddy Rob Abbas Solo here with me. How you doing, man? Today I am, I have so many real estate projects going very different paths, all going well, but making me consider maybe should I transition back to my 9 to 5 job and go back to that life? That's how I feel sometimes. Oh, real estate can definitely do that to you. be a funny episode of I left real estate investing to go back to my nine to five and here's why. But that would be a good show. Well, we're actually going to do the opposite of that today because a couple of weeks ago, we brought you a show called the best real estate strategy to leave your

Starting point is 00:00:43 nine to five job. But today we wanted to follow up on that episode and give you tips to balance your nine to five job while also growing your real estate side hustle. Look, we want you to be very successful here. So we're going to give you some tips and some practical applications to hopefully set you up for that day where, hey, maybe you get to hand in your resignation and become a bona fide full-time real estate investor. That's it. So we're going to be talking about what you need to know if you want to be on that path. Let's get into it. All right. Our tip number one, create office hours for your side hustle. This is all about getting something on the calendar because when you have a W-2, your W-2 typically provides you with direction. But when you start to work for yourself, whether it's a

Starting point is 00:01:25 side hustle learning, real estate investing, or even a real estate profession, like being an agent, a property manager, a loan officer, you are not going to be given that direction and accountability from somebody else. Rob, is this a struggle for you. Yeah, I think, I think what happens is a lot of people will have their nine to five job and they're sort of doing the side hustle at the same time. They might be taking text messages. They may be taking meetings, you know, at their, at their office, you know, in a nook or something like that. And then they're just always kind of making small little steps in their side hustle business. But what happens is if you don't actually set a dedicated time to work on that side hustle, whether it's real estate or anything else, I think it's very easy

Starting point is 00:02:04 to have burnout. Whereas if you have like a dedicated time, you can actually make progress, set goals and just, you know, prioritize what you want to do in that set of time. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. When you work for somebody else, they typically tell you what to do. Maybe it's like cultivating a field that you're growing and the field demands what you need to do. So you got to weed it, you got to water it, you got to plant the seeds. But once you start to get into a side hustle or you become a real estate investor, you almost have to think like a hunter. What do I need and how do I go get it? So you definitely want to set stuff aside in your calendar where you're saying from this time to this time, this is what I'll be doing to help keep yourself on the path. Yeah, one thing that I want

Starting point is 00:02:44 to say too is oftentimes in this world of nine to five jobs and side hustles, you know, when people want to make more money in real estate, they're like, well, I don't have time. I don't buy into the concept of I don't have time. I think that people make time for the things that are important to them. And so if you're the kind of person that is trying to do more real estate, but you say, I don't have more time. Well, sure you do. You might just have to wake up 30 minutes earlier or stay up 30 minutes later working on your business. It's not easy. Like, you do have to carve out time and you do have to make sacrifices. But if it's important to you, then you have to figure out how to carve out time so you can make advancement in your goals.

Starting point is 00:03:20 that might be a better way to look at it. Instead of saying, well, here's what I need to go do? Say, well, what am I willing to give up? I'm willing to give up 30 minutes, 60 minutes of Netflix time. I'm willing to give up time that I was scrolling on social media. I'm willing to give up video game time, whatever it is. And I'm going to replace it with making progress on my side hustle. So here's a few things you can think about. Plan an evening, a lunch break or a weekend to work on your investing and stick with it. Keep that consistency going. So this might mean setting some time aside to analyze properties, setting some time aside to create lists that you're going to call, or even just setting aside time to find your loved ones, let them know I'm looking to invest in

Starting point is 00:03:56 real estate if you hear about anybody that has something to sell. Set goals for what you want to accomplish weekly and create that discipline. Because when you have a job, you just have to show up on time and they tell you what to do. It's a little bit different when you get here. So be like Rob and I and make your calendar your boss. Our calendars tell us what to do. Your calendar should be telling you what to do also. That way you make sure your priorities don't get missed. Awesome. All right. Well, let's head on to tip number two here, which is to lean on automations and services. And I know that this sounds kind of more complex than probably what it actually is. But I think we get into this world. When you're doing a side hustle, you tend to

Starting point is 00:04:32 do everything, right? We're like the entrepreneur of our own business. And so that, I think, tends to create burnout a little faster, especially if you don't do tip number one, create office hours where you can really dedicate yourself to that focused amount of time. So I think it's really important to automate what you can for your side hustle. But, you know, there's a multitude of ways to do this in real estate. This could be paying for lead generation services or a lot of people might be surprised by this one, paying a property manager to help. If you're working a nine to five job and you're running a short-term rental or a long-term rental, as much as we want to make as much money as possible, it may just make more sense to have a property manager in place while you build

Starting point is 00:05:10 that business until you're ready to take it over full time. Here's a dilemma for you, Rob. What if hiring a manager caused me to lose $500 a month on a property, but with the time I got back, I could make $2,000 on a side hustle. Is this a smart move or is this a foolish move? I think the obvious answer is you do have to think about your time as a dollar amount as well. And if you can pay someone, let's say, $20 an hour so that you can then go out and make $100 an hour, right? Then obviously that's going to be worth it. And when you look at the situation that you just talked about, most people would say, well, that's crazy. I would never want to lose $500. That's a dumb decision. But if the delta on that is you're making $1,500, then you have to start kind of macking out your life that way, which gets

Starting point is 00:05:54 really crazy in this world of entrepreneurship. And that's one of the reasons we use this phrase portfolio architecture, because if you look at every single property as its own subcategory, it is never okay to lose money on a deal. So you can't afford property management because the property won't cash flow. But if you look at the whole picture, like, well, I could make a lot more money in a business or a side hustle or buying more property or flipping something else, then it actually makes logical sense to lose money on a deal to make more money somewhere else. And this is one of those things that you need to think about when you're leaning on automation and services because you may have to spend some money for those things.

Starting point is 00:06:27 And it's hard to spend money when you're not used to it. But if that frees up your time to pursue a bigger net worth in the future, it could be a good investment. For sure. And let's even talk about not automation. Let's talk about services here. These are kind of some low-hanging fruit things that people can do that are expensive as a service, but honestly end up probably saving you money in the long run if you,

Starting point is 00:06:47 you know, if you're very good at making money, right? So a couple of things would be paying a housekeeper. I have a housekeeper that comes to my house every two weeks and it's not something that I proudly say because it always makes me feel lazy. However, it keeps the house clean and I don't have to spend hours doing it. I hire a landscaper to come to my property two times a month as well. I don't have that big of a yard. You would look at my yard and say, I can't believe you pay someone to do this. However, that frees up my Saturday so that I can hang out with my kids. Third idea would be like hiring a meal prep service, which I actually haven't done, but everyone like literally all of my friends are like, dude, just pay the $7 per meal because you shouldn't be cooking in your kitchen

Starting point is 00:07:27 while you could be out there, you know, building your empire. So that's a couple of ideas on that one. I'm in the same boat. I recently just hired a new person to cut the grass at my house. And it's not big at all. It's a tiny little strip in the front of the house and then a small backyard. But the thing is my HOA finds me if I don't cut the grass. It's actually kind of a crazy HOA over there. So it saves me money to make sure that somebody is cutting the grass and it takes it out of my head. I like to be focusing on dollar product activities. How do I get the next deal? How do I do the next podcast? How do I write the next book? How do I find the next lead? When I'm thinking about did I mow my grass or did I do my laundry, it takes you out of the game. And I think a lot of people have a hard time working

Starting point is 00:08:08 on their side hustle, progressing their career, because they don't want to let go of what they already have. They've got a routine that works for them in life. I cut the grass on Saturdays. I cook my meals. This is when I go shopping. And to get out of that, you're going to drop some balls. You just have to be okay to drop some balls in order to be able to juggle the better ones that are going to help in your career. Rob, you look like you got a lot going on behind the eyes right now. I was just thinking about that Brandon Turner was like bragging about how he, or he was really proud that he hung sheet rock on his ceiling. He was like, I did it, man. And you're like, Brandon, you could have paid someone 150 bucks to do that. And you could have gotten more rentals, but you chose to do it yourself.

Starting point is 00:08:46 And I think there is something to be said about sometimes it's therapeutic to do these things. So, you know, don't feel like you have to delegate every single thing in your life. If you like mowing the yard, like I know a lot of dudes that love mowing their yard. They're obsessed with their grass. That's totally fine. Do what makes you happy. But if something drains you, get it out of your life and focus on the things that matter. Great point. So if it drains you, get rid of it or if it is the reason that you're not progressing on your next step. Don't let it be the excuse why you don't move forward. But if you like doing it and it's not holding you back, there's nothing wrong with some of those tasks that we enjoy. All right, we have to take a quick

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Starting point is 00:12:21 We're breaking down six tactics to balance your life while you're investing and working a full-time job. So let's jump back in. Tip number three. This is called the Pareto Principle. Figure out the 20-year-old. percent of your actions that will have 80 percent of the results. So Velfredo Paredo was an Italian economist and he had this interesting observation that he noticed that taxes that were being

Starting point is 00:12:42 collected by Italy, 80 percent of them came from 20 percent of the population. And then he started to notice that 20 percent of the land that was used for farming was producing 80 percent of the food that they were eating. Then he noticed that 20 percent of the workforce was actually producing 80 percent of the results. And this thing went on forever. It became a fascinating point that 20 percent of the things you do will result in 80 percent of your actions. In fact, I would even posit that you probably wear 20 percent of your clothes in your closet 80 percent of the time. So the key for a business owner here is not to focus on doing everything perfect because you can't. It's to focus on finding the 20 percent that's going to lead to getting the deal, building the net worth,

Starting point is 00:13:27 starting the business, getting the lead, whatever's really important that's going to lead to 80% of your results. So this isn't still like a delegation thing. This is more about focusing on what you're good at and doubling down on that. And then do you then delegate sort of that last little piece? How does that kind of come into play as a real estate investor? Well, if you're going to delegate, you definitely want to delegate the 80% that doesn't move the needle. But it might be as simple as if things are going to slip between the cracks, make sure it's the 80% that slips through the cracks. So Rob, I noticed you're already doing this in your life. When you and I were at the Bigger Pocket Summit in Denver, you said, hey, I have to get a YouTube video out. While I'm here, I have to make this content. You didn't want to do it, but it needed to be done because Rob understands

Starting point is 00:14:09 that for his entire business, those YouTube videos he puts out constitute the 20% that's going to lead to the 80% of the wealth that he's going to build. That's a very important thing for him. Whereas answering emails or talking to your property manager, that or doing your taxes, that might not be as important as making sure that those YouTube videos get done. So things are always going to slip between the cracks. So when you're working a full-time job and now you're trying to add something else, you will never do it all. The point is it's not all equally weighted.

Starting point is 00:14:40 There's certain things in the algorithm of success that are much more important and you've got to get those right. That's a bang. You really cleared that up. That's a really great thing because there are just some things that I know. know, if I don't do this, the machine stops, right? And that sort of, I think, is probably personified pretty well in my text messages. I've got, I think, let me I'll tell you right now, I've got a hundred and twenty-five unread text messages. That's that other piece that I don't need to be doing right now. But the people that I need to answer, they get an answer immediately. And we bring

Starting point is 00:15:10 this up because your normal W-2 mindset all works the same. This is my job responsibilities. I have to do them. That's it. And my boss worries about what the 20% is that has to get done to make the company work. But when you become your own boss, you become a real estate investor, you start your own business. You have to shift into thinking this way in order to make something successful. Love it. All right. Well, let's move on to number four, which, man, it's a big, I can already tell you. This is a big one. So it's be efficient and set boundaries at work and in your personal life. This is probably the hardest thing because when you have a W2 job, you kind of have, I mean, you're, it's sort of like this really weird relationship where you get paid to do a job and you

Starting point is 00:15:50 have to kind of do everything or else you don't get to keep the job. And so it's very hard to say no when when your boss asks you to do things. And so I think oftentimes, especially if you're working a side hustle, there's this a little bit of guilt in fear that maybe you'll get caught or maybe, you know, you have to overcompensate so that your nine to five boss doesn't like think that your performance is suffering. And so you tend to just do everything. And when you do everything, that again leads to the ultimate failure in all of this, which is burnout. And this is really what we're trying to get you to not do is burnout. We want to figure out how to be efficient. And the best way you can be efficient is sometimes at work, you got to say,

Starting point is 00:16:29 hey, this is outside of my scope of work or I can't get to this now if you want me to perform my job correctly. Yeah. And it's okay to do that. It's just learning the right way to do it. This is actually an odd thing in my companies that I am constantly telling my staff, it is okay to tell me no. I want you to say, David, I can't do it. Or David, I'm not good at that. Or if I do it, I won't be able to do this instead. I need as the business owner to make the decisions on where the 20% needs to happen.

Starting point is 00:16:59 So if some of my best talent are not getting to the 20% that's going to make the machine move forward, I don't want them doing the 80% that's wasting their time. But people have a hard time saying, no, what if he doesn't like me? What if he thinks I'm lazy? What if you thinks I'm not trying? It really doesn't matter. And when you become a real estate investor, you are your own business owner. You got to be able to tell yourself no.

Starting point is 00:17:23 You got to be able to say, hey, I could do that, but I shouldn't do that because it's going to take away from what needs to get done. And if you're a person that struggles with boundaries, struggles with speaking directly, sometimes people can't say no. And sometimes they don't know how to say no politely. So they just get frozen and they don't do anything. you're going to find yourself just getting buried in all the tasks that are done. Rob, I'm sure you could acknowledge.

Starting point is 00:17:46 Like, I see what it's like with you. You never stop going. There's stuff that isn't going to get done. And you have to be able to say to people, hey, that's not what's important right now. Yeah, I think the most, well, first of all, I think the most important skill that you can learn is how to say no and how to know what you're saying yes to and when to say yes. But also communicating yes and no. Like I've got a lot of friends that I make fun of that are non-committal because they're just like, yeah, I mean, maybe. I can go. Maybe I can't. And I would rather them just say, hey, I can't. And I'm like, great.

Starting point is 00:18:15 No questions here. So that whenever I'm alone at the theater by myself, I at least know that they said no in advance. Right, David? Like the time that you're like, maybe, maybe, you know, I invited you to see Barbie. And you were like, no, maybe. And I was like, okay. And then you never showed up. Did I actually say maybe to Barbie? I think it's the one thing that would probably could have been a hard no. You should have shot with something else like G. I Joe. Maybe I'd have had a hard time committing to that one. But yes, that's exactly right. Boundaries help create efficiency. There's things that you have to be able to say no. So work on the right way to tell your boss no or the right way to tell your friends no. Or like one of the things I'll do as a real estate agent is people will ask

Starting point is 00:18:53 me to say, hey, can we go to lunch so I can pick your brain? Well, that is not a good idea. I don't even leave my office. I eat lunch here while I'm doing work, often in between podcasts. So I don't want to just say no like a jerk. But what I'll say is no, I can't do that. But why? Why? Why don't you come to the next meetup that I'm doing? Here's the date. Here's where it's going to be. I'd like to see you there. Now I don't feel like I hurt their feelings.

Starting point is 00:19:15 They don't feel like they got dismissed or rejected. They're probably going to learn more at the meetup than they would have learned if we had just gone to lunch together. And I can keep my nose buried where it needs to be to move things forward. Yeah, totally. I think this is, honestly, I think this is such an important one. I think people tend to just be yes men, yes, women. And you say, yes, I'll get to it. And then when you start taking everything on, you just,

Starting point is 00:19:38 really start everything starts to fail. So I think be very clear at saying no. And I think people respect you more. I think your boss would be like, all right, great. Like I know I now know I've pushed this employee to the max. And honestly, it's a good boundary to set just for that, for that reason alone. So one of the things I love about capitalism and the pursuit of wealth is when you do it in a capitalistic environment, it forces you to improve yourself. You can't get more, just like you can't get stronger unless you can get a body that can lift more weight. You can't get more wealth unless you build up the skills that will lead to that happening. So if you're a person that struggles with conflict or you don't know how to have difficult conversations, well, you're just going to struggle

Starting point is 00:20:16 until you learn how to have them. And then after you learn that new skill, life is easier. There's less stress on you. So fall in love with the process of becoming great. That's what I talk about in Pillars of Wealth. And that's my advice to everybody here. All right, tip number five, avoid burnout at work and in your side hustle. This is a problem that I had in the past. I hired a performance coach. And it's one of the things that I found was leading. to depression. I could get so overwhelmed that I just didn't want to get out of bed. I would lay there in the dark and just think like my phone feels like it weighs 500 pounds. I don't even want to think about picking it up. Now, this was typically, Rob, when I was in the throes of being a real estate agent

Starting point is 00:20:54 and I'd have somewhere between for myself, like 10 to 15 houses and escrow. So the minute I opened my eyes, I was coming into a stream of text messages from people that were worried, upset, anxious, curious about something. A whole bunch of agents that were talking to me. It was exhausting trying to live that lifestyle, but I never wanted to say no to business. And I was also afraid of trying to build a business and hire agents to do this for me. So I would just give it everything I had until I burned out. And then I would spend two weeks barely able to get any work done at all because I just didn't

Starting point is 00:21:25 want to know that the whole thing was worth that having an existential crisis a couple times a year. My coach helped me to understand if you don't stop and pit the car, the time. tires are going to go bad and you're going to lose the race. You just won't be able to race at all. You need pit stops. It's smarter to strategically plan for them than to wait until the car breaks down and the whole thing comes to a grinding halt as you get rebuilt. I think a lot of other people go through the same thing, especially when it comes to entrepreneurialism. We go through these crazy highs and lows. You have an idea. It's brilliant. You're excited. You're listening to every podcast. You're talking all your friends about real estate. You're analyzing properties. You love it. Then you go out there and you start the work and you're you're like, it goes wrong, people quit, things go over budget, you lose some money, the city

Starting point is 00:22:10 tells you know when you thought you were going to be able to do it, you hear about someone that got a better deal than yours, and you sink to the low. And then you stay down there thinking it's worthless until the next thing comes in, it comes high again. Have you noticed that as well? Big time. Big time. One thing I was going to say, you know, this makes me really think of this idea that I think, like, with the way everything is presented to, I think we just have too much like mental stimulation sometimes and there's just too much noise. And so I got to this point where I'm just always on the go. I'm on podcast. I'm doing content. I'm doing real estate. I'm on phone calls. So now I would say like almost 100% of the time that I'm in my vehicle. Like I used to listen

Starting point is 00:22:46 to podcasts only in music. Now I'm just quiet. Like I think sitting in silence sometimes is really important. But even more important than that, I think it's really important to have R&R, rest and relaxation. One of my employees recently reached out and was like, hey, how would you feel about maybe spending, you know, two to $400 a month on the team for us to do something where we can just kind of break away from work? And I really love that idea. I find that like we kind of like, I think we cut ourselves short a little bit because even whenever I'm supposed to be having my R&R time, I'm still working. Like when I'm, you know, out with friends, like I still have my phone on me. I'll give you a really good example of

Starting point is 00:23:26 something that happened recently. I was getting a massage and I did not turn my phone on do not disturb. And man, I'm not kidding. Everything went wrong in this hour. It was just like zz, zz, like my phone was going crazy. And I had a horrible time at that, because I couldn't say anything. It couldn't be like, excuse me, ma'am, can you stop massaging me? I need to see my phone. And so it's like if you're going to relax, actually relax, actually turn off your phone, actually put on do not disturb because if you're just kind of halfway relaxing, you're not relaxing at all, and it will just add to your stress levels. You know, something that I did a couple years ago is I literally turned my message

Starting point is 00:24:03 notifications to off. So I do not get notified when I get a text message. And I had to do it because when I was trying to get in some kind of focus when you hear that buzz, it does pull you away from what you were just doing. And it requires a little bit of mental energy to focus on, even a tiny bit. But what if you're getting 2,000 of those a day? Like, that's how bad it was getting at one point. It was never stopping. I was getting several at a time. And it just didn't go off. I mentally felt like I was burned out, but I wasn't getting anything done. There wasn't anything productive that was actually taking my energy. It was this thought that your brain never turns off, like an engine that just stays revving at 10,000 RPM,

Starting point is 00:24:40 but it's not in gear. Now I get into a rhythm where I focus on something for 15 to 20 minutes, like writing or talking or a phone call or a meeting, and then I look at my phone and I see what messages need to be addressed, and then I go back to whatever the next thing was. Burnout can be literally taking a day off, but it can also be creating efficiencies in the way your brain is used. Okay? Like certain things will stress you out. Certain things won't. Getting rid of the stuff that stresses you out can be massive, right? So like just one little thing. If somebody says, hey, David, can we jump on a call and talk? If I say yes, there's going to be like eight minutes of pledging trees and then probably four minutes of how they get around to the thing they actually

Starting point is 00:25:21 want to talk about. We've now spent 12 minutes. Now they pose the problem and I have to listen to how they feel about the problem before I actually get the problem. And what really needed to be done was I had to solve a problem, but it took 30 minutes of time before we did it. Versus I just have my assistant filled that call. That person absorbs everything. They come to me with the problem. I can make a decision in seven seconds. Everybody's happy and I don't get burned out. So I was just a little adjustment that I had to make in my life, but it kept me being much more productive. So don't think that burnout is weakness. Don't think that if you're like, man, I should be able to work for 18 hours a day and that's what it takes to get there. No, you can work 18 hours

Starting point is 00:25:58 a day if it's something that you like that's a light load that you enjoy doing and that you're charged up about, but nobody's working 18 hour days on stuff that they hate. Okay, time for one last short break. Stay with us. We're going to talk about the tip that made the biggest difference for me when we come back. Thinking about wholesaling or flipping your first property, but not sure where to start. The truth is, deals don't just fall into your lap anymore. You need to go out and create opportunities. That's where PropStream comes in. With PropStream, you get instant access to over 160 million properties nationwide. Use 20 pre-built lead lists such as pre-foreclosures, tax delinquencies, and vacant homes to find motivated sellers fast. And now PropStream has integrated batch leads and batch

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Starting point is 00:29:37 need. And welcome back to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Let's pick up where we left off. Well, awesome, man. Well, let's move on to the last tip, which I think this is the most, this to me was the breaking point for my transition. And tip number six here is going to be, don't leave your job until it is actually costing you money to stay at your job. Meaning, for me, I had so many side hustles and a lot of different things that I was working on on the side that I had actually grown them to a point where they could very easily surpass the income that I was making at my nine to five job. But I was unable to grow them anymore until I got the 40 hours back in my week. and wouldn't you know it when I quit my job, all of those things really, really took off.

Starting point is 00:30:21 And it was costing me money to stay in this job for as long as I did. My wife was just like, quit already. Just do it. You talk about it every day. And I'm like, all right, fine. And then I finally did. I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I should have, I would have made a lot more money had I quit a couple months ago. Yeah, this is all about when you make the jump, okay? You don't make the jump for emotional reasons. My boss pissed me off. I'm frustrated. I don't like it. That's not why you do it. you make the jump when objectively it is holding you back for being productive. So I remember having that same struggle. I was working in law enforcement.

Starting point is 00:30:52 I was also a real estate agent. I was outperforming all the other real estate agents in my office. But I was working probably 50 to 60 hours a week as a police officer while I was doing it. And to be frank, it wasn't really that bad, right? Like the conversations were tricky, but I just learned how to schedule conversations with people. I would say, hey, can we talk about this tomorrow at 1130? I'd put it in my calendar.

Starting point is 00:31:11 So then, you know, between the hours of 10 and noon, I would be. be talking to people, and that was often during my commute to work. So what else was I going to be doing? It didn't really slow me down to do it. Well, I did hit a point where I had a person, his name was Chris, and I was selling his house. Chris, if you're listening to this, don't worry, we still got your household for a lot of money. But I couldn't get his house on the MLS for like three days because I was so busy. I kept thinking I need to get this thing on there, and I could not find time to sit down, uninterrupted at a computer and actually get it uploaded. And that was my wake-up call. It's like, all right, I can't do both anymore. I have to commit to one or the other, but I had so much

Starting point is 00:31:47 momentum built up in what was a side hustle that it made sense to let go of the main job. Yeah, totally. I mean, I guess maybe to, first and foremost, I think the idea here is you probably shouldn't plan to quit your job the first year that you start investing. And we probably should have said that at the beginning of this. But, you know, some people do. And it is possible. But this is going to be like a multi-year thing for most people. And in some cases, many, many years before it actually happens. But I think if your goal is to eventually leave your nine to five job for real estate investing, you should really work to build that up. And if you're trying to put numbers to it, I mean, I think the best way to like maybe contextualize this would be

Starting point is 00:32:28 to say, let's say you're making, I don't know, $50,000 a year at your nine to five job. And you have done kind of a flipping side hustle where you've flipped a house or two. And that house or two has made maybe $50,000 to $100,000. And that's really good income, of course. That's more than what you're making at your job. But for you to go to $100 or $200,000 or $300,000, if it would be impossible for you to do that working your nine to five job, that's when you can start having that conversation because you literally can't advance that side hustle and make more money at the same time. This is one of the reasons that people like Rob and I are staunchly opposed to the influencers that tell you, do you hate your job? Get into a real.

Starting point is 00:33:08 real estate investing. They're usually doing that to make their content more interesting or to get you to become dependent on them so that you have to take their courses or follow them because you're not dependent on the job anymore. It's just a poor motivation for quitting your job because you'd rather do real estate investing. I would rather see people let real estate investing be the carrot that causes them to work harder, learn new things, get out of their comfort zone, throw themselves into working basically two jobs until you've earned the right to leave your job, which is exactly what Rob did, which is exactly what I did. That's the right reason to do this. The wrong reason is I hate my job, how quickly can I get out of it? Well, I was told if I take this class on flipping homes,

Starting point is 00:33:49 I could make $200,000 a year. So I'm going to quit my job in faith and burn the boats, because that's what everybody says I'm supposed to do and jump into this new thing before you know if you're even someone who should be investing in real estate, right? The person who burned the boats and that story had an army full of soldiers that knew that they wanted to fight and they were committed to a mission. You need some time and a side hustle to make sure that this is the right move for you and it's what you want to be committed to. When you hit the point that you know this is the right move for you. Yeah, burn the boats, quit the job, move forward. Totally. You mentioned you knew when you were, it was time for you to quit was when you couldn't list this

Starting point is 00:34:26 house on the MLS for three days. Yeah. So for me, it was kind of like I started mathing out how much money I would need to make to quit to quit my job. And so I started to create the path. And I had already worked on so many income streams that I had realized. I was like, oh, I think that time is now. And that's honestly an idea. It's an ideal scenario to be in because I had just made it such a goal to keep the nine to five. But I think the idea is you want to sort of like math out the bad, better, good scenario, good, better best maybe. No, bad. You want to say, you want to map out the apocalyptic, right? And then the okay scenario and then the best case scenario. And I did that all three times. And I was like, all of these income streams will make

Starting point is 00:35:08 this much money. And, you know, obviously it played out. It ended up working out for me. But I had already preemptively started mathing out how things needed to work out. So whenever I quit, it was just such an obvious decision. I feel like it should almost be an obvious decision at some point if you've really been chipping away and diligent at building your income streams. Yeah, that's exactly right. So don't hear us saying not to do it. Just hear us saying earn the right to do it. If you're not working super hard at your side hustle, you're not really trying to leave your job. Real estate's not a magic pill that's going to get you out of it. But real estate can be a magic carrot that gives you the incentive to work really hard to build the skills so that you

Starting point is 00:35:44 can leave the job. And that's where we want you. Rob and I want you here with us full time in real estate on this crazy high and low train that we all have become accustomed to and love to form the community that we have at Bigger Pocket. So we hope you've enjoyed today's show and we hope we did help you get a little clarity on what that direction looks like. Any last minute words of encouragement you want to leave our audience with Rob? It's possible. Anything is possible, but I would say don't compare yourself to other people. Instead, just learn from them, learn how they did it. And talk to like five to ten people that have done it and figure out, you'll quickly start to see. It was very different for all of them. So I think we get in this like, you know, you go to the

Starting point is 00:36:25 real estate meetups and people are like, oh, I'm a full-time real estate person. And you're just like, it becomes us keeping up with the Joneses like, oh, man, now I have to do that or else I, if I don't quit within two years, I'm a failure. And that's, you know, not everyone, like some people just have different circumstances that made them successful. But it's okay if this is a three to 10 year, 15 year journey for you. Don't expect it to happen overnight. That's beautiful. If you are somebody who has left your full-time job and you are now full-time in real estate, let us know with the comments on YouTube when you knew it was time to make that jump. And if you like today's episode, please go and give us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure you

Starting point is 00:37:02 subscribe to this so you get notified when new shows come out. We love you. We appreciate you. And it's been our pleasure talking about this with everybody. So make sure you tune in for the next episode where Rob and I'll be breaking down how you can build wealth through real estate so you can build a life of your dreams. This is David Green for Rob Real Estate Ken Abasolo, signing up. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer.

Starting point is 00:37:55 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.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing.

Starting point is 00:38:18 You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 926: 6 Tips to Grow Your Real Estate Portfolio While Working 9-5

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