Epic Real Estate Investing - 8 Actions You Can Take Today to Escape the Rat Race Faster | Episode 226

Episode Date: October 17, 2016

Eight actions to take today to attract and secure more investing opportunities. Learn how to assess your current financial situation, leverage your resources, and act with intention to succeed in the world of real estate investing.  Position yourself for building wealth through streams of passive income and escape the rat race faster. Get your mind right with the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast!   ______   The free course is new and improved!  To access to the two fastest and easiest strategies to a paycheck in real estate, go to FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text “FreeCourse” to 55678. What interests you most? E.ducation P.roperties I.ncome C.oaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Broadcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Yeah. What's up? Hello. And welcome. Welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. This is the place where I show people how to escape the rat race using real estate.

And if you're just getting started and or you're looking for new and creative. ways of making money in real estate, I've put together a free course just for you, including a checklist on how to find motivated sellers. Those are property owners that are willing and able to sell you their property at a discount. That's what a motivated seller is. And to access that free course, go to free real estate investing course.com. Free real estate investing course.com. All righty, just five more days to grab the epic intensive videos at 50% off. That's sale ends Friday, epicintensive.com. Go there. You can grab those videos. The strategies for a shifting market was a two-day event that we did just a few weeks ago.

Those videos are ready. They are available at 50% off at epicintensive.com. They're available right now in the sale ends Friday. And after Friday, they will no longer be available. All righty. So go. Within the last few weeks, my other podcast, one of the others, turnkey real estate investing. I've been discussing different methods of how to escape the rat race and how to do that faster. You know, specific rules of real estate investing that you just don't want to break and I mean, really under any circumstances. And some of the things you can do right away, others are more mindset related, others are more long-term behaviors that you may want to modify. And what inspired these episodes were two specific people, former clients, now good friends,

but former clients that attended the Epic Intensive last month. That was Corey Kendig and Parker Stiles. And in fact, I had played phone conversations. I recently had with them leading up to the Epic Intensive. You might have remember those phone conversations. And they've both been guests here on the show as well. And if you've been here for any length of time, yeah, I guess you know who they are, right? Anyway, both guys are totally crushing it when it comes to their rat race escape plan.

Both have been able to create enough monthly passive income to cover. their monthly expenses in a really short period of time. I mean, I did it in less than four years once I had set my mind to it, and they've both got me beat, both just right around the one-year mark, less than two years for sure, but really close to that one-year mark. And I just haven't been able to stop thinking about how could you escape the rat race even faster? You know, if I were going to start from scratch, and if I was going to start today, like right now,

what would I do today? What would I make sure that I got done before the sun went down? What would I do today? So I came up with eight things, eight things that I would specifically do today that I would complete before the day ends. And I have two lists I created on my other podcast. So I pulled a few things from there. And if you want to go over and listen, you can at Turnkey Real Estate Investing.

I did two shows on just this specific topic. And so I pulled a few things from there. and then I expounded on them a bit, and I came up with a couple more things that I didn't mention there, because I've just been thinking about this a lot, and I've been tweaking and modifying, and, ooh, what if you did it this way? What if you did it that way? So I came up with eight things, eight things that you can do before the end of the day today to accelerate your rat race escape plan. All right. So, number one, get your mind right. Got to get your mind right. The great escape begins with your thoughts.

Specifically, you're going to shift your focus from making piles of money to creating streams of money. You might have heard that somewhere before, like at the beginning of every single episode of this podcast. You want to shift your focus from making piles of money to creating streams of money. I mean, the mathematical truth is that it takes just too long for the average person to save a large enough pile of money

that will create enough of a residual individual. income to escape. It can work. It can work, but it's a 40 plus year plan for most people. So you've heard it here before, countless times, but now it's time to actually do it. You got to get your mind right. Shift your focus from making piles of money to creating streams of money. That's number one. Get your mind right. Number two, you got to invest in your education. Make a commitment today to become a lifelong learner. Make it a habit from this point forward. start immediately. Turn off the radio in your car and listen to educational audio programs like audio books and podcasts.

Go to meetup.com. Go there today and look for financial investing and entrepreneur type events. Look for those in your area and put as many on your calendar as you possibly can. And then here's the thing. You got to go. You have to attend. All right? Make it a point to attend a seminar or a workshop at least once a year, at least once a year.

Keep your eyes and ears open for mastermind groups. There are just, there's so many ways to invest in your education from completely free sources all the way up to a big ticket organizations and groups. So these are several ways that you can make an investment in your education. You can do that today and every day from this day forward, okay? Invest in your education. Number three, assess your assets. Assess your assets and do that today.

And this is what I mean. I want you to take inventory of your assets and create a list. And I want you to sort that list from the highest, yielding asset down to the lowest. So your highest yielding asset is going to be at the top of your list and your lowest yielding one will be at the bottom. Now the goal is to move your lowest yielding asset to the top of the list. You know, ideas in improving your asset yields could be not anywhere limited to, but could be selling and reinvesting or exchanging or leveraging or maybe improving or changing the use of,

all those are types of things that you can do to an asset to increase its yield. But I want you to make your list today. I want you to assess your assets today. Take all of your assets and then sort them when you want the highest yielding one at the top, the lowest yielding one at the bottom, and then your focus is going to be take that one at the bottom

and how can you put it to the top? Are you going to sell it and then reinvest that money? Or you're going to exchange it for something else? Or you're going to leverage it? You're going to pull the actual. equity out, you're going to refinance, you're going to improve it, you're going to change its use, all different things that you can do. But it's never a money problem, right?

It's just an idea problem. So what kind of idea can you apply to that low yielding asset to get it to the top? All right? Number four, number three was assess your assets. Number four is assess your expenses. I want you to do this today. I want you to take inventory of all of your fixed expenses and create a list, sorting them, from the largest expense down to the lowest.

So again, your largest expense, your largest fixed recurring expense is going to be at the top of the list. Your lowest recurring one will be at the bottom. I want you to work big to small, reducing the expenses and eliminating what isn't necessary. Working on your tax liability, since it's most people's largest expense,

that will likely be the first order of business. So I want you to schedule regular meetings with your CPA for tax planning and strategy. I want you to meet with, them and assess what you can do with your taxes to mitigate or eliminate or just minimize that tax liability that we have every year. Other ideas may include refinancing your mortgage. You know, if you got a 5% mortgage, may have today, you still get a three and a half, four percent. That 1% is going to make a difference on that size of debt that you're probably

carrying. So refinancing a mortgage could be one. Refinancing or paying off your car loan, consolidating credit card debt to a lower interest card. We want to start at those biggest expenses and work our way down and how can we minimize or eliminate them altogether. And, you know, expenses, they vary greatly from person to person. Just remember, though, this is the key, to work from biggest expense to the smallest expense for maximum impact and speed.

Ignore Susie Orman, okay? Ignore her and enjoy your daily $4 Starbucks. Enjoy it. Unless, of course, that is your biggest expense. And if that is your biggest expense, that means you've done some wonders in eliminating all the big ones first. Okay? So enjoy your Starbucks. Start with your taxes.

Start with your mortgage. Start with your car payments. Start with insurance. Start with all those biggest expenses you have. And how can we reduce those? I bet with not a problem, you can minimize or without really any extraordinary effort, take on any one of those and save four bucks a day. And you can still enjoy your coffee. All right.

So that's number four. Assess your expenses. Make a list. Largest on top, smallest on bottom, and start at the top and see in how you can minimize those expenses. Number five, include your spouse in your rat race escape plan. That's a biggie. And this was actually turned out to be a really big topic of the Epic Intensive, unintentionally, but it turned out to be a really big issue.

And here's what I mean. Mercedes and I, we talked to. countless aspiring real estate investors each year at cash flow savvy. That's our turnkey operation and that's where we do the investing with people and help them acquire income producing assets. And the number one reason that we see people fail to even take the first step in escaping the rat race is that they don't see eye to eye with their spouse. They and their spouse just don't see eye to eye when it comes to finances. And this whole idea of escaping the rat race and increasing passive income, that can be wildly radical for some people and totally natural and normal

and logical for others. And sometimes those two people are married to each other. You must get on the same page with your partner or it's going to be a tough road for you to navigate. Your escape, it's going to be hindered. It's going to be more difficult than it has to be. And if you're already at odds with your spouse and you already know what I'm talking about, I mean, I can see some of you out there nodding your head up and down, yeah, mm-hmm. If you're already at odds with your spouse and the financial department and the thought of sharing your escape plan with them makes you a little nervous or maybe even terrifies you depending on that their relationship around money with you and your spouse. Try easing them into the idea by allowing other sources to educate them.

For example, I mean, if you ever, you know, you've been talking to your spouse and you telling them something over and over and over again and they just, it's just not clicking and then they hear it from someone else and then they come and tell it to you like it's brand new information. You've had that happen before, right? Yeah. So try easing them into this whole idea and just, you know, get a little stealthy on it. Get a little, you don't have to be right. Don't try to be significant. You don't have to be the one that that is the big saving grace. I mean, if this is really important to you, allow another source to come in and educate them on the ideas that you, that you would like to follow, or at least the ideas that you'd like

them to consider. And do that today. Share with them a book. Share with them a podcast that supports your financial ideas or attend a workshop or a seminar together we had a couple married couples in the uh i don't know three four or five maybe a half a dozen or so married couples at the epic intensive and i'm telling you they left empowered they left on a mission they were on the same page they were a team with the goal and they are set to crush it all right so those are some ideas share a book share a podcast um look up a workshop a seminar something like that and go together and let the let an source of information or another, I guess, uh, yeah, I got authority, maybe, I guess you call it, let something else or another source introduce that type of information to them.

And it might click a little bit easier than you trying to, you know, beat it into them. You know what I mean? All right. So that's number five. Include your spouse and your rat race escape plan. Number six, be intentional about creating your environment. You got to be intentional about that. Guard yourself from the naysayers and guard yourself from, you know,

the nine to fiveers. Network with like-minded people that are on the same path as you and take your financial advice from someone who is leading the life that you want to live. All right. So be careful taking the advice from the person sitting in the cubicle next to you. Be careful from taking that advice from, you know, from your broke brother-in-law that every time the holidays come around, he has his hand out looking for a loan,

but he's the first one to dole out financial advice. No, you want to take your financial advice from someone who is leading the life that you want to live. Ultimately, your results are going to be impacted by your surroundings and whom you spend your time with more than anything else. So don't leave your environment to chance. So today, make a list of people you should spend more time with. And even whether you know them or don't, make a list of the people that you should spend more time with. Call them and make an appointment to do so. that could be breakfast, it could be coffee, could go for a hike or, you know, come to a seminar

or meetup group with me. Schedule time with them. If it doesn't get scheduled, it doesn't get done. Do not leave your environment to chance. You've got to be intentional about creating it. You've got to be intentional about who you spend the majority of your time with. I'm not saying you have to ditch all your old friends. You don't have to ditch your, your antiquated thinking friends.

No, but you have to split up your time so that's not the only people you're spending your time with. And once you get to the point where you want to get, hey, you can reach back down, give your friends a helping hand up and bring them along with you. All right. But be intentional about creating your environment. It's going to have a bigger impact than probably anything else that we're talking about today. Are the people you spend your time with. Number seven, start today. Start. Stop over-analyzing everything. You can't steer a parked car. There'll never be a perfect time for you to launch. Travel as far as you can see. And when you get there, you will see further.

The road to your escape is passive income. That's the road to your escape. It's passive income. Now, the most logical vehicle to travel that road for most people is income real estate. Today, I mean, make an offer on a piece of income property. And make an offer every day. But make one today. I mean, if you don't submit offers, you won't do deals.

Follow up on old leads and submit offers. Create new leads and submit offers. Go to FISBO sites and submit offers. You can go to the multiple listing service and do it there too. I mean, but there are just so many websites of which you don't need a realtor or professional assistance. You don't need anybody for access to the multiple listing service. I mean, there's just no excuse to not submit an offer. You can find somebody to submit an offer to.

And the best vehicle for escaping the rat race is income property. Now the fuel to accelerate your escape, all right, so we got the road, passive income, the vehicle, income real estate, and the fuel to accelerate your escape, that brings us to the eighth way to escape the rat race faster. And that is leverage. You're only one person. And you can only move so fast on your own. Escaping the rat race fast, that's going to take a team by leveraging other people's time, other people's experience, other people's money, other people's resources, other people's effort, other people's deal flow. You can 10 times the speed of your escape by leveraging other people's stuff.

So today, on a piece of paper, create four columns, okay? Do this today. On a piece of paper, create four columns. Column number one is going to have at the top of that column, you'll write knowledge, column number two, you'll write time, column number three, you'll write money, and column number four, you'll write credit. those are the four things that you need to be a successful real estate investor. Those are the four things you're going to need to escape the rat race.

You need knowledge, time, money, and credit. Now, in each column, write people's names that you know who have what's at the top of that column. So, for example, everyone in column number one, knowledge, write down everybody you know who has the knowledge or access to the knowledge you need to escape the rat race. Okay, you're just going to, and some of these columns are going to be longer than others. And some of these columns, you're not going to need any help. That's kind of the point is to identify where you are short or where you are weak and where you can leverage other people's stuff to strengthen those weaknesses and where potentially your

strengths could be leveraged to help other people as well in return helping you back. So write down everybody you know who has the knowledge or access to the knowledge that you need to escape the rat race. Do that in column one. everybody that you know that has access to time, everyone who has access to money, everyone has access to credit in those corresponding columns. And once you have each list complete, you've written down, and once you've written down every name that you can think of, now start thinking, what do I have to offer?

What can I bring to the table in exchange? How can this person leverage me so that I can leverage them creating a mutually beneficial relationship in escaping the rat race. Invite them to come along with you. And if you're totally stumped and have nothing to offer, then you know where you need to go to work, right? I mean, at the very least, revert to number two on today's list and invest in your education so that you can bring knowledge to the table.

And one thing about these four elements, you need knowledge, you need time, you need money, you need credit. And a lot of people that are just getting started, they may have the time. But your time is essentially, it has no real value unless you have one of the other components to go with it. So knowledge or time with knowledge, that's got value that you can bring to the table. Time with money, you've got value you can bring to the table. Time with credit or credibility. Now you've got something you can bring to the table.

Okay. But really, if you're stumped and all you've got is, time, or maybe you've got none of them, knowledge. That's where you want to start. You want to go back to number two on today's list, invest in your education so that you can bring that knowledge, that education, to the table. Or find a good turnkey investment provider where you can leverage everything in exchange for a fee.

That's really all a turnkey provider is. They're the ones who bring the knowledge, the time, the money, and the credit to the table. And then for a fee, you get access to that. You can talk to Mercedes at Cashflow Savvy, for example, or our new. new cash flow savvy expert, Courtney. In fact, Courtney is conducting free passive income audits. She's doing that right now for people that want to start their rat race escape plan, but they're not sure where to start or how to start or maybe not even really want to do all that work to get started. So she's making available these passive income audits. She's doing that

right now. You can grab one of these audits over at passive income audit.com. Grab one of those while she's still holding these right now. She's doing a lot of them here in the fourth quarter, helping people get started and embracing some of these things that you have to do in fourth quarter for tax purposes and helping people to get a really strong start in the spring as well. So you can go to passive income audit.com and talk to Courtney and she'll help you get started there. All righty. Anyway, if I were to start my escape over from scratch, if I were to start today, those are

the first eight things in my life that I'd address. and I'd address all of them before the end of the day. Let's cover them again. So one, get your mind right, right? Shift your focus from making piles of money to creating streams of money. Invest in your education. Assess your assets. Assess your expenses.

Include your spouse in your rat race escape plan. Don't leave them out. Okay. And six, be intentional about creating your environment. Seven, get started. Eight, leverage. What do you have access to that you can? can leverage. You're going to move 10 times faster with the team. Okay? So, yeah, that's what I would do.

Had I had this information when I did start, there's no doubt I would have escaped twice as fast, if not faster. I mean, like, Corey and Parker, they'd have been like, whoa, that was fast. So a final thought on escaping the rat race. You may have heard the idea of compound interest. You might have heard of the idea of compound interest referred to as the eighth wonder of the world because of its wealth creation power. Now, if you're okay with waiting 40 years for the magic to happen, I'm not going to try and dissuade you from applying it to your rat race escape plan. However, if you like the idea of escaping the rat race in more like 10 years,

understand that the pursuit, the growth, and the management of passive income, that's what's going to set you free. And if even 10 years is too long to wait for your escape, Take on the eight actions that I shared with you today and do them today, and you can be out in no time. Until next week, God bless, and to your success, I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream. You've been listening to Epic Real Estate Investing, the world's foremost authority on separating the facts from the BS in real estate investing education. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to visit iTunes and share your thoughts. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you next time here at Epic. Real Estate Investing with Matt Terry O. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.