Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - From 16 Year Old Hustler to 900 Million in Multi Family Family Homes - Veena Jetti Ep 83

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

From 16 Year Old Hustler to 900 Million in Multi Family Family Homes - Veena Jetti Ep 83From an ambitious 16 year old hustler to a 900 million dollar multi-family real estate investor. Join us as we uncover the success story of Veena Jetti, her incredible journey, and creative strategies that helped her get there. Plus, you'll get some entertaining stories along the way. 💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below!On his podcast, he discusses all sorts of topics, including what made him successful and some of his core tenants for living life and managing successful businesses.➡️ He is often joined by Chris Connel and Colt Amidan who are dear friends and successful business people in their own right.The Power Move podcast stands to be one of the top sources of knowledge and insights, specifically into real estate and entrepreneurship out there! Not to mention tons of coverage of topical events and insights into our non-commercial lives as well…➡️ Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. If that sounds interesting to you, make sure to subscribe to my channel and don't forget to hit the bell icon to never miss a Podcast! 🔔💯 About John Gafford:After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space. ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production.Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual salesClear Title, a 7 figure full service title and escrow company.➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers.The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages.✅ Follow The Power Move with John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/thejohnmgaffordFacebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/gafford2/🎧 Stream The Power Move Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=70ad5ca4f51e4acc Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-power-move-with-john-gafford/id1582927283☑️ Featuring:Chris Connel - Esquire - https://www.connelllaw.com Colt Amidan - Director of Commercial Real Estate at Simply Vegas - https://www.amidangroup.com#ThePowerMoveWithJohnGafford

What's up guys this week on the power move podcast I am grateful to have my good friend Vina Jetty in She is an absolute beast in the multifamily space over nine hundred million dollars in assets bought and sold Also an amazing mother and a better human being. Hope you enjoy the conversation From the art of the deal to keeping it real Live from the simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with John Gafford. Back again, back again for another exciting, powerful episode of The Power Move. I am your host, John Gafford, and with me in the studio today. Kids, I'm telling you right now, I got some, you know, man, we roll some ballers through here, some shot callers, if you will.

But today I'm very happy to have my friend, Vina Jetty, who is, I mean, look, you see, here's the thing. I don't even know, maybe Vina, you can answer this because, you know, can I call you a beast? Can I say that? I can? I mean, why not? I think about you, man, and I think, man, Vina is just a beast can i say that i can because dude i mean why not i think i think about you man and i think man vena is just a beast is what i go with vena is the ceo founder of vive funds yes yes correct uh which manages a truckload i'm just a truckload is that is that a

is that a unit of measurement give or take ever of multifamily investment properties across country? And don't just when I say manage it. I don't mean she's sitting in the coin laundry giving out change I mean she acquires these bad boys like takes them down Hooks the deals up raises the money puts the cabinet behind us and she owns I just think about like Gordon Gekko in that car Wall Street. He's like I own so that that's who vina is vina welcome a little less wolf on wall street though a little no not wolf no the original gordon gecko not wolf on wall street oh yes okay yeah the original michael douglas michael douglas yeah exactly when he just when he just breaks out with that i own yes i own yes that's me um yeah i and you

know i was gonna say too you can call me a beast because it's better than some of the other b words i've been called i love okay fair fair fair enough fair enough so uh what did you just ask me no no no i didn't ask it no it was like a long it was like a long very affectionate given intro well thank you i felt the affection i adore you yeah so so so we're lucky you know vina is in town speaking at an event as you tend to do all over the place you're lucky, you know, Avina is in town speaking at an event, as you tend to do all over the place. You're here today. You were at Ben Humble's event today. We've had Ben in the room before, spoke at his events.

Tomorrow, you're off to Amy Maggiore's event. We've had Amy in the room before, so happy to have that. And then, but you're in Vegas right now. What are you speaking at right now? What is it? I'm speaking at a multifamily conference tomorrow. Tonight, I'm actually speaking at a meetup. There's like a big real estate Vegas meetup.

Okay. I wish I knew the name of it, but I don't. I mean, Yahtzee, those things seem to happen every day. There's so many of them. I don't even know the name of the conference that I'm speaking at. I just know it's a multifamily conference. I can't remember the name. Multifamily conference is actually the name.

The multifamily conference, yes. The multifamily conference. That is actually the name. The multi-family conference. The multi-family conference. That is actually the name of the whole thing. If that doesn't tell you how many different conferences I speak at, I don't know what will. You're just constantly moving. But before you were Vina Jetty Super 1, which you are today, before you had the big S on the chest. Yes. So tell me about, where did you grow up?

Start with that. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. Good side of Chicago, bad that. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. Good side of Chicago, bad side. The mean streets of Chicago? No, like the suburbs of Chicago. Like the suburbs.

Naperville, yeah. Naperville, Illinois. The mean streets of Naperville. Yeah, the mean streets of Naperville. That's where you were. With the upper middle class, middle class family. That was it. So let me ask you a question.

And I love this question I ask everybody that comes in this. As a kid, when you were a kid, what was the first hustle? Oh, I started hustling young. I was three. Three. Yes. And what was the hustle? I started a business. I sold gumballs from a gumball machine that someone gifted me.

And the real genius of it though, if I do say so myself. Okay. Okay. So I i'm three someone gifted me you're three three three years old okay someone gifted me a gumball machine and i convinced my first investor to invest in me all right okay so first of all capital you raised capital at three at three from my mom okay your mom backed the business yeah there was some nepotism i'm sure okay um but she bought me the gumballs you literally were a nepo baby i was i really literally yes yes exactly so she buys me the gumballs and now this gumball machine is like the penny gumball machines yeah i remember the red the red one yes i remember and you put the

penny in you get your gumball i would go to people and i'd be like hey do you want to buy a gumball and they'd be like oh you're three you're so cute sure i'd be like great it's a dime so they'd give me the dime i would take a penny out of my pocket and hand it to them to put into the gumball machine so i would make 10 cents and i'd get to keep the same penny that i reused over and over and i have to say i did not pay back my investors you didn't no my question is this so at any point did anybody get like why am i giving you a dime for a penny all the time and so at three what is the what is the how did you overcome that objection you know i have to ask my mom what i said i assume I had something to do with supply and demand, right?

Oh my God. So basically, essentially, if you're listening to this, like a lot of volitions are, and they're trying to get the next level, if you didn't start at three, you're a loser. Yeah, like you have no hope. There's no hope for you. You might as well quit now.

It's like, what was it? There's a commercial on right now for hockey. It's like this guy's standing there watching hockey're watching hockey practice and the guy's got a baby and his other dad is standing next to him and he goes hockey's not his thing or what like he's like he's six months old like like he can't even walk and you're talking about yeah that's it so you're hustling gumballs at three. Yes. Yes. And that had to have turned into something steady. What was your first job? My first job, I actually worked for UBS, which was an advisory firm.

It was actually Payne Weber when I got hired. And like two months later, they got absorbed or bought by UBS. Okay. How old was this? I was 16. Other than like babysitting so you were right but you were in banking at 16 yes yes okay and you know that's actually it's funny how i got into this do tell let me tell i might have been like 15 but my parents were like okay listen if you want a car

when you turn 16 you have to pay for half of the down payment on the car and you have to pay for your gas and your insurance and that's that was that was like the deal. And I was like, okay. And I really wanted the car at 16. Right. So I thought about, okay, what jobs can I get? And this is, you know, I'm like old, there weren't, there was no gig economy back then. Like all these things that I would do today are totally different. You actually had to go fill out a paper application somewhere. Yes. Yes. And so I was like, like well i don't really want to work at all these like fast food restaurants or whatever like what all my friends were doing and so i was like okay i belong in an office like that's just that's where you belong that's my vibe right and so i

wrote up this resume with like all of my volunteer work. It was very thin. Right. So I'm like, you know, making it sound really nice, like all the major responsibilities. But that was one of the advantages back then also is harder to check. No internet really back then. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, I wrote my resume up and then I printed it out and I took it. There was this suite of offices above the Barnes and Noble in downtown Naperville. And so I go up there and I just went from door to door and I was like, hi, I don't know if you guys are hiring, but I'm looking for a job. Here's my and I just handed it out and my bosses back then Rob and Charlie they were like wait so someone just like walked in and handed us a resume that's

not how this goes and they're like and she's a teenager and so they had I think they just were curious and had to like find out who this person was right and so they ended up hiring me as an intern I was the first intern they ever hired now they hire interest regularly and you know i'm still grateful yeah back then they're just in a side room going what we're gonna do with this person right make an intern right they're like uh i mean okay well i don't know what they paid me like 10 bucks an hour 15 bucks an hour and that they gave me commission okay and what did you make commission that was that was a big thing so they were their, right? So every client you bring in,

they manage their money, you know, they charge whatever their fee is. And they gave me some percent for every client I brought in and I brought in and I had to cold call people. So you're 16 banging the phones on the cold call. Yes. Yes. And this was also right after there was like a massive crash because 9-11 had just happened. Yeah. And so I was like, hi, can I manage your money? At 16. Yeah. No.

You know, it was more like, can we set an appointment? You know, it was like kind of the warm lead for them. But I ended up bringing in like $20 million my first summer. And so they were really happy about that. Of course're paying you 10 bucks an hour of course right and then you know i got some commission out of it so it was for me i felt like i was raking in the dough um but what that actually really shaped for me was my one of my bosses his name's charlie sleazer can you imagine being in the financial space? Yeah. Isn't that awful? So, but he, he was great. He's like still one of my mentors to this day. And he told my parents,

cause you know, I was not the straight A student. Like, you know, like most of the Indian kids are all like the straight A student. You were the disappointment. Yes, I totally was. And my parents would be like, you know, we're really worried about her. And he was like, no, send her to the quickest four-year degree she can get. Get her out of there. She will be in sales. This is what she's going to be great at. Don't worry about her. She will be running a company someday.

And so, and you know, we still talk about it now. He's like, I already knew that this is where you were going to end up. It's, you know, I say all the time, my son is an exceptional student. Very, very, very gifted at it. Intense personality-wise to lean after his mom, which is great. You know, whatever. But very affable, very good with the flow. My Intense personality-wise to lean after his mom, which is great, you know, whatever. But very affable, very good with the flow.

My daughter, all me. Just hell on wheels, 10,000 miles an hour. And I always say the same thing. My son, his goal right now currently is to go to Princeton. He wants to go to Ivy League school, which he probably will. And he will get a wonderful job working in a beautiful building that's owned by my daughter. That's what I always say as far as how that goes because it's the same deal, right?

It's the same. I mean, that's where we're headed, I think. I think you're totally right. So I have twin daughters, right? And they're three and a half. They're almost four. And I have one just like me who will either be the president or a dictator

and I don't know which. And then the other one, she's like my sweet baby. She's my caring, thoughtful, kind. I worry about her more than I worry about my dictator daughter. She'll be fine. No one will get one over on her. She rules with an iron fist. She was three and a half pounds when she was born,

and that did not stop her from ruling everything. Still came out. It's interesting. I want to go back a little bit because you talked about about being the daughter of indian parents do you have brothers and sisters i have one sister who's a partner in my company older younger younger by three okay good younger by three years so you you weren't the victim of comparison no okay lovely for you no yes lovely for you i have an older sister i have an older sister that graduated from Florida State in like

four and a half years with a master's degree and 4.57 GPA. Underachiever. And she was like 20 when she graduated. She went to school early. But she also worked like 40 hours a week and was like an officer in a sorority. And it was like every excuse you could take off the table for me, just take it off the table. She didn't help you at all. No, not at all. Not at all. I set the bar nice and low for my sister. Well, here's the thing, though. Did you find, so your parents were born in the States? No.

So they immigrated here at some point. Okay, cool. 1980. I love that. I love that. So did your parents, what was their story in India, and how did they come about, I mean, was it, was it. How did they get here?

No, were they doing okay and then doing better or were they doing, you know, was it your standard story? Was it your standard rags to riches story that I love? So it's funny. My mom's side is very educated. So my mom's grandfather was the first mathematics PhD in South India. Like very educated, come from a long line of professors on my mom's side. Her family was, they weren't rich, but they were definitely not poor. And you know,

India has a lot of wealth gap, especially back then. So they were probably on the more well-to-do side, right? Like they had staff and whatever. My dad's side though, was not as well off initially. So my grandfather didn't even graduate from high school. He was like 14 or 15 when he started working because his dad died young. Got to take care of the family. He was the oldest son, so he had to take care of the family. But what my grandfather saw was the power of education and English.

And so he had four boys. So my dad has two older brothers and then a twin brother. So there's four of them. And all of them are master's degree or above all like doctors or engineers. Yeah. Very well educated. But my grandfather was very poor growing up. Very poor, like lived on less than a dollar a day. Even back then, that wasn't that much, right? And so my dad, his brothers, they all got educated. I almost said sisters, but he doesn't have any sisters. His brothers all got educated. And so they were the ones to really break the poverty cycle.

My mom and dad met while my dad was doing his master's degree in India. And my mom was a professor at the school. Ah, scandal. So it's like super scandalous. Scandalous. And they had a love marriage, which is like very unusual back then. Oh, for India? Yeah, super unusual.

Right, because it's like you're going to marry this person. That's how it is. Right, it's arranged. What do you mean you love them? That doesn't make any sense. What do you mean you've been dating somebody? That's not a thing. That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, it was like super scandalous back then uh you know the spoiler alert is they've been married now like 43 years this year so it worked out yeah um but my dad went to iit which is the indian institute of technology which like anybody indian listening to this is going to be like oh my gosh really he got to go there yeah well because the students that apply into iit even today like they use princeton and harvard as their backup schools so it's like the backup the backup school the backup schools right you know like harvard your backup fair enough um so it's like the most elite school probably one of the most in the world for sure yeah um and so my dad went there for his undergrad.

And so he had a head start of having the pedigree. And when he graduated, he actually ended up coming here for his PhD in metallurgical engineering. So that is his background. That's his jam. Yeah, but he's always been a business person. He worked at startups. He worked at some of like the fortune 100 could you could you feel some of that that that history of his background through your childhood not just and i don't i don't mean necessarily the cultural stuff

i mean just the fact that hey man grand granddad didn't even get it through high school yeah yes pressure i think the children of any immigrants in this country probably feel i agree somewhat of that because there's just this innate hustle for immigrants especially when they came so long ago because you don't you don't have a safety net here like you you have one shot like you do not have anything else like you they came here because they knew they wanted children eventually they knew the opportunity at that time in India wasn't what it is today and I think you know my parents were getting married now and having kids now I actually think there's a reasonable chance they would have stayed in India because there's enough opportunity there but at that time there

the reality is is there wasn't opportunity and so they came here for the american dream and when you're immigrants even to this day my parents only have one car that they share isn't this crazy it's just that's the mentality of how they came up yeah i mean and they've never had a brand new car my parents have never bought a luxury car or a brand new car and they're self-made millionaires by the way it's not like they can't afford it. They just don't. It just, to them, it just would seem silly to spend that kind of money on that. Right, they're like, why do I need that?

And everything for immigrant parents, and I think just Indian parents in general, right, is what can we leave for the legacy, right? Like what's the next generation, what can the next generation do? I think the fact that they can ride in the same car all the time says a lot about their marriage. No, no, no, I didn't say that.

I just said they shared a car. I'm like'm like yeah i don't know if i could ride i love my wife and me and my wife get along fabulously but i don't know if i could ride no no 100 no and it's they also you know my parents and my in-laws both live in my neighborhood now so which is really great because you're really young children so it works out really well lots of of babysitters, that's lots of hands. Yes, yes. Do you find that because of that upbringing, because of how you were raised and shaped, do you find that you have a very low tolerance for people not wanting to be the best they can be

for themselves? I don't know if I have a low tolerance for it. I think it's a shame when that happens, but I don't want everyone to do what I'm doing because I need them to work for me. No, no, no. Well, okay. That's fine.

What I mean by that is, you know, when your kids are small, they ask interesting questions. You know, they said, at one point, my son, when he just learned the word, asked if I was prejudiced.

That's what he asked me. I was prejudiced. And I said, absolutely, I sure am. And I said, I'm completely prejudiced against ignorance. And unfortunately, ignorance comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. And I personally feel that there's nothing that I hate more than watching wasted ability.

Now, not everybody has ability in everything, but when people waste their own personal ability, it drives me crazy because I just think there's somebody else that would give anything to have the opportunity that you're squandering. I agree with that. I think that if, and that's actually why I've done what I've done is because I know the sacrifice it took to get me to this country where this is even possible. So for me, I feel a immense amount of responsibility to take what my parents

gave me and go out and do the most I can with it. And I do think, I think that's actually one of the benefits of growing up as a child of immigrants is there's always this inherent hustle mentality that has just been instilled in us from the time we were young because my parents had to do that they came here with 26 dollars they didn't have any money yeah and 26 dollars back then did not take them very far and you know my dad for the better part of his first few years here he made 400 a month that was his total income and my mom was on a spouse visa so she couldn't legally work and have but you said now your dad is a self-made millionaire so he went he went for making four hundred dollars yeah to that so he understood that there was ways to level up in the game he made it happen yeah they

and you know i'll say too what my parents did was really the tried and true way. You know, they lived below their means. They invested early. They invested often. They didn't buy unnecessary, they didn't buy a second car, right? So they didn't buy these unnecessary frivolous things. And they really valued experience over things for my sister and I growing up. And we'll talk about, see, I love that. I love that. So talk about that. i love that i love that yeah so talk

about that is that something that's worn off on you yes a hundred percent like i mean i like both now so we can afford both now it's different but for me like i'd much rather give like like my favorite gifts that i get like for my wife for like christmas and stuff yeah she'll give me concert tickets oh yeah in another city oh that's cool so that's like so i know that on that date i'm taking a trip to that yeah that to me worth better than any watch or anything else i totally agree i still love my watches but still i totally so my husband and i we don't do gifts anymore really yeah how do you not do gifts well because it's like we just buy what we want when we want it so it's like yeah it's not really that exciting and And then also like- See, that's why I let, see, I'm telling you,

here's what you do. Here's what you do. Next, next, next time, next birthday, whatever, blah, blah, give him concert tickets to a Stover Band and another thing. Because it's super thoughtful. Yes. You guys will have a great time. It's an experience.

And it's experience. Yeah, so that I could get on board with. Yes, love that. That 100%. Like my husband and I are really big on like, we like to eat. So I will spend $1,000 on like a Michelin starred meal and not even think twice about it. I don't hate that at all.

That's experience. It's the best thing that we spend our money on. I don't hate that at all. You know, and having kids too, it totally changed everything for me. Because before I'd be like, oh, every time I closed a deal, we donate to a charity and then I'd buy a Chanel bag. Like that was kind of my celebratory win, right? And now I find it so hard to buy the things I used to enjoy. Here, let me help you with that.

I'm going to ruin your whole perception of Chanel. Can I ruin it? No, why? Okay, go ahead. So Chanel, like the one here at a big hotel we won't mention. I know, I bought a bag there last year. So my wife's aunt used to run that place. Yeah.

And literally when people would come in and say like, this is not right on my bag or whatever, they'd say, okay, cool. We take it to our craftsman in the back and whatever. And they would literally roll in the back and just super glue the shit back together. Stop it. And it happened every day, all day.

And the markup on that stuff, like my wife got, what is it, J12? Is that the black ceramic watch? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have that one. I want to say she got her J12 for $1,200 on the employee discount. Brand new. No, she didn't. Yeah, she did.

Stop it. Still has that watch. Stop it. So yeah, that, when I saw that, I was like, man. You're not that good. Yeah, I can't bring myself to do it. But you know what? Chanel used to have really great quality pre-2007.

I'll agree with that. And so I actually really like their vintage bags because they're really great quality. See, I love that too. And I think that's something else that has a story. Let me ask you this. Yeah. Let me ask you this.

Isn't it funny? So we've been on now for 22 minutes. Yeah. When's the last time you were on a podcast for 22 minutes and nobody asked you anything about multifamily real estate? I don't know. I don't think I've ever been on one. We're going to get there.

We're going to get there. We're going to're gonna get there but here one of the biggest fears that i have yeah right in my life is that my kids are going to grow up to be worthless humans because of the level of how much is handed what we what we can provide them yep at this yeah yeah you know it's there's chel son and who's a fighter and was a fighter yes he has the funniest the funniest video he was like gonna fight some guy from brazil and he's like bro you think i'm scared to come to brazil i mean dude where i grew up my friend his dad next door barely made a hundred thousand dollars a year our maids only came two days a week you you think those clothes put themselves in the hamper?

You think that happened? He's like, yeah, my other friends, they were twins. On their 16th birthday, they only got one car. They had to share it. Oh, what a horror. Who's driving it on Tuesday? And it wasn't a Mercedes. I know.

He's like, you don't know where I've been. You don't know the things I've seen. And as I'm watching this, I'm like, oh my God. This is my kids. This is going to be my kids. Isn't that't that awful i mean you know you have a problem i don't know if i told this story here before so we're going somewhere i don't know what we're going and it was my hate of my son was like seven this is where he got the nickname we call him little flossy we're at the airport we're going somewhere and we're getting on southwest And he looks at me and goes,

what are we flying? And I go, we're going on Southwest. And he goes, did Delta not have any flights? And I'm like, you're seven. You don't get a vote on the airline. Yes, well, that is like a couple months ago, my kids and I, we walk into the airport. And you know, there are three. And so they have no sense

of like keeping things private in our family and they go mama when are we going to the lounge yep i'm like oh my gosh please you know i'm like and we we hired a driver recently last year and it was like life-changing i highly recommend one because yeah because i'm so much more efficient now i don't ever have to worry about stopping in the middle of the day to go do like preschool pickup and when i go for meetings you know i take my laptop and i'm in the car and i hate driving too so that added benefit that i don't have to drive and but my kids they think that this is normal now yes and so i told them one day i was like listen uh you know mr

miguel let's our driver that's the call they're like snapping their fingers like what's done right on the once down the miracle mile just for good measure well yes and i'm like okay um mr miguel isn't here today so thought that your grandfather is going to drive you to school and they go oh where is mr miguel and i go oh you know he's home with his family i think it was his son's birthday or something and they're like they're like he doesn't have a family and i'm like oh my gosh yes he does and then they go is that the new mr miguel don't okay stop like please stop saying words like stop it and then i have to go through this whole thing of like girls i need you to not ever say this to other people.

Ever, ever. And we don't live in this really fancy neighborhood or anything. We live in a very middle class neighborhood. And I'm like, oh my gosh, nobody that they know has a driver. And I'm like, okay, please don't say that to anybody else. Because it's going to, yeah. Yeah, let's just keep that. Because here's the thing. Because here's the thing.

Here's the problem with having a driver and then telling people. Here's the problem. Yeah. Because people that don't understand the practicality of it. Yeah. Strictly just so you can get more work done

and get things done. Right, no. Just look at it as a flex. Oh, yeah. No, it's not. It's not. It's practical. I would have a Honda Civic with a driver

if that's what it, like, I mean, it's just the best thing i've ever done look we've i've got a i've got a sprinter like a jet yeah oh you got one i'm looking i have one i have one i can maybe sell you we maybe work it out mine's actually in scottsdale right now okay perfect it's beautiful but we can't rent it here for what we talked about as you were walking in so i'm i rent it in scottsdale okay and you were walking in. So I rent it in Scottsdale. And I was literally thinking, because I'm going there this week, I'm like, maybe I'll drive it back.

And maybe I'll hire a driver. You should. Just because it just would get so much done. You should. And I'm in a place where- You know, Nick Marietta did that. Well, I'm in a place too. Who did what?

Nick Marietta. He has a luxury Sprinter with a driver. That's the same. Me and Nick own it together. Oh, you do? It's the same van? It's the same Sprinter. Oh, yeah. I'm interested in that one. That's our van. I'm interested in that one. If you've seen or been together oh yeah that's our van that's our van if you've seen her been in it that's our van yeah that's our van we'll talk about that out there

but anyway but it's in arizona i was saying maybe i'll drive it back yeah and maybe i'll just cruise around in that you should it will change your productivity tenfold obviously i'm pretty productive though because my good thing is like i i live my house is 90 seconds from this office okay i live right across the street okay so well which is nice but here's the thing if you're well your kids maybe are driving now no they're getting there they're getting there 15 that well that's what sparked this okay yes because i need a i mean i need a driver well i have too many cars i mean maybe my parents need one of your cars. Yeah, maybe. Maybe.

But the point is, I'm like, Hayden's going to be 16. Where am I going to put his car? Yeah, that's. So my wife recommended me getting rid of one of my cars. And I was like, wait a second. Let's discuss getting rid of the kid before the car. Let's not be crazy. Let's do this.

But back to the original question. So what is your plan? There are three now. Yes. They're lunatics about the driver already. Yeah. What is your plan for keeping them well-adjusted human beings and not being crazy? Well, so they do a lot of volunteer work now.

I love that. So I have them volunteering. I would say at three, but you're already hustling gumballs at three. I mean, they're a little behind the curve, right? No, they had a lemonade stand. So I don't give them things. And I really try not to. They can earn things that they want.

And then I don't let them believe they have anything either. Yeah, you're broke. Yeah, they're like, this is my car seat, sissy. Get your foot off of it. And I'm like, no, no, you're poor. You don't have a car seat that's mommy and daddy's car seat we let you borrow it because we love you but that's not yours yep and so you know then they find something more ridiculous this is my window don't look out of my window and i'm like

no still not your window still not your window still not your window get further away from the truth further the only thing that you have any kind of remote autonomy over is your body and that's it other than that you can say my toes yeah that's my body yeah even then i'm pretty sure mommy and daddy can lay claim to those right right every now and then um so i you know we do volunteer work we talk a lot about you know there are kids that don't have food and they don't have you know their mommies and daddies work really hard but they don't have the things that we have and you know it's a struggle for me especially because as a mom and I travel a lot you know working a lot of hours I have a lot of mom guilt ah and so it's

it's hard because I'm like okay I will just like buy the experiences and do the things that like to try to like compensate for my lack of being there so like when we go to the zoo the Dallas Zoo has this carousel and it's like four dollars for one ride and I hate carousels like they make me nauseous they're the worst thing ever and I have two of them so I can't just like pick my favorite and take just one so every time they want to ride the carousel it's eight dollars and they don't want to ride just one time they want to ride the carousel it's eight dollars and they don't want to ride just one time they want to ride a hundred times oh sure and you know like well i work this hard so that i can take them on this carousel a hundred times right and like this is the struggle but again experiences

i'm a lot more willing to pay for those and then there's a little bit to me that you know because i grew up as a child of immigrants, you know, I had all hand-me-downs and there were certain things I just didn't get. Like we just couldn't afford them. And so every now and then I do indulge in those. So like, you know, those little like electric cars, those keeps and stuff. So, you know, I bought one of those for them because I never had one and i always only what they have to share they have to share and i bought it second hand too so i spent 50 on it and i was like all right this is it because also two kids like wear everything and use everything like two

times before they either outgrow it or they're over it and i'm like i'm not gonna spend 250 for that little mercedes thing that they don't need a Mercedes at three. But I do try to teach them how to earn money. We talk a lot about business concepts. My goal is that they're happy, healthy, productive members of society. So I don't plan to tell them about their trust funds. No, but I agree with something you just said that I think is a big mistake in American households. Yeah. Because it was for mine. They don't talk about money. They don't talk to tell them about their trust funds. No, but I agree with something you just said that I think is a big mistake in American households because it was for mine.

They don't talk about money. They don't talk about money at all. My parents always did. You have to talk about money. You have to explain to people. I mean, there's been times when all businesses take turns and you got to pivot sometimes and do different things. And I find myself talking more with the kids

when things are going bad than when they're going good because I'm like, look, this is what's happened and this is what we're doing to fix it we're doing this we're making this move how we recover that's how we recover it's what we do we move these things around this is what you have to do and I think that's been incredibly beneficial I can tell you what one of the things that we did I love that they have their own business what's their little business that they try and run well every now and then they have a lemonade lemonade stand yeah andade stand. Yeah. And I don't give them the materials for it. I make them write me a promissory note and sign it and pay me back with interest.

My kids own the vending machines here. Oh, cool. They own all the vending machines. So they do accounting. They do marketing. I love that. They do all of that. They bought the machines.

I charge them a pretty serious vig on it. Love it. Their machines are paid off. I love it. Yeah, and that's where they get their money. How old are they? My son is 15. My daughter is 16.

I'm sorry, my daughter's 13. 13, okay, 15 and 13. That's great. This will be the first summer that my son gets a job. Yeah. He wants his own gig. I love it. And yeah, and he's going to go hustle and figure that out.

I love that. So I'm kind of torn there. Let me get your thoughts on this So I'm kind of torn there. Let me get your thoughts on this. Cause I'm kind of torn there. Cause like one of the things about Vegas and there's a big group of them and you've probably seen them at some of the events through some of the people we know, but I affectionately call them the crypto mafia. That's what I call these guys.

And there's like this gaggle of 25 year old dudes running around Vegas. Like multimillionaires. Yeah. In $400,000 cars. They just, they just manipulate the internet and they know how to make money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they just print it.

And part of me is like, Go learn that. Figure that out. Go figure some of that out. And then part of me is like, man, maybe you should get a job bussing tables. Yeah, like you need the hustle.

Yeah, dude. Go buss some tables and build that. So what says Veena about three-year-old twins? Which way do you go? I think I encourage them to the path of entrepreneurship first, whether it's the crypto mafia or something else. I would much rather they fail at entrepreneurship

than know how to bust a table because they worked really hard there. Wow. That's a uh you know i'm gonna hit this even though this is con one of my co-hosts is not here this is a business one but you got this you get that which is stupid it's stupid but i'm gonna hit it anyway no dude that's that is uh that is uh yeah because i'd rather have you fail in entrepreneurship than succeed at being a good employee. Yeah, because failing at entrepreneurship, you know that builds character like nobody's business, right?

I think that just made me decide that I have the opportunity. I could probably get him an internship with the V Shred guys. You should. Yeah, and those guys just haven't clocked. I also think that you should make him earn his way into that room too, though. Yeah, make him go interview for it. Yeah. What?

You know what? I'll, I digress. I can get him an interview. Okay. Yes. Yes. I would get the interview.

I would get the interview. Cause you know, like that's, you know, my kids have a lot of privilege and I don't want them to not use their privilege. It's not their fault. They have it.

Right. So I agree. They should use it and they should be good stewards of it and you know they should create jobs for other people to work for them no i i agree i agree well if you're still if you're listening to this man hopefully you're still listening i think this has been a good talk you know let's talk about fear oh yeah let's shift to that okay right yeah so let's talk about you know obviously vino worked at the bank. Then Vena went to school.

Yeah. And then Vena got a degree. Vena got her first job working for some sort of fund, I'm guessing. No, I actually worked for a tech startup very briefly. Okay. After like maybe a couple months. And interestingly, it was with AI technology. And this was in 2007.

Come a long way. So yeah, it's definitely changed now did you see i saw that not to digress off this story we're going to talk about here but i'm scared of this what are you scared of so i watched an interview yesterday where they they tasked chat gbc with doing stuff to try like for loopholes and chat gpt for security oh and it said like for example what if something was capture protected and you can't see it how do you solve what you know how do you solve for it chat gpt spit out i would go on github and hire human to read the caption and that's just like chat gpt4 right we haven't even gone into the deeper levels like we haven't had the chat gpt building the new chat GPT just yet. And it's going to be,

I had this conversation with Cody Sperber, um, two weeks ago, I was in Phoenix and we were talking about it. He's like, I'm terrified of the AI that's going to build the AI. Yeah. Cause like,

what is that going to look like? Yeah. That, I mean, it's, uh, it's shocking. And I don't know. it's wild that's what i'm scared of vena but let's talk about you so so obviously dude with what you do

how much how much in assets what do you have under management now in ownership well we sold seven last year and so i have like nothing left i have five left right now, which is about probably 300, 400 million, maybe. Just 300, 400 million, that's it. Yes. I've bought and sold over 900 million over my- In your career, over $900 million of cashflow and multifamily assets you had that done. But it's got to start with an idea.

It's got to start with the first one. And it's got to start with the, let's talk about that. I want to talk about the progression of the idea to pull the trigger to the sleepless nights. I want to talk about that because that's where the magic is. Yes. The stats are wonderful. Yeah, the stats are fine. But the magic is in the fear.

Let's talk about that. So I graduated college when I was 20 and I got my degree in finance. And my mom is actually a real estate investor. Can I, is there any other degree anybody should ever get other than finance? We literally talked about this last week. Okay. Because with finance you can do anything. Yeah, you can.

But today, I don't care as much if my kids get a college degree. Oh my gosh, I hope they don't hear this because my husband will be so mad at me. He's like so traditional when it comes to education. Can we, okay okay i'm gonna digress real quick because we can talk about this so here's the deal i am completely against all the people that say that college is worthless because i don't believe it's worthless i totally agree with you i think it's where you learn how to be an adult yes you're a baby adult you go learn how to be an adult i agree you're dumb shit get it out of the way yep i agree and then you and then

if you go to the right school the connections you make are priceless it's your network and that's what i think college is important for thank you so which is funny because you know every time i like have to do these videos and like someone creates like the storyboard that i'm you know teaching on or whatever they're always like college is the worst don't go to college and i'm like i can't say this because i don't agree with this and they're like you think people should i'm like well first of all i'm indian like this is just like do you want to be an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer right like those are your options right um but i'm i'm kind of a little bit unorthodox in that way because so my husband's a physician so he's like school is a great traditional route and it's great it's stable uh for me i would much rather my kids go into business

or something in the finance adjacent but here's but here's the thing the reason i say that the reason i say that is because there are so many times i do deals with people or i'm doing deals with people that are running these businesses that are doing very well and they can't read a balance sheet yeah that's a problem they just there's only so far you can get with your, I'm gonna bootstrap myself up in the sweat of my brow and had a good idea and got some good people and then we kind of took off. You plateau.

Yeah, because you just don't have the acumen to get there. I mean, I didn't finish college. I went for two years, but I have spent a great deal of my life playing catch up for that, reading finance books, understanding pocket MBA, everything I can do to squeeze that information into my head. Yeah. And see, college was fun. It was the best four years.

Best four years of my life. I wish I could go back and relive my college experience because you're a baby adult. You have the freedom of being an adult without the full responsibility of being an adult, which is what I love about college. But, you know, college is really unaffordable now. And so I feel like, you know, I would rather my kids go out and start a business or get some like great world worldly experience than go and get like a basket weaving degree. Oh, that's worthless. Yeah.

You know what I mean? So if you're going to go to college, it should be something that's going to actually have an ROI. Finance. Right. Like finance. Yeah. oh that's worthless yeah you know what i mean so if you're gonna go to college it should be something that's going to actually have an roi finance right like finance yeah like finance which is kind of funny because i didn't actually learn anything practical in college about finance everything i really learned was after really yeah because now i'm like oh i think i remember learning about this in one of my classes but like really i was like hanging out with my friends and socializing and partying there and you know now I raise capital from a lot of people I went to college with so that's the thing there's your there's your connection yeah that's the move and if I could go back I kind of wish I would have tried to go to an Ivy League school because

imagine how much more capital I could have raised then right like that's it's the network that you're going for but you're paying for the network yeah you really are and you Like that's, it's the network that you're going for. You're paying for the network. Yeah, you really are. And you know, it's fun. It's a great time. It's a good experience. You learn a lot of soft skills that you don't necessarily learn anywhere else.

Like today, you can learn all the technical stuff online. You don't need to go to college to learn about balance sheets like you did, right? Like you just brute forced your way through it. But what you learn is like, how do I stay out till 6 a.m. drinking and also make it to my 8 a.m. class and still pass it, right?

Like that's the thing you learn in college, right? For me, I have a thing. It's funny, I have a thing in my book that's coming out and it talks about, one of the chapters is there's always a way out, right? And it was my method to never get a B on anything I ever wrote, which was this. And I learned this from my older sister, Nicole.

I could have used this. Where were you 15 years ago? Listen to how effective this is. So anytime you take a test in college, high school, it works for whatever, it doesn't matter. As long as it's subjective. If it's content you're writing on, if it's anything you're writing on.

No facts. Not Scantron ABCD. This is subjective work I'm talking about. and you get anything less than an a you go into the professor's office during office hours and then you just literally no you just you walk in the first time and then you go i don't understand why i gotta be on this and then the professors gives you a seven minute explanation about what happened and what they thought and this and that. I'm still not getting it. I'm sorry.

Can you explain it again? And you just beat them down for an hour. I mean, literally, you burn every second of their time they can. And then you end with this. You end with this. Oh, there's an ending. There's an ending. I really appreciate your time.

I'm just glad to know that if it happens again, I can always come back in. We can have this discussion like this. They're so terrified to give you a B again. You never will. Because they know you'll come back. This is called grit and perseverance. Yes.

Because they value their time more than they value if they really agree with you. This is brilliant. It is. I mean, I think I employed these like negotiation strategies early on. But I wish I would have known that. Grinding down. now i mean now the way to do it is really go to chat gpt and write it oh isn't that the answer yeah i love the i love

the one speaking of a little you know the least popular guy on the planet was some guy in college wrote a program to determine if a paper's been read at gpt for real that's like this is the least popular guy in the history of college right this is like when that plagiarism software came out that was like my era yeah and i was like really but i was like the last class that made it through college before that came out so all of my papers you know in our business school we just hand them to the like we had like a whole system and we'd hand it to the next class yeah right like so we'd have like the exams and then we'd hand it to the next class yeah right like so we'd have like the exams and then we'd hand it to the next class and be like be a good steward of these right and so you know

you you help the next person you pull them ashore right behind you and so i think my my papers were like some of the last times that were used were like the next one or two years after me and then it was like the plagiarism check came and was like this has been submitted turnitin.com that was oh wow turnitin.com so you to turn everything in on there and it would like flag it tell you if it was yes oh my god see we had at my fraternity we had the test file because they had a rule and i don't and i don't remember what the rule was called in florida they passed some rule because they didn't think uh college kids in florida wrote enough stuff so i said if you went to a public university in the state of Florida,

you had to write something like 10,000 or 15,000 words per every class you took. So even if you took like a math class, you had to write like 15,000 words on whatever. Okay, that seems dumb. Dude, it was dumb. I don't remember those, but anyway. But let's get back to fear.

So fear, yeah, so okay, I graduated when I'm 20, I go, I work, I ultimately end up in corporate real estate. But when I graduated, my mom wanted me to come work for the family business, right? Because she's a real estate investor. So she's like, oh, great. Now you're done with college, like come work. And I'm like, I have a college degree. I'm an adult with a college degree. I'm going to go and do something totally different. And then ended up in corporate real estate, worked for some of the largest real estate holdings in the world. And in 2012, I paid taxes being married for the first time.

Oh yeah, that's fun, huh? And we were both W-2 earners. Oh wow. And he's a doctor, so we were in the very tippy top tax bracket. And I remember I called my mom and I was like, mom, we just paid like $200,000 in taxes. What is happening?

And she's like, yeah, you have to quit your job and be a full-time real estate professional. And I was like, okay, this seems legitimate. So I quit my job. Yeah. I mean, I was like, okay, that makes sense. And you know, it's the thing that the wealthy in this country understand that the average person doesn't. It's how much you make it's how much you keep yep right it's

better to keep a hundred percent of five hundred thousand than to make six hundred thousand dollars as a w-2 yep right because you're gonna pay 37 percent right at one point it was 39.6 or whatever it was killed yeah and so i was like okay and you know i was young what did i have to lose if it didn't work out i'd just go back and get a job yeah problem solved right and so um i quit my job i started buying single-family homes because i didn't know that people could just buy multi-family homes like i thought that was for oprah and like rich people right like i didn't know that the vina jetties of the world could buy multifamily houses.

So how many single family homes did you buy before you switched over? I don't even know. Dozens. There was a week where I bought five in one week. And that was the turning point for me because I was like, I really hate this. And it's not scalable and it's not efficient.

And even if I find five deals a week forever and ever and ever, I like, I'm going to buy 500 plus doors every year and that's it. How can I get to 10,000 doors or 50,000 doors or a hundred thousand doors? It's not scalable. And there's a lot of expense in inefficiency there. Stop,

stop. The reason I'm going to stop you, this is what I'm going to stop you. Okay. Because a lot of people probably just heard the last sentence you said. Yeah. And they're thinking to myself,

they're thinking to their self, let me help you out, listener. I'm going to help you out because you should listen to this. They just heard you say, I can only buy 500 doors, is what they just heard you say. Being super efficient.

Being super efficient. I can only buy this. When 500 doors in a year is probably so far beyond what most people would even think of in the first place. So the question is, is that something that was innate in you? Or is that something that you just saw and developed? What's the difference? That's a good question. That's the difference. I think, I think it was partially innate. Look, here's the thing if i'm gonna work hard like either i don't want to work at all and i want to be super lazy and

not do anything or i'm gonna work hard and if i'm gonna work hard i want to do it at the top level otherwise it was just a waste of my effort yeah if why would i work at the same output and make a hundred dollars when i can make a million dollars right right? That's how I see it. So it's exponential, the growth too, because going from zero to one door is the hardest move you make. Going from one to two is easier, two to four is easier. And it's an exponential growth curve, it's not linear. And so I figured, okay, if I'm trying to get to scale

and I'm trying to buy, let's say 10,000 doors a year, but I'm making this number up, but let's say it was 10,000 doors a year. Okay. If I end up buying a thousand a year, that's still pretty good. If I ended up buying 500, that's still pretty good.

But if I, if I anchored myself to that 500 doors a year, then maybe I'm going to buy 200 or 100. It's the 10 X method. I believe you're going with it. Yeah, I guess so. Set 10 times goals.

And if you miss it, you're still doing all right. That was a great just do that yeah no it's a house terrible investment give me your money i don't agree with that but yeah no that's the thing is like go big or go bigger that's it those are the only two moves all right so single family not scary that's not scary it was scary when i did it really single family homes to buy to buy the first one you weren't freaking out on it i wasn't freaking out because i grew up around it so much and look here's the question i always ask myself every time that i'm getting into like a space where i'm like oh what am i doing like why is this happening right is not all the reasons why i should do it's what happens if i don't do it, right? And I wanted a certain level of financial security and financial freedom for not just me,

but for my husband too. I didn't want him, like, it's not fun if I can travel the world and sit on a beach in Fiji and my husband has to be at work. Like, that's not fun to me. It depends on how much age your husband is. I was gonna say, yeah. I mean, I like him, that's the thing.

You like him, that's different. Ask me again in 10 years and I'll see if the answer is still the same. That's it. But that's the thing you like him ask me again in 10 years and I'll see if the answer is still the same that's it but but that's the thing is like I wanted the freedom to do that I wanted the freedom of my parents and my in-laws to be able to come with us and they can't do it if they're working beyond their retirement years because they can't make ends meet so for me it was this goal of having financial independence not just just for me, not just for my husband and I, but for my parents, my in-laws,

my kids. I wanted to build generational wealth for generations. I hadn't been born. So question about that. Do you, do you see that as running fast towards a reward or running away from fear of failure and which one motivates, which one motivates you more?

Are they different? I think they are. I think, I think, well, I think, i think people run faster away from pain than they do that's true actually and that's psychologically proven yeah and so that's like capital capital raising tip capital raising tip right is don't tell people about what they're gonna get tell them what they're gonna lose if they don't right um and so yeah when i i think it's probably i i don't think i ever really fear failure in this sense like now my fear of failure is really like i have to wait 15 more years to find out if i ruin my kids or not right like that's what i'm worried about i think they're gonna be fine i hope so i hope so but it's like you know that that's the

thing i worry about the most is like what and i my biggest fear right now is what if i don't maximize my impact on other people you know like the financial goals are they're fine like they're great and it's it feels good to check them off but the fulfillment from it is very different than when i have someone who sees me speak at a conference and comes up to me and says you it feels good to check them off but the fulfillment from it is very different than when i have someone who sees me speak at a conference and comes up to me and says you changed my life well see i gotta i gotta tell you there's we have kind of a little tribe yeah a lot of people you know they don't know about we don't first of all the tribe is we don't talk about the tribe or a fight club yeah yeah but there's a little tribe that we're in yeah and i genuinely feel

that everybody's in that little tribe is kind of out to genuinely help people and make another impact and in the space that we're kind of in with these events and things that we do it's really pretty obvious to see the people that aren't yeah very quickly oh yeah very quickly easy and i and so yeah i get that yeah i get that so let me ask you a question though but there's always the there's always the chirpers over to the side yeah to say oh it's just ego you just do that oh chirpers over to the side to say, oh, it's just ego. You just do that. Oh, you'd like to be this for that. Yeah. I mean, I guess, you know what?

I'm not even, I'm not even nauseous. You're going to say the same answer I'm not. You don't listen to the chirpers anyways. It doesn't matter. But when you, I'm really interested in that first moment when you made the jump from single family to multi-family. Because that's a big deal. Yeah.

That was a big deal. That's a big deal. That was a big deal. Yeah. Oh, it was terrifying. I cried every night for six weeks. So here's the deal, but here's the thing, man, this is, there's somebody listening to this right now that's trying to make a decision if they should, if they should jump headfirst into X, whatever it may be. Yeah. And I find that that

process of decision-making is usually pretty much the same regardless. Yeah let's let's break down your first big move yeah so first it was realizing i hated what i was doing and that it wasn't going to work for my long-term goals right so i think having a clear understanding of where you want to go is probably the very first thing right is like you can't decide on a route if you don't know where you're going so i like to start at the end and work our way backwards right like you can row faster and faster and faster but if your boat's pointed in the wrong direction then what was the point to a boat with no destination no wind is favorable yeah exactly one of my favorite quotes exactly and so um i i knew where i wanted to be and now of course that end goal has changed many times since then because every time you check off a goal and target moves yeah the target

moves and this is like an on true entrepreneur spirit I think and I remember too one of the things my mom had said to me when I was really young and my parents did a really great job of instilling confidence in us and you know they can do attitude but one of the things my mom said i still remember it is when i was like 14 you know i was being like super sassy more than usual which was pretty high to begin with but like it was like extra and you know i think they had said like you can't do something i wanted to do you know typical story and i i think i said like oh well when i'm an adult i'm gonna do all these amazing things. And then you'll be sorry.

Yeah, that was exactly it. You've heard the story. And then I was like, I, you know, I had said something around like making my own money. And, you know, because that was like the, they probably said no to buying me something. And it was because I asked mom because dad wasn't home at the time. I would have asked him and it probably would have been a yes. And my mom goes, you know, it's really hard to make six figures. You don't know yet because you haven't tried to do it.

Because my dad's- See, that's so weird that they would put a limiting belief on you like that. And you know what it was? It was her fear and her experience showing up. Because my dad, when he graduated from his PhD program here, you know, I was born, my sister was just about to be born maybe within a year she was born and my dad's first job he made 45 000 a year which this was in the mid 80s late 80s so it was you know it was a solid salary but it was not a ton of money back then when interest rates are 17.2% to buy a house. They actually were.

They really were. And so my parents, you know, my mom said that to me and it's weird because I don't think she even knows that this still sticks with me now. Well, she's obviously listening to this. I mean, clearly.

Now she's going to know now, clearly. She's your number one fan. She's the president of your fan club. We are huge in the greater, the greater Frisco Indian community. Hugeisco indian community huge i've heard that you're all the rage there when they find out i'm on this monster it's gonna make you it's gonna make you for sure i think so i'm gonna need like security now yeah you are it's a big time um yeah no but she said this to me and so you know really stuck with me and i remember the first

year i made six figures and i was like was it that hard no i was like i wonder if i can make seven figures and you know it just the target keeps moving well it's like it's always hard till you do it yeah yeah and that's the thing you know when people say making your first million is the hardest i always thought it was okay, like once you make a million dollars, you have a million dollars and it's easy to like go and invest that and make more money. And I was like, yeah, obviously if you have money, you can make more money. Sure. That's actually not what it means. And it took me till like three years ago to realize that it was because once you know how to make a million dollars, you can replicate it to make the second million and

then you get better at it so again it's exponential right making your first million is the hardest then to go to two millions a little bit easier than four million is a little easier and it's just exponential growth from there well i was like i like what roland frazier always says about that when he says you know the skills that got you to a million are going to keep you from making the second one yeah no you got to learn a whole nother skill set. A new set of skills. A whole nother skill set. A new set of skills. So multifamily. Yeah, so then, okay.

You put it in that skirt. Do you just decide? Does the deal fall in your lap? Do you go hunting for it? Yes. All of the things. Shut the box. Yeah.

No, so I partnered with somebody who I'm still friends with to this day. And he actually is one of my investors. I invest with him. We're competitors technically, but we collaborate a lot, obviously. But he brought me into my very first deal. And it was a 200 unit, give or take a few units, of $15.9 million on the purchase. And we needed another $1.2 million that I was spearheading.

And no one wanted to give me any money. All right, when you're sitting there and you're looking at the LOI, because I'm assuming, did you sign the LOI or did you sign it? Did you have to put your name on it? I think my partner signed it. But yeah, we're-

But you got it in your hand. I'm in this now. When you look at that number at the top of that page. Yeah. 15.2. Yeah, 15.9, yeah this now. When you look at that number at the top of that page. Yeah. 15.2. Yeah, 15.9, yeah. 15.9. What was going through your head when you're looking at 15.9 million dollars at the top of that page?

First deal you ever did like this. Am I allowed to say four letter words on here? Absolutely. What the fuck am I doing? This is insane. Right. So self-doubt creeps in a little bit. No, no.

A lot bit. A lot bit? A lot. It was only self-doubt for the vast majority of that deal um you know because nobody wanted to write me a check nobody wanted to give me any money because they're like okay come back to me on your second deal your third deal your fifth deal so back so you you were convinced you were convinced that this was a great deal like you knew you were all in yeah what was okay so you would go to people and present it yeah and they were like no or they'd ask me questions i didn't know the answer because i've never done it before and so i was like you know when you first start out you don't

really know how to swerve around the questions yet so i was like um uh i don't know and you know today when someone asked me oh i'm so glad you asked that you what? I want to make sure I get you the right answer. Let me check with the team just so I'm giving you the correct information. I'll get back to you in 24 hours. Could you figure yourself wilting in these meetings? Just wilting. I mean, yeah. I don't know that I ever bloomed again to be re-wilted.

I just wilted and stayed there. But at some point, somebody had to say yes. Yeah. No. So finally. Who's the first person said yes um well i think i actually ended up convincing my dad to invest so again nepotism at play uh yep and it's a bit it's a long way from gumballs yeah i got better at raising capital from them over the years um no i think my dad was either one of the first or the first and then i i reached out to

everybody i knew like you know those people that have mlms and they're like hey it's been 20 years since we've talked yeah it's so great to connect with you that was me like here it comes yeah that was me anybody i had any kind of substantial relationship with at some point in my life remember that gumball you bought in 1980 right okay i'm willing to refund you the 10 cents you spent that's it let's talk about it actually the fda just said the red dye from the red gumball will give you cancer so i'm willing to give you a refund yeah here's a refund for that and here's another 10 cents for your trouble just because i'm nice yeah look i'm gonna make sure yes yeah so no i i went out to everybody and anybody I knew and really I made thousands of phone calls maybe. But I didn't raise the money for a very long time. I thought that we were going to fail

actually. And so I woke my husband up one night, because I'm crying in my bed at 2 a.m., like I did every night that time. And he was like, honey, we have to sell everything that we own. And he goes, okay, you're obviously talking in your sleep, which I do. So he's like, you're talking in your sleep, honey. Go back to sleep. It's okay. I was like, no, you don't understand.

I'm going to liquidate the 401ks. I'm going to list your Porsche for sale. And he was like, wait, what? And then he immediately got him white. Because how much capital had you personally risked? We had, I think, 100 grand on the line. And see, back then, you didn't have to put as much capital up as you did these last few years, right?

So I think we had put 100 grand. And then my partner had put another 100 or 150 or something like that. But it wasn't the capital I was worried about. I didn't care about losing the money. put a hundred grand and then my partner had put another hundred or 150 or something like that. And, but it wasn't that it wasn't the capital I was worried about. I didn't care about losing the money. I mean, I don't want to lose a hundred grand,

but I didn't care about that. What I cared about was the kiss of death that I've now retraded on a deal and no multifamily broker is going to want to work with me ever again. Yep. That's all I cared about. That was all I cared about. I wanted to close that deal i didn't care i didn't care if i had to lose all of my hundred grand even just to get the deal closed i would have done it but i wanted to make

sure that we closed the deal so you know i'm like all right honey i gotta sell your portion he immediately like shoots up in bed it's like what are you talking about right now right like that got his attention um and i was like look i'm really sorry i got our family into this whole big mess i don't know why i did this this was obviously a really bad idea um but you know i just i really need to close this and so i have to put everything we own everything but you got white knighted you didn't have to actually do that correct no yeah no but i i was fully prepared to i was fully prepared to do it and you know how you married the right person is when he goes okay whatever we need to do if yeah and if it doesn't work i was like what if

it doesn't work he's like if it doesn't work we'll start over yeah that's what it is okay that seems like this seems like a great plan. We'll just start over. And you know, back then too. Listen to your spouse. Listen to your spouse. I know. Every now and then I listen to him. I've had two deals go south,

like big transactions. Like seven figure bad in my life. Twice that's happened. Twice it's happened. And both times my wife was like, nope, from the get go. And I was like, no, no, no, no. It's gonna be fine.

It's gonna be fine. Yeah. My husband did that on the one that i've had and it wasn't a multi-family deal it was a different business but he's like really this is what you want to do okay yeah not a good idea oh no she's my wife's very like nope oh yeah no my husband's like we're doing it anyway no no he you know happy wife happy life that whole thing so he's like whatever you want honey but i but he looking back i wish i had listened to him because a man would have saved me a lot of money but yeah so I was ready to risk it all put it all on black right and so I I did end up raising the capital um my very last investor in was um actually one of my parents friends friends. We call him uncle because I grew up around him. And he wrote me the remaining check.

And man, without him, I don't know. I don't know that I would have been able to get over that hump on my own. And so he really helped me. And then he started introducing me to other investors. And again, it was a little bit of nepotism because he wanted to see me successful. But you did a good job and you got to a point

where the things were working. Yeah, and he made a lot of money on that deal too. We exited it three and a half years later and made a ton of money. Actually, month 15 on that deal, I returned 40% of capital. That's awesome. So it was like a home run win for investors.

That's awesome. Well, if you had to sum up one thing that you would say for people trying to overcome fear that they're trying to overcome, what would you say? In hindsight, right, with hindsight being 20-20, my fear really should have been if any one of these difficult situations stopped me from doing this. And so it shouldn't be the fear of failure it should be the fear of not

trying better to regret things that you have done and things that you never will yes yeah because you can never be great if you don't try i agree 100 right isn't that the michael jordan quote you miss 100 of the shots you don't take 100 that's it yep and i think too what i've realized about myself recently in like the last two years is in this society in like this country we have a lot of really unhealthy attachments to money that are really tied to like emotional well-being and now since being in our little fight club especially that has leveled up my mindset in ways that I couldn't even imagine like you know in that group we were talking about like who has a plane that we can buy before the end of the tax year to solve a tax problem sold ours right see like so these are the conversation I'm like oh my gosh this is like a normalized like no one is laughing

about this everyone's like oh let me help you solve this real problem and that's crazy to me and so I think it's like when you are in these rooms like better rooms more money just means different problems bigger problems that you're solving and so I think it's just like having though that mindset is really really powerful and I underestimated how powerful that was. And I now see money as just a tool. Love it. Like it's just a tool to get where I want to go. And I always said that, but I didn't act in accordance with that. Yeah. I think it's really, I think it's really important in goal setting to not make it about numbers, to make it about, tell me about why, tell me the life, what's the design. Tell me that. Yeah. And it can't be just like, oh, I want to make it about tell me about why yeah me the life what's your why what's the design

yeah tell me that yeah and it can't be just like oh i want to do it for my kids i mean no so what what do you want to do for your what is it yeah so for me i just i set a goal that i want to impact 10 000 other people that want to be in multifamily but are scared or don't know where to start or don't know how to level up like you do one or two deals maybe you do a hundred million you don't know how to get to that billion dollar mark right so I want to impact 10,000 people which is a big goal of mine for my kids I guess I want them to be happy healthy productive members of society but more importantly I want to give them enough money to do something but not enough money to do nothing

right like the bill gates method might do anything they want but not enough money to do nothing yeah i want them to go out i want them to take risks i want them to do things unconventionally i want them to travel the world i want them to meet new people i want them to help other people love that and you know it takes some amount of a safety net to do that love that i went to the taylor swift concert a few weeks ago it was so good i cannot even with that do you know those tickets were so expensive i mean they were so that's why i had to do a multi-family deal to buy those oh my gosh i don't get it i don't get it okay let me tell you escapes me i don't know let me tell you she is a beast okay she performed for three hours and 15 minutes okay i'll give you that her production was phenomenal but she has built an empire around

community yeah right she's gonna make 600 million dollars from this tour 52 concert tour it's insane it's 600 million and i was actually there with a good friend of mine and her and her husband are both super specialized physicians they're amazing and you know i'm sitting there i'm looking around and i'm like taking it all in and i turn around i say hey kate um when you see this because she has three young daughters that are five four and two and i was like when you when you see all of this when you see this, because she has three young daughters that are five, four, and two. And I was like, when you see all of this, when you're here,

and when you like look here, do you think about or see your daughters? And she goes, oh yeah, like, you know, taking my kids to this concert or the one day they're going to be here going to this concert. And I was a little taken aback

when she said that because I was like, no. Because all I could think about was my daughters. And'm like they could be the next taylor swift sure and that's all i thought about and she i was like no like what if they're the next taylor swift but she was like oh but that's that's a really big thing and i was like yeah but why should our limitations sure restrict them from doing something great? Because my kids, they have a blank slate still.

We don't know what they're going to do. Um, and so I just think like being like having that mindset shift is huge. And like, for me, I want my kids to do something that big because they can, they have every opportunity to do it. There's no reason why they can't or shouldn't do something. Which again, that comes back to my, the only thing I'm prejudiced against is people that don't take advantage of every opportunity. Totally. opportunity to do it there's no reason why they can't or shouldn't do something which again that

comes back to my the only thing i'm prejudiced against is people that don't take advantage of every opportunity totally yeah and especially like my kids right like i don't want them to see opportunities and not take them and i want them to take risks and i'm okay if they fail but i want them to know they're always going to have a loving stable place to land and we'll always cheerlead them and help them pick up the pieces and you know go back and work twice as hard the next time i love it i love it yeah we gotta wrap this up because speaking of kids i do have a lacrosse game to get through here shortly but guys i i know that uh immediately once this gets out the uh the greater indian population of

frisco texas is gonna demand we do a part two. Probably. At some point, I assure you, I promise you, I will get Vena back in. We'll dive more into the business. But fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. I appreciate it. Man, it's always, I love when we can drop nuggets for people and hopefully get them

to the next level that we're trying to do. Yes. All right. Just do it. Well, cool. We'll come back and see us again. I will. Thank you.

Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. We'll share any links that we've things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. give me a shout