Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 507 - Athlete's Advantage in Business - Rene Jacques

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Rene Jacques is a former basketball player at Sacramento State University, and has played with some of the best basketball players in the nation. While some of his former teammates went on to get drafted in the major basketball leagues, Rene’s path led him to business where he achieved massive success even greater than his days on the court, but using the same lessons he’s learned as an athlete. His book, “The Athlete’s Advantage in Business” focused on the lessons he learned on the basketball court, and how those lessons have led him and many of his circle to build highly successful teams and businesses. Get Rene's book, "The Athlete's Advantage in Business" on Amazon: https://amzn.to/39MnW4D Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

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And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Highly, highly, highly recommend you check out the Flatiron Steak because what Nsema just said, it's ridiculously high in protein and insanely low in fat. Go check that out right now. What up, Power Project crew? This is Josh Setlidge, a.k.a. Settlegate, here to introduce you to our next guest, Rene Jacques. Here to introduce you to our next guest, Rene Jacques. Rene Jacques is a former basketball player at Sacramento State University and has played with some of the best basketball players in the nation. While some of his former teammates went on to get drafted in the major basketball leagues,

Rene's path led him to business where he achieved massive success even greater than his days on the court by using the same lessons he's learned as an athlete. He is the founder and CEO of Golden Bay Mortgage Group, and his mission is to help people develop an unstoppable mindset that drives the pursuit of building a phenomenally successful business. He is the author of the book The Athlete's Advantage in Business, and this book is focused on the lessons he learned on the basketball court and how those lessons have led him and many of his circle to build highly successful teams and businesses. You guys will probably want to hear about that because that is a different story.

Please enjoy this conversation with our guest, Rene Jacques. What made you think of getting some different people involved in the book that you wrote about business? Well, for me, business has been great. I've been taking big strides recently, but I want to learn from people that have done way more than me. So I was able to put some feelers out to some people that I looked up to and knew were crushing it outside of being an athlete, ex-athletes that were crushing in business.

And like I said, it turned into a research project. I wanted to learn from them and bring more value. My story is what it is. It's somewhat entertaining. Uh, I would, I would think so, but you know, I wanted to hear from other people, you know, right. Who are the four people that you chose to, uh, have right in your book? Well, um, I have a real estate agent from, um, Boise, Idaho. She was a volleyball player in college, and she is crushing it at Keller Williams out in Idaho. I have Phil Oates, one of the Kings owners. So he's a good friend of mine. Call him Uncle Phil. Yeah, obviously coached and been around sports forever.

Chris Johnson, he's a local guy. Yeah, yeah. Crushes it, man. Chris Johnson was actually at Sacramento State the year before I got there. When I got there, he was transferring over to UC Davis. We've obviously paid attention to each other for a long time. He's one grade above me. And he went on Shark Tank, got two Sharks, I believe.

And, man, he signed some big deals. He is absolutely crushing it. I actually believe he was the best interview that I had because I full-on adapted his morning routine and everything like that. He's got it up here. The mental side of things, as we touched on, mentality, being the right mental mindset and being physically and mentally strong. And he crushes it there. And then Jonathan Vilma was the fourth one. So it was a four.

What was like a main principle that you took from your athleticism as a kid growing up and playing basketball? And you played at Sacramento State, I believe, right? Yes, right. What was kind of the, is it the mindset that you're talking about right now is it just because like athletes are fairly like um they're unaccepting of like things that are going on with their body sometimes right like like like uh like hey hey how you doing man you you okay to play if your coach to ask you that question you know how's your ankle man i know you rolled your ankle the other day you're like no coach man i'm good man i swear you know is it that mindset to like you know figure out a way to keep going and maybe not always listening to uh conventional wisdom just figuring out a way to play the game and play at a really high rate

100 and that's that's something that um you know for me i just put into context i was on some incredible teams growing up you know my travel team had multiple NBA players on it. And, you know, I'm low level on great teams. All I had was to be able to outwork somebody and be mentally strong, maybe a little bit smarter out there because I didn't have the talent to keep up with people like that. And when it comes to things like just like you talked about with injuries and things like that, your mind is, you know, your mind is so much stronger than your body is, you know, and some people take some certain injuries as a way out of

some of the work. Others, it might be the hurdle that stops you from getting on that team that you're trying to strive for or something like that. So, you know, I believe the groundwork, the foundation of the ones that are really good up here and are super strong mentally and push through anything. That's, that's what you're looking for when you turn over to business side. I know that much. I see a lot of like athletes, especially like within like bodybuilding or, or really good individuals that are great athletes are not able to transfer those skills into business. good individuals that are great athletes are not able to transfer those skills into business.

What do you see about the athletes that are able to take all the things that they've been able to do athletically, you know, all the perseverance, dealing with injuries, the struggles and transfer them to business? What, like, I guess, what does that look like for those types of athletes who do that successfully? Well, I mean, that, that brings me right to the genesis of the book. I mean, this is something that I would want to have heard when I was an athlete growing up because, yeah, I had good grades and I thought I would be able to translate to something else. But it's terrifying. Like once you're done with what you live for, which is a sport, now when I'm on the other side of it and what I wanted to bring to a lot of the up-and-coming student athletes is, you know, it's literally setting you up for all the things that are absolutely needed for business. So, you know, being a leader, being coachable, dealing with the good teammates, dealing with the bad teammates, studying your competition, getting a leg up on your competition, putting in more work,

all those things are the groundwork of it. And so the ones that do find their way to get out of sport and apply that to the rest of their life those are the ones that are crushing it like absolutely crushing it so and the absolute best have that background and i think there's also an odd stigma when it comes to individuals who are really really good athletes people don't expect them to be able to do well at anything else. Knuckleheads. Exactly. They're seen as knuckleheads. People don't think that they have any other talent other than their sport. And then you see that reflected upon themselves since other people don't believe that about them.

And then their whole identity is tied into their sport. They're like, I'm nothing but a basketball player. I'm nothing but a bodybuilder. I'm nothing but a powerlifter. What else can I really do other than this? Yeah. And then, you know what? That's something that when you hear it, sometimes it becomes a thing in your own head.

So I'm sure that's a mental block for a lot of them. But no matter what you go into, if you have a crazy work ethic, you have the opportunity to excel at it, no matter what it translates into. And you know what exceptional athletes have? That work ethic. They know how to push themselves more than any regular person so that's what that's why they shouldn't listen to that that narrative that's for sure my son has been playing a guitar lately and he actually was showing me a couple tunes on

there and i found myself immediately thinking like this is literally impossible, you know, but then I had to back off of that. Cause that's not the way that I trained myself. I, I like to think that I can do anything if I'm interested enough in doing it and trying it and being open to it, you know? So he was teaching me and I suck, but, but I was able to do it, you know, I was able to follow through and do it. And then a couple of days ago, um, as a, as ago as a group, as a team, we went to my friend's ranch and we were shooting. And one of our girls was shooting some skeets. And the first time the skeet went, she didn't shoot. And she was like, this is going to be impossible.

And then there she was three or four throws later, blasting. She was able to hit it. And so I think the mentality that you have, some of the things that we do in fitness, whether it be the diet, because look at the changes you could make with your diet. People can lose 100 pounds, 200 pounds. They can change the way they look. They can change almost everything about themselves through their food and through fitness. Look at somebody that comes to a gym for the first time.

They have an injured lower back. They don't feel great about themselves. Six months later, they're climbing a rope and deadlifting 315. And you're like, what? And they're flipping tires. So I always kind of find it amazing that we don't see it more often, people just saying, you know what? I was able to do that. I bet if I spent some good time doing this other thing, this thing that's new that I view as being

really difficult, I could probably get somewhere just like I got somewhere with deadlifting 315. No question. And here's the thing. We all have these things that we're worried to step outside of our comfort zone. Once I got a little bit of a taste these things that we're worried to step outside of our comfort zone. Once I got a little bit of a taste of being super uncomfortable and getting to the other side, it started being something that we not only gravitate to, but are searching out. I joined your push-pull meet. I'm a basketball player. I don't know how to get up and ready for a six-second lift or whatever the case may be. That thing was weird. It was awesome though. Like it was a great experience to go through.

And then during the middle of writing the book, you know, COVID hit, I was writing the book, but I also chose to first time to do, you know, a physique competition. And, you know, all I wanted to do when everything shut down was drink all day and eat all day. I had to eat right on point and didn't touch alcohol for six months. It was absolutely crazy. It was super uncomfortable. Believe me, I tried to quit four or five times during it.

But you start surprising yourself and you start wanting more of that because the limitations that I know for me personally that I always thought everything. It's just, it's your mind tricking yourself, man. That's it. How do you get out of your own way as an adult? Because I find that like, you know, when you're super aware of all of the challenges that are ahead of you and you're super aware of like how difficult something may be, um, you know, you get in your own way. Whereas if you're a kid starting something, you just start lifting or you start playing basketball. You're kind of naive and you're dumb and you're like, let's do it. You know what I mean? Yeah. So how do you like, how do you help adults get out of their way with that? Well, I mean, one thing that I think is absolutely silly, uh, for us as, you know, people in grownups is, you know, we, we growing up, we have teachers, we have, we have,

uh, um, our coaches and things like that. things like that. And maybe if we're lucky enough, we get to do the same thing through college and everything like that. Then we get out of college and what do we do? Our decisions make more of an impact than ever and we go try to figure it out ourselves. That's absolutely silly in my book. So I guess one of the things for me is, because now that I look back at it, how silly that makes it is once you get out of either your sport or once you're out of college or whatever the case may be as a grown adult, if you're not still searching out at a minimum a mentor, but looking for professional coaches in whatever industry that you're in, that's one of the things that helped with, you know, my business partner, Cam and I, we had a business coach when we started our mortgage company. And man, I think we might have saved ourselves three years of just learning off of doing dumb shit ourselves. You know, like it's amazing when you have somebody who gets to look over and kind of give you a path without

having to learn on your own. So for, to answer your question, I would be searching for somebody if you want, whatever that might be, if it's lifting, if it's business or whatever the case, you find somebody who's done it before and does some coaching or wants to be a mentor. And that's how, you know, you can't self-talk yourself out of it when you have to do that, you have to show up with your homework for, for business, uh, in two weeks from now. Like that's,

that's the uncomfortable stuff that like started it. That's really what it is. Your business coach was somebody that, uh, has been a business coach to other people like traditionally, or was it like unconventional where you're like, Hey man, I want to hire you to be my coach. He was a business coach and is a business coach for realtors and lenders across the country. So we just happened to be in the same city.

He had built a company up way beyond what ours even still currently is. So he had done it before as well. So that's why I was really interested to speak with him because, once again, he had done it before. I was really interested to speak with him because once again, he had done it before. Um, you know, I'm really flattered that he is, uh,

a person that ended up with, with all the people that he coaches. Um, he saw an opportunity that we, we had a third business partner who was a small business partner. Wasn't doing much for the company, but he, he actually wanted to approach her about buying her out.

So we were flattered, you know, the fact that, that out of all the people he coaches and in everything that he wanted to kind of join the team and everything like that. So, you know, that part was cool, but he's a conventional coach who had done it before. And that's what I was searching for. And that's why it, you know, there's in the real estate industry, there's coaches all over the place.

So there's many to choose from. That's why he stood out and I really wanted to speak with him. Along with that, with, I guess, with real estate, with anything that you're trying to learn, there's so much information now, like a lot of the stuff your business coach taught you could have probably found it. And a lot of people are like, Oh, why would I want to spend this much money? Cause I would, I would assume that he was, you know, yes,

it's a good amount of money that you put down. Right. Oh yes. So how did you, uh, kind of, how did you convince yourself to actually take that leap rather than be like, I could,

we, we, you know, we're smart enough to figure this out on our own. You know what? It takes a special kind of person to be able to find the information and stick to it. Like that's, that's obviously people can and do it all the time.

But for the majority of people who have lives and families and, and trying to run a business anyway, we're just kind of in the, in the middle of the day to day, you know, just trying to, to make things work. And you, you can't really work on the business the right way if you're in the middle of it. So, um, I think people shortchange themselves when, when they worry about a dollar amount for somebody who has so much more knowledge and can put point you in the right direction. Cause in the reality, uh, what ended up happening with that, we, I would have literally now looking back would have paid 10 times the amount that we paid him for what he gave us. And that's what it is. You got to find

systems. You got to find an opportunity to build and to build a path where you think you're going to be able to go. And you can't do that just by yourself. You can, but if somebody has done it already, why reinvent the wheel? Yeah. I think sports lead you to that as well because you're playing sports forever and you go to a camp one time where there's other high-level athletes and this one coach for some reason shows you this one particular way to hold the ball so people can't steal it from you. And you're like, how the fuck did I never learn this before? Like, how have I played basketball for this long until this guy came and you learn those things, you learn that there's there's always level up. Right. That's right. I mean, even in the NBA, where they go, do they get with the other best NBA players or the best coaches? Like they're always looking for the ones that they can train with and close to and get to that next level. That's something that is ingrained into us.

and get to that next level. That's something that is ingrained into us. We're always gravitating to somebody or, you know, a team or somebody that's where we want to get to. So there's no different. That's why I always like talking about it because, man, it is no different in real life. It's no different in business. That's the stuff that we were learning in athleticism the whole time. in in athleticism the whole time what about um uh you know we've we've become a bit of a uh like impatient society you know like tiktok videos if they're like more than four seconds i'm out

um so like uh if somebody is trying to seek out a good coach what's a good indicator that it's actually working that it's a good fit because you know it can be expensive somebody i know they have to be patient but if it's been a while or whatever it may be like time wise and they're maybe unsure if it's working out for them um what's something that people should be looking for when it comes to actually hiring and sticking with somebody and that's a great question because um we we now use a different coaching system because now our initial coach is one of our business partners. And this is a national coaching system. It's called the Freedom Club. And it helps people who are top, top lenders across the country be able to crush numbers and do it without having to work 24 hours a day type of a thing.

Right. But even inside that coaching group, there's big variances between the coaches that are there. So you do have to find the one that matches your personality is really what it is. But if I, like, I guess to answer your question, if I was like ground floor, didn't know where to go, I would be finding the top loan officers in the area. I would just be banging the phones and just say, can I get 10 minutes of your time? Ask you a few questions, see what they use. Did they ever use a coaching system? Things like that. So, you know, once again, there's so much to choose from and a lot of them may or may not be good. I would try to find one that worked for somebody who was once again, in the place that I'm hoping to get to.

As far as like the title of the book, the athletes advantage, like you say, it's the athletes advantage. What if someone's like, no, they may never played a sport and they don't have a competition level type of mindset. They don't think in that way. Um,

what are they going to get from this? You know what? Uh, I, I, when I talk about the book, even though it talks about the background of, of,

um, being a sport and everything like that, there's no matter what level, if, even if you never played sport, the background of being in sport and everything like that, there's no matter what level, even if you never played sport, maybe you only played to high school, there's still a level, there's an athlete inside of everybody, that's for sure. They may not have tapped into it at a certain point, but I believe people who don't have the athletic background or didn't stick with it as long as others did when they read this book.

And when they, they think about it, they can see what the mindset is of people who have gone through it and been the athlete and figured out that that's still with it's, it's inside of everybody. And it's good to get the insight of what the athletic mind is. But in reality, when they read this book you

know the things that we supposedly learned young and everything like that they also learned doing other things now even if it wasn't in sport and things like that so it's still a great topic for them to to to look into and peel the curtain back on you know what I think my advantage is, what people think their advantage is. It does apply to everybody. Yeah. It's also, um, trying to go from being an amateur to a pro in a sense. Right. And then somebody might think like, oh, well, I'm new to this.

How can I be a pro? They're not saying like that you have to turn pro out of nowhere, but your goal is to be a pro. And what do professionals do? Uh, what does a professional athlete do? Well, they play their sport a lot, right? So they engage in the thing that they're trying to get good at often. They practice often.

They do drills. And they also do stuff outside of the sport itself to make themselves stronger, to make themselves more fit. They'll do prehab stuff. They'll do rehab stuff, sleep. There's been talks that LeBron James spends over a million dollars a year on having someone stretch him and run him and all these things to make sure that he's well acclimated to every single season. So if we just take that model and we think about,

all right, how am I going to do that with real estate? Well, then you just kind of start to think about, well try to learn, absorb, get around other people, have a white belt mentality where you're like, I'm going to absorb stuff the best I can. I don't really think that's in sport or outside of sport, when you dig into what makes them, they work on the basics so much. Like, you know, when, you know, a little insight and when we're trying to, trying to get ready for the physique competition, I, you know, joined and got some, obviously Ben, Ben Alderman was giving me a ton of workouts, but I did check in with somebody who, you know, has been, been at Mr. Olympia and for physique and everything like that. I thought I was going to start getting these crazy workouts. It was so basic, and it was kind of refreshing to see. And that's the same thing when it comes to when you start to look into these top-level people.

Kobe, you work on this positive, his first step so often. He's doing the basic stuff over and over again. So it's fascinating to me because we think we have to do this elaborate stuff that these people who are crushing it are doing these elaborate things. When I'm doing these interviews, they're doing the basic stuff. These guys who are crushing it after a sport are doing these basic things over and over again and that's how they get ahead and that that's it's you just don't know until you start to peel the curtain back a little bit so that's really what it is the basis getting to basics and what gets you to that next level what kind of basics are those yeah by the way so and from for me um it's it's a lot of

this organization so i went like if i'm having having a talk with my team over at the office, I constantly tell them, your paycheck is directly correlated with how organized you are. So we're talking about just organization things of keeping things in order, how you work a lead and everything like that. So recording everything, that's a big thing for when you're lifting when you're lifting or working out and trying to, you know, you see what you're putting in your body. You see what you were Can you explain this a little deeper, how it's directly related to their paycheck? So, so there are leads that come in. If you don't have a system, if you don't record it correctly, write your notes and follow up on a, um, on a consistent basis, there's going to be leads that fall through the cracks.

And I guarantee, even in my office right now, my loan officers right now are probably sitting on eight to 10 deals that they just didn't work that thing correctly because maybe they caught the lead while I was out and about and I didn't put it on my lead tracking system. So you know what? If they would have worked it correctly and had the basics there, you know, an extra 10 deals is a lot of money in our industry. You know, or learning that

that's not a good deal. And moving on to the next one. Agreed. Efficiency. I mean, you'll always hear me talk about efficiency. I just don't have enough time between a mortgage company

I own, another corporation that owns five locations of laundromats. We put out the book. Now we have a nonprofit uh, uh, a nonprofit where we're trying to raise money for, for some scholarship stuff, you know, and you know, three kids, they're all in sports and everything. So it's just, I have to get more efficient. Like the only thing that, that really excites me right now is something that's tied to

automation, you know, something that will run on its own a little bit, you know, just something in my daily that goes there, but, but those are the basic things. So you have to be able to record it and identify it to even fix it, you know. I'd like to add one more thing that you're saying is that if they don't record stuff, you don't always know exactly what they do, because you understand their job to a pretty large extent, but you might not realize that they stepped in and helped so-and-so with this other thing. Maybe they started doing some tasks for you via social media. You have no idea. Or maybe you mentioned it to them, but you mentioned it to them three months ago, and you don't recall the exact conversation.

Tracking this stuff is huge. I've shared that with every employee we have, I believe, a couple of times. Hey, keep track. If we're going to do a review and we're going to start to talk to you and you're going to start to kind of quote-unquote make a case on why you're providing more value or how you're providing more value for the company, it'd be great if you had evidence. If you have stuff written out, I can't really refute it. I don't have a leg to stand on to say, yeah, we're not going to I heard what you said. Yeah, you're doing a lot more, and those things are working out great, but we're still not going to pay you anymore. It's like that doesn't sound like it works out well, right?

I'm 19 years into doing real estate, and I think I absolutely wasted the first 10, 11 years because of not recording things correctly, not having my closed lead list that I'm checking in with them, just saying hi. Like I, it is probably hundreds of thousands of dollars that went out the door because of my non organization. So it, the thing is what has changed over the last like four or five years is how I

communicate with myself and stop like lying to myself. I say, I want to be efficient. I say, I want to be healthy. I say, I want to crush it in business. Yet my actions weren't, weren't anything like that. And so I had to stop lying to myself about, Hey, I'm being a good loan officer. If I didn't do the extra steps to do the extra things for my clients. And like, I think I threw the first 10, 11 years down the drain because of not being organized. That part's really hard to balance because how do you enjoy some pizza or how do you enjoy some drinks? How do you enjoy just going off the rails and just doing something different? Oh man, it's rough. I mean, the drinks are the only way through it sometimes. Going back to what you're saying, like some of the legends, they focus on just the basics.

But out of the athletes that you interviewed, how many of them kind of admitted that they went too far at first? Because what I see with, you know, here in powerlifting and fitness space, you know, they'll kind of have to like, oh, shit, I shouldn't have done that. You know, like they have to experience some of the setbacks before they're like, wait, no, I do need to get back to the basics. So is that kind of the same thing that you discovered with some of the athletes you've interviewed? Yeah, definitely. And, and a lot of those have led to like the conversations where, you know, your body tells you, you know, I will even say that was, that was one of the things during the middle of of my prep for for the physique competition. I got to a, you know, the body was changing, but I got to this fatigue point because during that's right when COVID hit.

But the interest rates got good. I was probably putting like 17, 16 hours a day. Like I was doing another eight hours at night, like once I got home and waking up early and it just hit like the wall, your body normally will tell you that, but here's the thing in the high end sport, the injury will tell you that. And so, you know, we, we do have to work smarter, not harder. Um, and, and, you know, being more efficient and not, it's not the pure amount of hours in a basketball gym for, for people on the basketball side. But if you get back to the basics and you're really pointed with how you work out, that's where you start to excel. Um, so, you know, it's different

for everybody. Um, the ones that are willing to push way past what their bodies are, are, are, are the unique ones though, that that's also a weapon but at some point you start to realize kobe did stop working out as much as he needed to once he get got older in age so i know the body will will eventually let you know yeah that always fascinates me because we do hear people that went through it and they're like no like don't do what i did you know do the you know focus on the basics but it's almost like can you really appreciate the basics unless you do kind of go overboard and yeah you have to experience some of the negatives for yourself agreed i'll do a small little uh

comparison story to it because you know that what what really helped me is when i kept seeing the high level athletes um um and and how and, and how they worked. Um, I was a freshman in high school at this time. I went to my first Cal Cal Berkeley camp and it was right when Sharif Abdul Rahim was, uh, about to, uh, uh, come out. So he was a incoming freshman as well. Um, basketball was my life. I could run for days. I was a little skinny kid. I could run for days, but that, that first day it was literally up and back. It's just, you know, you run up, you make a move, you get to a layup and it was hours. Like I was destroyed when I got back, but I saw Sharif up close and like, he's doing

the same inside out move that we were doing. It wasn't any spin moves. It wasn't anything like that. And that was eyeopening. So I got to see that pretty young. And, um, I've been lucky enough to be around a lot of, a lot of high-end athletes and my brother's eight years older than me. So he was good friends with JR Ryder and Jason Kidd and things like that. So I would constantly be at Cal Berkeley watching them work out. And it is, you know, JR Ryder's the East Bay Funk Dunk. Like he's dunking through the legs, but his practices

are basic, you know, like it's crazy. Dunk cont it's contest with jr right oh man come on now that's that's what you i love me some of the some of that i mean so but yeah it's it's it's fascinating to see and it's just a misconception that you think there's going to be some crazy stuff happening man so we're staying in shape as far as like business is concerned because you mean you work with a lot of people um for yourself how important do you think that is because we've had a lot of individuals come on that maybe when they were grinding before they were really working hard they you know they lacked fitness and they said that was one of the biggest things that was i guess important to them as time went by um how important do you think that is and me, it is one of the absolute staples of the foundation because I've gone away from it and I can't be what I want to be inside of the office

unless, unless, and it's not just the working out, it's the food as well. Obviously we are up and down when it goes to it, but you um, you know, I'm just not sharp mentally unless I do the extracurricular stuff. So I'm, I'm really, really happy that the people that I work with are a hundred percent on board with that. We have a culture where, you know, all, everybody who works with me has, uh, has a free membership to Iron Mile Fitness. You know, that's, that's, I want them literally, you know, it would be better for me if they weren't leaving to make it to the three or four o'clock class, but it's more important to me to have them leave for the three or four o'clock class because I know what it

does for the overall person. It's like, Joe, I appreciate you getting jacked and everything, but this is getting a little, the guy keeps leaving the office all the time. jacked and everything but this is getting a little the guy keeps leaving the office office all the time how how was how was it helpful to you to go to some of these camps and be around people like jason kidd and like for me it was transformative to learn not only am i not the best but i am not even close like it was like when i got people people to understand professional wrestling like the amount of mutants that are in professional wrestling that the genetic freaks that are in professional wrestling and when i walked through the doors of ohio valley wrestling and saw

you know guys like brock lesnar and shelton benjamin and john cena and these people it's like you just you're like like even before anything happens you're like i just got my ass handed to me and nothing's even happened quite yet. So how was that helpful to you in some ways? You know what, it opens your eyes because for one you know, I was on really good teams and probably had an inflated view of myself for a while. It brings you down to, back down to earth and it also walking in i'm gonna show everybody what's up and then you're like i'm not gonna say anything or show anybody anything

people don't realize i've been called a midget all my life i'm six one and i've been called a midget all my life so you know it's hard on the brain sometimes you know so but uh but you know, it's hard on the brain sometimes, you know, so, but, uh, but you know, it, when you see it and you see what it takes and you're like, I'm not anywhere close. It makes you, you're, you're either gonna just go away or you're gonna do everything in your power to get the best out of yourself, you know? So that's what it did for me. So I, it was super cool seeing it. Like I said, I had, I had front row seat to some of the best players in the country

and you know uh at one point i could say i was able to be on the same court as them you know so i just appreciate all the hard work and that goes into it and you know what is also cool seeing seeing the ones especially in the high school level my team was loaded like my year year year before me my year and year after we put nine division one athletes including one ucla one of stanford illinois usf um and uh in a few smaller division one uh schools so we had a good run there but you know the most talented ones would go on to these big time colleges and like oh shit you playing defense like i ain't never seen you before we would have three state championships if you to play defense like that they got out there and all of a sudden they gotta just they're they're fighting for their lives with a bunch of dogs out there you know so uh it's it's even for them they

can just get away with talent for a long time but then they get to where everybody else is talented and then you can see their work ethic go through it so I think it's an eye-opening experience to everybody I don't care what talent level you are so yeah it's super important to put yourself in situations where you're not the best or you're not the most oh we're not the alpha dog in this situation thank you um i'm i'm jokingly saying my kids are young but you know if they're the best kid on the team they're on the wrong team you know like they gotta learn from somebody you know unless you're the best player on the best team that's the, like they got to learn from somebody, you know, unless you're the best player on the best team. That's the only exception to it.

You should be looking for somebody else that you need to chase. You probably always wanted to make it in the NBA. And like, was there some point where you're like, okay, it's pretty clear. Yeah. It's not really an option anymore. And then what did you do about it? Uh, well, being a smart kid, I did recognize early. Uh, um, my brother is kid, I did recognize early.

My brother is 6'3", 205, coming out of high school. And this silly doctor, when I was young, said I was going to be 6'5". Oh, my gosh. 6'5". So wait. Where's my girlfriend? Exactly. Any day. Any day now.

Yeah. So, you know, when I didn't, I hadn't really been playing point guard. I've been playing shooting guard for my entire career. My best friend was a point guard. We both went to Sacramento State together. He was the freshman of the year in at the low level, Division I, it was apparent that for one, I vividly remember this as a senior, I knew I had enough connections to get overseas somewhere. I wouldn't have made much money, but I could get over there somewhere. I was scared to come back at like a 27, 28 years old and then try to figure out what it is. It's weird even thinking back. I remember saying to myself then, the sooner I start to work, the sooner I won't have to work anymore.

So for me, I didn't know what I wanted to do at the time, but I wanted to figure it out. I was a little bit scared to come back. And if I wasn't going to be able to make it a career that was paying me and, and I could provide for a family and stuff like that, I wasn't going to go for it. So, um, I knew I had the choice to continue to play basketball or to try to try to

learn how to do real estate or whatever the next step was. And I chose to start working, um, hoping that to figure it out. So they're doing that overseas. So while you're overseas, no, no, I didn figure it out. So you're doing that overseas? So while you're overseas? No, no, I didn't go overseas. I decided against going overseas.

What I didn't want to do is accept one of those offers, go over there and play. Like the low level overseas doesn't pay much. I mean, granted, everything's paid for over there, but you might come back with $15,000, $20,000. I mean, as a college student, that sounded cool, but you can still make more than that flipping burgers at certain places. So I chose not to. I still played in the pro-ams around here and stuff like that. And gosh, I mean, I miss basketball. I miss it like crazy, but I knew I didn't want to work forever. And we'll see. I mean, well, I miss it like crazy, but, um, I knew I didn't want to work forever. Um, and we'll, we'll see, you know what I mean?

It's still the stories remain to be, to be written. So the, the, uh, American dream used to be, you know, uh, you went to high school and we talk about it all the time on this show, how like that shit's on your permanent record. You're, you know, you're 11th grade whatever the hell we we talk about that a lot and uh you have to go to college you have to get a degree and then with the degree you have to find a good job and with a good job then you have to you know buy a house you know and that's what you're in that's you're in real estate and uh do you think that's still the case or has the american dream changed or shifted um Um, and like, I guess

when should someone even think about buying a house? I sometimes feel like people are maybe overreaching or, um, you know, putting themselves in danger because they're just not really, they might not be ready for that next step. They just see everybody else doing the same thing. So they do it as well. Yeah. Well, um, when to the numbers, I love following the market. I'm a nerd when it comes to the numbers. And right now we have this influx of the millennials that are buying houses later than ever before. So that's why we have this crazy supply and demand offset right now. That's why house prices are going crazy, right? You don't buy a house right now, you win a house. You got an outbid and is this a dang near a lottery out there right now um but we have this influx of of people who

are who are at the age which is later than they normally used to be of starting family formations and so there's more down the pipe there's so many more that are starting family found it uh starting the foundation and ready to buy houses. So I don't even know if we're going to have any kind of reprieve anytime soon on the influx of supply and demand. Going back to your question, I mean, that's what it used to be to check off those boxes. The more I see it, granted, a lot of the stuff that I've seen have been athletes and you transfer it laid over to business and we've seen people crush it like that. But reality, some of the biggest home run hitters are, it is not the normal path that they take. You can go around school and be more educated than anybody who made it through school. The tools are there. The life lessons are

more important than anything. I always had good grades, but I always say college, it taught me how to get stuff done. It wasn't, I don't, I don't know what I retained from actual classwork in college. Now, I mean, a little bit of delegation. I'm not saying that I studied all of it myself, but we learned how to get stuff done, you know, and that's the life lesson stuff. It's not about what's in those books, those checking off those boxes. Like you said, I think it's, it's not necessary at all right now. Yeah. You know, on the show, we always end up talking about the things that you end up really wanting to do.

You have to be deeply interested in it, right? Great. For what you do currently, when you started it, what was the deep interest for you? Was it the ability to move up in terms of making money since that was a very, you know, that that's a very financially, uh, I guess, uh, great field, right? Was it that, or was it that you were deeply interested in lending and mortgages? Yeah. So a couple of things, I had a friend of mine who dropped out of Sac State that started doing loans. He's a great salesperson and he was crushing it at, you know, I think at

the time he was 21 and I was still at Sac State. So he's the reason why I went into lending because I'm like, oh my God, look at him, his car already, you know, we're young at the time. So that's, that's originally what I got into it for. But, um, but in general, what I like about it is I'm part of one of people's biggest decisions. Not everybody's house is just a normal thing for some people, but for the majority of people, it's their biggest decision of what to do. All of this stuff is going digital, you know, the rock and mortgages of the world and everything like that. I firmly believe that people always have a need to sit on the other side of a desk, look in the eyes of somebody that they work with and work with somebody that they can trust.

So my- I saw you say that about three years ago, by the way, in a video. Did it? Oh, you saw the video. I did. That was one of the commercials. Look at that. I was going to ask today on the show if you still believe that.

That's great to hear. I still do. And because things are going away from that, right? I mean, millennials actually don't really care if they ever see a lone person, you know? But at the end of the day, I invest my time and energy into people who deserve it, meaning my teammates, like the ones that are working hard to try to better themselves and get ready for the family. And I'm doing loans for people because I can give them all of the facts, make them clarify paths so that they can make a confident decision. And it a lot of times doesn't lead to a loan at all, like period. Like I might never do the loan for it, but I can, the money, it kind of figures itself

out if I can continue to help people. That's really what it is. So that's been that to answer your question. That's what my passion is, is to help people. And there's a lot of slimy loan officers. There's a lot of bad companies that have inflated rates for no reason. And you know what, now that I'm on the ownership side, we, we lend our own money as well. Um, so when we lend our own money, we can put it in and, uh, you know, put these margins in. And as a, as a, as a company, I can have all my loan officers

sell these rates that are ours, right. And then there company, I can have all my loan officers sell these rates that are ours, right? And then there'll be a little bit inflated, maybe not far off it, but we can make much more money. The reality is there is no margin on anything that we lend on our own, and we're here to help people. So we grew, it was just me, my business partner, Cam Villa, and one assistant that started it a little over seven years ago. We're now 22 people, I believe. We've been hiring like crazy. But we had a slow controlled growth. We knew if it just ended up being us three that we would crush it just because we knew what our intentions were. Now we keep building the team around and it's in an effort to help people and make this an enjoyable process. Give us a little one-on-one here.

Like what, like, I don't know what's what I own five houses. You figure I would know something, but I don't know what's going on. Um, what's a lender. What's a mortgage.

Like what are these things? Why do they even exist? Yeah. So a mortgage is, is, uh, is, is offering the money to,

to purchase a property. And, uh, that's the, the, it's the security on the house is what it is. Now, on our side, there's a few different ways. Now, I'm on the broker side. We are approved with 30 plus banks, which means I can shop around for the best thing for each individual.

Direct lenders, they sell one uh of rates and one set of guidelines and when their rates are good that's awesome but if i was a loan officer for that one when covet hit it got crazy some people's rates went crazy others their guidelines tightened like crazy others take took a while for that so if i was at the mercy of one lending institutions, uh, um, rates, that would have been tough for me. If my, once again, I'm being real with myself, how I talk to myself. If I want to look out for people, of things and learning how things are sold on the secondary market and things like that. Because you can see how company structures are taking advantage of certain people and others that aren't. The reality is when we're talking about different lenders, if it's direct lender or mortgages, you should really just compare and contrast. And right now, you got to be able to close quick. I mean, you're up against multiple other offers.

There's Bay Area people coming up here, dropping cash. They sold their $2 million house and they're buying something $800K cash out here. So it makes it really difficult. So you can't go to some of the slower banks that are out there so once again being fluid with the market i couldn't stay with one set of guidelines that was a big thing for the reason why we structured our company the way that it is well that i was actually kind of curious about this i guess let's look specifically at sacramento um it's like back in the early 2000s there used to be like i guess more of a front lawn and a backyard and my buddy just bought a house and it's like there's like small tiny front and like

this little itty bitty backyard and i just see all these houses just getting like more compact and it's just but they're way more expensive yeah so like is it is it a difference with like the the importance that people are putting in those things or what's the deal there? Well, so I'm just fascinated by what's going to really stick from COVID. You know, what we value becomes different all the time, but we've normally had to be around wherever the jobs were. Things like that are changing. That's why you're seeing a lot of people come up here.

I think the sprawl is going to be there where people can work for a company in the Bay area and be out in the outskirts of wherever, you know, the suburbs that are there, um, track homes. I mean, I live in a Thomas track home heaven out there is what it is. I mean, the last house that I moved from had a little tiny backyard where we're at the softball or baseball field all weekend for the kids anyway. So I didn't need much when it came to that, but you know, it's, I know people are looking for more land. You just have to go farther out. If you're a builder, you, you decide what's going to go on in that neighborhood and how do you

maximize how you, how much money you make that's on the builders, right? They're going to try to pound as many, uh, lots in there as possible, make as much as possible, and you know what? People are paying for it. So unless people stop paying for it, I don't think that's going to change. Who's the guy that figured that out? One guy was like, let's just slam all these fucking houses together as much as we possibly can, and you know what? We're going to throw in a park, because if there's a park, everyone's going to be like, hey, man, I don't need the backyard. At least there's a fucking swing set over there.

A key from one window to the other. Dog park. That's all we need. Yeah. When we were, I mean, we recently, during like the lockdown and everything, we sold and then we found our new house. But no, I always tell everybody because people are like no like this has like there's something wrong with whatever insert this like room is painted funny or whatever it may be it's like yeah you don't like no you don't understand like we're we already

lost this house like what like no it's insane like somebody will live anywhere for sure there can literally be a house in the middle of i-5 and someone would be like no it's a little dangerous but like i don't know it's got potential like people don't care yeah it doesn't matter so like the uh yeah the market is insane they will i mean here's the thing uh the one part of it that i get you want something to call yours you know and rent is crazy i mean rents are going up like crazy so you know people are getting fed up with paying somebody else's bill uh and you know i i think the stigma is you got to get your foot in the door so if you got to buy whatever it might be now to allow yourself to buy the next one i think that's what people hear a lot i don't necessarily disagree with that because it's hard to come swinging for the fences and buy your first house as a $600,000 place.

Is it helpful to have already received a loan and you already got approved? Yes. Well, here's the thing, because if the people who were waiting for the market to turn the opposite direction three years ago, right? I'm going to wait until this turns. They've probably lost out on $120,000 worth of equity over three years. Once you're making a payment on a house, the balance is, although small in the beginning, the balance is going down. These things, yes, it's cyclical. The values are going up, been mostly up. Yes, it might come back down at some point, but it's still going to appreciate.

So that's your stepping stone. When you get your starter house, then eventually you'll be able to sell it, have a little bit more equity than when you bought it. And that allows you to get the bigger place is really what it is. What's equity? Equity is the home. So for example, if you buy a house for $400,000 and you're making your payments on it, you only probably need to put down 3% or 5% down. So let's say your loan is $380K on a $400K place. Because other houses sell in the market and the values are going up, your next door neighbor might, two months later, sell a house for $415,000. And then maybe you wait a little bit longer. Maybe next year, another one in your neighborhood sells for $480,000.

Equity is the amount above and beyond what you owe on the house. You had 380K as your starting loan amount. A year from now, maybe that's 370K, but the value went up. So the difference between 370K and now the new value is probably 480. You now have $110,000 of equity. What's, sorry, go ahead and say. No, you're good. Okay. What's something that potential buyers should be looking for? We got fairly lucky.

We bought in South Sac, so it wasn't the best neighborhood, but a new outdoor shopping mall went up right down the street. And so I already had that in my head, this is the stepping stone once that thing goes up like it's gonna like the value is only the skyrocket and within uh i already lost track but like maybe like two three years like we were able to make you know substantial amount of money to now we're in a more um established neighborhood like nothing new is gonna go up so that me thinking like, what's something that a potential buyer should be looking for? Is it like new development? Like this could be good or something like where I'm at now, where it's like, nothing's going to really change, but that's also really nice too. So which one do you think holds more value?

You know what? I mean, you had a lot of insight and foresight to be able to see that something was coming in. That's going to add value to the area and make it more desirable. Plus, they had an in and out. So, like, I had a huge deal. I love it. I love it. Well, I mean, the location, obviously, that's always going to be a part of real estate, you know, wherever that is and how desirable something is. you know, wherever that is and how desirable something is. So, you know, when you're looking at neighborhoods and where you want to be, obviously the schools and, uh, in the amenities that are around are going to be a big thing. Um, I'm a big fan of purchasing a home when it's like

wet outside. So you can see what's going on and, uh, and, and see how good the other property is. But another thing is, um, you know, maybe it's not your ideal location, but I like when people go back and look at the place at night. How does it look at night? Who's walking around the neighborhoods? Because if a place doesn't feel safe, those are the ones that are not going to appreciate like the others are. And it actually could go in the wrong direction. You know how that can even get out of hand. So, you know, really thinking to yourself, would a family want to buy a house here? You know, it is really what it is. And a lot of times

it's tough because it's hard to get into the areas that you would love to be in. But those are all big questions to go in and thinking that while you're making a decision on where to buy. Yeah, that's exactly what we did. So when I say this street, you're going to be like, oh, okay, but right off of Mack Road. Oh, yeah. You know? Oh, yeah. Okay. I know exactly what you're talking about.

But we did go at night, and it was weird. It was like during the holidays, and I'm like, wow, everyone has lights up. Like, it's quiet. See? But then you go a couple streets down, it's like, oh, shit, this ain't the right spot. Yeah. Agreed. But the one back there, that was cool. So that's yeah that's that's exactly what you could say the same thing about oak park

though it's been you can see that it's been changing like you know once they once you started seeing uh you know the coffee shop go into there and money being put in little by little street by street people uh were getting a little bit better so it's not immediate but i know unfortunately this isn't something that I love to even see or anything like that, but obviously there's a big divide for us to have and have nots, right? And people see real estate as an opportunity. So they see an area that's underperforming and you'll get these flippers and people who are investing in properties and fixing them up and selling them. And they see an opportunity to transform these communities and make them nice houses.

Granted, right as it's happening, it gives an opportunity for people to buy a nice place. But eventually, Oak Park is going to be priced out of people's ranges too. I mean, I don't know if you've looked over there. I don't know if you looked over there recently, but anything's kind of close to you know old soul coffee and things like that you're going around there those things are getting really expensive for small houses you know it's crazy to see i wanted to take my daughter to our old house on i already forgot the address is like 37th just to be like this is where and i look at google mapped and i'm like man it actually looks kind of nice like this is gonna fall flat yeah won't won't have the same thing that you thought

when you pulled up huh plus it's california so you're like look at that house we used to live in it's only a million dollars right like everything is so freaking expensive seriously seriously were you working back in 2008 i was. So a little better background on me. So, you know, I started in 2002 as a 22-year-old kid, got into it, and started doing really, really well out of the gate. Had my daughter at 24 years old. Then 20 months later, my son came. 2006, 2007 is right when the crash started to hit. I got a big portion of my book that talks about it.

And I learned so much from how bad that time felt. So I checked off a lot of the boxes of a crappy time in my life, going through a divorce, lost multiple properties because I bought incorrectly. That's why I feel like it's a part of me to truly talk through how to buy and no matter what the market is, buying correctly for yourself. So I lost multiple properties, had two young kids, living on friends' couches for extended amount of time. I had never stopped doing loans, but my, my, uh, college, um, summer job was working on houses. So I would leave on Thursday to go back to the Bay area, which I'm originally from work on houses, uh, Thursday through Sunday, just to, just to get by is what it is. So, uh, that crash hurt. I swore I would never come back to, to loans solely doing loans

because how bad that felt. And here I am today as an owner of a mortgage company. But you know what? You can get down on the stuff that kicks you in the teeth. And obviously I was down when all that stuff happened. But the reality of it, my kids were young enough. I didn't have to take them out of a school or anything like that. Not that anybody deserted me, but the friends that were there, man, special, you know, like getting, getting, getting me through it. And, um, I just learned about

budgeting so much. I had money came in really good and I was young, so I didn't know any better. And my overhead, literally my overhead at like 25 years old was a little bit over $8,000. This is in 2005. So I mean, money's like, that's a lot now. That's not even to pay for gas. That's not even pay for food. So just silliness, right? I know if I would have done it correctly, even back then, even the crash, I would have been okay. So now the theory, not the theory, what I live by, and this is in business and everything, keep overhead super low. So you never have to make a decision based on if I need the money to come in. That's freedom when you get to make your decision with a clear conscience,

just knowing what's best for me and my family. So yeah, I lived through the crash. It's actually part of me that really helped shape me. So I'm grateful that it didn't hurt me more. But man, it was a tough time, man. Would you say ultimately the goal is to not necessarily buy a house, but the goal is to at some point own shit and not have any debt? Correct. So I think it gets kind of misconstrued. People are like, I have to buy a house, but maybe they don't understand, you know, getting

into the game and getting your feet wet and buying a house is great. But ultimately, you want to figure out a way to own that thing completely, own it outright. Same thing with your cars, whatever vehicles you have or anything else you have. It's nice if you just own it outright and don't have any debt. Correct. And here's the thing. One thing that I really love about my job is I get to deal with people's finances. And over the years, I just get to ask people about how they make their money, how they like their job.

I really liked gathering that information. And the reality is I've seen some of the absolute happiest people under the sun who have true freedom that may have a couple investment properties and their cash flowing and they got about four or $5,000 coming in, but they have no debt on their house. So the reality is they can go to sleep every night and wake up every morning, guarantee that they're going to make this money. And they have little to no overhead. Their overhead is under a thousand dollars. They got three, $4,000 to spend each month on what they want to do. That's actual freedom. So to me, I'm around super successful people making crazy amounts of money. Their stress level was way

up there, most of them. And so I'm more fascinated with the person making $6,000 to $8,000 or $5,000 to $8,000 and don't have any debt. Because if you get to wake up and do what you want to do on a daily basis, that's the richest person that I am. That's who I want to be. You could have a $50 million company, but you can also have, maybe not have played your cards correctly. And there could be somebody that makes maybe a hundred or even less who's played their cards correctly and has everything kind of heading in the right direction where they will be debt-free at some point. 100% correct. And it fascinates me. And I share those stories with my clients all the time. So it puts it into perspective. I talk about the crash all the time because here's the thing.

The people, we have people losing their houses left and right during the crash, right? Including my clients. And, but the ones that purchased correctly and barring losing your job during that time, let's say if they bought the house at 400K, their house might've went down to $200,000. That's it. Like, so they're upside down or whatever the case may be. However, if they weren't overextending themselves and they kept their job or was able to get by on there, they were still paying down their 30-year fixed loan, little by

little. You know what happened once we got to 2014, 2015, all the equity is back plus some, and they never skipped a beat. They didn't lose their house. They never had a late payment or anything like that. So that's why I stress the right time to buy is when it fits your budget. If you know you want to live in this area and these are what the houses go for, I can show you what 3% down or 5% down, or if you have more money, of course, the more money you put down, the lower that monthly payment is going to be. Then we start to look at your budget. And then I ask the questions about where's the fluff in the budget? Although I can see the stuff that's on paper, we all know how much we spend on Dutch Brothers and Starbucks and you know how it goes. So, you know, we got to ask

those questions. So, you know, Cam, my business partner and I, we're big on challenging people. So we ask the tough questions and we make them we, we make, make them answer those. And that's how you buy correctly. Yeah. Love what you said there about being able to afford it because, uh, I'm sure you guys have the same thing in your families, but I got family members who are always talking about the market. They like, as if they know some insider shit that, that none of the rest of us know about all the time, you know, it doesn't matter when you, when you talk about buying or selling they have some inside oh that's not whatever whatever you say at the time is the opposite of you know whatever and i'm always just thinking hey fuck all this man let's just go make more money yeah you know don't worry about it or they'll use that as an excuse for uh like i don't

know go to this fancy restaurant market is down right now you know let's let's just hit a mcdonald's or they won't invest in themselves yeah yeah they won't invest in themselves it's the same like i said it's been people who have been saying that the market's going to crash and i i never act like i know what it's going to be i've been wrong about the interest rates for like four years straight so i mean i just oh it can't be this low forever it has to be going back up i've literally said that to my clients, but here we are. I was giving people two and a half percent interest rates with no points just a couple months ago. How long do you think this will last?

Get out your crystal ball. So I already told you that I've got it wrong for four years in a row. So this is going to be good from this point forward. I guarantee it. We've got it on record if you do predict it correctly. Oh, man. this point forward. I guarantee it. We got it on record. If you do predict it correctly. Oh man. Here's water.

If you want it. My, my true, I think it's going to settle down because our economy obviously took a hit. And, uh, I, it,

what's crazy about right now is our economy is built up on PPP money and, and bail out stuff. So people are actually doing really well right now. Some people and others have fought their way through it, but it's artificial. And I do not think that the Fed are going to raise rates in the middle of all this stuff coming to a head and inflation is crazy like that. So I think the rates for, you know, my, my guess is that they're going to tinker around in the mid, uh, mid, mid threes for a while.

Uh, cause they, they can't hit the, the double whammy of when stuff starts coming around from this COVID stuff. It's been a flash in the pan, you know, you know, we've been talking a lot about like financial literacy and I mean,

I wish that I was able to learn a lot about this stuff when I was a teenager, when I was younger. What are some books, resources, people that maybe you think people should start paying attention to watching some of their YouTube videos that you pay a lot of attention to? Well, right now, so I, I, I follow a lot of industry specific stuff. specific stuff. I'm not sure if who I'm following is stuff that would be great for, um, for, you know, somebody outside of the industry, cause I'm trying to stay ahead of what the curve is and everything. So I don't have the best insight, but, uh, I know I always touch on when we're talking about financial literacy or whatever your interest is. One of the things that's so different about now is you just have so much access to incredible information and it's free so i'm not sure i can give you a name of who to follow but if this is something that interests you just doing the search and hearing like i i just like hearing people talk

through it you know and and have their predictions of what it is. I never take it for absolute gold, but you know, when, when I'm interested in certain things, I get my audibles, I download a bunch of stuff that's on that topic. I'm looking at stuff on YouTube on that topic. And, um, it, it, especially when it comes to finances, you'll get a lot of stuff that makes it super, super complex. Um, you know, I, I, uh, Tony, Tonyony robbins money master the game i i love that book it's really it kind of breaks it down and it's it's really basic when it comes to that but um you know if you have a passion if you really want to know about it there's so much out there and i really think that that's what people are missing is trying to trying to educate themselves on stuff that they're not not uh up on you know

it's it's interesting it it's not that i think any of this stuff is simple but for example investing or whatever in the stock market right um i'm i think i'm done with that type of stuff i am too but i just like invested some money and i let it sit and i've like things have gone really well just because like i i keep it simple i i've like things have gone really well just because like i i keep it simple i don't take anything out i just keep it there yeah right and it's still interesting hearing like when people when i hear some people talk about investing and maybe it's just much more difficult than i think it is but it's like they make it sound so complex and stuff and i think it's partially because now anybody could go and download something and invest.

Whereas back in, I guess, 2010, you could, but it was a lot harder to have access to it. And it seemed like this up in the air type of stock market. Wealthy. Wealthy. Exactly right. Here's the thing. I do have a little take on that. And it might not be, and it's not specifically about investing in, I don't care if we're talking about crypto or in the stock market, but owning multiple companies and I've had some opportunities to invest in other companies and everything like that. I know how to value, for example,

when we're buying our laundromat locations, we're looking at books, we're looking at tax returns and what you're making net profit. You put a multiplier towards it to kind of come up with a value of what that business is. But when new business opportunities get brought to me, I make them talk to me like I'm five-year-old. Hey, I don't know nothing about this. Just explain to me in simplest of forms. When people make it super complex, that lets you know that somebody's getting an extra cut somewhere. They're trying to keep you in the dark. You just have to learn how the money flows. It's really simple.

A lot of business structures. Like I said, I'm not talking about crypto here. That's a foreign language to me. But when we're talking about businesses, it's a lot more simple than people make it. You just have to follow the money and what the paperwork says, what the tax return says, what does your balance sheet say? It's a lot more simple of what it is. And that kind of goes with a lot of different industries. What about getting out of debt?

Just again, I'm one year, not even one year into my new house. And yeah, it's my only debt right now. It is. Yeah. I got rid of everything else. But now do I, and I'm trying to remember the rate. I might be wrong, but I want to say it was like under 2%. Under 2%.

Yeah. That's an incredible rate. I know. I'm like, well, like 1,999. So I've seen that on some rate sheets. It costs a bunch to get down there on it. That's what people were advertising. So I'm not sure if you paid a bunch of money to get down to 1.99. Now, excuse me, VA loans and FHA loans were way down there. So I'm not sure what type of loan you

have, but conventional loans, when we're talking about no points gotten to the mid twos, but they would advertise 1.99 and it would cost thousands of dollars to get to that number yeah i didn't spend a lot on it and in fact i think it came back it was like two something and then like right at the very end they're like oh wait hold on so you're the one person who knows how to time the market perfectly seriously that's awesome this is why like okay and then all right totally bragging right now grant cardone was like well you got lucky yeah seriously seriously cardone said that and that's why you see my reaction to it because um you know time in any kind of market that's why i'm laughing at what you say because people always talk to me about market and everything

like that people don't know with i mean i've studied this stuff i don't know it's like people planning out the traffic you're like there's always fucking traffic in california the five freeways always packed you wouldn't believe it mark this morning the traffic holy shit like it was exactly like yesterday and the way it will be tomorrow don't go that way you need to take this and you're like dude i'm just gonna there's gonna be traffic I'm just going to, there's going to be traffic. I'm just going to go sit in, okay? So my question in regards to like, okay, is like the 15-year thing or is it the 30 and then pretend that it's 15? Like, is that one? Great, great question. And I speak with people about this all the time. So just so everybody knows, a 30-year fixed interest rate and a 15-year fixed interest rate are going to be different.

It's usually about a half a point different. Right now, rates for 30-year fixed, zero are going to be different. It's usually about a half a point different. Right now, rates for 30-year fixed zero points are right around 2.99%. So a 15-year might be a half a point lower. We're at 2.49%. But you pay it off in such a short amount of time, the payment goes up a lot. Even with the better interest rate, you're paying it off in half the time. So I'm a big fan of a 15-year. If I put an amortization schedule together next to each other, so an amortization schedule is something that breaks down your payment and it shows how much goes towards the principal and how much goes towards the interest. The difference between a 15 year and a 30 year is literally, it's six figures and it's well into the six figures, the amount of

interest that you save over the life of the loan. So I'm a big, big fan of it. However, because I know what life does, I've been through the crash. And so I give people what that option is. Even though the interest rate's higher, I tell people what the 30-year fixed rate is, but I'll tell them what payment it takes to get you on track to be done in 15 years. And as for qualifying for other things, on your credit report, it has the lower payment. Even if you're paying, if the regular payment is $1,500, but the 15-year payment is $2,300, on your credit report, it shows the lower payment. So it helps you qualify for other things, right? Your debt to income ratio is a big thing. It's

how much money you make versus how much money you're spending each month. Right. That's crazy. So if you go with the 30 year, even if you're making the 15 year payment, it's easier to qualify for things. And what happens when something pops up in life, you know, something happens to your car, you got to need that. I like that flexibility because I've seen that and I've felt it myself. So I'm a big fan of going that route.

However, when we do look at the 15 year, if that is a comfortable payment, I'm a big fan of going that route. However, when we do look at the 15 year, if that is a comfortable payment, I am a big fan of a 15 year because I want, although I deal with banks all day, every day, the one part of the transaction I don't care about making any more money is the bank. So I'm going to let all people know how to pay them the least amount of interest over the life of the loan. And a 15 year is one of the tools to do that. Cool. And then, so one of the questions we did get on the live chat was about refinancing. They didn't specify anything, but like, when is the right time to refi? I know that's very general, but I'm sure, I mean, you've dealt with a lot of different people in different situations. So what has been your advice for refinancing?

Great question. And this is kind of a twofold answer here. First and foremost, people in different situations. So what has been your advice for refinancing? Great question. And this is a kind of a twofold answer here. First and foremost, anytime you can save a half a point or more, it's a no brainer. That's like kind of just the general rule of thumb. As long as you can save a half a point or more, then you're going to save a ton of money over the life of the loan. However, there's a way to structure a refinance that is probably not like what most people do. And I'll give you this example. So if you're at a three and a half percent interest rate and the going interest rates right now are 2.75%, but you do have to, even if it's no points, there's still an underwriting fee, there's still title, it might be an appraisal. So you're probably going to add a few thousand dollars to that loan. Sometimes what we do is we structure it so people don't

have to start back. When you refinance, you start back over at a 30 year or 15 year. A lot of times what we're doing, let's say you're two years into your loan and we can get your interest rate down. Maybe you don't take the absolute lowest at the time. Maybe you take a 2.875% don't take the absolute lowest at the time, maybe you take a 2.875% or so, but maybe that has a $3,000 credit that covers all closing costs. We have the ability to put you back into not a 30 year fix. We can put it back into a 28 year or 27 year. If you take not the lowest interest rate, but you have all closing costs paid, you're not adding to the balance, you're starting right there, and you still have the same amount of years that's left, then you've just saved that money per month. However, we also put it in front of people to where you obviously are making the payment at whatever that payment is. If we can put you into

a 28-year loan, cover all closing costs, same loan, you haven't started back over, but you keep your payment the same, most of the time you'll be paying that thing off in like 24 years or 23 years. Once again, that's a way to get ahead. You already were making that payment. What drawback would you have if your loan amount's the same, your interest rate's lower, your payment's the same, and I just cut off four years on your loan? Would you say no to that? Probably not. There's no reason not to on that. So it's not to me, and this is what I do on my that? Probably not. There's no reason not to on that. So it's not to me, and this is what I do on my own finances as well. It's not always about getting the absolute lowest rate. Granted, if you got the lower rate and you pay the $3,000, if you're not going to refinance again, you will save money over the life of the loan. However, if you haven't

started back over, what if that rate dips about a little bit more? Can I get a quarter in? I mean, we can do it again. You never are stepping back into the 30-year fix. So there's an art to it. We talk about it all. Ultimately, the client will tell us which way that we go, but we want to refinance and roll that all into one thing because the better rates and whatnot. Do you recommend people do stuff like that? So we do it all the time. Ultimately, it's the client's decision.

The interest rates being low, I'm a fan of because you're borrowing money at a lower interest rate than you were would on most car loans. However, if you spread that $30,000, even at a lower interest rate over a 30 year period of time, you're paying a lot more interest over that amount of time. So if we're looking at pure dollars out, you're actually going to pay more. You save more per month. I mean, it immediately gives you some leeway. I just want to bring that to people's attention because people do it all the time. Once again, you can pull that amortization schedule and show you the interest, even if it's at two and a half percent, what you're going to pay over a 30 year period of time. And it's going to be a lot more than the interest would have been paid at the, let's say a five year car loan. Yeah. Cause when you put it all in front of you, it looks amazing. I know it's a big break. It is. It is. But you've mentioned points a handful of times. What, what do you mean by points? All right. Great question. I'm sorry. I talk a loan lingo all the time. I keep forgetting to slow down and break it down a little bit. So

a point is 1% of whatever the loan amount is. So when people are advertising an interest rate in the fine print, this will show a certain amount of points being charged. So if you have a $300,000 loan amount, if you're getting charged one point, it will cost $3,000 of closing costs. That's the simplest way to put it. So advertisements almost always will have a crazy low interest rate, but it's filled with a bunch of points. You don't know what that number is until you call. That's how they get you to dial the number. And I always talk about no points because we all start with the rate that doesn't cost you to get to it. Granted, I always give people the options, but not a fan of people paying uh to get to an interest rate it's just not that's my

preference got it and then so uh i just got clarification i gotta come out it was 2.9 not 1.9 1.9 so the race did get to the mid twos for a little bit. It's back up to right around 2.99 right now. That's how it takes my life. I never thought I'd be selling interest rates in the twos. I never did. I mean, when I started, we were doing fours and fives, you know? So, I mean, the fact that we are even still talking about that right now, I didn't think I was going to be doing it without charging a bunch. But it's incredible.

Cool. So with the new house, there are some things that we would like to redo. you know, it's a little bit older again, like I said, established. Yep. Um, so for something like that, refi or like a home loan or home line of credit to start like building on stuff, which, uh, you know, approach do you think is better? So home equity line of credit is a higher interest rate than what the first is. Um, home equity line of credit is a higher interest rate than what the first is. Now, I personally like flexibility of the home equity line of credit because you can pay it down and use it like a credit card on your house is really what it is. I'm not a fan of credit cards, but having the flexibility for me works because of what I have going and everything. But most

people, when they get a home equity line of credit, do not have an exit plan. So just so you know, if you get a home equity line of credit, it will be a slightly higher interest rate. Let's say that interest rate is four and a half percent, but the payment on it is an interest only payment. All home equity lines of credit are like that. They have a couple versions of it where they can tell you more, but you fall in love with this monthly payment and that balance isn't going down. So for the first 10 years, you're making payments and that balance stays exactly the same. Once you hit 10 years, then you have to pay it off in the next 20 years for the full payment. And that's the sticker shock of what really kills people.

So I'm all perfectly fine with the home equity line of credit if we know we have to go in with an exit plan. Do you plan to make more of a payment each month to get this thing down starting from the beginning? Do we know that money, you know, I got commissions at my job or whatever the case may be and when commissions come or something like that. See, those are all acceptable answers when I make sure I ask my clients those things. Now, interest rates are still good. You can pull cash out and get the same interest rate or a little bit below of what you have right now. So I always love 30-year fix.

You know, it's something that won't change on you. So there's never a wrong way to go that route. I don't mind home equity line of credit, but it comes with that asterisk that I was talking about and when do you think it is a good time for a second home a second home so now a second home are you talking about moving out of your existing home into another primary residence yes so okay and in I believe that's similar to what I talked about in the beginning to buy when it's right. So, um, some people have the ability to move out of their house and not sell it and, uh, to buy the next one and, you know, a primary residence rate on it, like a 2.99.

Even if you left and bought your next place, you have this great interest rate and you get to rent it out and see what those numbers look like. However, a lot of people need the money out of their house to purchase that one. That's how you step up and get to the next, the bigger house in the better area or whatever the case may be. This falls into the category of it's hard to time the market correctly. If you wanted to sell right now, it would be super easy for you to sell. It wouldn't be that easy to buy. You'd be up against eight other offers and everything like that. So it'd be really tricky right now. Many people are doing it, but you have to have very strong offers that go in. So this is another one where we look at the

budget. If you have to buy, if you have to sell your existing home or not to get the next one. And if that monthly payment on the new one is going to be something that stretches you out or not. So that's no different from what I'd be going through if you're purchasing your first house. Got it. Yeah. Cause somebody in the live chat was actually at there in Sacramento right now, they're checking, you know, like the Redfin app and stuff. They're seeing that the value on there at least is going up. They want to move from there to Woodland, which I understand Woodland's pretty damn competitive as well. It still is.

Yeah. So, yeah, they were just asking, you know, like, is the market still the way it is right now in this area? Yeah. So it is. It's so easy to sell. It's crazy to buy. Once again, you win a home, you don't buy a home right now. So that's the unknown is how that next transaction is going to go. Like I just talked to you guys about earlier, because of these family formations happening and people wanting to buy their first house, it's like this big, you know, the hose, a big part of the hose coming into one little amount. It's just not going to be feasible for us to have enough houses for people who want to buy.

I don't think that's going away anytime soon. People are leaving in droves from the Bay Area, and they really like to be out in this area right now. So I don't think that's going away anytime soon. now. So I don't think that's going away anytime soon. So that next purchase is my question for the unknown about the person who was asking that question. Sorry, I had just a bunch of questions. Charles Brook committed mine stuff just hit really hard and so I had this shit all kinds of it just hit pretty good.

I was curious about individuals who, because the field of like real estate is lending, it's really popular for people. It is. So, you know, you, I think you said you graduated, you got your degree. How helpful do you think that was for what you do right now? And this should somewhat like, you don't need a degree to get into that, but should people just like, if they want to do that, should they just head right there after high school and figure that out? Uh, it was funny as I promised my mom, I would get my MBA. Um, I graduated, uh, with a business degree with a concentration in real estate cause I didn't know what I wanted to do in college. And once again, my friend was killing it, doing loans.

So sure. Concentrate in real estate. Um, the only thing that that allowed me to do, I didn't have to wait five years before I got my actual broker's license. So I was, I was two years into less than two years into my career. And I was able to take the test for my broker's license. I didn't use the broker's license, allow me to own a company and be the broker of record. And obviously we're seven years into our company being open. I didn't even use it until then. I just wanted to make sure I had

the paper for when the opportunity came up. So I told my mom, I was like, Hey, if it made, if it made a difference in my paycheck, any way, shape or form, I would get my MBA, but it doesn't, you don't even have to have a college degree to get into what we have. Not telling people not to go get your college degree because of it, but you can start doing real estate and still study as well. Even studying for my real estate exam and having to pass the broker's test and everything like that, I use a fraction of what I study for. You get in here, it's relationships, it's do you have your word, can you work with people, and learning the systems to create a great customer experience. You don't learn that in a classroom. You just don't.

That's something, get part of a good team that's going to teach you and show you the ropes and go in there. For anybody who's interested in it, go in there with having your client's best interest involved, not what your paycheck is. If you do that, I think you'll be just fine in this industry. You said you're not interested, or you said, uh, you don't recommend credit cards, uh, or you're not a fan of them. So, um, you know, credit cards, the interest rates are crazy. It's, you know, why it's so easy to get a credit card because they're so profitable for the people who are handing them out. And that's why they're there. When you're step foot on campus, they want to give you your first one while you're in college and start you on the wrong path for most people. That's how they get into credit card debt. Um, it keeps you in the cycle. You make these payments,

these minimum payments, you never get ahead. And it affects your credit score. And it just, it hampers you from being able to save. And the reality is because I went through the crash and ran up cards just to try to get by and everything, I didn't even want a credit card afterward. I knew I had to reestablish credit and everything like that. And I did, you know, but, um, it's, it's something that is a tool for, if you use it correctly, it could be a good thing because if you pay that thing off every single month, that's perfectly fine. You can rack up some points, you get some airline miles, but you should never put anything on your credit card that you don't have the money for in your bank account. That's my opinion. It's a rabbit hole that

keeps people away from their goals if you go down it. You just need to know how to use it correctly. Correct. Yeah, it could be something potentially dangerous for a lot of people. It's real easy to have that credit card hooked to a bunch of stuff. You don't really pay attention to that much. There's reoccurring charges on there. It's hooked to like your Amazon account or something. And you're picking up stuff here and there that you're not even just not even really paying attention.

But over time, it could equal a lot. You know what? They make it so easy now. And I'm not convinced that it's not just to trick us. You know, keep spending on that thing and you don't even think twice about it half the time until you see that bill at the end of the month. So the convenience factor is cool, but I think it's designed to make sure that we're spending as everything we can. I think my wife was connected to like a Amazon cart, like a food cart of some sort. And it's like $6.99. But then the next year it goes up to $22.99.

And she didn't know that until her mom brought it up. And she's like, I didn't know that. I was like, it probably says it when you sign up. Like no one probably realizes it. Oh, no. It's like there's all kinds of shit like that going on where you're like, you know, thinking that you're signing up for one thing. And the next thing you know, you're getting charged, you know, three times the amount.

That is a recurring theme. I mean, that's, they're designed to do that. Just get you in and who, there's a lot of people don't even check that. Maybe you check your, your statement, you know, a few times a year or not every time. And maybe, maybe that renewals on the one that you, you were busy because you were vacationing or something like that. Who knows? But it's designed for that, man.

They're, they're not stupid. What about cryptocurrency? You know anything about that? Man, I know I bought some Bitcoin when it was a lot cheaper than it is right now. On a whim, I put a decent amount of money when it was $17,000 at the time. It immediately dropped afterwards, played around with some other coins for a little bit i know nothing about it uh but you know it kind of got back up to the amount that i put in and i sold and i don't like talking about it anymore with where it is right now no it's fascinating that that uh crypto is absolutely fascinating me when i talk to the people who you know like know about the mining and have friends that are doing it and everything.

It's mind boggling to me. For me, I'm obviously in finance. I love talking about numbers and everything like that. If I can't figure something out, I'm like, there's something wrong. And I cannot wrap my brain around this thing, man. I mean, if you start using a Bitcoin the way you could use a credit card, it might flip the credit card companies upside down on their head. Oh, man. Yeah.

PayPal accepts. They do. Yeah. So that's going to be a huge shift in the way we look at crypto right now. Didn't one of the NFL players want his salary in Bitcoin? Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. Oh, shit.

That's cool. I think he got okayed for it i can't remember the name of the guy but i was like oh okay yeah there was a full bitcoin um house sale in davis the first full bitcoin house sale this was a while ago now this was uh over a year ago now and that caught my eye i'm like whoa somebody i mean there's there's not small amounts over in davis either that was a big transaction i'm like okay i mean you can't ignore what's going on i've i got a lot of financial advisors around me and i know i was golfing with one a little bit over a year ago and this dude was going freaking crazy about it like just irritated through the

all hell about what cryptocurrency is like, man, you can calm down. It's cool. I mean, you don't have to get in. But so, you know, the people who work in it and, you know, want everything to make sense, even there, they're like, it's a fake. It's not. It's not. It's here. It's real. It's a real thing. You mentioned earlier, you know, trying to like get out of the office, you know, get away from the business that you can focus on the business. What does something like getting on a golf course do? Like, I mean, I've never played around a golf, but people always tell me that like some big ass business deals go on on the golf course. People are more relaxed or they might have had a couple of drinks.

They're a little looser and it's different than being like in a boardroom, right? It is eye opening when I took it up and, you know, I love being out on the course. I'll tell you that shoot, Cam and I's our business. We, when we started to expand,

I mean, it was almost exclusively done on the golf course. Anytime I get four, four and a half hours with somebody, we get to talk about business. We get to talk about personal stuff. I'm a big culture guy. So I want, you know, the, the type of people around that we're going to enjoy doing this together and everything like that. And I get to see, I mean, how do you deal with pressure? Are you a club thrower? Like, you know, like all, all that stuff goes on out there. You get a big chance to,

to really talk about it all. But, know but that's little like a small little golden bay mortgage group out there trying to do it these are the top ceos are at these clubs that that we have i mean we're members of el macero out in davis but you know we've played at at north ridge and all these top places and it's it's the leaders of our region are out there and that's where they meet their people. Uh, it's crazy. It's crazy.

What is it that, like helped you get better as far as sales and people skills over the years? Cause like, were you always, I mean, you played sports or whatever, but were you always outgoing? Not at all.

Uh, I'm a, I'm a, um, recovering introvert. Um, uh, people always kind of laugh with that cause they because they hear me speak and I can talk with anybody now. I just genuinely like listening to people and their story and everything. So that part interests me. But for me, even though I'm in sales, I hate salesy people. I don't want to be sold on anything. You've heard me already talk about it.

I give people a lot of facts and tell what the paths are. They're in complete control about which option that's there. I just got to let them know what the guidelines and the rules are behind the scenes. But I'm super thankful for being in this industry because one of the things of being in sales in general, and you talked about Grant Cardone and you go some of these big time events and even small events. I've learned a lot over the years and I use it daily with my kids and things like that. It's just communicating better. In sales, you want to convey what you're about and do it in the right way. I could say the same thing that my business partner says to the same person, but in a different format, and it could be received completely different. And it's nothing but wanting to make sure that I communicate correctly and

effectively and things like that. So I've taken more from this industry personally, meaning how I communicate with the kids and staying positive and and trying to bring the best out of people i've used it as a tool for for that so in this a lot i mean one of the it was a small sales uh event but they had a whole section on like communicating with your kids and it has set me up Like we talked about the first six years and the words that you put in, like you're, you're, you're, you're, um, putting the foundation of their subconscious, you know, how we, we see something and we react to, we don't know why.

It's probably something that happened between zero and six years old is what it is. So I took, I was taken back by it. That was at a sales conference thing is what it is. So, um, once again, I hate salesy stuff. You'll just, I just hit people with facts and they, and they know I care and we're just trying to put them in the right situation. So I I'm super thankful being in sales, although I don't like sales, salesy stuff, you know? Perfect segue. Um, how do you plan or how do you teach your kids about money? Um, because so, my daughter, she's 12.

She's, this was many years ago now, but I use this story that, like, she doesn't really understand, like, the concept of money. So, it's like, which I love because then she's not really, like, you know, like, money hungry. That sounds bad. But, like, she went to buy ice cream and she had, like, a $20 bill. And, you know, the ice cream was, like, two bucks or whatever. Here's the thing that's going to get me that. Here you go. And she just like walked away. Like, hey, you got to get your change,

you know? And then, you know, so my son, he's now, I think like two and a half months old. So I want to, you know, educate him without going too far one way or the other. So again, how are you handling that? Great question. And I got a really specific thing. I'll give you a backstory. When right before the market tanked, one of our bank reps showed up at our loan office and he brought in a board game. It's Robert Kiyosaki, Cashflow, sat down, played it with us. I was like 26 years old at the time, but the market was tanking. We had 8K of overhead and didn't know how I was going to get out, play this game. And I was like, why didn't somebody tell me about this?

If I would have known this in the beginning, this is something that I should play with every kid under the sun. College students, I would want to go into the Sac State locker room and play this with them and start having the conversations about money and things like that they have a kid's version of it I've plain been playing that with my kids from when they're young now I have a 14 year old daughter 12 year old son a six year old son so the older two if we've graduated to the full game but you know what's super cool I mean although you know they they're not that concerned about money, but when we started playing it, you know, they would, you know, say vacations on a credit card. Ooh, that's bad.

I was like, yeah, that's right. That's bad. You know, like, I mean, it's cool to have those conversations, but now like my 12 year old, like ask about stocks and stuff, because that's a card in the game. So that Robert Kiyosaki cashflow flow game honestly is life-altering cam and i um did a a talk over at endercombe high school over in the thomas and it was they they had a college prep uh class like um program that that brought in people so i did the podcast with them but then they wanted us to speak to their kids and that's literally one of the things right before covid we brought and we bought a couple

of the games. These games aren't cheap. They're a couple hundred bucks. I mean, so we bought a couple of the games and we said, Hey, we want to set, we want to come back and play this with you and have the conversations of it. So it's just amazing when you can pull the card in the beginning and there's a doctor, but your overhead is high. And there's, there's a janitor. It makes way less doctor, but your overhead is high. And there's a janitor,

it makes way less money, but the overhead is low. And the only way that you can get out of the rat race, you go in this circle. The only way you could get out of the rat race is if your passive income, the money that's coming in, no matter what you do, if you work or not, is above what your outgoing money is. You get out of the rat race and you go start chasing your dream. I thought that was just an absolute genius game. And that's what i play with my kids and they they have a good understanding of what we're talking about doing yeah that game's hella expensive it is it is i looked at we had robert on the podcast and i was like oh you're gonna check that out i have the kids version of it i have both versions of it and i'm more than happy to share it with anybody in here that could get some use out of it because it's been something that's been huge with my kids.

Can't afford not to buy it. Yeah, there you go. It's just like the coaching thing, right? Now what I know about it, pay three times the amount of that game is seriously setting them up for, for some big stuff. So it seems like you always had a strong mindset, uh, you know, playing basketball and taking basketball to a high level and now, uh, taking business to a high level. Uh, did a lot of this come from, uh, your upbringing from your parents, uh, where you grew up, anything like that? Well, so I'm originally from the Bay area. I grew up in Oakland. Um,

my mom was a nurse at Highland hospital in Oakland. She was the main trauma unit down there. My dad was a nurse over at Alta Bates in Berkeley. He was in the burn unit for most of his career. Obviously, I'm not in any of that field. It never was something that I wanted to get into, but my parents were both badasses. And what I mean by that is because they never wanted to miss games, miss practices. My brother was into sports as well. He's eight years older than me,

but they just traveled around with us wherever it was, but they would both work graveyard just so they wouldn't miss nothing. So my dad used to work all night. And so I'm a freshman in high school. He was helping coach in the freshmen team. I was on JV for the first half of the year and got moved up to varsity my freshman year. So he wasn't even my team, but he always just wanted to be around and help and everything like that. And work all night, hit his coffee, do the morning practice. He'd go sleep for a little bit while we're in school and come back and help with the practice in the afternoon. It's really hard for somebody like me to complain about anything when you have people busting their ass on a daily basis. So yes, that was a long answer to get to yes,

but it's because they show me it's not even in the same industry or whatever the case may be. I just don't accept the limitations that we put on it. If you want to be there, it's a priority. You're going to make it happen. I find it fascinating. You know, I think, uh, great examples,

mentors, idols are, I think for everybody there within arm's reach, because I believe that everyone has somebody regardless of your circumstances. I know people grow up with horrible circumstances. They grow up with shitty parents, but they usually somewhere, somehow,

some way they end up close enough to somebody. And I think that we should keep our eyes open to that because, you know, your parents go into a practice when they're working a graveyard shift. You could kind of look at that and probably the graveyard shift the next day even. So like they're literally going around with no sleep for a while. Yeah. Okay. It's yeah okay it's the it's your parent you know so you i don't know they love you they're gonna go but there's no like i don't know there's no like real crazy reward at the end of that for kobe bryant to stay after

a game after he missed a three-pointer and to shoot three-pointers you could logically you can say okay well there's millions of dollars on the line for a musician to play his guitar longer than people were there. It all makes sense. Like he messed up. He felt like he needs to perfect his craft. But for a parent to do that is it's unbelievable. And I think it goes unnoticed. A lot of times I grew up, you know, Bo Jackson was my hero, Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan. I loved all these athletes. And I was, I wasn't until I was, you know, nearly 40 years old that I was like, oh my God, my hero lives with me my entire life. It's my dad, you know, he's five foot four and does taxes. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't appreciate it back then. You know, I was just trying, trying to play basketball and, you know,

but it just didn't allow me to complain. And then as I grew and matured, that's when, just like you said, it was, um, that's when you really, really noticed. So, um, man, it's just crazy, but you're right. Um, that just, it just like sport when you get to see, even when you see it from afar, when you see like the example that's big. And, um, it's usually, I mean, a lot of times it's not within your family, but there is somebody around and that's why you just keep wanting to get that, that, that word out that,

you know, no matter what the situation is with, with the concentration at the drive and you all have the ability to do it. That's really, really what you want to keep spreading with people. Um, but a lot of times kids don't hear it, man.

What is the, uh, gave you the confidence to kind of switch gears and make a whole book? Yeah, man, it's still, to me, it's weird that it's a thing. I didn't enjoy reading when I was a kid. Every time I was reading, I thought I could be working on my jump shot, so I didn't have any interest in it. I was a, I thought I could be working on my jump shot. So I didn't have any interest in it. I was a math guy. Um, so when, when my business coach challenged me to do it, um, that's once again, goes back to coaching, right? Like, uh, our business coach and he thought that was the next step. Uh, and I had to, had to come up with an idea of what it is. And if I was going to write

about something, it would be about two things that I cared about the most. And, you know, being an athlete is the foundation and business is where I have a passion for now. So it's combining the two and it gives another avenue to be able to help. And once again, because stuff just kind of works itself out, if you're out there trying to help and do good things in and around your community and things like that. I was just hoping that this would allow me to do so. And so it's, once again, it's weird to think that's an actual physical book and it went on Amazon and it was number one in the U S and Canada.

I am amazed that we even reached a point for that being that it was so outside of the comfort zone, but that's what 2020 was, uh, getting as uncomfortable as possible. And, you know, a lot of, a lot of late night edits and, you know, tired, tired eyes looking at this stuff during the middle of a pandemic and, and our business going crazy is what went into it. So. In terms of being successful in business, uh, what's a free throw? So in terms of being successful in business, uh, what's a free throw? Free throw is, uh, something that was very hard for me for a while, but I was a decent shooter, but, um, there's, there's, uh, I mean, in business, I don't think there is a free throw in business.

Everything has to, uh, in, in, let's, I guess, let's put that into context. Even a free throw takes a lot of takes a lot of effort to get correctly. Yes, it's a simple movement, but you have to work on it over and over again. So I believe the free throws are the things that are organization, the extra time, the preparation, and things like that. And that sets you up to be able to swing for the fences and take that three point three pointer here and there so um i i would say the free throws are the the preparation and and uh the small little individual acts that put you into a position for success what about a rebound oh the 2009 2010 like after you get hit and knocked down We had somebody recently They bro-scienced their day

And they said that they use Our buddy Bart Kwan He said that he uses a bro-split with his Work ethic, so he'll take Monday might be, he might work on Instagram, emails And then the next day he might work on TikTok and YouTube and so on

Just as if he was doing chest And TOK and YouTube and then, and so on. That is just as if he was doing, you know, chest and biceps one day, triceps and back the next and so forth. Oh man, that is crazy. I got to put some thought into that, that, uh, man, uh, I know there is, uh, an application to, to what's your version of us. Let's, let's, uh, play it, play it this way. What's your version of a half court shot? Like what's the, what's the thing that you just had to throw up at the end and just fucking go for it. That actually worked out. Uh, I would say the laundromats, uh, is what it was, man. My, uh, so you already know this. We got this book, we got the second book halfway written already, man. Uh, it was my, my father passed just over three years ago and I actually didn't own a laundromat at the time. Um, a business partner and I, um, on those, he was talking about it for a while. And it,

you know, when, when you lose somebody you care about and it's that close, you know, you're never ready for your, your father to pass, but be having three kids and, you know, you keep putting stuff off and, you know, like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to do this a little bit later. And, uh, and you know, when time is running'm gonna do this a little bit later and uh and you know when time is running out you got to take some some big swings or try to take that half court shot and that's what this was um got our first location and in less than three years we added four more so a total of five so um the the half court shot is regular for a steph curry but for most people it's uh it's something that's something that is shooting for the moon is

really what it is. Why laundromats? You know what? The guy who taught me how to do loans way back in 2002, Dominique Ibarra, he's my business partner on the laundromats. When the crash happened, he used his real estate license to go to a company that buys commercial properties, develops laundromats, and they usually sell the business. And they also sell the equipment as

well. So I did have an inside scoop on that being that we teamed up and he was in the business. But when it comes to kind of the pillars of investing, what people want to put money into, that's one of the three things that they talk about, laundromats, storage units, mobile home park type places. You know, these are things that are always going to be needed.

Come on, man. Can we get a frozen yogurt shop? I invest in those, meaning buy a lot. But, but yeah, that's so,

because it was one of those pillars and I had a little bit of, and that's how I ended up at those. And, and, you know, it's, it's cool. Cause we have a service at Golden Bay mortgage group. You know, somebody comes to us, we have a service and we do that. It's a different type of service, but it's a location and service that people need. And we run these things like, uh, like, like Starbucks, we make them, we redo them all. We make them bright and have, and have Mars radio playing in it all the time. And TV's all everywhere. I got, I got two in stock and we have, we have massage chairs in them. You know, we make, uh, so we make it a place it's for a monotonous thing and you just want to be a little bit different. So,

you know, there's always going to be competition in whatever business that you are, how do you set yourself apart? And that goes to any business that's there. And that's a challenge. I mean, there's, there's laundromats everywhere. We want ours to be different. You know, you guys have a network of, uh, buddies that are like-minded that you get around with, uh, in an organized way, or is it more like you guys get around other business friends and just chit chat here and there? You know what? I have a big amount of, uh, business owners in a wide range of, of, of industries. And it seems to be more one-on-one stuff. We don't have the organization ones where people are coming together in like investment

clubs or anything like that. I know that exists. I'm not part of one or anything like that. But these mastermind things, every time I meet another business owner, I know we can chat and just share some ideas. Cam and I just came back from a big um a big big conference out in clearwater florida some of the top loan officers in the country and um you know last last year closed 82 million um in volume um at least a quarter of the room that we're in had closed 100 million or more and some of them like we whiteboarded some stuff they were like some absolutely silly numbers of what they're going to try to do. And so the best time we had there was going to dinners afterwards with a couple of the business owners out there.

So it's not in an organized way, but to me, I can learn from any kind of industry, any kind of struggle. I want to pick the brain of somebody who has kind of been through the struggle and see what it is. Because in reality, I don't really want to learn from my own mistakes anymore. I really want to share with other business owners. I've been an open book. People come and talk about business stuff all the time.

And we have lunches and things like that. But it's a two-way street. I like meeting other business owners and kind of sharing war stories and see what worked and what haven't. What's the hardest thing about being a leader? It's a lot of pressure. Some people thrive in pressure. I think I do well with pressure. But between the two companies, I employ over 45 people. So it is a driving force. You're responsible for a lot. Your decisions matter. And you got to make a good environment for people to flourish. And we're building badass loan officers to go up and open their own company soon. Most owners of company don't want their loan officers to get their broker's license and everything like that. It's not us. We're trying to make people successful for life and we're open book when it comes to that.

So, you know, a lot of leaders are top down and just tell you what to do. I want to always, and I have always, even when I was playing led by example, I was a kind of a quiet leader for the majority of my basketball career. I obviously talk a lot more now because it's necessary in a business setting, but it's always we. It's how we're going to get there together, and that's a culture that we have. So to me, it's a lot of pressure, but it's an important role that I'm up for, and I'm not perfect. We're going to figure our way through it together, but it's something that I'm proud to continue to lead by example. I like the word you chose because pressure doesn't have to be negative. No, not at all.

Not at all. It doesn't have to be whatever you interpret it as. That's right. You can use that to your advantage. It's a motivator. Did you have any unique challenges being a leader with your type of personality? You mentioned leading silently as a basketball player, but you can't necessarily do that. Yeah, definitively. Yes. Because, um, I wasn't a conflict guy, you know, it's on a basketball team.

You're around a bunch of outfits, man. And you know, you, you, you have, you have to earn your respect and you don't just call yourself a leader. And granted, once again, on the top teams, I wasn't necessarily the leader, but you want to still be a glue guy if I'm not the one that's leading everybody in because of how talented everybody else is. But I spent the big portion of my entire life thinking I should have spoke up in

certain situations. Um, you know, uh, even young, I mean, one that the girl didn't notice, you know, like it was too quiet. All the jackasses on the team that talk all the time are the ones that get the girl, you know? And so that was a thing. How did he get with her? It's like, well, he just asked. He just doesn't shut up. He doesn't shut up. But, um, but yeah, that in, in, as, as you mature and, and if, if the foundation is there, no one is coming out of a good place, you know, you can, you can do conflict in a, in a very positive way. And I've had to grow into that role,

but that's something I was really unsure of myself growing up, you know, and, and, and all that I had was to just keep my nose down and grind and people saw that and would, would kind of, uh, really gravitate to that. But, but knowing how important it is to get the right message out and how camaraderie and getting the right culture, um, and on a team and, uh, in a, in an office, I knew how important that was. And I had to start stepping up and be a more. So switching gears a little bit real quick. Cause look at this guy. Oh, what? Oh man. Hey, dude, what did you do to, uh, shred down for your show? Cause God, dude, shred down for your show because god dude i told you it was uncomfortable around that time man uh shoot uh i like i said i started doing hella basic workouts stopped drinking and i ate exactly what

was on um what was prescribed to me man is really what it what it was. So, so yeah, I did the whole tan thing and everything. Uh, I don't have to ask anything, so I wanted the whole experience, but you know, that's not, uh, I'm glad I went through it and it was, it was, it mentally challenged me. That was the thing. It was, it, I wanted to quit over and over and over again during this process. Um, and so, man, those is crazy. Even looking at those things, man, it's something I'm proud of, man. I normally walk around between 190, 195 pounds. I got down to one 70 or one 71 on there. I now, right before I started, I got up to two Oh three. So, uh, over, over that six months, I got from 203 down to, to 170. And it was crazy.

I didn't know it was physically possible. That was like high school when I was 170 last, you know, did it surprise you? It did. It did. Um, and, uh, I'll, this is one thing that I kind of touch on. Um, you know, in, in March COVID hit and everything like that. Uh, April, my body was really changing, but it was really hard. And, and the office was crazy. I was working all those hours. I, I hit a point where I was like, I can't do none of this. Like I'm talking about loans. I'm talking about the show talking about Eden, right. I had hit the wall and, and you know what? Um, I now looking back at it and I had something fairly recently when I was like kind of getting back on the eating right and everything like that, your body just like, or you, you want to quit and everything. I now call

that a breakthrough indicator. Every time that you got to the point where you feel like you can't do it anymore, man, that's right before shit changes for you. Like that's right where like, it wasn't long after I found a way, got a little bit more balanced when it came to sleeping and everything like that. And, you know, I thought I had my capacity was here. My capacity was so much farther than that. I didn't know I can do 20 something loans. And I thought I was going to quit when I first was, was starting to close that regularly and, you know, lack of sleep, whatever the case may be. But all of a sudden, later in the year, I'm closing 30 and not even blinking an eye, you know, in a single month.

So that was my breakthrough indicator is right in the middle of here when I wanted to quit. And man, now my, you know, what's in my own head about what my my limitations are is way different than it was over a year ago yeah go through a physique transformation if you want a good kick in the balls serious would you do that again um i'm probably not going to i would i'm probably not going to though okay so yeah how, yeah. How did the, uh, how the family handle everything? You know what? My wife doesn't drink much. She will drink every blue moon.

So she was way good with that. Uh, um, you know what the kids, the kids, uh, cause I'll be working out every Sunday, like, and everything like that. The kids worked out more than ever cause they were just rolling with me everywhere. like that the kids worked out more than ever because they were just rolling with me everywhere so um you know and i think i think they all appreciated it except for um my wife and i eat very good for the majority of the time uh like during the week but when we we go off the rails like i mean we'll we'll you know eat whatever at some dinner have dessert there then go get another dessert on the way home like we we fall, fall off the wagon when it comes to that. So I'm pretty sure she, uh, was missing that, that fall off the wagon here and there, but, um, she, you know, it was nobody more proud, uh, of the accomplishment

than my wife and kids. It was cool to go through it with them. So. Thanks for your time today. Thanks for coming here to super training gym. Uh, where can people, uh, find your book and find out more information about you? Well, uh, the book is on Amazon. If you just, uh, type in the athletes advantage in business, um, it is, uh, on there and you can purchase it there. And, um, really the majority of my stuff, uh, is I put my, my family stuff in a few business things is on Instagram. It's at CEO underscore Jacques. And Jacques is J-A-C-Q-U. He is in Edward as is in Sam. Awesome, man.

Thank you so much. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. I will. Thank you, Pete Montes, for sponsoring this episode. Links down in the description. Promo code PowerProject for 25% off and free shipping on any orders of $99 or more. We'll have Renee's book down in the description as well.

Just click the link right there. Take you straight to Amazon. Please make sure you follow the podcast at MarkBell'sPowerProject on Instagram, at MBPowerProject on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram, Twitter, Clubhouse is at IamAndrewZ. Nseema, where you at? At NseemaYinYang on Instagram, YouTube, Clubhouse and Ticket Talk. At NseemaYinYang on Instagram, YouTube, Clubhouse, and Ticket Talk.

At NsemaYinYang on Twitter. Mark? At Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.