No Broke Months For Salespeople - How you can Overcome Fear and start Taking Action - Damon Hart

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Damon Hart, aka Mr. Foxy, is an absolute estate-investing rockstar. He was born on the gorgeous island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean, where his parents worked for the USPS and taught him the value of hard work and perseverance. But Damon isn't just a real estate pro.   He also loves helping kids. He gives both his time and money to organizations that support children. When he's not crushing it in the real estate game, Damon Hart (aka Mr. Foxy) is a hardworking, savvy investor who proves that you can accomplish amazing things with persistence and determination.   In this episode, Damon will discuss overcoming your fear and taking action for your business.You can find Damon in these links:InstagramLinkedInWebsiteFacebookYouTube To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan Rochon

You're never really going to get rid of the fear. Fear is good. It's healthy. I think the fear is natural. It's just all you got to do is just go and put the action in. And when you do something enough that's scary, you end up not really giving a crap. So don't worry about it. And because you are somebody that can go out there and make something happen. You're built that way. Welcome to the No Broke Months for Real Estate Agents podcast. Working as a real estate agent can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling, but it can also be frustrating if you aren't making the money you deserve. So if you're ready to end the stressful cycle of working hard for no results,

then get started with a proven step-by-step system so that every month is no broke months. Damon Hart, aka Mr. Foxy, is an absolute estate investing rock star. He was born on the gorgeous island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean, where his parents worked for the USPS and taught him the value of hard work and perseverance. But Damon isn't just a real estate pro. He also loves helping kids. He gives both his time and money to organizations that support children. When he's not crushing it in the real estate game, Damon Hart, aka Mr. Foxy, is a hardworking, savvy investor who proves that you can accomplish amazing things with persistence and determination. In this episode, Damon will discuss overcoming your fear and taking

action for your business. My name is Dan Roshan. I'm the host of the No Broke Months podcast, which is a show for real estate agents to help you have no broke months. Thanks for joining me. Enjoy the show. Today, Damon and I are going to talk about how you can overcome fear and start taking action. Damon, the first and most important question, Caribbean, Caribbean. I say Caribbean, but if you're there long enough, you're going to say Caribbean after all the rum. The third option. I should have known the third option would be these boys.

What's up, man? Good to see you, Dan. My pleasure. My pleasure. So I guess the second question, in the little notes here, it says I'm supposed to call you Mr. Foxy. Yeah. Everybody does.

I love it, man. Mr. Foxy. Yeah, everybody does. I love it, man. Mr. Foxy. What's that all about? So, Dan, I know what you're thinking. You're like, okay, obviously you can see all of this. And you're like, okay. I was confused. I was just confused.

They say Mr. Foxy. And then you said it. I'm like, someone screwed these notes up. Somebody's telling a lie. Somebody's telling a lie. You're like, this is it. But where it all started is I was a company called Foxy Homebuyer. And I would show up to these events here in Tampa years ago.

And after a while, they would say, hey, Foxy, Foxy, Foxy. And I said, eventually, I'm just going to throw a Mr. on there. Before Shark Tank and Mr. Wonderful, I was Mr. Fox's. So it just stuck. I love it. Yeah. I love it. I love it. So I know that you've been investing full time for 10 years and we were talking pre-show about, you mentioned, you say I think I'm an expert cause I've made so many damn mistakes and I think experts learn from the mistakes. Talk us through your journey. Like, how'd you get started? What do you do now? And

walk us through, you know, the early, before it was Mr. Foxy, when it was just Damon Hart, what was your life at that point? Yeah. So before it was all that, it was just Damon buys houses, right? Like when people have those, the signs that I see like Hector or Steve buys houses, right? Like when people have those, uh, the signs and I see like Hector or Steve buys houses. It was like, I remember those days. So I started out back, uh, back in like mid two thousands, so like 2005 ish. And, um, I didn't really know anyone in the real estate industry. Matter of fact, no one in my immediate family even owned a house, right? We all lived in apartments, things like that. And we were middle-class, like my family was middle-class, both worked for a post office. And what I decided to do, because I really liked real estate, I was like, you know, like everybody else. I hear this all the time, like, oh man,

I'm really interested, but I didn't know anything. I didn't know anyone in the business. So I heard about the seminar thing. And I went to the seminar down in like Maryland. I drove like an hour and a half. My friend went with me. I signed up for the seminars, $30,000 investment. This is before the internet. Okay. 2005 internet wasn't popping. So YouTube university, I went out there, I spent the money. And I was just like, yo, if I could just make my money back and just know how to buy a couple of houses, I figured I'd be rich, you know, and fast forward about, you know, 10, 15 years later, not so bad. It was the best investment I ever made. So what did you do? Like, what was, besides the investment in education, what was your,

your, your first real estate investing? Yeah. So, yes. So I tell people, you know, for me, I started out with wholesaling, you know, and I stuck with it like wholesaling. It to me is the the fundamentals of real estate investing, because if you can't find out how to get the properties and get them at the right price, you're always you're always going to be beholden to somebody else. You know what I mean? So I didn't want that. And I luckily learned how to do it. The only thing is, I don't think in the beginning, I didn't understand wholesaling as much information as there is now. So I struggled in the beginning,

but I still made a few deals happen along the way because I think wholesale is just a great strategy. So that's how I started. Got it. Got it. And then what do you do today? What's your world look like today? It's a little bit different, right? You know, back then it was just me. Now we got 12 employees, you know, a few overseas, a couple here in the U.S. I work primarily virtually. I don't go, you know, I'm in my office here, but I don't have a team that meets with me regularly. I'm here in the Tampa market. And most of what we focus on,

you know, we've got two sides of our business now is more transactional, which is your wholesale day-to-day working with investors. And then the other side of it, as we build income, we also invest in larger projects, multi-unit projects, you know, six units and above. That's really our sweet spot. You have like an area that you like, the multifamily geographic area? Yeah. Geography wise, I mean, I love Florida because it's great. The weather's awesome, you know, and it's easy to get to for me. But anywhere in the country, except for like the Northern States, you know, I know there's a lot of good returns and stuff like that,

but I personally don't want to go and look at properties up in Indiana. Like I'm from good or Ohio. You know, I know there's good deals everywhere. I just don't want to be there. I can be picky. What would you mention good deals everywhere? What would define a good deal for you? So it depends on what type of asset we're looking at. Right. But if it's multi-unit stuff, the deals I like to look at are things that I can get. Ideally, 60 units are better. Right. So it could be a low rise. It could be, you know, a couple of floors, whatever. I want to be 60 units, not that much capex or like repairs

and something that I can get into, you know, pretty light, just like every other investor, right? I want stuff that I can get in super light and stay in and make a bunch of money. That's usually what I look for. But, you know, deals that just make sense on paper, man, that you could do some value at as you come in. And that's probably like the holy grail for every investor, but especially for us right now. How do you find those deals? We're doing direct to seller. For us, yes, because, you you know we've always done that on

the residential side so we do that uh directly marketing right to the multi-family people also with brokers have a great great experience there uh with brokers and there's no local brokers that can find those types of deals and also other other other investors wholesalers things like that you know the market's not that big for people that buy that kind of stuff that really buy it so we tend to do pretty well excuse me for interrupting my own show you are freaking amazing and because you're amazing i'm gonna ask for a quick favor we'll just take you 30 seconds for you to leave a favorable five-star rating or review on your favorite platform. Then what I'll do is I'll enter you into a raffle where we can meet

45 minutes for a free coaching session. And I'll also give you a copy of the book, Real Estate Evolution, which is the 10-step guide to CPI, consistent and predictable income. Oh, by the way, I'm the author of that book. So if you'd like for me to coach you, give you some nuggets and help you in your business, go ahead and leave a review and you can enter into the monthly raffle to win. So today we're talking about overcoming fear and starting to take action or start talking taking action what does that mean to you well i mean the overcoming fear part of it i i think is um is really great because you're never really going to get rid of the fear you know what i mean like fear is good it's healthy um and i like i got a i got a theory it's called the butt

naked in the woods theory right okay follow me for a little bit don't don't hey mr fox you gotta take us butt naked in the woods i mean my goodness but ladies are gonna love this show butt naked in the woods yeah this one's for you right but like you know i think we all as we're as humans we're especially guys we're we're wired a certain way. But when like we were butt naked in the woods, we had to do certain things to survive. Now that we're not in the woods anymore, we're in, you know, these buildings and we're protected from the elements and everything else. We kind of forget how we're wired. We didn't change it.

And, you know, I think the fear is natural. It's just think about what fear is now, like your fear of what? Losing money. You're always going to make money. Right. The fear of what people looking looking bad in front of other people gives a shit like nobody even cares about rejection. Yeah. Fear of rejection. Everybody's thinking about themselves anyway. So no one cares. No one cares about just who cares 100 so if if those are the biggest things you have to be concerned about that's okay because we're in modern life modern society those might be real fears but just know they're not insurmountable all you got to do is just go

and put the action in and when you do something enough that's scary you end up not really giving a crap so my butt naked in the woods theory is just like, go hunting. Don't worry about it. And because you are somebody that can go out there and make something happen. You're built that way. It's just maybe the rest of society thinks you should be afraid of everything. That's how they keep you where you are and you don't want to be there. So don't do it.

Do you have certain steps that you do to be able to help you overcome fear? Or is it just closing your eyes and taking action anyways? Or, you know, talk us through that. You know, I don't know anymore. I think there's something to be said about just being in action. You've got to start like some people like massive action. I don't think massive action starts out right away. But you got to take some frigging action. some people like massive action i don't think massive action starts out right away um but you

gotta take some friggin action you know like you know if you're saying if you're if you're just reading the books and you're not actually calling the seller then you're not going to get very far because the book ain't gonna ain't gonna sell you the house right you have to put yourself in a situation like i my son's a really great surfer right okay you know he's a pro surfer kind of young but he's really good. And he's getting better. And I remember when we were first getting started surfing, everybody

the first thing they would say is, hey, your son's a surfer? Aren't you guys afraid of sharks? I would hear this all the time. All the time. Like, jaws just happen. And yeah. Shit, yeah, there are sharks in the water. But if you have to stop and sit on the beach and worry about everything else going to eat you in the water, you would never get in. And I think that's what I've been good at doing. I'm just like, you know what? Yeah, there are sharks out there probably could get eaten. But what am I going to do? Sit here on the beach all day? Let me just go in and see what the water's like. And usually, if you stay out there long enough, you start to realize

sharks don't really like Mr. Foxy. You know what I mean? Sharks don't like foxes. No, they don't like foxes. You know who the sharks are going to eat? That one guy that stood on the beach for like 15 years and never got in, and he goes and dips his toe in, and they just hop in and bite his toe off.

Don't be that guy. Just go right in. That's not life advice if you're standing on the sidelines so you don't have to be you know one of the things dave i don't know if you agree with this or not but one of the things that i've observed about fear is that on the other side of feet well first of all i agree with you wholeheartedlyedly that fear is good at times, right? It's good that you don't want to put your hand on a fire, you know, a fire stove, you know, a fire burner because it's going to burn you, right? So that's a good fear. But then there's also fear where you have that fear of judgment.

You have that fear of rejection. You have that fear of what, like what you you said of what other people are going to think about you, which most of the time doesn't actually serve you. And I can remember a few times in my life where when I got to the other side of the fear, there was joyfulness, there was happiness, there was exhilaration, there was excitement. And it's understanding how can you dissect from, OK, here's a fear that's going to keep me safe versus here's a fear that's masking itself. That it's going to keep me safe, but in reality is just holding me down. What are your thoughts about that concept? Sure. Yeah. So it's like, I'm, I'm way,

I'm way more simple in my approach about fear. It's like, I look at things like, okay, you know, like it sounds cliche, but like, what's the worst thing that can happen. Right. And then I just back into it and I'm like, okay, if that's the worst thing that can happen, how can I minimize that thing from happening so let's say you know my biggest fear about getting into wholesaling right like first thing i was thinking is like what if i what if i just mess up the whole deal and i do the paperwork wrong well how can i minimize you know doing that paperwork wrong that's the first thing right by the way that was my first wholesale deal you just you just described my experience

in my first wholesale deal yeah oh i screwed it up like you wouldn't believe i don't know anyone if you did it by yourself odds are let's call it what it is right but i mean i did the same thing i put this paper i put this paperwork together i didn't know anything i didn't know anything about comps arb is nothing, nothing. I just said, okay, you want 76 for that? You will pay 76? I had a lady I would pay 65 or I got it for 65. It's like I get 10,000 in the middle, deal. And I sent the paperwork in.

She changed the paperwork all types of ways. But point being, let's say that's the example. Now, all I got to do is I got to say, okay, how can I minimize that? Well, I can get a contract. I can go over it a couple of times, at least understand what it is that I'm saying. So if I have to explain it to someone, I won't look like an idiot. And I just go ahead and put it out there the best I can and have maybe an attorney or someone at the office that can back me up if I get stuck. Minimizing the risk. You know what I mean?

So if, you know, let's say I'm afraid of going out surfing. I'm afraid of going out surfing. So what could I do? Well, first, I know I'm a good swimmer, so I'm good there. I could go out with somebody else that knows that spot and that can give me confidence to be like, hey, do this, do that. And, you know, if all else fails, how the heck am I going to get out here? How do I get out of the water as fast as I can? Or what do I do if I do see a shark? I put my feet up on the board or, you know what I mean? Or paddle around.

It's something, right? You minimize your risk. So there you go. Like, I think that's what people- Do you surf with your son? All the time. Do you surf with your son? Yeah, all the time.

I don't get to surf the stuff that he surfs anymore because he's at an advanced level but when he was starting out I loved to go paddle I loved to watch him it's like it's the best thing ever to watch him and see his progress it's amazing so you ever see any sharks

all the time oh shit I wasn't supposed to say that but yeah there's one beach here in Florida. There's a shark bite capital of the world, believe it or not. Shark bite. New Smyrna Beach, Florida. And a little fun fact, the reason why, it's not like you're getting

attacked by great whites, okay? These are maybe four foot sharks, six foot sharks, but because of the water where it is, it's a lot of breeding happening. So you got a bunch of horny sharks just, you know, just making babies and doing stuff. And then you got these people out there just trying to catch waves. I just think you're just going to get bit. If somebody jumped into my bed, you know, while I was doing my thing, you know, I feel like I might bite them.

I don't know. So, you know, that's just the thing. Just know sharks are horny too. That's the message for today. You already know 87% of all real estate agents fail in this business. And you also know it doesn't have to be that way. If you a real estate agent you're looking for consistent and predictable income I invite for you to get your copy of real estate evolution the 10-step guide to CPI consistent and predictable income for real estate agents and you can do so when you visit www.therealestateevolution.com. I'll share with you your book that I authored to show you the way. Thanks.

So what's your day-to-day like for you today, Damon? As a full-time investor, been doing this for a long time. Like, walk me through your day. Oh man, this morning uh so and so this morning i woke up uh at about a little bit before six okay and then i went out my morning routine i start pretty much out of my lawn and do some grounding um then i go and walk my dogs oh grounding tell us more about that. What's grounding? So basically, and don't ask me the science. It just makes sense to me.

Basically, you want to get your feet in some kind of earth as early as you can in the day because your body just builds up all these charges. And you ever notice people that wear like shoes all the time, they always have foot problems? It's because they never get their feet, you know, out into the earth. You know, they're always not making a connection to the earth because the earth and our bodies are electronic or like electromagnetic. So I do, I go out first, I put my feet in the ground. I do my morning routine pushups. I get that in. I do some stretching, nothing heavy. I just do it for like 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. And then today I walk my dogs like I always do. And then I break out. I had a BNI session this morning, BNI business networking international, doing a little plug. I'm not a member, but I got a little

hack. You go to all these meetings, you can meet people and it's easy network, easy network. You can get all these people and they never met an investor. So if you're out there and you want to meet people that never met an investor, go to P&I meetings or any kind of network meetings. So I go there and I popped over here to the office today. Shit, we got so many stuff there. I come in, I check with my team in the morning. I run over reports. Then I meet with my acquisitions guy in the morning uh then i start talking deals because deals still come across my desk uh we're working on like a big portfolio right now so i kind of talked through with my ceo on that and talking about like how

we're going to structure it um then i got another offer for like 400 units here in Tampa. So kind of talked through a couple of the broker that brought that one to me. And another, you know, spending a little bit of time. Then I have to eat lunch. I eat lunch. I went with my boy here, my son. I ate lunch with him because he works for me. And then before you know it, talking some benefits and things like that. Then I come back.

I have another meeting here, a couple more meetings in the afternoon. And, you know, towards like the end of the day, around 4, 4.30 is usually when I block out time just to kind of think and structure. And we also had two closings today on top of that. So it's making sure everything is final on the closings. So that's pretty much my day for today so far. What's, what's been your biggest challenge in your journey like if you can

go back to that 2005 Damon the pre-Foxy Damon what would you tell me that's a good question I think what I tell all the people anyone that asked me hi Diana oh she's gone um I think all the people that asked me, looking back is you have to pick one. You have to pick one. Like if you're going to get into real estate investing, when I started having a lot of success is when I just doubled down on one strategy.

If it's wholesale for you, stick to wholesale. If you're doing sub two, stick to sub two. If you want to be a self-storage guru and you want to just buy stuff, stick to that. Because if you try to do too many things, you know, you can't sleep in every bed at once, right? You got to pick one, right? So just stick to one. And in the beginning, I kind of tried to do a lot. I was doing like lease options. I was doing wholesaling.

I was doing all these different things because I'm like, I just want to make money. But if you want to make money, you've got to be specialized because everyone is a little different on the exit. So that's what I would tell them. I mean, that that advice is is one of the common pieces of advice that I get from people like yourself when I have these types of conversations, and one that I embrace as well. I think the challenge that we have sometimes is very, very ambitious people are very ambitious people. And as a result of that, we want to conquer the world. And you see great ideas, but I think that there's a power in the word no. And because once you understand that for every yes that you say, you're giving an infinite amount of no's to everything else.

So if I say yes to have this conversation with you right now, that means I'm saying no to surfing. I'm saying no to exercise. I'm saying no to pizza. I'm saying no to Scott, you know, go fly a kite, whatever it is. And there's an infinite amount of possibilities that you could be doing right now. I could be doing right now. We both said yes to this, which means we said no to everything else. And so what I realized and what I recognize is that they're very, very successful. Take that, that action, that ambition, and they harness it into a direction where they get really focused to go a mile deep an inch wide rather than a mile wide an inch deep and um so that's what i'm taking from what you're sharing with us there damon does that sound about right

no it's it's a hundred percent then and i'll tell you i'll take you a little bit further to show you people that like i'm practicing what i preach We used to be in about six different markets here, virtual Florida. And what I started to notice when we started doing the numbers, it's like, we're doing the same amount of volume with six markets that we could be doing, you know, with, with, with just one. And, and it's way easier, in my opinion, to dominate your backyard. Cause you know and it's way easier in my opinion to dominate your backyard because you

know it it's like why am i gonna go to all these different markets and and i think that that psychology is kind of like rampant in real estate investing and i and it's it's the internet's fault it's about what is it what's it called al gore it's him it's him. It's him. It's Miles Paul. Yeah, he did it. Elon, everybody. They messed it up, right? But like, if there's so much information, and I think sometimes we get overwhelmed because we think like, yo, more is more. But no,

sometimes there's something to be said about just narrowing down. So what we decided to do, what I grabbed my team and I said, look, this is what we're going to do, is let's just own Tampa. If we can become the biggest name in Tampa, then let the problem be

once we own Tampa, we can go and then take over Jacksonville or go and take over Orlando. We could go do those things first, but let's conquer our backyard first. And the results have been great, man. The results have been freaking fantastic. Just focusing in and dialing in congratulations to you damon damon how can somebody get in touch with you they've got a deal in tampa they want to talk to you about it how do

they get in touch with you it's easy like my boy mike jones said back then back then they didn't want me right like just call me on the phone man call my phone [phone]. If you don't want to call and you would rather just look us up online, Foxy Homebuyer, no S, just Foxy Homebuyer. Go ahead and message us, you know, get with me on Instagram, Facebook, pretty much all social medias, YouTube. You can find me out there or Damon, Mr. Foxy on all the personal platforms for the same, you know, for the same stuff. I'm there. Just call me. I'm a real person. Dan knows me. You know, just don't be shy. Just reach out. Let's do something. Damon, thanks for your time today. God bless you. Real estate agents, investors, business people. I want to wish you to have the best day of your

life be grateful make good choices go help somebody and go do something today to take action god bless thanks so much for listening to the no broke months podcast today until the next show i invite for you to be grateful make good good choices, help someone, have the their dreams, their greatness. And he doesn't just say it. He actually has steps and mythologies in order for them to follow. Our very special guest in Future Shining Every Day, I cannot even sit in my chair. I'm so excited. Dan Rochon, all the way from beautiful Virginia.

Dan, it's an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much for taking the time. And what I'm encouraging for you is to focus on who you're being because that's your foundation. And when you focus on that, you're gonna find that you do activities that are gonna lead to the outcome of having whatever it is in this life that you're looking for