Noob School - Episode 83: Overcoming Any Hardship with Erik Weir

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

On this episode of Noob School, John is joined by Erik Weir of WCM Global Wealth, discussing the hardships he faced during his childhood and how he overcame them, leading to a vastly successful life and career. From his ventures with Top Golf, to some golden nuggets from his book, Who's Eating Your Pie, and much more, you won't want to miss a second of Erik's incredible story. Check out what Noob School has to offer here: https://www.schoolfornoobs.com/ I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

New School. All right, welcome back to Noob School. Today I've got Eric Weir. Eric is the CEO of WCM Capital. What you said? Global wealth. Global wealth. WCM Global wealth.

And I'm not a real estate person, but my understanding is that that means you're a real estate magnate. We've done some real estate. I don't know how I'd go that far. I wonder what level you have to get to to be a magnate. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Probably maybe in New York or. something. I'm sure it's orders of magnitude. Orders of magnitude. Okay. Well, anyway,

Eric has done a lot of real estate deals. He does them for himself and he does them with other people and not just in Greenville but all around the world. In fact, I know one of the stories because I just finished reading this great book of his. Who's hitting your pie? That's right. Yeah. I just finished it today. You somehow got to be the main person to to provide the financing for all the top golfs? Well, I asked for that. I didn't get that far. But for Europe,

we're the main person. Cool. And we've partnered with others in the U.S. to do five locations in the U.S. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, let's start with that story, and then we'll get down to some more details.

But you knew nothing of top golf when you happened to just drive by one, right? That's right. Yeah. Where was in Miami was it? Yeah, I think it was Jackson. It was in Florida. I mean Jacksonville or the Tampa area, but I was with a son, and I usually travel with them,

and we'd flown down there, and I was kind of shadow day or whatever. So we're going to a meeting, and it canceled. And I'm like, wow, gee, we are down here and I drive by on it. And my son saw the netting, you know, like signs, Top Golf. And he's, let's go there, and I'm like, okay. And I just thought it was just a driving range. I'm like, okay, I can do that. And I get there's decks and there's food and there's TV and tracks the ball.

And I'm like, this is a pretty cool concept, right? And then the food was fantastic. And I, we stayed like an hour and a half. And I'm like, this is expensive. But it was also fun. But I felt like it was a good value for the money. I would love to own one of these one day. And then, you know, kind of, you know, forgot about it.

And then a father's day came up later that year. And they were like, what should we do? And they said, let's go to Top Golf. There wasn't one in Green Bowl at the time. We drove to Atlanta. And that's kind of how. And then everyone had a good time. By the way, to my youngest, to my oldest.

to my dad. We all had a fantastic time. And I realized that you don't have to have golfing ability. It's just about, you know, the swinging of the motion, the contact with the club, laughing, eating, and just enjoying yourself. So that just really, like, this is a great concept. Yeah, yeah. And so you levered that to finding out who the owner of this whole concept was? Yeah, there was one coming up in Greenville. I asked somebody, wow, what's going on with here? And he's like, well, this is top golf. And wow, fantastic. And they said that they were changing. The person who provided the capital for a lot of their construction and buying the property, and they would lease it back from them, had reached, you know, saturation.

They've done like 25 or 30. They like it, but they just don't want more of it. I go, I'd love to be in those shoes. So I got the name of the chairman of the board, and I flew with another son out to Las Vegas, met with him, and asked him, I said, I'd love to be your worldwide exclusive source of financing. He's kind of laughed. And he's like, you know, he goes, what makes you think you do that?

I'm like, well, I mean, we've done some, and learned for some smart people back in the 90s, and the little of some things around technology banking. And I said, if I had exclusivity, I think that anyone in a role would have to come, and then it would be create more value for you. She's like, well, it's above my call. I'll set you up with the board. So then I flew to Dallas, you know, Dallas and met with the board

and spent the day with some of the executives. And had a great time. It's great people, very small. very focused, really good energy. And I said, I'd like to be the worldwide exclusive financier. And they're like, well, Eric, that's a big ask. How much money do you have now? And I'm like, as of right now, I'm like, not a dollar.

And then he started laughing. And then we go, I like that guy. And I said, well, I think it'd be good for you just because, you know, you've heard of De Beers family control diamonds. There's more diamonds and rubies, but diamonds are more valuable because of the pace at which they enter the market. And, you know, I'd hope to, to, get the worldwide exclusives and I didn't, you know, but they gave an opportunity. We partnered

with some other people and everything's done as a team. Everything's done individually. And the team we put together was able to pull it off. Yeah. And we did five in the U.S. and through the process, I kept asking for introductions to other parts of the world. Yeah. And I met the folks in South America and Europe and other places. And we had an affinity for the folks we met in Europe. And when they were forming before they had their first location, we became investors. And our idea was we'd like to be your largest single investor. And also would like to help with securing capital and your growth through Europe.

And we agreed to that. We've been doing that now for about four years. That's so cool. That's such a wonderful thing. I mean, first of all, in your book, you talk about that you've often learned as you've drugged your boys around with you. They've often pointed out things that you might not think of yourself. It's so true. It's so funny.

It's the case. You learn they'll look at things that are obvious to them. They're like, didn't you talk about this, dad? I'm like, yeah. Didn't proverbs say this? I'm like, yeah. So it was like, wow, okay. So it was good to have them around.

Yeah, that's great. You do the same thing with stocks and stuff too. In your book, you talk about how often, you know, what are they using? What do they like? And I had my son, like, InVidia is like the big AI. ship. They announced their big thing, big earnings recently. My son was on it four years ago. And he goes, I like Nvidia then. I'm like, well, really? Yes. I looked at it. It's up like, I don't know, 1,200 percent, something since then. And then Apple was another example of that.

Like this iPhone thing's like, okay. Electronic Arts years ago, it was before I had children, but I had a friend of like gaming. But you can get into trends and you kind of see, like I may see things in a sector or an industry that I know, but everyone has different. Exposions. So if you keep your ears open, you can find some opportunities. Yeah, and for some of those, you know, you can make a relatively small bet. Because if it works, it can just be astronomical. It can be astronomical, for sure. And everything doesn't work. You've got to realize that as an entrepreneur or anything that you do.

And sometimes it's more don't work than work, right? But if you focus your energy and the stuff that work, do more of it. Right, right. Interesting. One of my sons told me early on that he just, you know, Dad, you might just want to put like just a little bit of money into these Bitcoin things. Right. And I'm like, talk to my dad about it.

We're both been investors forever. And I'm like, I think we should just tell them to be real careful. Be real careful. Of course, you know, he took $1,000 and turned it to $100,000. And, you know, we got real quiet. Right, right. Right. There's some amazing stories about Bitcoin.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's very good. That's very good. You've got five boys, right? Five. That's right. That's wild.

It's a busy time. Well, from 24 down to 9. Yeah. And so one of them I know works with you or works at the office or the other couple in college, high school. One just graduated college, I guess, a couple weeks ago from Furman. And then another one is in school. And he's doing some things in acting. And he also does some cowboy things.

He goes to the University of Southern California. Oh, cool. And another one starts Virginia Tech. Another one is nine, right? So his hobbies are fishing and Legos and things of that nature. That's cool. And so I know that you're big in the martial arts. What level are you?

I'm a black belt. You're a black belt. How long has that been? I started in the, this is going to date me a little bit, but I started before I could drive a car. Wow. And I had my first black belt in, I guess, 1985 was my first black belt.

I've had quite a few cents then. of black belt and Korean styles with black belt and some Chinese styles and some mixed martial arts. So it's been a big part of my life. I competed in tournaments and sparring and board breaking, things of that nature. So it was just something fun to do. It's good for flexibility and focus. It's difficult, but it's doable. Sure.

I would think, you know, like you, I've interviewed. hundreds and hundreds of people. And if they have a black belt and karate, it says to me that they can accomplish things. That's right. They can work through some very hard times and be disciplined. That's true. I actually failed my first black belt test. So that was like, I'd be like, what happens?

I had a good job. And then I practiced for six months, was able to take it again. But, but, yeah, it's, you know, it's, you have to stick to it. You have to push through barriers. You learn respect. and you learn flexibility. It's really, it's a fun. It's a fun art.

We learn a lot. Self-defense is part of it, inspiring and competition, but the artistic and just the patience it takes to perform some of the moves, particularly when I was doing some of the Chinese martial arts

are very, the movements and things are very different than the Korean, which is more direct. Yeah. Interesting. Where's your dojo here? Well, here I worked out, actually interesting, I was taking from Grand Master

Mr. Kim, who was one of the U.S. Olympic Taekwondo coaches, had been to the Olympics twice. And he moved to spend his time in the mission field. So since he moved, I've just been working out on my own in my basement because I've done that for a long time. I was studying under him as recently as probably three years ago. All my sons are black, well, the four oldest ones earned a black belt. Already?

Wow. That's so great. great. My oldest son had a lot of hand-to-end type training. And I asked him one time, I said, I said, Jack, so I'm walking down the street. This is last, you know, last weekend in Hendersonville, and there's these two drunk guys out there, and they're kind of fighting along and screaming to everybody, you know, and they're fighting with each other. I'm like, you know, what's my best course of action here? You know, how should I take them on? And he goes, walk across the street. He goes, go around. I'm like, okay. Yeah. That makes me.

Makes sense? Yeah, that's right. That's right. I was talking with the Navy SEAL the other day. He was like, you said he got into a scuffle. He said, would you try to run? First thing I tried to do was run. Then try to get away.

Yeah. And if they push me, I still run. If they grab me, then it's a different story. Right. Yeah, but he said that I tried just to avoid. Yeah. That's a good point. That's a good point.

So four boys are black belts. And then is the nine-year-old going to do it too? He's made it about halfway. He does not have the. He's had tremendous ability and flexibility, but it doesn't enjoy it as much. Okay. So we'll see. Okay.

Well, I've gotten into a lot of quick details that were just on my mind, but can you give us just an overview of what you do now, what your business is today? Yeah, I work. So today I work with a number of individuals ranging from high net worth to ultra high net worth, and we work with them in investments. Oftentimes it's, sometimes it's marketable securities with a different part of my business. that I'm not as active in today and others are in alternatives we talk about like real estate like a top call for maybe a self-storage sort sort of thing or something that's that's different alternative to marketable and then you know they oftentimes have other advisors they continue to work with or tax people that they work with but that's we're more on the investment side okay so you help

them these are people who don't want to do it themselves they want to make you part of what they invest in. That's right. Or it could be somebody say, give us advice and it could be everything from let's help you with somebody to my firm with your IRA rollover and that may be 100% and pick a name Schwab or something else like that. We'd be an advisor that that would help them. Or it could be, I have, I've always wanted to be an owner of self-storage. And I don't know really how to do that, but I'd be like to be one of some number of people who come in or are co-owner. I'd love to own a piece of top golf, you know, and some other city, maybe Vienna, maybe Milan, or maybe some waste in the U.S. So you look at the unique, you know, return characteristics of that, you know,

the positives of the return potential oftentimes, but the negatives are liquidity. It's not like a stock. You can sell it the day you want out or things can affect it like changing interest rates or changing consumption patterns. So you kind of, as much you can't look at the pros and cons of each deal and say, these or something that we believe in. And if you want to participate, we'd love to work with you on it. Some people makes a lot of sense when we do it.

Other people is probably best just to stay, you know, buy an index fund and leave it alone. It depends how you're wired and, you know, your experience and then your desire to learn more. Okay. And diversify. Well, I know you have your own podcast and you had my friend Mike Grozier on. Yeah. How did you meet him? I met him, somebody said like House of Blues and do you want to be in for coffee?

It's about bringing some entertainment concept. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds super cool. Yes, I went to meet him and I've liked entertainment. And we top coffee view that as entertainment. And that was something I've invested in and I've liked it. I've liked music. I love vocals, things of that nature. So I thought, it would be fun to meet them.

And entrepreneurial and I've been to House of Blues. I've been to Hard Rock Cafe, and I love our town, and to my knowledge, is not a lot like that here. So I thought if he wants to bring it, it would be kind of fun. And it makes sense. We're near other larger cities.

People drive up and down. Why not have them stop for a day and play here? So I really enjoyed meeting him. Yeah, me too, me too. You know, he's amazing. I suppose running all those House of Blues and over the years has made him very good at meeting people

because, I mean, I met him, and the next thing I know, he's introducing me to people in Greenville. God, this guy's unbelievable. And I think he's got a good project. I mean, for the people

who haven't seen, but he's got a House of Blues type concept just up by the baseball stadium. Right. That will hold 1,800 people. That's remarkable, isn't it? It's supposed to be for big-name

comedians and rock bands and, you know, just kind of a more rock and roll house of blues kind of place sure sure sure that'll be fantastic i'm i'm excited about about that i'd love to come by and i just enjoy enjoy live music yeah that's good that's good um and if that's not enough you're also a pilot yes i have been flying for about 25 years that's amazing yes it was it started because i i i you know i got tired of it being atlanta i guess may he's like 30 years now i got tired of traffic. I'm in Atlanta and I would like, man, this is just awful.

Yeah. And I'm like, I've got to go different place in Georgia. I'm like, if I had an airplane, this would make it easier. So I would learn to fly and started taking my lessons in Petrie Cab Airport. And then I would just lease an airplane back then was $75 to $95 an hour. They called that wet, which means it included fuel. And you're like, wow, that's great. So for $90 an hour, I go 160 miles an hour in a straight line. So that's what I did. I viewed it like as like a time machine.

But I remember landed at small airports. I've landed in people like a field. Grass strips. But yeah, but then I transitioned to different aircraft. But I've been part of my business now for almost 30 years. You fly to see people.

It's just very, very time efficient. Yeah. It's fun too. It's enjoyable. Yeah. We had a guy one time trying to get our business. And, you know,

he was a, nice and all, but we just didn't, it was just such a small thing compared to what we were doing. We didn't really want to engage. You know what I mean? And so he tried, he tried, he tried. And finally, he sent the message, he goes, please tell Mr. Sterling, we'd like to pick him up on Virgil's plane and fly him, you know, down to Atlanta for a meeting. I'm like, I'll do that.

Soon he got convenient. Yeah. And I bet you do that too sometimes, you know, that it's just, it's hard to say no. too. I have done that. Yeah, fun people in. I've also just stopped to meet them. And oftentimes people love, if there's a restaurant at the airport, people love to watch airplanes take off on the land and go meet people. And it's kind of like the top golf we do. It's very convenient to meet people to top golf. Right. And people that would never want to go and they'd do lunch, but top golf, that sounds like it's kind of fun, right? So, so yeah, it's very convenient.

You fly to meet people. I've had them fly to meet with me. So it's fun. That's good. That's good. So I think from the book, I think you started after Georgia State, going to Georgia State, right? That's right. Now, was that a good school for you? It was good because it allowed me to work. I had two jobs while I was going to school. So I was selling commercial real estate.

Okay. And I sold my first shopping center deal when I was 18. I was still at the school there. And then I took the money out and bought stocks. So that's what I did when I got my commission. And then the second thing I did was. was I taught karate and I had three locations. I just taught it a, like it was like a major studio,

but I would come in and teach, like, literally like a daycare. So kids, I taught kids karate for probably two of the years I was in school. And I really enjoyed it. It was fun. And then I hired somebody to teach for me and kept it going on for a season. And then obviously kept doing real estate for a while. So it was a good school for me. And I would typically start off going to day school,

and then I went to night school. So I could work during the day and go at night. So I finished up, I guess, a little bit early. I went through the summer as well. Yeah. And so what motivated you to be so dedicated to the business side of thing? Because I would think going to school and teaching karate, which you were already doing, that's already a lot.

Why add the business thing on when you're a freshman in college? I just enjoyed it. Yeah, I loved it. I didn't really see a lot of value and partying and things like that. It just seemed kind of silly to me. I just like doing business, like meeting people, I like challenging myself. I liked doing things that people didn't think you could do at 18, like syndicated shopping center, rezone property and sell to a major tenant.

And that was fun. I just liked the intellectual challenge. I've kind of started to be a lifetime learner still. You try to read books. I'm finishing another degree right now. What are you studying now? I'm finishing up at Harvard, so I'm finishing my master's right now. I have one class remaining, and it's taking me.

five years. And it's been, because I was taking, it would have taken six if I had my, my, my dredders, but I realized it was a five-year limit. So I was taking one course of semester. And if I got too busy, I'll take a semester off, buddy. And I've had to take two here recently, which was very challenging. Yeah. And then I've taken one more, one more of the summer. Then I'll graduate with a master's in business management and also a degree in, second year degree in real estate. That's fantastic. Now, have you had good interaction with your classmates? I have. Yeah, during COVID, it was like everybody else. You're kind of on the screen with it, and it was a good interaction, I guess, a lot of visual interaction, maybe even more than you would have in a classroom.

Different. And then I go to school. I go there physically for a certain amount of time. Depending on the class, you'll spend three days there where you'll do intensive or you're in school for basically four hours and then 10 hours and another four hours. So you get an intensive experience and class projects and interactions while you're there. So it's been fantastic. I love really interesting people along the way who've been in classes with them. And some of the guest teachers have been people you know their name. Yeah.

It's kind of like Tom Hanks gave the commencement, I guess a few weeks ago when everyone graduated. So as a French graduate during that commencement, I'll be in the next one. Nice. Well, just as a point I'll make for the, particularly the younger viewers of the podcast, is Eric, you were really hustling, you know, every day, every month, every year,

when you were 18, probably before, but you were already trying to get deals done and get better and get smarter and improve your basic skills stack in life. And that hasn't changed, right? goes 18, 19, 20 every year. It's like, what can I do now to get a little smarter, a little faster, a little whatever, right? That's true, yeah.

So it's so true. It really started all was a, and I mentioned this, but I had a car accident. And I had a traumatic brain injury. And I thought for years, it was just how I was scared, but it turned out that wasn't bad. And I lost the ability to speak, you know, for a few days. And then I would speak with a very bad stutter. And I had a speech therapist, and I was much in a chair like this. The support of legs are probably shooting off and said like, Eric, life's going to be hard for you.

Oh, no. And you'll probably, you'll, it can be a failure and you'll be a recluse if you're not pushed through. And in order to fight being a failure or a recluse, you'll have to fight daily. Every conversation is going to be a challenge. Meeting people is going to be a challenge. You're not going to want to do it. But if you push, push yourself through these things, then you'll become used to overcoming obstacles. Yeah.

And you can likely become very successful. because you'll see challenges as opportunities. So it's up to you. Yeah. Who you want to be. And my parents, to their credit, didn't say, what a clack. It's awful. They were super encouraging or you're beautiful the way you are.

Not that that's not true, but it was tough, right? And I had to work on it. It was a lot of effort, years of effort. And when I was 38, I thank God finally for the stutter. I was in a church service. And I was really upset about it because life was hard. I was so I stutter all the time. And it made people uncomfortable.

I said, well, God, thank you for making me who I am today. And it didn't stop that moment, but over two years, the stutter substantially went away. Wow. Now, if I have too much coffee, comes back or get too tired. But, yeah, but that was it. And then kind of what started, it was the interaction of the lemonade stand of having a a lemonade stand as a kid. I made like $82 the first day, which is a ton of money.

And I would point to the sign, and it was 50 cents. And I'm Eric, where. E's are hard to say. W's are hard to say Fs are impossible So I was Eric Weir with 50 cent lemonade So they said how much the lemonade Point and then they'd say

Well how much is it? I'm like 50 cents I realized quickly that stuttering was terrible For being picked on it It was great for tips right Yeah yeah And that's how I got started But then that just led to

You know me associating interacting with people With it was rewarded And then I went to You know buying and selling vehicles when I was 13, I was buying and selling cars, and then karate, and then, you know, making leather bracelets in between that. But just stuff that was always, always a business.

And I think that people have a lot of music in them, you know what I mean, but they have a lot of potential that might even be untapped. They just give themselves potential, give themselves permission to dream, permission to try something. Yeah. And I think that it leads to more fulfillment, and quite oftentimes, a lot more opportunity as well. Right.

So I remember that in the book. That tremendous obstacle, really the breakthrough of that and dealing with that became how you were able to overcome so many other things and take advantage of other opportunities. Oh, sure. And I think that I think it's easy to look at people and think, wow, they've got everything going on or everything's going their way. And really life's a lot of what you choose to focus on. I can focus on an ache and pain or a threat. or this or that, right? Or do you focus on the opportunity or which you can learn?

And everyone has setbacks and they can be stumbling blocks or they can be stepping stones, right? And you have to think about gratitude. Are you grateful for what you have? Yeah. And your gratitude and your altitude you go to in life, they're never really too far apart. Right. When I've witnessed. Yeah.

And so, so yeah, I encourage people to dream to take chances and to learn because you're going to have setbacks. Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's great. Great story. Now, when you got out of Georgia State, you'd been doing commercial real estate, is that when you went to Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jen Rat? Went to Merrill Lynch First. I went there for about four and a half, five years. It's kind of funny. I was really one of the worst people they ever had because I went to the training, you know, and they hired

me because of my real estate hustle, right? I said, well, I think you probably figure it out. And I didn't, I had a cold call, which means you're literally calling people. people, total strangers. My manager gave me a white pages and a yellow page. Those are my leads. And the only, what I did is, it started in the back with the W's. All right. Well, that's hard to say, but it's stutter. So I'd call on Mr. Waukowitz there. This is Eric Buhbibbubh, Bill, Berylidge. You're going to invest in business. Well, sometimes I'd make it through most of the times he'd hang up on me. And it was horrible. I was like on the bottom 20% of the class. And I was working like twice as hard.

I started working like till 7 p.m. 8 p.m. I was being told to quit calling so late. It was horrible. But I lost my voice. I was in chloroceptic and I could hardly speak something. I mean, I'm desperate. So I started going door to door. And Piedmont Road, there's an office park crossing where my Merrill Lynch was at the time. That's where I started, office buildings. And then I went to like industrial sites and pawn shops. I've had dogsicked on me, everything. But when I realized, you know, is that when you're knocking on the door and you open, They were like, hi, I'm air. We're like, calm down. Come down. Come on inside.

Let's talk. And then over the next couple of years, I open like 500 new accounts, you know, which is a lot. I went from being one of the worst in the business to the top 1% for relationships and opening accounts. And then from there I moved to, as Salwood's gone in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, now the year's 94, you know, and I thought with Intel and Cisco, and Microsoft, Oracle, all that's going on.

I wanted to move there and be part of the growth in technology and biotech. So that's what I did. And then I started over because people who work with me in Atlanta didn't think I was too smart. We were moving to San Francisco. So they wanted to have a local representative.

So I pretty much started over. And then I did the same thing again. Did you go door to door again? I went to the Bank of America Tower, which is across from my office building downtown. and I just, and they have security, and they were, they were always were trying to throw me out. So, and I've been caught a couple of times, but I was sort of like floor 17th and 13, 19, 15, 21, keeping guessing.

And yeah, I opened accounts right away, but it was, you know, I got a kicked out a lot, security called me a lot, but I went through Transamerica Tower and I'm going to go to Sandhill Road, all the tech companies, they had less security, and then I go meet all the tech founders, and they were usually, you're just getting started. But I met some big-name people when they were smaller and developed some relationships with them over time. But it was still mostly rejection. It's 90% rejection. That was in the mid-90s?

Mid-90s, yeah. Okay. Interesting times. Right before the big Internet. Oh, yeah. It was a fantastic place to live. I mean, 95, 6, 7, 98, 9. I mean, the NASDAQ went from like 2 to 5,000, you know, and it corrected like 82%.

Yeah. between March 2000 to the end of 2002, it was a tremendous bloodletting. I'll tell you how smart I am, Eric. I went out there for pretty much the same reasons to chase the technology boom like in 84, 85, 86 time frame, and I was convinced that I had missed it. I had missed it, you know.

Gula Packard, IBM. IBM PC was out, the peanut was out, Apple was out. I missed the damn thing. But yeah, it's amazing. It's just a place where all the people seem to gather that want to do something in technology, right? There's no question about it. It's a remarkable, very special place in that regard. It's a lot of brilliant people, a lot of entrepreneurism, a lot of big thinking.

Yeah. Okay. Quick sales question. You obviously have a lot of great customers around the world. What's your best instructions? for how to go from making a transactional sale, like, you know, to give you to put up the money for this top golf

to somebody that really trust you to do a whole bunch of things. I think it's just, you know, relationship moves at the speed of trust, really. So it's just you do, do what you say you can do and seek to perform or overperform. And then, you know, I'll give you a story that happens with Nordstrom or with Sears. are the same. They would have a customer and then they would have a champion after a mistake.

So they'd have a customer when they would come in and transact. But when they came in and said, I have a problem in a washer and dryer, then they repair it and follow up, how are we doing? Then they had a customer for life. And the same with Norseum, they would have people who would be transactional until they had something they didn't like and maybe they lost their receipt when they took it back and they were still honored. Sometimes it was. abused by people, right? But then they had a relationship. And you'll find that in business, everything's not going to go well. You know, and then when you have things that are setbacks, are you able to make the phone call and say, hey, this is not working like I wanted to do.

I do think there's a path forward, or there's not a path forward, or let's try something else. But just communicating is the best. And I think that in my industry, there are times, there's some marketable real estate, no matter how dumb you are, you look smart. And there are times as a matter how smart you are, you look down. So you have to be, I tell my kids, there's two times people, those who are humble and those are soon to be. So, but just be able to communicate as best you can. And then over time, you'll build deeper and deeper relationship.

It's like any relationship. You'll look back at any relationship you want to think of. There's highs and lows and things of that nature. But consistency is what wins the day. Knowing that person is not going anywhere. is it Wednesday. So part of the answer there is it is a length of time and probably every customer is going to be a little different in how much time they need to kind of bring you over the finish line.

Right. Okay. Interesting. And then just, you know, trying to do what you say, follow up, but things that I do personally is I do things that some people don't do any longer as I meet somebody or write a handwritten note. Nice to meet you. I mean, I'm generally, I'm interested in learning and people's names and how.

have an opportunity and they do or don't do it. We do something else. And to the extent things work out is easier, obviously. And then you just continue to provide service and communicate and take an interest in their lives and just be active, you know, but not overly active, you know. I guess if that makes sense. And you'll find if, you know, that there'll be people that you will identify with and people that, I mean, Techroll was perfect.

had people that wanted to meet, periodically people that really, really enjoyed an email and no conversation because they'd rather just keep doing what they do, but they felt like you cared if you emailed them, right? Somebody else may feel ignored if you email them. So you've got to kind of know who you're dealing with. Yeah, good point.

Find out how they want to be communicated with. Correct. Yeah, that's good. And here's, one of my pet peeves is when people, you know, open up the relationship conversation with I want to be your trusted partner. And when you say that, it's just like, like get out, you know, because it doesn't, you can't, you can't just say that. No. You got to earn it.

You got to earn it. Yeah, it takes time. It takes time. And then, and you don't know what you know. It's like, you know, if you're in the military battle, then you'll, you know, you know, who's in, who's in, right? Everybody's in when it's sitting on the bus, right? You know, but when the first shots fired, you know, like I said, well, as with war or many other things, the first shots fired, you know, the plan changed. You know, the plan changed. changes. So what would you do? So I think just being attuned of being and just trying to give more than you get as best you can try to be accessible. And I think when people call, I try to call them back the same day. And some people like ignore, ignore messages or are that just just do it. And somebody to say something to me, make the hard call first. I mean, things you don't want to do do first in the day. Because the rest of the day is better. You know, so and no matter what business.

I mean, I'm a chick-fil-A and have a wonderful place to come and visit. There's somebody that didn't get the right meal and they're upset about it. There's somebody who maybe had a bad day and they're taking it out on somebody there. So you just have to be in the moment, to do the best you can and to treat people with as much grace as possible. Yeah, I agree. Let's talk about attitude for a minute. Can you give us your prescription for the things, to do or take or ingest, you know, what can we allow ourselves to take in, that will either

give you the positive attitude or put you more into a negative attitude. Yeah, I think all of us are capable to be in a positive place or a negative place just about any time. So if I were to, and I guess it give you an analogy if we're, we have a garden and I have problems, I'm going to call them weeds. And I'll have opportunities. we'll call them their tomato plants or corn stalks. And if I water and fertilize the weeds and I ignore the tomatoes and the corn,

the weeds are going to overtake them. Yep. You know, if I try to pull the weeds and water the corn or the tomatoes give them fertilized or then I'm going to have a beautiful garden. And really, it's like that. Somebody said, life's parallel tracks. You're always going to have good things happening. You're always going to have things you would change happening.

And if you can learn from the ones you want to change and focus on the good and doing more of that, I think that leads to it and really just come from a position of gratitude. And it's really, and I've told people that even when they're in a bad spot, I said, what if this is as good as it ever gets? I said, would you trade your current 20 years from now? You'd probably give anything to have today's problems. Maybe your health is worse.

Maybe this is happening. You'd love to go back 20 years and take these problems. So just be grateful. And I think gratitude is a way to start. try to dream or think of ways to solve problems that might not be inside the four squares, right? And I think just setting and thinking is a very underrated. It's underrated. It's very important. And sometimes the noise of electronics or social media stop us from that. But just taking time to plan and think and then dream with it. Imagine you can't fail. And then thinking of all the things you

would do. And it's not a time for criticizing. And then write them down. And then later you come back creative critical thought. What steps could I take? Who could I know could help me with this? What am I missing to get here? And begin to build a plan to solve problems. And I think most things are solvable or at least can have a better outcome than if left the line.

Yeah. I agree. That's the interesting answer. I mean, I was thinking more about like, do I listen to the news or do I listen to a podcast? Or, you know, what kind of inputs are you allowing yourself and what do you recommend? Yeah. So each day I start with meditation, you know, a little bit. I read a proverb of the day.

And then I end up, then for me, I'm very focused. So I'll be like, if I're somebody who I want to read, I'll try to read that. Sometimes I'll just take a news excerpt from an app, you know, like a business news. I'll just scan what's going on business-wise. Then if it's, I know the Federal Reserves, I'll look at that. If there's things, books, I really am a big, big reader of books. I read books on real estate over Peter Thiel, zero to one. I try to read books frequently or audio books are probably even more in use now.

So I just try to be thoughtful and I go through seasonality. So that makes sense. So if it's like I'm trying to learn more about this particular thing or negotiating our skills or problem resolution or goal setting, then I'll just go to Amazon, goal setting, you know, sort of. Then I'm like, you know, here, buy the book or read the reviews or podcasts. That makes a big difference for me. And I'll ask other people, what, you know, what? What have they done?

And there's a place I'm trying to do, probably the best thing I do to learn is I look for a mentor and say somebody who's done something I want to do or something I'm trying to accomplish now. Call them and ask them if I can have 15, 20 minutes at their time. That oftentimes makes me go really fast. Yeah, quick. I tell people when they ask, you know, when clients or young people ask me for advice on that question, I say, well, just think about anything that comes up, you can do. choose to take a positive spin on it, you know, this is like, let's say, I lost my job. Well, maybe I'm going to find a better one, you know, or you can be neutral and you can say, well, we'll see what

happens, you know, we're going to do our best, or you can be, woe is me. Right. This is not fair. Right. I'm going to go tell someone about it. I'm going to go, you know, whatever. It's just your choice. All those three things are reasonable answers. They're all kind of true. Right. Just which one are you going to choose? 100%. Yeah. And that's it. And then, you know, and life's dynamic. I mean, you can make it choose something to be a problem one day and the next day you try to solve it. But that's excellent advice to give somebody.

And literally, some of the things that I would have was convinced were the biggest problems that I had at the time, ended up really putting me in a new direction. That was such a blessing. You know, like who would choose traumatic brain injury as your starting point, right? Right, right. Who would do that, right? Nobody. Who would choose failing your first black bill test is the reason you became rated, some of the top rated athletes in the world in that sport.

So why would you do that? And who would, so you are getting your, doing poorly in your first college exam and I got to really study? This takes more than I thought. So I think it's the resolve and the persistence to see things through that makes the biggest difference. Yeah, I love it. That's good. Tell us a little bit about. kind of the future of what you're working on now at WCM.

Yeah, I think now I'm just, I wish I had a lot more futures. I'm having more fun than ever, right? So for me, I'm really enjoying the top golfs. We've been involved in movies and films for a long time, and sometimes we get involved in here and there, a little less of that lately. But I see for now it would be the top golfs trying to take them through Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.

You know, those are areas in Austria that are taking a lot of time. We're enjoying that. And more locally, I'm excited about other individual opportunities that come up, you know, for real estate development or co-investing with people. Okay. Excellent. And then I know you've had to interview tons of people. Can you give us some quick do's and don'ts for things that you're looking for or not looking for when you're interviewing?

Oh, hire for a job. So I want to make sure they've done their homework. So sometimes people show up and they don't even know who I am. What do you all do here? The funniest one was a guy showed up for an interview. This is hilarious. And he's like, you know, and he's like, was asked you what my name was. And I told him.

And he said, what did you do? And I said, well, I'm the principal. Oh, well, how long you worked here? And I said, well, I founded the place. He's like, really? Wow. And it was kind of funny. They didn't know that.

They didn't know I'd written a book. Didn't know how I'd done that. So I think doing the homework on people you interview with is critical. Writing a thank you note and they don't get that. I mean, email or text. I mean, just go all in for a handwritten note. It's stationary of your own. That makes a big difference, I think.

And then just being polite and then listening. And actually, they're interviewing you, but ask them questions about themselves. What brought them to where they are? What do they love about their business? What would they recommend to themselves if they're 20, 25 years younger? you'll get more insight with that. And they'll also view you as a thoughtful person in that. It needs to be genuine, right?

But those are things like, wow, you're actually asking interesting questions because everyone asks the same questions, you know. But I don't come in and say, like, what are the benefits? Somebody asks me that, how many days off? I mean, what's the hybrid work situation? Those are things that are important, but I really want to understand, at least for me, you want to talk to HR. That's one thing.

But talking to the principal of the firm, you know, tell me your heart, tell me what you want to drive. How do you want to change the world? How do you want to make a difference? How do you want to give back? Where do you see your company in one, three, five, ten years? Those are things that I think will set you. Those questions are more of the heart of the matter.

It may set you apart from other applicants. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, a little. I tell people also to be relaxed and honest because you want to be chosen or not chosen for who you are. Right. You don't want to pretend. Right.

You know? So then you have to be that way forever, you know. Right. So, yeah, that's good stuff. It's all pretty basic stuff. So what advice would you give a young person who says, darn it, you know, I want to get in real estate too. What would be a good way for them to get started?

Let's say they're still in college and they want to get started quickly and do well in real estate. All right. So real estate, one of the beautiful things about it, it is it can be accessible to a lot of people, but it's got to go from different angles, and it can be very capital intensive. And sometimes when you're younger, you don't have capital, but you might have time and energy. So I would try to think of a way that I could be involved, if I'm getting out of the school that requires very little money, and I could use the resource I have, which is time and energy. And I try to find somebody who wanted to be a real estate investor,

and see if you can work out a deal where, you know, I know how to remodel a house, or I know how to do this, or I know how to find, go, look up tax records, see who owns property. You have capital. I don't have that. Can we structure some split on the back end where you get your money first and then we split whatever's left over? Yeah. And I'll do all this list of things for it. Just do a really good job and see what happens. And I think that way you don't need money, but you are almost like you have it because you would call it sweat equity. You're putting in the work to get a reward and they're put it in the capital to get a reward. Sometimes for them where money is maybe easier to come by, but time.

It's harder to come by. Right. And you might be money's harder to come by, but times easy to come by and try to seek something like that out. And then for me, you get started in real estate, I became an agent. And it just takes very little capital to do that. And then you can learn the business that way from a realtor perspective. That was helpful.

And then I would probably read books about VRBO, whether you, I've heard everything leased in an apartment to rent out of room to just lots of different ways to go and people are much more experience than I am with that. But that's something that I would look at doing if I were getting started. Nice. Well, you're the one they should be listening to. That's good advice. You know, find a way in with or without money and then start doing your own deals as soon as you can, I suppose.

Okay, a couple of quick hitters here. What's your favorite movie? I know you're in the movie business. What's your favorite movie? Actually, it's kind of funny. I love, I've liked, I've liked Star Wars comes to mind as a kid. It was like, when it came out, it was like 1977. I think it came out.

And I remember the theater I was in, I watched it. Me too. Yeah. It was like, oh. It was just terrible. Those letters started going up. Yeah. The beginning, I'm like, what the hell's going on?

I know, I know. I saw it in Reading, California. Okay. The first time, yeah. But I remember that like it was yesterday. And it was in 1977. It was a long time ago. But I mean, the power of film is intense.

Very powerful. That's what I liked about it. But that was probably a favorite movie. The original. The original. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah.

It just really, boom, it was in there. And for its time. Yeah. It was just so artistically fantastic for its time. And for the budget. Yeah. I watched it. I was in Clemson.

I remember the little theater, when I saw my friend who lived in Clemson saw that movie. And I didn't have any idea what it was. I was not into any of that stuff. He just said, we're going to see a movie. Right. So I was completely shocked.

Right. It's great. Favorite book? Wow. I have a lot of books. So I read, I mean, I read proverbs every day. But aside from that, I think there are books like, probably one of the greatest was focal point by Brian Tracy.

Just really is good at helping you to zero in on what you want to accomplish. See at the top by Zig Zig Ziglers for if you want to be in selling. It's a fantastic movie. Peter Thiel, zero to one. how to start from a concept to launch a company. He launched PayPal and many other companies. So those are three right off the top. They can grow rich Napoleon Hills,

a classic people have talked about now for 70 years. So there are a lot of books that are helpful. And usually I try to get a few concepts out of each book I read. Yeah, nice. And favorite word. Word. Dream. Dream.

I love it. I love it. That's a great one. That's a great one. Well, do you want to promote, talk about the book a little bit or anything else? Sure. Well, I mean, here's the book I've written in my first book, Who's Eating Your Pie? And it's essential financial advice will transform your life.

But really more than that, it's interesting. At least I think it's cut into a few sections, which is knowing yourself and taking accountability and responsibility and then giving yourself permission to dream, right? And then identifying shortcomings, identifying potential, and then building tools to bridge the cap. And once you've done that, then how do you take action? How do you set goals? How do you bring goals into reality? And then after you have resources, how do you invest them or look at different ways to diversify? So it's really all in one book. So this is who's eating your pie? And oftentimes what I say is what I mean by that is like If I were to talk to most people and say, tell me where you're going to make a million dollars this next year.

And I'm going to just pick a number for most people. Just, wow, I can never imagine that. And the first thing they start thinking about is why they can't do it. Yeah. Why I can't do it. This won't work for me. This is happening. These guys know who I am.

It's in my obstacles. We've already tried that. Yeah, yeah. But it's like, it's like, but your first thought is almost always why it won't happen. Yeah. And let's try to learn to get yourself permission to dream. a key takeaway from the book is keep a list of successes and how they made you feel. And I do that because it's so often times we'll forget all the things in the close times we had

or times we made it, times we weren't sure we'd make it and we made it. And if we wrote those down, we're in a moment of discouragement which we all face, you can go back to this book called My Victory Book and I look at it. I'm like, well, this is where I came through. This worked out. This is an answer. or this happened, this has, and this happened. And I do that and how it made me feel.

And then before long, I'm like, you know, I maybe haven't been in the same situation, but I've been in a similar. I've been in a tough spot. And I came through and I made it. And for me, it's just building that, where you can go to that yourself anytime. You're not reliant upon a friend saying,

you can make it through, you can make it through. It's your own words written when you had a success of how you did it and how it made you feel. Well, I told you, I just finished listening to your book this morning because I knew I had to feel. finished before our podcast. But it's a, I mean, it's a, so to speak, a real page turn.

I mean, I enjoyed it. And the original concept, I understood, you know, in chapter one or two was, you know, there's how much money you're taking in. Where's it going? Who's taking a bite of it? Right, right. Maybe we can budget a little bit better. Sure.

Of course, it goes into starting businesses and real estate and everything else. So I highly encouraged listening to or reading that book. So, thank you. Well, thank you very much for being. in here, I clearly are a busy man. So thank you for being on the podcast. It's a pleasure. No, no, it's it's it's it's my pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. All right. Absolutely.