Noob School - Episode 91: The Power of a Positive Outlook with Graham Howle

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

On this episode of Noob School, we’re joined by Graham Howle, president of Mosaic Management LLC. Graham discusses all aspects of his business ventures, from insight to the management of high net-worth business owners, to his experience in real estate, to a few excellent tips for all walks of life. Tune in to learn more from his success, and remember - always searching to find the good in a bad situation can lead to a vastly more fortunate life. 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'm with a really good friend, Graham Howell. Graham owns Mosaic Management here in Greenville. And Mosaic Management does a lot of things. I'll let him explain it to you. But as far as I can tell, he helps entrepreneurs kind of better manage their businesses. He also owns his own businesses.

He's invested in businesses. He owns real estate. He also plays a mean base, and he's a good traveler. Thank you, John. You're welcome. So thanks for being here today, Graham. I think you're, when they find out about what your life looks like now, you know, the noob schoolers will say, hey, I want that job.

Yes. Yeah. And you've done that on purpose. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Life engineering. Life engineering. Life engineering, I love that.

I think so many people, you know, for whatever reason, they go through life, not engineering their life, just kind of putting up with whatever's going on and bitching about it. Right, right. And finding other people in the same camp who will allow you to bitch if you allow them to bitch. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Victims. Yeah.

Yeah. Like Mr. 12-pack, make all my troubles go away. Yes. I've been there. I might have. I might have, Graham. I mighta. No, but I will let him tell you more about his business, but before we get into that, I got to tell you, the reason that Graham and I became friends and met each other was because Graham, even though he was already successful, Graham Cole called me. We didn't know each other from Adam. This had to be, how many years ago? 11 years ago. 11 years ago. And I tell you, I can't remember really responding to any other call calls since then.

I mean, not one person has called me with a good, like a good, I call it a spiel, but a good reason. Like, this is why I'm calling. Because I think, you know, based on what I know about you, I think I might be able to help you. And it turned out to be very good particularly for me, but for both of us. So let's start with that. Tell them, like, first of all, why you picked me and then what your cold call sounded like that it would get my attention. Okay. And I hope I don't remember exactly what the cold call sounded like, but I remember exactly why I picked you because I had this, and I read this somewhere because a lot of my ideas are not, most of them, well, I might not have any original ideas because I read a lot and I watch a lot of YouTube video, you know, a podcast.

books but um i think that uh you know i had done a ideal prospect you know who is my ideal prospect and so you know there's different sales you know if you're trying to get a lot of sales it doesn't matter yours it's a numbers game but if you're looking for specific people you know who are they and you want to you want to make sure you do a good job on the cold call because you you got to you know you got to land i mean there might have been five people on my list So I've got to, you know, put my best foot forward. So I had this list of, you know, all the different reasons I was calling you. And, you know, it's, you know, high net worth individual with, you know, business interests.

You know, I knew something about you. And, you know, be very interesting. So I was like, well, that's, that's who I needed to call. But I tell you something, tell you probably don't know. So I had a business coach at the time that I was trading services with. And I'm kind of, you know, I'm very introverted. I know probably don't seem that way when you meet me in public, but introversion is, you know, an extrovert is where you get your energy from.

So I get my energy kind of being by myself. But I'm also kind of, you know, I was anxious about calling you for sure. But I had a business coach. And she's like, and one of the things she said is, who's your ideal client? And I said, John Sterling. She goes, I want you to, you know, by the end of the session, we're going to call it.

She was in the room with me. Right then. Yeah. That's so cool. So that's, I don't, you know, thank goodness she was there. Yeah. You might not have done it. Well, I think I probably, I probably would, I feel like,

I feel like we. we would have met up anyway at some point because we're tight. I mean, we're good friends. So I feel like that would have happened eventually, but maybe it wouldn't have been for a while. Yeah. But it happened. And can I tell them what happened afterwards or you want to tell that?

Sure, sure. So I called, called. I can't remember what I said. You know, I think I told them that I was, you know, who my clients were. And, you know, with their permission, I told them. and I told them what I did and then, you know, how I thought,

I think I told you how I thought I could help. And I think it was worth meeting up and just discussing it further. Yeah. And you said, how about meet me at CrossFit will work out and then go to lunch or breakfast after that. Yeah. And so I did.

And that was the, you know, the hardest workout of my life. not in good shape. And I mean, I shut up and cut off khakis and, you know, I think Chuck Taylor's and long socks and, you know, teet, you know, belt on, I think. Yeah. Did my first burpees.

And, I mean, I remember that work. It was kettlebells, burpees and roe. I mean, I remember. And then it about killed me. So we went, we went to eat afterwards and thought we had a good discussion. And then so I follow up. the next week. And he said, yeah, I thought it went well.

Why don't we meet a CrossFit again? And then we'll go talk at lunch afterwards. Then I'm like, okay. So we did it again. And then the following week, you know, follow up again. And it's like, yeah, you know, I thought that was a good. Same thing. Yeah.

And so at that point, I was like, all right, I was so sore. I just, you know, paid for a membership and started going every day. And I've been going, I've been, you know. Yeah, 11 years. Yeah. Physical fitness has been a priority and it changed my life. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I know that I've helped you with some things, but I know that you've helped me more. I know that. And there's a lot of things that you've done besides that. We could argue about that, but we helped each other. But that's, that's interesting things about this situation to me is that's happening because you, you, you,

picked well. You chose your ideal prospect. Who's going to work well with you and your business? Listen, we probably both had some bad customers. You know, they're just like drive you crazy and lie to you and won't pay and, you know, whatever. But when you get the right ones and you're helping them, they're helping you. You almost can't help each other enough. Right, right. You know, I know the more I help you, the more, I mean, it's just the way it goes. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's so much about that. A part of of it is, as you were describing what I was doing, I think the CrossFit thing was partly because I was just really into CrossFit at the time. Partly.

I just wanted everyone to come. But it was also partly to test, you know, that like when someone says, like, do you want to meet, I mean, not to make it so damn easy for them. You know, like, what time would you like to meet? We'll have cinnamon buns, you know. So meet me at the CrossFit 6.30 a.m. Tuesday. And the other thing is, when you said we did it three times in a row, you know, sometimes

a business owner just needs some time. They just need to see you more than once. Yes. Maybe it takes three times. Maybe it takes five times. Maybe they'll come back at Thanksgiving. They're just not quite ready. It's an emotional thing.

And so I think that people just need to understand that and just not be. in a rush. As long as they're giving you the next appointment. Right. Right. Just keep coming. Yeah. No big deal. Right. Right. Yeah, so I think when the call call to me, it sounded like, it was, first of all, it was very conversational. I could not sense that Graham was nervous or calling off a sheet. It was more like, hey, you know, Graham Howell, I'm with Mosaic Capital. I help entrepreneurs in the words like you, around town, mostly, make it easier for you to manage your businesses

and make more money for less time with people like this and that. I don't know if it's going to work for you or if it worked for you or not, but I'd love to sit down with you and just talk it through, maybe I can help. Something like that. That sounds...

Something like that. And then when I hear that as an owner, I'm like, who what owner wouldn't want to say, I'll talk about it. Right. Less time, more. more money, sounds good. Yes, yes.

So, yeah. But the key was having the right person. Yes. Right person. Mm-hmm. Interesting. Okay, so. And that's different than, so, you know,

some sales, you know, it's a numbers game. You're just trying to get as many people as you can. But in this circumstance, you really, I mean, I had a very short list. And that probably, I think you're the only person on that list. You know, you're the first person for sure. I might have had three or four other people on the list. But it was important that I was going to have to, I needed to get my foot in the door.

For sure. Well, I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. So under life engineering, let's describe where you are now. Okay. What does your business life look like now in terms of your various things that you're involved in? Okay, so I've got Mosaic management, which is a, it kind of does different things, but it's really dealing with high net worth individuals that own businesses.

And they need to have a lot going on for me, for it to be worth bringing me on, because I do charge a lot. but if they've got a lot going on, it's easy, you know, there's an easy return on investment because I can always find, if they've got enough going on, I can find, you know, I can pay for myself 10 times over.

Yeah. So that's why it has to be a high note worth person with business interests. Yep. So I've got that. I don't have a lot of customers because, you know, it's, it is time consuming.

And they do, they pay a lot. And I do feel like I need to keep my time available for them. They don't take a ton of my time necessarily, but they take my head space. So I have to think about what they're doing. And I do think about them all the time. I mean, several times a day I'm trying to think about ways to improve their life. So I've got that. I've got 60-something rental properties.

ranging from condos to fourplexes to eightplexes to houses to retail office warehouse medical building so a lot of different little things like that so love real estate we talk more about that you want to and then I've got some ownerships and different businesses you know usually 50% or 100% of businesses and I'm a For the ones that are 50%, I'm the kind of the silent partner and the other person's the operational partner. So they kind of do the day-to-day and they get paid a salary. And then at the end of the year, we bonus if we want to or try to leave it in the company. So on that end, when you have an idea or a business that you want to start or buy,

because he likes to keep blank space on his calendar. You're not looking for a bunch of meetings and all that stuff. So in order to make that continue to work and still buy a business is you've got to have that operational partner to run the business and be to face the business so you can be behind the scenes. Yes. And typically it's younger person. Well, not always?

Not always. I was just thinking about one. Yes. But anyway, whoever they are, they're willing to run the business, maybe at a discounted salary in order to get equity and operate it. Well, if sometimes. So if it's, ideally it wouldn't be a startup. I know what you're talking about.

That is a startup. Okay. But ideally it's a business that's already running. and I would come in and they're maybe struggling with something. And, you know, through the years, a lot of things have just become obvious. You know, you're like, okay, let's just do this and this, and you're fine. And generally, I'll just tell them that. They're like, well, I don't know if that's going to work.

I said, oh, you're fine. Just do this, this and this, and you're golden. And, you know, they sometimes are like, well, why don't you come aboard? I'm out, you know, all right, for the right business. So I've done that on some of them. And then, but I have done a couple of startups, just some passion projects. And that's where you're talking about, the younger. Yeah.

The younger. Yeah. But generally speaking. Yeah, I think you've gotten good at being able to get a business operating more or another by bringing somebody else in to operate it. Yeah. And I, on the other hand, have gotten stuck time after time. or just it's a hard it's a it's a it's a it's a hard thing to do is to give it up yes to somebody well yeah it it can be it can be i don't really have a hard time i'm not a i mean that's the goal for me is

to not have any day-to-day responsibilities yeah because i want to keep i'm you know i'm working all day but it's usually researching or you know you know i've got like one or two meetings a day maybe or but it's usually or putting out some fires or you know it's something like that, but I wouldn't have time to do that if I was doing day-to-day stuff. Even my wife has taken on all the day-to-day responsibilities of Mosaic management. And that's fairly extensive because we manage, we manage, you know, some people's business, a lot of people's businesses. Yeah.

Interesting. 60-something real estate properties, several businesses, the management for entrepreneurs, which, of course, I mean, people might. might ask, why would you do that with all this other stuff you got? And I think you told me before, you know, it creates more business opportunities. If you're working with people like you and I have done other stuff together. Yes. Yes. So that's a great question. So I'm not, mosaic is, I'm not really looking for any more clients. I mean, I would take the right one, of course, but you're right. I'm kind of got the businesses going. Everything's going pretty good.

I'm not, I'm not, I don't want to stop anything, but I am looking at a business probably, or real estate, you know, every day. Yeah. And so I'm more taking my knowledge and just being kind of my own consultant. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I think you also spent, because of this, this white space on your calendar,

Graham spends a ton of time learning. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've never seen anyone, you know, studying so much YouTube on a, certain subjects, whether it's how to refinance a property or whatever it is. You know, and I think that gives you a big advantage while other people are out making the donuts. Right. You're getting smarter, smarter and smarter. And I think about like Buffett and Munger.

I mean, for what, 70 years, those guys have been reading all day? Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. How smarter are they? Right. Ten hours a day they're reading something. Yeah. You know, and just they're able to make good decisions.

Right. And they're not, and I read something about Munger one time. He's like, yeah, I do four investments. I mean, what? Yeah. And it's like, yeah, you know, I got those apartment complexes and I got, and he's like, that's all I do. But he knows those things really well.

Yeah. I mean, I kind of go off the path a couple of times, but, you know, I'm starting to know my lanes now. Yeah. You know, like when all the Bitcoin craze was going, I guess it's still kind of going, but I was just like people always ask me, it's like, I bet you're on that. I was like, no, I don't, you know, I don't know, I don't have the time right now to spend that it deserves. I know, you know, blockchain is a great technology.

And I know cryptocurrency is going to be big. But I don't, I mean, if I got into it right now, I'd be began. because I don't know it. Yeah. And I know I don't know it because I've gotten to a lot of things that I shouldn't have gotten into because I didn't know them well. Yeah. Well, it's a sign of maturity, Graham.

We're getting smarter. Yes. So one thing that I do know about your business is one of your buildings that you own has a bar in it, right? Well, I don't own that building. I lease that building. At least the building. But I own the business, yes. Okay.

And so it's one of those businesses where you own it and you have an operational partner who runs it. Yes. Okay. So this is over in Clemson. Yes. And I kind of flippantly said, we've got some new laws in South Carolina

that are making it much more expensive to operate a bar. Making insurance like four or five times higher. I said, is that crushing your bar? And Graham, without even thinking, he goes, well, it might make it better. Yes. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he said, well, he said,

if we're able to withstand that higher cost, maybe some of our competition won't, we'll have more people come in, charge 25 cents more per beer or whatever. I mean, it's just an excellent way to look at every situation. Yes, yes. You know, first of all, let's don't assume the worst. Right.

Maybe we shouldn't always assume the best, but we should at least know there's a best, there's a worse, there's something in the middle. Yes. But we don't know what the answer is yet. Right. And I would say almost always, and this is a relatively new philosophy, is at least about three years, maybe three years old for me.

But I have found, you know, there's some horrible things that can happen to you. And so I'm not talking about everything. But generally, when something bad happens, the first thing that pops in my mind now is what good is going to come from this? Because it almost always does if you're looking hard enough. So it's because, you know, you've got to practice philosophy. So that's been a practice. But that's the first thing that pops in my head. Like, you know, I get, we got a car, you know, car wreck going on a cruise.

And, you know, I was like, the first thing that popped in my head was, I wonder what good is going to come from this. And, of course, nothing is good as come from that. But that was the first thing that popped in my brain. Yeah, that's good. Well, I agree. I think that's, again, back to the victim thing. I think with everybody, but particularly if you're a young person, you just need to understand. that it's a very popular thing for people to, you know, that you have, to be a victim.

Right. And that in every situation, no matter what happens, whether you get the job or don't get the job or whatever, is you can either frame it as, let's say we don't get the job. Well, I'm more likely to find a better one now. Oh, yeah. You know, you can say that. Or you could be the victim and you can say, man, that's a person. probably because I'm a guy and they wanted a girl.

Right. You know, I'm a girl. They wanted a guy. You could just be a whiner. Or you could just be in the middle. I think the middle is acceptable to say, don't know what happened here. Yes. We're going to do the best we can going forward.

Yes. But so many people go to that bottom. And it's just going to mess your life up. Right. Right. Right. I mean, you end up talking to other people who like to have that conversation. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's, yeah, so many examples. There's a guy in town that he's a fantastic attorney, real successful attorney, and he was a star running back for South Carolina. He was a supposed star, you know, he's a freshman and, you know, heavily recruited guy. And he was on the way to be in this great.

athlete and is just completely destroyed his knee freshman year. And you think, oh, no, after all that work, and you know, blah, blah, blah. So what does you do? He's like, well, they'll go to Harvard now. Right. You know, and so he did whatever he had to do, transferred to Harvard. Yes. Then went to Harvard Law School.

Right. Now he's a kick-ass lawyer. Right. It's like, might have been a good thing. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's a lesson I learn from you all the time.

It's just focus on what good can come of something and certainly stay away from anybody who's taking you down a dark dark. Oh, yeah, yeah. What do you do with somebody that you know? That is, well... It's tough, isn't it? That is tough. It depends. I guess it depends.

I do think about that a lot because, you know, it's, you know, there's some people that, like, say you have a bad waiter. If I have a bad waiter, I will, I don't let it bother me. I still probably give them the same, you know, maybe get them 15% instead of 20%. But I don't tell them they're a bad waiter. Because I don't really, you know, if I don't know them, yeah. it's not my job to make them a better waiter. Yeah. So I just leave.

Yeah. But, you know, if it's somebody I know and care about, like my children or you or, you know, my wife or, you know, close friends, then, you know, I'll tell them. You know, I'll think about how to do it because I don't want to be one of these know-it-offs. I mean, we were in Blainez Iris for, what, eight days, nine days together. Yeah. And you were eating, you know, a lot of steak. The last day, I was like, John, you got to stop eating somebody's state. I say, I don't want to be one of those guys.

But, you know, that was hard for me to do. Yeah. And, I mean, it wasn't a big deal. Yeah. But you took it in the way it was with me. I mean, yeah. So I'm not trying to go around making everybody better. But if it is a good friend or somebody, you know, I care about, then I will because, and they'll know, hopefully they'll know it's coming from the right place.

It's tough, though, isn't it? Yeah, it's tough. My strategy is probably far less brave than yours. It's so hard to have that conversation with someone who's in your inner circle. But if they're not in your inner circle, I'll just try to avoid. Like if I'm sitting near someone who's bothering me or something, I'll just say, you know what? We're going to go to a different restaurant or we're going to go to a different table or something. We'll just change the circumstance.

We're not stuck. Right, right. Oh, I'll do that. I'll do that too. Yeah. And if it's somebody I don't care about and they're just annoying me, then I will avoid them. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's fine. Yeah. I mean, everybody's different. They're, you know, and I recognize that, you know, part of the reason they're annoying me is something's wrong, you know, with me. Also. Well, all right. Let's talk about more on sales a little bit. What kind of sales training have you had?

So I finished Clemson in 94 and I started working for my stepdad's janitorial supply company, United Chemical. And I started and I didn't know what I was going to do. I was finished in economics. And, you know, I wasn't a great student. I was okay. But when I graduated, I went to United Chemical and I was just driving trucks and working in the warehouse. Like I'd done since I was 12 years old. And eventually they did ask me to get into sales.

And I tried it. And ended up staying for 14 and a half years as a salesman. But I was not good at it at all. So I started reading books, Zig Zigler. I'd go to the library and get the books on tape. And, you know, I was just reading. And I was, I mean, I was, it was so hard for me to go on sales calls. But, you know, I did it.

And I remember the first, you know, after, I don't know, I don't know how long it was, but it was a long time, months. I remember going on the, the first sales calls, first sales call I went to that I wasn't just thinking about what I was going to say the whole time. I was like, okay. You know, it was after the sales calls. I wasn't a nervous wreck the whole time. This is starting to become natural.

Yeah. And then after more practice, it was practice. Yeah. It was all practice. And eventually, you know, I didn't, it was, it'd become not effortless, but it was getting that way. And parts of it were becoming effortless. Like the closing, I was getting good at, I consider myself pretty good closer. I'm not great at, you know, we read that book together.

remember that predictable income? Yes, yes. And we got that, you got, so John got the, we read, he said, hey, this is a good book, let's read it. So we kind of read it in like a week, I think. It wasn't, we didn't do it chapter by chapter. And he's like, let's get the author on the phone. I was like, all right. And you did.

So we talked to them for an hour or two. But anyway, this book, you know, it was a good book, but it said, you break the sales. process into four parts. First part, you know, you it's kind of the discovery you make your list like you were on my list for them. Then the second part is you you make the appointment meaning it's kind of the cold call so you you get your foot in the door. Then the second the third part is the closing so you go whoever goes to the meetings the closer and and they their job is to close the sale And then the fourth one is the account manager or I would even say the farmer after that of the account.

So and they were saying that they worked for Salesforce. And Salesforce separates that in four different departments. And, you know, part of my consulting is I do, you know, very little sales consulting. But I do say, you know, if you can separate those. That's good because I would always get bogged down. I was good at the first one and I was good at the third one and I was good at the fourth one. But I was not good at the second one. So if I had somebody in the second position, I mean.

So what you're talking about from this book, predictable. Predictable Revenue. Evan. Aaron Ross, great book. Is that they broke, Salesforce has four different salespeople. The first one is responsible for finding leads. Yeah, just like doing, yeah, finding leads. Finding the good leads like you were doing.

The second one is kind of having the initial call. Yeah. Find out if they're interested. The third one closes the business. The fourth one is managing the account going forward. Yeah, it makes sense that you'd have at least three of those. Right. The lead generation person is kind of a marketing role.

Right, right. Interesting. Well, I agree. It is amazing how they split the sales roll up. That's interesting. And you could even do that as a small company. You could outsource some of the, maybe the research. Yeah. I mean, I think you'd have to do the closing and the account management for sure. So you, you know, career-wise, you know, got a Clemson in 94. four and you had an economics degree and you worked for this company that that you'd worked for for a long time while you're in school and you got into sales and you were there until you were about

35 about yes about 35 36 and then what happened well so i you know i'm i've always been extremely entrepreneurial meaning i you know i'm not necessarily money hungry but i do like to solve problems. And business was kind of my hobby. So I was doing all these side businesses and a lot of them were related. Like I'd clean gym floors, you know, with the, you know, using our machines for United Chemical and I'd, you know, I sold peanuts for the baseball stadium. And, you know, I was always doing something, including, and that's when I got in the

real estate, too. You had a penny cab service. Well, that was, yeah, that was during the United Chemical. Yeah. Yeah, so I was doing all kind of stuff. Yeah. With the support of, you know, my step, you know, my stepfather and, you know, he was, he was okay with that, I mean, which was very fortunate. And I'm very lucky.

You know, I've got a good friend, you know, I've had a lot of things good happen for me, you know. So. Yeah. So you, but when you left there, what, keep going on that. Okay. So, eventually it was. making more money on the side than I was that you know I came up okay and you know I I was doing this is before the it was actually right around the recession but it had hit me I did I was

it was not educated enough to know what was about to happen to me with the refinancing and all that mm-hmm so I quit right around then and everybody's like what are you are you crazy and I was like, yeah, I'm doing fine. And my reasoning was I was doing so well in real estate, you know, buying my own properties and then sucking the money out and then buying more, you know, that you could do that before the 2007 crash. Then I was like, well, you know, I'm only doing this like two hours a week now. What if I did it 40 hours a week?

You know, the math was staggering. Of course, it doesn't work that way because you can. You can only find a certain amount of deals. So it was, there was a, it was tough. I quit on good terms, but I did quit without telling my wife what I was doing. And, you know, I gave them like three months notice. So it wasn't like, I didn't burn any bridges or anything. I trained my new person.

I mean, I did it all right. In fact, I'm, that's about three years ago. Consulting for that company now. so I'm there once every two weeks and doing, you know, so I'm back in with, you know. But there was, it was scary. It was a, and then about, there was about three years there. I mean, I think I was fine for a couple, you know, a year or two. But then, you know, the banks weren't refinancing.

And, you know, what do you do? I mean, you know, my cash flow was gone. Me, I didn't have a war chest. My war chest was going away. Yeah. And I remember about three years. Every day, every morning I'd wake up. I was like, how am I going to get out of this?

What was the interest rate then? Well, it wasn't really the interest rate. It was the game was, and the big short has a great little, the movie, the big short has a great little snippet that describes what was going through. This group was at a strip club, and they were talking about what. they thought was coming down the road and you know the stripper was the was listening she goes well how am I going to refinance my houses and they're like how many houses do you know she's like I got five yeah and that's what was happening I mean I was like well how am I gonna because

the game it didn't matter before then it didn't matter if you're making money or not right because you could refinance yeah that was the game okay okay and so the refi cut off and Everyone got squeezed. Right. And then, yeah, there was foreclosures and shorts and all kind of stuff, which would be great, well, not great, which would have been fortunate if you had a, if you knew what was going on,

anticipated a little bit and had a bunch of money saved up. But I didn't. Well, you probably probably, everyone else is doing all you could. Oh, yeah. Free money, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm glad I did it. I mean, but it was just, you know, because I did get in the game in a way that I could not have, because I didn't have, I've always been a good saver, but I could not have gotten into the game like I did if the game of real estate is when I'm, if I hadn't really taken a lot of chances. So I'm glad I did it, but it was, it was difficult. It was about a three-year period where it was, it was, it was hard. Well, it was hard. I did. I did. Yes, it did.

Well, do you follow anyone in sales? Do you follow, like, anyone on Instagram or anything? I know I do. You know, I was... You're supposed to say noob school. Newb school. There you go. Come on now.

Sorry. This guy named John Sterling. There you. I'm sorry. He's the best. Yes, he is the best. What about... Well, we do talk a lot about sales.

Yes, we do. What is your all-time favorite book? Well, so I think... the book that I so a lot of people ask me about you know they want to be a real estate investor an entrepreneur so what I've started to do as of last week

was say listen you know because I'm always telling these people you know I'll go meet with them and I say well and if they're completely new maybe not completely new but I always tell them to read rich dad poor dad and that's not really

that's a that's a it's kind of a business novel and it's it's It's got the basics in there. But it's kind of about how do you build wealth? And that's kind of, I would say that's my expertise, is trying to get, is figuring out how, understand money well enough where you can become wealthy. And I think almost anybody can become wealthy,

if they do the right things. What kind of things would you, what's your summary of that? Well, so it's complicated. So that's why it's like, you know, it's it's almost dangerous to say something you almost have to read I would say you know I've been telling people lately don't don't get into real estate until you you've put a hundred hundred hours at least into reading and which is almost different I mean I do like I think taking action's incredibly important but for things like like I didn't get into Bitcoin because I

didn't have really probably 500 hours before I would feel comfortable. I want to feel it. I want to feel what's going on. But I think people, so given you, I can, I'll try with the wealth thing. So you just got to understand how money works. And you got to use leverage, meaning borrow money. and you've got to use leverage with people too. You've got to use other people's time like employees or outsourcing something.

And then you got to leverage systems. But sometimes when I say it's dangerous, if you tell people they've got to borrow a bunch of money. And then next year they're like, yeah, I got 10 credit cards and I maxed them all out. I spent it. I'm doing terrible. I was like, well, there's more to it than that. I mean, you got to do. But that's what I mean.

I've got every 10,000 hours easy in all this. So you help people with that. I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. I mean, it's, you know, living paycheck to paycheck ain't the way to do it, obviously. So something beyond that that includes automatic, you know, automatically pulling money out of your paycheck to start to fund these Roths or these whatever or these investment accounts

or maybe these cash accounts that you're saving up to start doing real estate deals or whatever. But it's these buckets, right? They get funded. And at some point, you've got enough of those going on.

You don't need the income. Right. The salary anymore. So that's my version of it. It's a little quicker, but you'd probably have more details, I would think. Yeah, and I think,

you know, everybody's a little different and that would work for a lot of them, for sure. And then a little easier one, favorite band. I would say, well, I know Van Halen with Daly Roth, and I would also put ACDC and Guns and Roses in there. That's tough. And so you grew up playing that, right, high school?

Yeah. Play guitar then? Yes, guitar. And you switch to bass now? Yes. Favorite word? Can I, let me give it two words. Sure.

No and yes. Okay. And, you know, you got to be able to say no fast. You know, make quick, make quick decisions. I mean, again, take that with the intention that I'm saying it. Don't buy $10,000 with a Bitcoin. That's not what I mean. But if you, if you're not going to do something and you feel uneasy about it,

just go ahead and say no. You know, don't do a, you know, fast no is better and slow maybe. and then also yes is like you asked me to come to Blainezairz and I said yes why not got a plane two days later yeah that was cool yeah that's very cool it's back to what we started talking about with the openness of Graham's schedule it's more probably more so than any of my friends I literally I was talking to him one week and he He said, hey, what are you got going on? And I'm like, you know what?

I'm finally going down to Argentina next week and the week after. He said, won't you come down there with me? Just kind of threw it out there. And he's like, okay. Next thing I know, there he was. And we had a great time. Yeah, that was great. We had a great time.

I still talk to a lot of those people down there. Pini and Lolo and they're just all. awesome. Who else did we meet down there? Well, you had a, I mean, you had a saxophone teacher, a fitness person, or languished, kind of a concierge person. Yeah. We had lots of folks. It couldn't have been nicer. We've got a friend who's got a place down there and he offered it up to go hang out and touches the tango. Yeah. It was nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, Graham, do you have anything you'd like to promote today?

The way I find deals usually, and people are like, you know, in this market, real estate deals are hard to find. So, yes, I would like to find more real estate deals. But they're generally deals that are off market and they have something strange about them. So if you've got a deal like that, yeah, I want to hear about it. it or a business like that so a business or a real estate deal in this market that could be for sale yes to the right person right okay and I'll go and say I'll go ahead and so and or business you know the business that's maybe it's been a business 20 years whatever not a startup I'm not doing any startups that just needs

a little something's going wrong and you know that's kind of my specialty yeah so businesses and real estate. And before I heard anybody's feelings, it's like one every 200 that I look at that I do. So I look at 200 deals before I do one. Okay. You know, it's just that. It's just that. But I'll say no pretty fast if it's a no.

Yeah. Don't waste anyone's time. Right. And so tell them your website so they know how to reach you. Well, the website is www. www. Mosaic Management LLC.com. but I haven't actually been on that website in a few years.

I mean, I think it's still there. But you can reach me through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is probably the best way. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much, my friend. That was great. I think that's going to be real helpful for people to see if they can go from where you were,

getting out of college, to where you are now. A nice place to end up. Yeah. So congratulations. And thank you. Thanks for being on the cast today. Appreciate it, thank you, thank you. Appreciate it, awesome.

Thanks.