Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Big Brass Balls and a Bag of Cash with Brad Blazar

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Right About Now with Ryan AlfordJoin media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.Right About Now NewsletterFree Podcast Monetization CourseJoin The NetworkFollow Us On InstagramSubscribe To Our Youtube ChannelVibe Science MediaSUMMARYIn this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford and guest Brad Blazer, an experienced capital raiser and entrepreneur, delve into the complexities of raising capital, particularly in the oil industry. Brad shares his journey, emphasizing the importance of understanding investment dynamics and conducting due diligence. He recounts memorable experiences, including convincing a hesitant doctor to invest and transforming an unprofessional job candidate into a successful team member. The discussion highlights the significance of aligning the right type of investor with the business stage and underscores the critical role of mindset and confidence in securing investments.TAKEAWAYS Introduction to the significance of capital raising for entrepreneurs. Personal journey of an experienced capital raiser in the oil industry. Current state and dynamics of the oil market. Understanding different types of investors and their expectations. Importance of due diligence in the capital raising process. Balancing control and investment when bringing in outside investors. Differences between investing in real estate and other business ventures. Challenges faced by startups in securing capital. Risk-adjusted return expectations based on investor demographics. Insights on mindset and personal presentation in capital raising success. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Granger, for the ones who get it done. A lot of times, you know, people are willing to take those calculated risks. But at the end of the day, you've got to do due diligence on the people you're getting in bed with, the people that you're investing with. You know, I see so many people out there doing stuff. And I look at people that are investing with them. And I just smile and I said, man, this shit's going to blow up. This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month.

taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash and checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always getting right. And it's always about what is important today and now in business and marketing. And look, we're all about trailblazing.

That's what we got, Brad. Blazer here today. What's up, Brad? How you doing there, Ryan? It's great to be here with you. Yeah, man. It's good to have you. I'm ready to talk about how to raise some capital. You know, we always need it. You don't ever know when you got to start owning businesses.

You never know when you have to raise some money, you know. That's true. It's a good skill to have in the entrepreneur toolbag. Whether you end up using it or not, it's important that you understand it, because you'll probably get involved with something, even if you're not like the primary owners, that capital raises happen and understanding the dynamics of all that, it should definitely sort of be in every entrepreneur's toolkit.

And even if you're not an entrepreneur, understanding how business work, how money exchanges hands for some of these deals happening. I'm sure you could talk about that quite a bit. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, it's funny. I've been doing it for so long. It's one of those things I can almost do naturally in my sleep.

but I think it's one of the skills that a lot of people just overlook. You know, so many entrepreneurs, business owners, they want to do something big. They go to the bank. They don't get approved. They either don't have credit or they don't have experience. They kind of give up on those dreams and, you know, never pursue the things that they're capable of. And they never really realize that every day when we get out of bed, we're pretty much surrounded by all the money we need. We just call these other people investors.

And most people just don't understand how to build the interest, how to talk to people, you know, the things they need to have. have obviously to do it successfully. And, you know, having literally coached thousands of people and raised over $2 billion, it's just one of those skills where I tell people, look, my past helps build your future, man. You want to learn how to do this? Let's have a conversation about it. Knowledge is power and wisdom is at the king of the castle. So, Brad, let's sit the table at least for a minute for an audience to talk about where

some of that wisdom came from. I know you're in Texas, ex-oil guy. Are you ever an ex-oil guy? Are you always an oil guy? You're always an oil guy, man. I'll tell you, I love the business. I still love getting out there in the oil patch and still investing it. Got a lot of friends that are doing really well.

And I think, you know, once it gets under your skin, it's always there. Is, you know, I'm going to give you, I'm going to age myself a little bit and talk about, like, Growing up, the Beverly Hillbillies. Texas T. Yeah. Growing up. Old Grady. Oh, Grie.

You know, old Jethro shooting or whatever, doing whatever they're doing. But no, the oil boom, I can just, I think that's not how it works. But, like, where my mind goes, thinking of the- You're going to shoot your shotgun down there at the earth, and oil just comes out of the ground. I wish it was that easy, you know? Like, I think as a kid, you're going, oh, yeah, buy some land and find some oil on it. It's just not that.

What is that? I know we're going to talk a lot about capital. But what is the state of the oil business? It's actually pretty damn good right now. You know, I think that you look at kind of what's going on over there in the Middle East. There's a lot of people obviously thinking that if Israel does go in there and kind of bomb the Iranian oil fields or at least take out some of the distribution there that oil prices are definitely going to spike. And, you know, you kind of have seen that a little bit in some of the stocks and some of the

ETS that track oil prices. But overall, it's, you know, doing real well. And here's the thing, I keep telling people, yeah, you know, we get Tesla, we get RIVI, and, you know, everyone's kind of going in that direction. We're never, ever going to get rid of fossil fuels in our lifetime. Like, we know, always, you know, have the need to have oil, you know, and up there in New England or wherever the hell you are, they'll be doing coal or whatever it is they do. They'll always be, you know, people that are doing coal.

But we will always have a need for fossilized fuels around the world. And so, you know, as they say, you know, in real estate, there's only so much. Obviously, in oil, there's only so much oil, you know, in the ground. And it's a depleting resource. So, you know, I think that the future outlook for the energy space is, you know, pretty healthy. Obviously, a lot of it is tied politically to, you know, who obviously wins the election. But overall, the people that are in it, let's just say they ain't complaining. Yeah.

I've mentioned to be old people that are hurting. I'll say that. But also some of those jets before. Yeah. Look around all of us. All right. It's all money. So, yeah, man, you've got to have that gold Rolex, that big old Stetson hat and the fancy

ostrich boots. Yeah, exactly. Oh, now, are we a Cowboys fan or a Houston fan? more on the Houston side. I actually knew Bud Adams fairly well before he passed away. Bud was a good guy. You know, he made his fortune in the oil field. And, you know, obviously, of course, only oilers.

And, you know, that was a whole big issue. But the city of Houston not wanting to build him a new stadium. And he just kind of stuck up the middle finger and said, I'll just take my team someplace else. And the Oilers became the Tennessee Titans. And, you know, great guy. But, you know, I'm more on the football side. I follow football more.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I used to watch, no, I'll tell you, I used to watch the Cowboys back in the old Akemen and Landry days. Oh, yeah. You know, when you look at, when you look at coaches and you look at the greats, you know, the guys like Landry that used to be always out there in a suit coat. You know, he's having a hat on. Oh, yeah. Phil Jackson, you know, running up and down the sidelines of the Lakers he'd have on his, you know, jacket and stuff like that. You know, I kind of miss those guys, you know, those were the good old boys.

You see guys being like Nick Sabin and some of the greats, but old Phil Jackson always sat on that double breast dude. And of course, Landry with his hat. That's when I liked the Cowboys back in those days, but they've changed a lot. Yeah, they have. Oh, Jerry Jones. You know, he doesn't know.

You can't get out of his way sometimes. But, I mean, he's been successful. So who am I to judge? The, but I will say it has got more casual on the sidelines with the warm-up suits and whatever else they're wearing, you know. But Houston looks like they got a winner this year. They got a good quarterback and they got a good coach there in Ryan's. So, uh, yeah, might be a good time to be a Houston fan.

But, uh, let's talk about some capital. Like, where did your passion for, you know, sharing knowledge around this come from? And, you know, like some of your own endeavors that led to all this wisdom. You know, it's really funny. I went to school not to be in the oil business. I actually was studying architecture. And had I not stumbled into the oil industry, I'd probably be designing buildings and houses and stuff like that. But, you know, just one day responded to an ad and went to work in the oil field.

And the CEO of the company kind of took a liking to me and showed me how to raise capital from investors. And so that's what I did. And after a couple of years, just kind of decided to bet on myself and took some money, He started an oil company, built it up over the course of about a decade. Great business to be in. And then, you know, as I say, the shit hit the fan. Man, oil prices plummeted. The tax laws dramatically changed.

And so investment capital dried up. That's when I went back to school and I came out. And I realized that my primary skill, what I was really good at was knowing how to race capital. And so I just kind of said to myself, I bet that's a skill that a lot of of people pay a lot of good money for. And it's been great. We're for some of the biggest financial services firms in the world. Some of the largest multi-billion dollar real estate sponsors have raised, you know, $2 billion. And today even raise money for deals on my own. We just put an offering yesterday on a 252 unit self-storage property just north of Houston here.

Kind of keep my fingers crossed that. The seller likes the offer. And we get to raise some capital and take down that deal. But, you know, the whole thing about raising. in capital. This is actually in the book, Rich Dad Poor did, Robert Kiyosaki says, the key to really building sizable wealth is not to try to do it on your own because, you know, it'll take you such a much longer time, is to understand the principle of OPM, other people's money. And when you understand that fundamental principle, like we're talking earlier, right, you know, there's wealth as knowledge or there's knowledge as power, you know, once you understand that, and then more importantly, you know how to do that, Ryan,

and the sky's the limit. I mean, I know guys literally that are in their 30s, 40s that are sitting there with companies where, you know, they have multiple hundreds of millions of dollars that they own and control. And, you know, they're sad. Yeah. It's always interesting to me. I'm an entrepreneur. I have in multiple business and none of them with anyone else.

And I will both be a great lesson for this episode. episode probably. I mean, I've built eight figure companies. I'm doing well, but I can't sit here and deny some of what you're saying that if I could let go of some control and think about it to a degree, you'll probably give me a lesson on that as well, that maybe, you know, things could go faster. And I think for a lot of people, it's not just control. I don't even consider myself necessarily a control freak as much as just I like my own. freedom. I'm controlling my own time and no one telling me otherwise in the moment, you know, I think the notion for me is always the moment you have someone else's money and the deal, you don't control your own time. I don't know if that's true either, but enlighten me. Well, you got to realize that, you know, most of these guys that are doing stuff that are, you know, real estate entrepreneurs or they're raising money to buy businesses, they're not giving up control. You know, the investors are all passive. So they have

absolutely no say in the business. They really don't have any ownership in the business. Think of it this way. Your company is the sponsor of a fund or another entity that's raising money to do something else. So if your company is up here, this is not what people are investing in. They're investing in what your company is sponsoring that they invest in. And so, you know, if I've got a real estate investment firm and I want to go out and buy this apartment building, I'll syndicate that building and I'll bring investors in to go out and buy that. And now my company owns an interest in that building alongside the investors. Or if we're going to buy a business, my company owns an interest alongside investors that now own and operate that business.

And I get my proportionate share for putting the deal together. But the investors themselves don't have any control of my peer and company. They don't have any say in really what it is we're doing. They're totally passive. And what they're essentially doing is they're relying on my expertise, my track record, the team of people that we put together and assembled. And so it's a beautiful thing. What's the, so to find the difference, you know, something like with real estate where you're buying an asset, you know, versus the idea of a business or like, okay, I use my own businesses. I own a digital ad agency.

I own a media network. I own co-working, soon-to-be franchise. You know, like there's a few different things. So those don't have necessarily the asset at the center of it, i.e. land or something like that. Walk me through that path, you know, the idea of business versus the tangible, you know, of real estate. Well, I mean, let's agree that if I'm going out and I'm buying something like an apartment. building. At the end of the day, that is a tangible asset, but it's a business, right? The tenants that live there are my customers, so much like your business where you have customers

that you've got to keep happy. I got to keep them happy. So they keep paying rent and they want to continue living there. So I look at real estate assets as a business. I'm buying a business. It cash flows, you know, and all the other reasons, expenses, things like that. When you look at raising money from investors to buy businesses and then maybe buy another business that's complimentary, you start building something very similar to maybe like a private equity firm, right? Like when you look at a private equity firm, what a private equity firms ultimately own. They own businesses and they scale those businesses. There's a lot of synergy where businesses are complementary to one another, and we see a lot of people that will do that.

They'll go out, for example, start a company, and they're like, I just want to raise money and buy cash flowing businesses. You know, things that are boring, but cash flow make profit like laundromats, HVAC companies, power washes. And so imagine if you've got this company in over a couple of years, you now own and operate 8, 10, 12 cash flowing businesses. You know, you're doing pretty good. So there's really no difference in raising money from investors to buy cash flowing businesses or buy real estate assets. Because at the end of the day, really, real estate is a business. Just, you know, you look at it a little differently. What about like, and I know there's more risk because I have friends that are literally knee deep in this, you know, buying existing business.

You've got all the baby boomers kind of ready to sell. and you've got a lot of these businesses that are cash flow positive. And so I have some friends that are very heavy in that side of buying, you know, businesses that are already proven. Right. What about like capital raising for ideas of business, you know, like of, okay, maybe it's within an existing industry, but sort of like the theory of the, you know, the idea of the business, but you don't necessarily have a million customers built in day one.

You know, like, or even a thousand or 100. Right. Talk to me about that evaluation. And do you counsel that side of capital raising? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, in my book, I talk about, you know, the different types of investors. When you're raising money, you have to look at kind of the avatar and where you are in the growth curve.

You know, are you a startup? Are you a more mature business? Are you kind of on a trajectory where you've been around a couple of years? and have a track record, prior performance. And so when you look at a true startup, you know, somebody that's got this idea that's really unfounded or unproven, you know, you're primarily looking for venture capital firms. They invest in startups or, you know, maybe you're looking for what we call an angel investor. That's typically a very wealthy person that may have been a business owner that sold their business. You know, now they're worth, I don't know, you know, $10, $20, $50 million.

dollars. They're willing to take those types of risk because they know if they could hit a home run, you know, obviously the return on investment is going to be substantial. But when you look at the different types of investors, you know, family offices, private equity, venture capital, each one of these different groups likes to focus on different things. Private equity firm likes to buy traditionally existing cash flowing businesses. They come in, they put in some capital, they make some management tweaks, they scale the business, then they end it. The venture capital firm knows, okay, we're going to invest in five companies. Realistically, we're going to lose money on one.

We're probably going to hit singles and doubles on the other three. And then that one, boom, is the home run that makes up for the others. And that's just the investment model. And so it depends when you're a business owner and you're going out there trying to race capital that the first thing you do is you identify the type of investor that you want to be focusing your efforts on because if you're out there you know for example with a startup and you're talking to investors over here that like to invest in more seasoned more established businesses chances are you're not going to be very successful because your message is not related to that audience yeah and

to that end and i think that's important people look might be listening that so identify in the right people to target, but even more so, should people when raising capital have different expectations for, kind of back to what I said, be it control, be it, you know, whatever it might be depending on the stage of the business, whether it's startup, established, but unrealized, and then maybe, you know, towards the end of the cycle, but steady. Absolutely. I think that if you're coming in more on the. earlier stage and you're taking on more risk, right?

You definitely want a higher return because there's more risk. If you're investing in something that's a little bit more mature, that's a little bit more proven, the host or the sponsor or the person that is offering that investment doesn't have to give up as much or offer as significant a return because they're like, look, man, you know, this is not nearly as risky as investing in a startup that's not yet proven. So when you look at investing, there's, you know, this theory, we call it the risk adjusted rate or return. More risk, more risk, more return. And obviously, as people get older as they mature, their risk profile changes, you know, people that are in their late 20s, 30s, some degree in the early 40s, they can afford to take risk early in life.

Their attitude is like, look, man, I'm making great money. If I lose 50, 100 grand, I can earn that back over the next couple years or my other investments will replenish that. But when I get up into my late 50s and 60s, I'm much more conservative. Why? Because I'm beyond my peak earning years. Or maybe I'm a couple years away from retirement. So I got to play it a lot safer. And I got to go into things that don't have that same risk profile.

Yep. Yep. It's higher risk, the higher reward. You know. That's it. And a lot of times, you know, people are willing to take those calculated risks. But at the end of the day, you really got a vet. and you've got to do due diligence on the people you're getting in bed with, the people that you're investing with.

You know, I see so many people out there doing stuff, and I look at people that are investing with them, and I just smile and I said, man, this shit's going to blow up. It has to, because they don't have, really, a foundation or some of the things in place that a guy like me knows has been doing this so long they need to have in place. And so, you know, the most important thing, really, is the regulatory and the compliance side. when you take somebody else's money and you do something with that to create a return on investment for them, you're in the securities business, bottom line. I don't care if it's two investors or whether it's 100 investors. And so, you know, you get state regulators. You got, of course, the SEC, and you don't want to get on their bad side because that can get real ugly, real fast.

Yeah. What's the, maybe tell me, everybody likes stories talking about Brad Blazer. I know you do, brother. I saw I wanted to go here. Tell me, you know, both maybe a good one and a bad one. And maybe a bad one just because it's boring, but it made a lot of money. But a good one might be a blowup. I don't know.

But tell me something, tell us some good stories of some stuff you've done on the capital side or things you've seen that, you know, would be interesting. Yeah. So, you know, back when I was about a 26, 27-year-old cocky little kid in the oil business, you know, living high on the hog, you know, had the Porsche, had the nice watch, had a nice house. I had this very wealthy doctor, okay? The guy was a retired neurosurgeon.

He told me that he was a business partner of Sheldon Aedelson, right? That's the guy, of course, that just passed away that owned the Sands Corporation. But for whatever reason, the guy would just not invest with us. You know, I don't know what it was. I think it might have been the fear of investing in a dry hole. and just, you know, losing the whole investment. So I'm like, look, you know, doctor, come on out here, you know, meet me, go out in the field with us. We'll show you the whole operation.

Well, we'll get you to a place to comfort where hopefully you can make a better decision. And so I said, you know, what airlines? He said, oh, no, no, I got a private jet. I'll come out on my own jet. I'm like, okay, cool. So I knew this guy was a major player. You know, I come into the airport, you know, it was playing Lans. He taxes in, gets out, introduces himself.

You know, I get them in my nice suburban, go out to the oil. oil field. We spend the day, treat them to lunch, goes home. And again, just would not invest. And so I had my sales team that worked for him. And I always told my sales team, you remember the first time you climbed up the ladder to the high dive at that neighborhood pool? And you crawled out to the end and you're like, whoa, you know, if you look back and there's a line of kids going, jump, you pussy. It ain't that hungry. So finally, you know, it's about 5.30, 6 o'clock. And, you know, what I used to do, Ryan, is I used to let my guys go home at three. A couple days we'd come in.

We get some beers. We get some pizzas. We sit there, dialing out to the West Coast or dialing to Hawaii because there's a five-hour time difference. Dr. Schnack, it just takes two things to invest in oil well. And he said, what? I said, big brass balls and lots of money, dude. Which of the two don't you have? and I just did my tongue.

And I'm sitting there. And there's silence. And he goes, he goes, tell me again, Brett, how much are three units in your drilling food? I said, doctor, go hit your checkbook. Welcome to board. And the dude became one of my best investors, Ryan. But, you know, I rang the bell and I got my sales team together.

And I told him, man, you guys have my permission to use this closing line anytime you choose to, because it will. absolutely work. And he became one of my best investors, really great guy. But, you know, the whole thing about getting people to make a buying decision, sometimes, you know, you got to squeeze the Cohes a little bit and kick him where it hurts. No, people think with their head and they buy with their heart. And, and Brianna, I'm telling you right now to make some show notes, the name of this episode is big brass balls and a bag of cash. Big brass ball and the Bradblazer. That's a really good one.

The funny one, too, is I had a guy that came to work with me. I was looking to hire some closers and get them on my team. My office at the time was in a huge, very prestigious office building. Like we had the whole third floor of a nice building of downtown Austin. And everybody in the building is pretty much suits. You know, we had firms like credential-based securities, big law firms, etc. So everyone's all dressed up. So this guy probably in his mid-30s shows up for an interview, and he looks like Joe Dirk.

And he had on jeans with holes in the knees, workbooks that were covered in dust and mud, a foo man chew mustache, the mullet. I mean, he was a train wreck. And for most people, the interview never would have just taken place. But, you know, I started interviewing him, got him some coffee, and I finally just said, you know, hey, Jack, why do you want to come to work for me? And his answer was probably the best answer I've ever heard. He just said, look, Mr. Blazer, you know, I'm real humble, real simple.

But my wife and my daughter have real big dreams and real big visions. And I just want to begin giving everything in life that they deserve. And I was like, wow, this guy will do just about anything for his wife and his daughter, who he loves. So I said, man, I'll tell you, well, I'm going to take a big chance because, you know, you don't look the part. But if you can come back here, come Monday morning, I'll put you to work. So after being in the office and seeing where he'd be working, you're going. think he'd show up better. He showed up the same way. Here I am Monday morning and I'm looking at Joe Dirk going to how in the hell is this guy going to get on the phone and convince people

to send him 100,000, 200,000 looking like a train wreck. And he's sitting there going, man, teach me something. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to do this. And so I said, come with me. We got downstairs, put him in my sports car, took him to the department store, treated him the two suits, took him in my barber. And I said, hey, man, clean this guy. We're doing a game of Hollywood makeover. You see on TV. So, you know, next day he comes in and, you know, if you know what the expression means swag, he has some swag.

He was feeling pretty good about himself, you know. And literally I taught him everything I teach people. And that year he was $25 million for an quarter of a million dollars in commission. And, you know, the sport and a nice little stainless and gold Rolex and the big old Texas belt buckle that, you know, you see all the guys with. And we're still great friends, really, really good guys. I definitely change his life for the better. Hey, man.

You know, dress for success. But really, it's really less about dress for success and more about changing his mindset, I think. It sounds like you had to get in his head that he need to think of himself in a different way, you know, elevate, elevate the game and give him some confidence, you know. That's good. And, look, knowledge is power. Knowledge is power.

You know, back in those days, you know, I don't know if you remember, but, you know, All Dallas was the biggest show on TV, man. Everybody wanted to be old J.R. U. Oh, J.R. Until they got shot. You can sit in there chopping on his cigar. You know, he'd have on his little hat, he'd be on the telephone pitching oil deals.

And I think in his mind, he just saw himself as Bobby Ewing or J.R. Ewing. And, you know, that was the guy he actually became me, $25 million for a guy to raise that kind of money coming from his past. That's a major accomplishment. But the guy worked hard. He did everything I told him to do. So I tell people, if I can teach old Joe Dirt, that would raise $25 million.

I can teach just about anybody. Oh, talking with Brad Blazer. He is the Capitol. Catalyst is his show. He's got a podcast and Capital School, which we're going to talk about here shortly. What's the, can you make money just raising? You just kind of answered the question with old Joe Dirt.

I remember several things from this episode, brass balls, bags of cash, and Joe Dirt. But you can make some money just raising capital if you don't have your own, it sounds like, if you're good at it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people do that, Ryan. You know, you can become what we call the co-GP in other people's deals. You know, just say, look, man, I just want to raise capital for you, your experience,

you're the operator. And, you know, what we do is we give up some of the deal, give it to that person that brings some of the capital. Of course, the other thing you can do is, you know, you can study and get your securities licenses and then you can get paid a commission on what you raise. And so a lot of people do that as well. They become what we call placement agents. But yeah, you can make a really, really good living depending on, of course, how much money you could raise and the ability to do that. And then bring that capital to somebody else's deal as a co-GP.

You know, now you're participating in the deal. You're getting passive income. You know, you're getting the upside appreciation of that big. business or that piece of real estate. And, you know, that's really attractive to the right people. You can really do well. And we know a lot of people that actually do exactly that. What's the biggest misconception in raising capital, perhaps, you know, like that people assume, like, what bugs are you squashing? You know, like every day, like of misconceptions. Well, I mean, I think a lot of people think, oh, I got to have gray hair or I've got to have a track record or,

you know, I've got to have done this and I've got to have done that. And, you know, I say bullshit to all of that, you know, here I was a little 23 old cocky kid that didn't know the first thing about drilling in oil. You know, the first thing about building multimillion dollar business, all I knew how to do was just raise Gapel and I knew that I could find the team, right? You get a CPA, you get an attorney, you build a team of people. Cobble to raising is a team sport, you know. Most investors are going to look at somebody and if you're doing everything in the business,

there's going to be down. And, you know, I've established some pretty good relationships with some of the sharks. And, you know, I've talked to Kevin Harrington about this and Robert Hurcha Beck. And they said, look, man, you know, as we all know, a lot of great people come into the shark tank. They're PhDs, their doctors, and they don't get a deal. And it's not because of them. It's because of one word. It comes down to execution.

Can you execute on what you're trying to do? And if we see doubt in that, naturally, why would we want to invest? And so when you're talking to an investor, what you have to be able to communicate is, hey, the collective experience of my team is this. We've done these things. Our track record is this. And so you eliminate the uncertainty that allows an investor potentially to move forward. Because at the end of the day, kind of like you said earlier, you know, people invest emotionally. They invest in people they know like and trust.

And so if you're good at building relationships and understand how to do that, the world becomes your oyster. but I think it really comes down to that. I mean, we have a lot of people literally that are in their 20s that are raising millions of dollars. And these people are financially set. They're not even 30 yet. Like I was at an event speaking a couple of years ago when the host of the event said, hey, I want to point out a kid here in this audience. He said, Abbas, where the hell are you?

This little, you know, Middle Eastern dude popped up. He said, tell the audience how much real estate you own. He said, about $140 million. He said, how old are I, 28? And I was just like, my head just, I was like, shit, get it even 30 yet. And he's already sitting there with $140 million real estate portfolio, you know, with investors, obviously. You know, he's got a network of investors because he's been doing it for a couple years. But, you know, here's the problem.

I'm so pissed off at our educational system because we don't teach people how to become financially independent. What we do is we teach people how to assimilate and fit in with the rest of the society, which is get your ass a job, work your 40 to 50 years, scrimp and save, and hopefully you'll have. have a decent retirement. The option, which a lot of my buddies, you know, you probably know many of them, like the Carlos Reyes, and, you know, basically, you know, the Nick Perry's the world. They're like, no, screw that shit, man. Work your ass off for three to five years and I'll show you can be done in five to seven years.

Boom. Yeah. You just go out and post sale or you're getting some real estate deals like we do and you get some passive income. Then you can double down and start focusing on the wealth creation. Or like you're doing, you just start building some businesses. You get one business to multiple seven figures. and you focus on another than another, and you just keep doing that.

And that's the answer. We don't teach people in our country how to be entrepreneurs. No. And I have four boys that are young. And I look, the education system is set up to make you average. That's it. Average. And it's set up on memorizing knowledge that now, yeah, I mean, we had.

It's going to make me real. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I get it. They need the discipline of memory and the lessons. Like, I believe in some of the lessons of school, you know, like that it teaches you, the discipline, the going to class, the structure of it. But the content of it is outdated. And I have a wife that's in the education system, a principal at a middle school.

God bless her, you know, like. And I think she's crazy. because she doesn't have to do it, but she does it. And, but I just think it's so outdated because we're learning things. And I get it. Oh, we had calculators 30 years ago, but we still learn math. Yeah. But now the knowledge is so there.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't have a core level of understanding of certain, like, I don't know, education that is classical education. But it, that switch needs to be happening a lot faster to how you make. an above average life in 2025 with this education and not, you know, how you learn to be average in 1984. Right. No, I agree. You know, I mean, I can literally see a bunch of ballers all partering up. You know, you get the Patrick Bet Davids, you got the Milettes, the Cardones, the Bradleys, the you, me, and we create something called the Wealth Academy.

And it just becomes basically a two-year university. We charge people basically 30, 40 grand. They pay tuition. they come out the other end and boom, man, you know, they're doing stuff. They're investing in real estate. They're buying businesses. They know how to raise capital. I mean, literally, we could change a lot of people's lives.

And I think that's one of the reasons that coaching and mentoring is such a big business today. A lot of people out there are starting to realize, man, I don't need to go to college. Screw that shit. That ain't been working for most people. I'm going to get on YouTube. I'm going to start listening to podcasts. I'm going to start getting in proximity to some of these guys that have already been there, and it gets down to basically.

and it gets down to basically this concept is, you know, let's break down the barriers and turn them into breakthroughs. And let's use people's past that have done a lot of stuff and allow that to build people's futures. And, you know, that's what I'm all about. I tell people, man, you know, you're paying me a lot of money from a past. Like, I've raised $2 billion. You know, I know how to do this a little bit. Yeah, exactly. And you've been through the, you know, I tell people like, you're paying, you're paying more from, yeah.

You're paying more for my failures than my successes because I'm going to teach you what not to do. Exactly. Unintended consequences of mistakes. That's it. Yeah. Talking with Brad Blazer. Talk to me about capital school. I know we've been talking and dancing all around it, but let's get to some specifics.

Yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah. We got people all around the globe. You know, if you told me when we started this thing that I'd be sharing stages with some of the most famous people. and, you know, building multiple seven-figure businesses, I would have said, yeah, right. But, you know, here we are three books later, you know, pop follow podcasts, you know, speaking all over the place. And we got students all around the globe.

You know, it's not just here in the U.S. We got people in Australia, New Zealand, over in the U.K., Canada, Middle East. It's pretty cool because when we get on Zoom in the day, you know, I'll be talking to someone that it's already the next day in the morning over in the UK or New Zealand. And so it really gives us kind of this global perspective of what's going on around the world. And, you know, I kind of hate to say it. But we have become the laughing stock of the globe. You know, people around the world are just laughing at all this political bullshit between Harris and Trump and just how our country is just kind of at war domestically. Then we see all the other stuff going on around the world as well.

But, you know, it's really just kind of this global perspective. But the cool thing about it is there is a need. believe to race capital. Here's why. I don't know if you follow or you know my good buddy, coach Michael Bert, who talks about activating people's prey drive and really inspiring people. But I believe that most people have a dream or desire to do more in life.

Like you got this big goal. There's something inside you where you know there's this another gear that you're capable of doing so much more. And I talk to people. I'm like, like, like, what's your big thing, man? Like, what would you really prefer to be doing if you weren't doing this? oh man, I'd love to start a restaurant where I'd love to buy a business or I'd love to go out and buy real estate. I'm like, well, what's holding you back?

Here's the funny thing, Ryan. It's not the fear nine out of ten times. They don't have fucking two nickels to wrap together. And I'm like, you're letting the fact you don't have money hold you back from your dreams. Like, do you not realize just go out there and raise the money from investors? That's something I can teach you how to do in a matter of a couple of months. And then when we do it, boom, there they go. They buy that restaurant or they start that business.

And so the whole premise of our platform is really geared about this transformational change that we can bring about to help people's big goals or big dreams become a reality because it's not the fear. It's that those goals kind of get diminished and you acquiesce like you said earlier to a place of average. You're just like give up. This is all life's going to give me. This is like God's dream or whatever you want to call it. If you believe in that kind of stuff, it's my predestined future, bullshit it is. out and create the future that you define and go out there and do the big things in life that you dream of. And there are investors out there that are willing to help you get there.

I'll tell you this, Brad, that what you just said and like back to what you said earlier about execution. Because let's not, for anyone listening, let's not like hot 80 punches here. Like it's not easy to do anything. And ideas are cheap. Yeah. Like everybody's got an idea. But not everybody wants to build the execution plan and the confidence plan, if it's something new to sell. Or if you've got an existing business, you know, building the structure and having the true execution plan for how that growth would take place. Again, in selling and trying to raise capital. Because I think I think the misconception, because I get this a lot. Hey, how many DMs or text or, you know, being what I'm in and what I do and exposure. I got a lot of people telling me ideas. And I'm like, you know, that's a great idea, you know,

but there's no real substance behind how to like, I'm like, I had that idea like in a shower two years ago. Like, I love it. I'm with you. It's an amazing idea. But having owned and operated multiple businesses now, like ideas, most of them are cheap. Right.

Well, I think the other big issue, and I was having this conversation the other day with a good buddy of mine, everybody today is looking for the easy way out, man. You know, we're on a digital society. Everyone's connected around the world to their damn phones, the Internet. And everybody wants it done for themselves. They want someone else to do it. Most people are just not willing to put in the work.

Let's face it, you know, raising poplals, hard work, building a business like you have, it's hard work. Most people just don't want to do the work. And, you know, it's just that little effort, that little, extra that makes all the big difference. It's not that it's harder. It's just you show up more frequently. You put in more effort. And, you know, I tell people, like, when I see someone walking down the damn beach with a six-pack, man, I really admire that person because I know they busted their house. I know it's hard work. I know they're disciplined. I know, you know, what it takes to be

at that level of fitness. You know, and I'm kind of okay with my dad, bod, but the funny thing is it's in everything. It's business, you know, and it's in fitness. it's in sports it's in you know any decision we make and this is of course tim grover that's coached some of the best out there he said the one thing that separated the guys like the jordan's the cobies the shacks was just one decision they just looked at themselves in the mirror one day and they said i'm going to put my amateurs aside and i'm going to go pro in every area of my life and they did and if you ever read the book the seven habits of highly successful people where covey talks about this thing called the whole person theory where we're made up of a mind, a body, or spirit, and our soul.

Those dudes became pros at all four of them. Like, they were great at the game. They were great in how they taught and interacted with other people. And so, you know, they became superhuman. But it was just because of one decision. Yep. And, you know, sometimes you have to get to a low place in your life for you to emotionally snap.

And Tony Robbins talks about this in his book. He's like, man, I just got to a low point. You know, I mean, I was eating mac and cheese and my life sucked. And I just snapped. And I said, no more. And look who the dude is today. Hopefully most people don't have to get that low. But, you know, again, here's the funny thing.

And we've all, if we've been super successful, have dealt with this. I mean, I see it all the time in social media. We always have the naysayers. We always have the haters. We always have the people that comment on our post. Oh, this is a scam or this is a bunch of bullshit or don't. you know, dumping my whatever. And I just smile and I said, man, you must be at a really low point in your life

to have to take a second comment on something like that. And it was actually at my lap that said hurt people, hurt other people. Think about that for a moment. I've never seen anybody that's a baller or that's doing great in life, belittle somebody else for doing something. Never. You never see that. But you see all these little people that have a sucky-ass life that are doing just jack shit, nothing.

and they're the ones that say, oh, you know, you're a scammer. Hey, this don't work. And I'm like, dude, man, I've got so many testimonials to disprove that. Like, why don't you do your research and do your fact check? Yeah. Because that takes work too. They're not willing to do that. That's why.

But no, you know. It's like, and I get, I'll get on shows and you get the success question and all that. And I don't even think I've made it. I mean, because I even hit my goals. You know, like I'm still doing more. Yeah. But I'll answer that question similar to what you just said. Like one day you just got to look in the mirror and go, this ain't good enough.

Like I want more. Like you. And we want to make it about this and about that, make it complicated. And it's either that either happens for you or it doesn't. And it doesn't mean you won't be happy in life if it doesn't. I'm not. Who am I to judge happiness? But man.

Just to look back and not think you maximize potential. Well, I mean, I think the big reality that people have to realize is, and I always hear this, you know, it's, oh, I don't have time for that. And that is the biggest bullshit cop out. I tell people, if it's important to you, you will find the time. See, most people that, you know, are ballers and doing big things, you know, they're at 4, 4, 35 o'clock. Like, they've got more shit done by noon.

And some people will do all damn day long. You know, you get your fitness. and how you just wake up an hour earlier. And now you found an hour to go out there and walk or go to the fitness center or, you know, you work an extra hour. You change your schedule up. You can always find time for the shit. That's important to you.

So when people tell me, oh, I don't have time, I say that's the biggest compound I've ever heard. Because if you really are interested in doing this, you will definitely find the time. Same thing with money. You know, price is always an issue in the absence of value. You will pay for something. If you perceive the value, you're going to get out of that to have a major impact. in your life. And so a lot of it is just, you know, it's mindset. You know, it's getting around the right people, you know, and by being exposed or creating proximity to a network in listening to the right

shows and reading the right books, you can definitely get on that trajectory. And the sad thing, unfortunately, is that, you know, you kind of say goodbye to a lot of the people in your past, if they don't want to come along for that ride with you, that's fine. I still have friends, but what I find is I have a different group of friends because we've all heard this. You've become the average of the five to seven people you spend most of your time with you start talking about big ideas you start talking about the execution of those ideas and what i've always found is little people they talk about other people ryan did what so-and-so did last week did you hear about this and they start you know basically gossiping i'm fucking so done with gossiping oh god i just turn that all yeah

i don't have time for that shit i'm less like no this always talks down that road i'm like okay I'm in this, let's talk about what we're going to do. Like, what we got? And then it's really quickly like how we're going to get it done. I'm not, the execution word is it can't be more, hit my button more than anything. Because I'm like, and even to a fault sometimes, I'm like, let's get to work. Let's get it. Like, let's not talking about it.

Let's get there. Exactly. I'm 100% there. Absolutely. You bet. Brad. Talk to me about where everybody can learn more about capital school. keep up with you and anything else you got going on there.

Well, I mean, I'm easy to find. If you just Google me, I pop up all over the Internet. You know, there's a couple pages there. Yep. Podcast episodes, books, of course, information about our program. You know, the easiest thing is just follow me on the website. It's just my first and last name, you know, Bradblazar.com. There are no ease in the spelling of my name.

It's just Brad Blazer, B-L-A-Z-A-R. So go there and check it out. You know, follow me on Instagram. Just look for that little blue check or whatever that says you're following the right dude because we've had a couple of impostors. And, you know, shoot me a DM. You know, love to get on a call. Love to invite you to some of the events that we do throughout the year.

We do some big cool events. We do some masterminds. And we just love connecting with people. I love it, brother. I love to connect some more. Maybe come to some of those events and get involved with you. We have a blast, man. It's a lot of fun.

We do a lot of really, really cool stuff. We bring in some unbelievable I was a stand in event out in Beverly Hills. We had William Shatner there. I mean, how cool is it to hang out with Kurt? Yes. We had Ron our test. Meta, you know,

used to play for the Lakers. You know, and of course, in the world of racing capital, we've got some pretty cool people. We've had Nicole Buffett, you know, Warren Buffett's granddaughter. We've had John Najari and, you know, the Najarian brothers are down in Puerto Rico.

They're the big option guys. He's got the beard and always where's that beanie, real cool dude. So we just think of that. with a bunch of really cool cats, man, because that's what it's all about. I love it, man. I really appreciate you coming on and dropping all the knowledge and look forward to staying in touch. Yeah.

Well, let's get you on one of our events and let's, like you said, figure out what we can do together. You know, maybe go and buy a piece of real estate or get a big deal. I like this education idea. I've got an idea around that myself. I know Brad Lee and Andy Elliott now are partnered up. You know, these guys are some of the top sales coaches. and now there's some of the top real estate coaches because they've been hanging around guys like Carlos Reyes and Nick Perry and all these guys that have a lifestyle of passive income because the tenants pay rent and they live off the excess. They're like, man, you guys never work.

It's like, you don't have a need to work. We got this passive income. And, you know, my buddy Bobby Castro, if you know, Bobby and Sophie, you know, shit, they make probably 60, 90,000 a month, just all passive, just off their multifamily. You know, they're jet setting around traveling all the time. You know, that's the life you can lead when you understand this OPM game. And, you know, it's really funny. I said, man, to a lot of people that are not doing big things in life or that are the dreamers, I'm saying, man, you're on a big powerful drug.

And they're like, I don't do drugs. And I'm like, no, no, you're on a big powerful drug, dude. It's called hopium. You ever heard that before? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hopium is not a strategy. You got to learn the better one, which is Ophium.

It's the same thing without the age. That's learning how to use other people's money to come and build your dreams, do something big in life. But no, man, it's been a great show. Thank you so much for hosting me. It's been a pleasure. We dropped some great nuggets here and shared some really, really good, funny stories. Hopefully everybody gets chocolate and really enjoys the episode. Five bees, baby.

Big brass balls and bad blazer. Appreciate your brother. Hey, guys, you know, to find us, Ryan is right.com. because we're always right, we're always now, we're always here for you. Thank you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. We're right about now.

This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.