The Science of Flipping - Episode 121: Instagram Live with Hustle Island | Real Estate Investing Podcast

Episode Date: June 29, 2018

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab303bb06", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/post/2948", "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { podlovePlayer("#player-5eb5ab303bb72", {"title":"Episode 121: Instagram Live with Hustle Island","subtitle":null,"summary":null,"duration":"","poster":null,"chapters":"","transcripts":"","audio":[{"url":"https://audio.simplecast.com/10d3661a.mp3","mimeType":"audio/mpeg","title":"AUDIO/MPEG","size":0}]}, "https://thescienceofflipping.com/wp-json/podlove-web-player/shortcode/config/default/theme/default"); }); Get to know Justin through an interview with Hustle Island, the Official Uniform For Hustlers & Entrepreneurs Worldwide. Get a Free Coaching Call with TSOF team. CLICK HERE TO FILL THE FORM. JOIN MASTERMIND  — APPLY NOW!!

Welcome to the Science of Flipping Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Colby. Yeah, so I'll kind of start from the beginning. I've never actually had a boss. I've never had a W-2. I graduated UCLA and went directly into sales. From there, I owned a sales company and I was grinding it out. And at the age of 23 and 24, I was making way too much money. So I ended up living in Boston and I caught pneumonia because I'm a California boy. And I basically said, the money's not worth it. Move back home. Very same time, 2005, one of my best friends said, hey, let's get into real estate together. I said, absolutely. I started as a realtor.

And because 2005, 2006, everything was awesome. So I was making money hand over fist. I actually wasn't talented. It was because of the market, right? I couldn't, I was like an order taker, but I didn't enjoy it. I hated being a realtor. Just absolutely hated it, right? And so from there, when the market tanked, I absolutely lost it all. So I am a statistic of what happened to the economy. I lost my $500,000 condo.

I lost my $90,000 Lexus. Every month I would charge, you know, 40 grand on an Amex that I'd pay off every month because I lost my $500,000 condo. I lost my $90,000 Lexus. Every month I would charge, you know, 40 grand on an Amex that I'd pay off every month because I was making so much money. So basically I went from hero to zero real quick. And when you're 20, I think I was what,

26 at the time, you don't really know how to handle that. That was my first major life defeat, right? Like what the fuck do I do now? And I knew one thing, I wasn't going to call mommy. I was an adult. I was a man. I was going to figure it out. And so I called my buddy and I said, hey, I literally have no money. Not only do I have no money, I have no income. And my home's going to foreclosure, and the repo man is coming after my car,

and can I stay on your couch? And he lived in San Francisco. So he said yes. And one of my best friends and I were talking about what do we do next? Because he was also in the real estate business, and he knew his time was up too. So we just kept talking about what we need to do. And for those people out there that follow real estate and real estate investing, this was right first time that like info marketers started showing up on YouTube. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like no cash, no credit, no problem. You can make big checks and all this stuff, right? And so I saw one of those and me and my boy were like, bro, if this dude can make 25 grand on investing, we damn sure can make good money, right?

Okay. But we didn't know anything. So we just started to grind. And he was living in Phoenix at the time, and I was living in San Francisco on my buddy's couch. And I said, hey, here's the deal. I'm going to put in 10, 12 hour days, cold calling, calling realtors, calling any investors, any lender, anyone we can get our hands on to introduce ourselves, telling them what we want to do, which is flip homes and to see if we can get a meeting with them. So every day I would call a hundred realtors. They didn't know who I was.

I didn't, I was really call 100 you really call 100 every day okay that was my goal to grind doesn't mean i talked to 100 but i'd call them right right right right most people are too scared how did you work the courage up to just do it the first day hey dude when you lose it all you have nothing to lose i didn't need courage right i was i was fucking eating shit right like my buddy had to feed me. I had no money. So when you're in a place of that desperation, like I give a shit about what some random realtor out in Phoenix cares about me, right? Like I just didn't care. I love it. So that was, I love it. That's the key, buddy. Totally. Totally. Just to take, take that point. I tell

people now that are struggling with what they do, it's just like, dude, jump out the window because that is what you need. You need to just jump out the window, break everything in your body, whatever it is. Now, just need to stop caring and then you do what you're supposed to be doing. But beyond that, you're worried about a bunch of bullshit. So you jumped out the window, you fell on 100 people. What'd you do from there? So it took me about nine months to get our first deal. So what I was doing is I was trying to set up my business partner to meet with them, right?

And basically painted a vision that we were going to be the biggest flippers in the nation. You need to work with us. This is what we're going to do. We didn't fucking make it. We've done zero deals, but we are talking as if that we've done 100 deals. And finally, we found a realtor and that realtor worked with us. We got our first deal and made seven grand. And that was the biggest paycheck we've ever seen.

Who did the labor? Well, in those times, we had what's called transactional funding. So we actually funded the deal and immediately reflipped it to an owner-occupant buyer. Okay. So it was a little different time back then. Yeah, yeah. They don't do that anymore? You can do that still.

Absolutely. But we didn't have any rehab experience, right? And so transactional funding was huge because all we had to do was get the home under contract, fund the deal, and we can sell it in 24 hours. Now that has transformed. A lot of what we do today is similar, but we don't always fund the deal, and we can sell it in 24 hours. Now that has transformed. A lot of what we do today is similar, but we don't always fund the deal. We do what's called wholesaling, where we have the end buyer use their funds to fund the A to B transaction and the B to C

transaction. So they fund my closing and they fund their own closing simultaneously. And you're selling it to a homeowner? No, now we're selling usually to another flipper. So I'll spend anywhere from $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a month in marketing to go directly to sellers, right? To talk to sellers, hey, don't list your property. Just sell it directly to me for cash. I'll close quick. No commissions, no costs. The number that we

negotiate goes right in your pocket and they love that. And then I'll take that and I'll resell it to a flipper or I'll resell it to someone who wants to buy a home. Okay. How do you price it? You got to know the market, right? So you need to be able to comp the property. What are some decent comparables? And then ultimately, if they were going to know the market, right? So you need to be able to comp the property. What are some decent comparables? And then ultimately, if they were going to rehab the home, what would they sell it at, right? What's the top price, right? If they put $40,000 into the rehab, what would they want to sell it at? And then I work it backwards.

I love it, man. And this is what you teach in the academy, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So I have a science flipping academy. And then we just finished up an awesome two-day Grinding Grow Bootcamp, which is exactly what we teach. And then it even goes further on how to build a team, how to hire, how to keep people in the right seat, how to motivate them. I mean, it just goes into building a business and it goes a lot more into what you and I were just talking about, which is like the entrepreneurial mentality, because that's a major, that's a big shift, man.

A lot of people want what you have, what I have, but they don't understand the blood, sweat and the tears that went into this to get to where you're at, to get to where I'm at. And right. So those two days we talk real estate, we talk strategy, but we also talk life. We talk about like, you know, what does this shit all mean? Why are you doing it? What's the point if you're not going to be able to grow it so that

you don't have to do the work? Right. What are you willing to give up? What are you willing to sacrifice? You sacrificed your old identity, which was this millionaire, rich, fucking 25-year-old stud. You had the world.

You were so good. You couldn't be stopped. And now you know that it was the market environment. And then you sacrificed that identity and started cold calling realtors because nobody wants to cold call a realtor. Don't want to cold call a period, dude. No, no, you don't want to cold call a realtor. At least like a lawyer or something got something good for you.

Totally. All right, so let me go and give you some questions. Yeah. When somebody would agree to meet with you at the coffee shop when you were cold calling, what would you say to them? We would basically paint a picture, right? So it's all about painting a vision because we basically are asking them to be a part of our team, right?

Here's what we want to do. Here's where we're going. This is how it's done. This is what we're looking for. And we paint this vision and we're trying to figure out whether they can be a part of this vision or not. Right. Because it's going to take work. So we're asking them to work, right? Realtors don't like to fucking work, right? Let's just be honest. So, so we're asking them, can you do what we're asking? And here's the win. So any conversation I go into, I'm always thinking about what's in it for me

in their shoes. So when I'm talking to you in my head, I'm thinking, what does Greg want? Because in your head, Greg's thinking, what's in it for me in this conversation with Justin? So I'm thinking, what is Greg looking for? Right? Because everyone, anytime you have a conversation and for those of you who are married and have boyfriends and girlfriends, every conversation, you need to be thinking about what the other person wants. And you're ultimately going to get what you want because that's what they're thinking about. What's in it for me? Everyone is. So that's it. Paint the picture, paint the vision. And then, I mean, we went through hundreds of realtors that we talked to, met with, and they weren't the right fit.

But it only takes one, right? So once we found that one, it was game over. And that got our first deal, which led to our second deal. So the first year, we did two deals, made $14,000. I'm still sleeping on a couch. That shit didn't change. But now I'm eating hot dogs instead of Top Ramen. You know what I mean?

You see the vision. You see it. You can believe it now. You can believe it works. And that's half the... I think that's like 70% of the battle, that first deal. So you say to yourself, wow, this is actually feasible. This might actually happen.

100%, dude. Because once you get that, you get so much confidence. You get that first deal. You get that first paycheck. You're like, holy shit, I can do it. This is real. I can do this. And you pour a little gas on that thing. And we did six deals the next year, 20 deals the next year, 46 deals the next year, 96 deals in it, right? Really? So you just pour the gas on it once you believe it.

Now, speak to the community a little bit about the part delusion plays in being an entrepreneur. Oh, you got to be borderline psycho. I mean, it's... Listen, I talk about this a lot on my podcast, The Science of Flipping. So for those of you listening, go to The Science of Flipping podcast. You'll hear a lot about entrepreneurship, real estate, but this shit is tough. I'm going to be the first person. Maybe Greg talks about it a lot. To be an entrepreneur, you need to eat a lot of shit, period. And if you're not willing to, don't even get in the game because it's going to be hard. You're going to work harder as an entrepreneur for the first couple of years than you're currently working at your current job.

So if you don't like to work, this isn't going to work. Now, what I would say about that is if you find a passion and you find something that can make you happy, then it no longer becomes work. I'll work 12 hours a day. I don't. These two days at the grind and grow event were literally 14 hours days in the time flew by because I love helping people. I love educating people. I love. So that's not even work to me.

Right. So if you can find something that makes you happy, that you enjoy, that's where you're going to win because you'll put in the six, seven-hour weeks. Every day you're working, you'll put in the 12, 14 hours, and that will help expedite your timeframe to make it, right? Right. And you're not going to find your passion on day one is what I think it is. And a lot of people get that misconstrued as like, oh, I'm passionate about this. It's like you have to dig, man. You have to dig to find the diamond. You've got to dig hard.

And then once you find it, then you could qualify yourself that, okay, I'm passionate about this. But your passion was in helping other realtors find the same success and the same information that you did, I'm sure. Yeah. But grinding out for those three years, that probably is not passion. It's just taking massive fucking losses and massive Ls. Oh, yeah. What was the biggest loss you took? Financially?

Oh, by the way, for any of you guys out there that are entrepreneurs and listen to people talking about, oh, man, all I do is win and I make a bunch of money. Dude, if they haven't eaten shit and they haven't taken some L's, stop listening to them. I've taken a bunch. The reason why I'm in a position I'm in is because I've taken more L's than most people and I keep going. Right. So I keep getting knocked down. Life keeps punching me in the mouth, dude.

It doesn't stop. Life's not. Life keeps punching me in the mouth, dude. It doesn't stop. Life's not going to stop punching me in the mouth. So I got to figure out a way to beat life. Right. So, I mean, financially, dude,

I've lost, I went into a development deal and I've lost 400 grand on development deal minimum. Right. You know, a lot of the L's aren't necessarily self-imposed. In real estate, it's market-imposed.

What did that $400,000 loss teach you and how much it has gained because of it? That's a great question, bro. What it taught me is never chase the commas. Never chase the money. Because when you chase money, money runs. Period. I agree. Do what you love to do.

Do what you're incredibly good at. Understand your superpower and focus on that. And so it taught me never to chase the zeros, never chase the commas, right? And how that changed my perspective is I realized I have a sense, I have a set of skills that I'm fucking awesome at, right? I'm an incredible leader. I'm an incredible connector. I'm an incredible leader. I'm an incredible connector. I'm an incredible visionary. Where I'm not is I'm not incredibly organized. I'm not incredibly structured.

I'm like the Honda going down the highway going 200 miles an hour and the wheels are falling off, right? The biggest things you're going to learn is by failing. I love saying that because people get scared. Oh, I don't want to fail. You're going to fail. There's no other way around it. You will fail. And that is going to be your biggest learning ability. And so I just have a passion to be able to give back to entrepreneurs. I have a passion to be able to help motivate them in an entrepreneurial way, not just say, you know, think good thoughts and good things will happen. Um, I do believe in positive thinking, but there's more than that. And a lot of that has to do with working. A lot of that has to do with doing what other people are unwilling to do. And so if you can do that,

and the reason why I want to give back to your community, um, cause I believe in your message. I believe in what you guys do. Um, and I want to be able to help your community at the same time. You're going to help mine, man. This, this whole video, this is going to go to my community they're going to hear from you they're going to hear about what you've gone through um and you know what you've done with hustle island and you know it's important to be able to give back i've had a lot of people i mean a lot of people give back to me without asking for anything in return nothing they just gave gave and if it's 10 people, I don't care if it's 10,000. I feel obligated to give back the way I've been given to. That's amazing, man. I really hope that this gets the people that are watching understand that.

And then I hope that message gets out more. It's just give. Stop asking. Stop. How many followers do you have? How many people are going to watch? It's like, is that what you're thinking about? Is you?

Dude, don't give a shit. That's enough. So you asked me kind of how I got my Instagram following. I will tell you this. When I first started fucking around with these Instagram lives and Facebook, like it can be intimidating. And I already had a following, right? I already have 10,000 downloads a week on my podcast. Like I already have the following. But if you are worried about what other people think about you, you will never do shit. You will be paralyzed by it. And if you can remove what other people think about you, remove your insecurity and just grit your teeth and say, fuck it, I'm going live and go. And it doesn't have to look good. But if you have something that you want to go live about,

you just got to do it because you got to remove that whole, I give a shit about what people think. Now there's a certain level of me, of course. So yes, I like nicer stuff. Yes. I made my Maserati. Yes. I like to buy nice stuff. There's a level I do care about what I look like, but when it comes down to it, this whole, you know, Instagram live, social media, giving back, you just have to do it. And if you're an entrepreneur out there, there is no wrong way to do it. The reason why I've been able to get the following

that I've gotten is because I'm just a normal dude. I don't try hard. Yes, do I have a marketing team? Do some of my videos look super nice and great production? Of course. But then I do lives like these and they're just like awesome.

They are the ones that get the most traction. And so once I got over that, and I encourage you guys to get over, don't give a shit about what people think about and just keep doing. And if you put out good content, you get a good message. If you deliver, you know, your give, then people are naturally going to start following you. And then the word's going to spread. And then you're going to be on interviews like this with my man, Greg on hustle. And it's, it just starts to grow. Right. But I've been doing this now. I've been in the public eye, public eye.

I mean, I'm not even famous by any means, but you know, since 2010, I've been speaking on stage and. Yeah, I agree. And you also love that part.

You're telling people that don't like you. I mean, that's who there's people that don't like you, and that's good. Well, that's what's needed. A lot of people don't want to do that. It's like your message is not for everybody. You swear, you're very outgoing in your message. It's entrepreneurial, basically over the tactical.

And some people don't agree with it, but you don't want them coming to your event because you can't help them as much as you can help somebody that really thinks like, wow, this guy's really talking to my soul here. And some people only have six clients and make $3 billion. You know what I'm saying? It's not about the value of my message and how potent it is. You can probably tell in the people watching, I get passionate. You just saw me get worked up and I just fucking love talking about this because I want to give. Being an entrepreneur is the best thing in the world, but people do it for the wrong reasons. They say, Oh, I don't want a boss anymore. I don't want to work nine to five. Well, dude or gal, I'm telling you right now, you're going to fucking start working from six to 10.

You're going to work longer hours. It's going to be harder because you're the only person that can, you know, do it. There's no boss and you got to hold yourself accountable. And that is so hard. How many people out there hold themselves accountable for going to the gym every day? Almost nobody, right? Percentage-wise, right? Everyone wants to go to the gym every day. Everyone wants a nicer body, but how many actually do it? Percentage-wise, not many. And so I get worked up with this because I get very passionate about giving back and helping motivate people on the reality of what it takes to get to where they want to be. Start who's kind of afraid to tell their parents or their girlfriend. They're afraid of what somebody thinks of them. How do they do their first live or how do they do their first deal?

How do they get over that hump of caring about what somebody thinks? Because it's a very real thing. I never want to take away from that anxiety or fear. Like that's real and it can be paralyzing. So I'm very understanding of it, but I'm not empathetic because here's the deal. If you find something that you love, if you find a passion that makes you happy, you will literally say, fuck everybody because it makes me happy.

I'm doing what I want to be doing. You're not doing it selfishly or to be selfish towards others. You're doing it because this entrepreneur or this business or this, it's going to give back to people. Maybe you want to make clothing. Maybe you want to be, you know, you want to knit your own whatever, and you have a passion for it. It makes you happy. You're going to be a better human being because you're doing what makes you happy than if you're doing what you hate. So if you're a better human being, what's the world going to be like, right? And so there's no easy way to do it. There's not like this trick. There's not a

syrup. There's, you just have to go. You have to take the risk. You have to believe before you see it. And if you believe it hard enough in your heart, you will do it because you'll know it's the right thing to do. You'll know you'll be a better person. And by being a better person, people around you will become better. And by those people being better, and it starts to go viral and you're just giving and you're not asking in return. And being a giver and going out there and being altruistic, that is such a happy feeling. And for those of you who haven't done that yet, you will gain so much happiness and pride and joy out of just giving back and starting your own thing. And I'll just take it to the next level. To start your own thing doesn't mean you need to quit your job. Now, I would tell you to, I would say, dude, if you're in,

you got to tell your boss to fuck off and I'm doing my thing and we're going. That's risky. I got it. You got to pay your bills. You have to support your family. You have to feed your kids. I got you. But then you got to grind harder. Go to your nine to five, get home at five, grind from nine to two in the morning, wake up at five, go to work. That's the grind. But you'll get what you want and what you deserve. You get into you, then you're going to make your family happier. You're going to provide more. You're going to be better to your friends. It just is a big circle of bettering the world, for lack of a better way to say it. That's my fault, guys. My phone died.

I'm not sure what happened, but Justin was really getting into some good stuff. Justin, that's my fault. My apologies. I can't hear you. That thing's all messed up. Can anybody hear me? Anybody hear me? There. All right, I can hear you. I got got you i plugged my thing back in all right so hey did you download that last video man

yeah i did good good because that's money i'm gonna send that to my entire tribe dude yep we got uh i love it man i love your passion i love what you're doing. I want to basically end this before I fuck it up again. I'm not an Instagram pro, man. This is like my second time doing this. I got you. Hey, man. But I think it was super valuable, man. I really love your vibe. I love how excited you get.

I think that's really what everybody should capture is this guy really fucking loves what he does. He's really who he says he is. Yeah. Take that. Use that and run with it because that's all you need you don't need to you can sell there's people that cut grass and make millions of dollars there's people that cut trees people that wash windows you don't have to you know it's not some crazy skill set you just have to be passionate like he is yep Amen to that, dude. Put some passion. Find your happiness. Find what you want to be doing. Find

what you know you need to be doing. And that's not going to be easy. I'll leave you with that. To find what you believe in, to find your happiness, to find what you know you should be doing, that's in and of itself a task. So be patient with yourself and you'll be able to find that. And just continue to work at it.

Just never give up, continue to work. The only way you can fail at this is if you give up. That is it.