The Science of Flipping - Kickstarting 2025 with Change, Collaboration, and Accountability

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Join REI LIVE and let's do deals together! Go to: https://reilive.co/   --   HAPPY NEW YEAR TSOF FAMILY! In this episode, I’m kicking off 2025 by talking about the three key pillars for success this year: change, collaboration, and accountability. I challenge you to reflect on what needs to change in your habits and routines to hit your goals, prioritize revenue-generating activities, and build intentional connections that open new doors. I share real-life examples, like how the REI Live community collaborated on multiple deals over the holidays and how nurturing relationships led to unexpected opportunities. This year is all about taking action, working with others, and holding yourself accountable to achieve the results you want. Let’s make 2025 the year we all win!   --   --- The #1 training and coaching system to launch, grow, and scale your investing business! 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞: http://www.thescienceofflipping.com Turn cold real estate leads into engaged motivated sellers on auto-pilot using the power of A.I! 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞: https://www.rocketly.ai/ Have a question? Ask me anything at https://www.askjustin.ai/ 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧: After investing in real estate for over 17 years and almost 3000 deals done, Justin has created a business that generates 7 figures in active income through wholesaling and fix and flipping as well as accumulating millions of dollars of rental properties including 5 apartment buildings, 50+ single family homes, and 1 storage facility Justins longevity in real estate is due to his ability to look around the corners, adapt to changing markets, perfecting Raising private capital, and focusing on lead generation which allows him to not just wholesale and fix & flip, but also accumulate wealth through long term holds. His success in real estate led him to start The Entrepreneur DNA podcast and The Science Of Flipping podcast and education company, where he has coached and mentored thousands of aspiring and active investors over the last decade. He is a nationally recognized speaker and is on a mission to educate as many people as possible on becoming a successful dynamic real estate investor. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒔 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝑻𝒐 𝑺𝒂𝒚 𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏:  “Justin is one of the best trainers in this space. He really gives everything to his tribe.” – Brent Daniels (TTP) “Justin’s ability to connect with people and help them understand what he is teaching, is unparallelled” – Kent Clothier (REWW) “We have been in the trenches flipping homes in Phoenix for over a decade, he is one of the best to do it.” – Sean Terry (Flip2Freedom) Subscribe To Justin Colby: http://youtube.com/justincolby View All My Videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/JustinColby  

This is 2025. This is a brand new year. This is a new chapter. It is a blank page. Think that through a little bit. Don't leave this episode and just, all right Justin, that was nice. That was good. Change, collaborate, accountability. Got it. No, no, no, no. Like, what does this year mean to you? Are you ready to go into the trenches? Are you ready for war? Right? Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to make change? Because I'll tell you, if you sit around and wait for change, it's gonna change, but you're gonna be left behind. Because it's gonna be progressive change and you're not gonna be doing anything. Are you gonna force yourself to change? Are you gonna fight for change? Are you gonna go to war with yourself to be a better person, to work harder, to wake up earlier? These are all little battles in the war, right? What are you gonna do in 2025?

What is up everybody? What is up to the Science of Flipping podcast? We are officially in 2025 as I record this. So excited to be moving into the new year, new directions, big changes, big momentum. This is your day to start anew. It is a new chapter. It is a new page. It is a blank page that you can write on this new year. At this very moment as you are listening to this or watching this is yours to create. Now I want to go into this episode with this in mind. What changes are you going to

have to make? What changes need to be done for you to hit your goals in 2025? Who are you going to be collaborating with in 2025? How are you going to be collaborating? For example, we have members in my REILive.co. If you haven't checked out, you should go to REILive.co. We have collaborated on 10 deals in the last two weeks. 10 deals. Me and the members of REILive.co have collaborated on these deals even as of today. We got another contract signed by seller on a beautiful duplex in Mobile, Alabama. Now that is the first two and the last one is given change and given collaboration.

Who is going to hold you accountable? So between change, collaboration and accountability, that is what this episode is about. That is what 2025 is about. So the first question you need to ask yourself is what is going to change? Okay. Are you doing what you need to be doing? And then, you know,

first you need to understand what should you be doing. And for many of you, you might be in different segments of your real estate investing journey. And so this episode isn't about telling you exactly what you should be doing, but I can tell you a great way to understand what you should be doing is looking at your bank account. Looking at your bank account will quite literally describe what you should be doing in where you should be focusing. And most of you probably are not where you want to be in with your bank account. Then the first thing you need to be doing is focusing on revenue generating activities. That is the very first thing and probably the only thing you need to be doing out of the gate. So revenue generating activities could be calling realtors, could be calling homeowners, door knocking,

you know going through your CRM, calling the leads back on REILive.co. So if again you go to REILive.co, we had a member Carol, literally she's been working this lead that we reviewed today to put in an offer. She's been working this lead that we reviewed today to put in an offer. She's been working the lead for two months. This lead came in two months ago. Then there was a lead that came in that she's been working a year ago and she says tomorrow we want to call this lead that she's been working for a year or at least the lead came in a year ago. Now what happened is, you know, after a couple back and forths of the seller, this seller lead fell off the face of the earth, right?

And literally as of New Year's week, reached back out to Carol because the seller changed her phone number, changed her phone, and was able to find nurture outreach via email to get back in contact with Carol. And so I say all that to say is maybe what you need to be doing is nurturing the lead that you already paid for, that you already brought in. The thing that you should be focusing on is revenue generating activity.

Some of you might be doing deals with wholesalers. So how many wholesalers did you reach out to today? How many offers did you make? How many buyers did you bring to other wholesalers deals? Right? So again, you need to understand what change needs to happen. But most of you in this journey are probably not satisfied with how much money you're currently making or how many deals you currently have done or

want to do, and it all goes back to the same thing. If you need to be focusing on revenue generating activities, and if you do that, you will start to see change. Now, again, I don't need to tell you on this episode exactly how and where, but understanding the priority. Okay, priority is the key. I made a comment on Facebook a couple of days ago about, you know, who out there is feeling like,

you know, the day gets away from them. They're spun around all day and they're very rarely able to achieve the things they want to achieve, right? In the given day. And they don't get to to achieve the things they want to achieve, right? In the given day. And they don't get to focus on the real estate business. There's a lot of people that said, yeah, that's me, you're talking directly to me. Well, my answer to them

was as simple as saying, hey, listen, you need to prioritize the priority. What gets prioritized gets done, right? And I know it sounds a little morbid and we don't have to be all morbid, but like, listen, at the end of the day, our children, for those of you who are parents, are our priority.

So if your child is in harm's way, your priority is to get your child out of it. It's extreme. But I just want to paint the picture of what is priority gets done. Right? You will sacrifice your own life for your child. You will make it done. And I say that say all those out there, and maybe you're one of those, maybe

you're one of those people that right now is saying, man, I just, I don't know where to find the time. I feel like I'll have the time and then nothing gets done or I can't get to it or something pops up or whatever. Well, that's because you're not making it an actual priority, right? You say you are, but you're not. So the first thing of change is priorities.

And if I'm you, I'm sitting there and writing that down, priorities. Because then later today, if you're listening to this in the car or maybe you're not in sitting there and writing that down, priorities. Because then later today, if you're listening to this in the car, or maybe you're not in front of a notepad, but later today, then you need to go in and start to understand what are the actual priorities that you need to be focusing on every single day, including weekends. Right?

For you real estate investors or aspiring real estate investors, weekends aren't time to take, take off. Real estate is historically known to be a weekend business. I mean, realtors have literally been driving buyers around on weekends since the dawn of time, right? Open houses have typically been held all weekend long, Saturday and Sunday. Since realtors were realtors, right? I mean, the point being is weekends aren't a day off for us.

Weekends are work as real estate investors, right? And honestly, those of, not you, but maybe you, that do take the weekends off, that helps people like me get a leg up. That helps me get the deal that you won't get because you're not working on a Saturday or Sunday, right? So when you're thinking about going into 2025, you got to start with change. What does need to change?

Is it your activities? Is your actions? Maybe you are not a part of a community like reilive.co and maybe you need to collaborate more, which brings you into the second level of what we're talking about today is collaboration. Maybe that's what needs to change. Maybe you're just trying to do it all yourself. Maybe you're just stubborn.

Maybe you're just like, I'm gonna figure it all out on YouTube. And maybe you haven't actually done anything but gone to YouTube and watched a lot of videos. So maybe collaboration is what needs to change. I can tell you out of my own personal experience, 2025 and onward is all about collaboration. All about collaboration, not competition.

How can I work with people who I want to be working with to do more, to get more done, to make more money, to have more fun? Give you a great story today as I record this today, this morning. Long time friend and I, her name's Amy, by the way, so big shout out Amy, you know who you are. Been friends for a long time. And kind of have circled each other, she's also in the education space and you know, we've both been in real estate a long time and you know,

today we kind of sat down and had a Zoom, but how can you and I collaborate more? And there was no like, let's try to work to work business it was literally she was talking about what she was doing and I was talking about what I was doing and literally we had people in her phone this is how simple collaboration can be when we were talking on zoom she mentioned something that she needed something for this reason of something and I literally put her together with two people right then and right there and I said hey I think you'll one of these two people will probably be the

right fit for you and right there on the phone. Couple minutes go by, she's talking about something else, specifically real estate and cost seg and I was like, here, let me give you, do you have a cost seg guy? No, I don't. Here, let me give you my cost seg guy and I just started offering up value to her, not because she asked for it particularly, she was just telling me what she's up to, but I had resources I knew she would likely like. And we've been friends a long time.

So I gave it up to her. Well, you know what happened the rest of the conversation? It started to turn around and she started asking me what's been up with me and what's new with me. And I've been describing her about what I'm up to and this and that. And then all of a sudden she started putting me together with people in her network that,

you know, would be of value to me. Right? I didn't ask her to. I didn't say, hey, I'm looking for this thing. She said, hey, you should reach out to this person. I'm going to put us together on a three-way chat. Oh, you know what? I need to introduce you to so-and-so because of this reason.

Let me put us on a three-way chat. And it just started happening. And that is the movement I'm going on. The collaboration of what Amy and I can do is one example. I mean, just the Rolodex I have and the Rolodex she has and the different people and the different scenarios that we could just share with each other and offer value. Cause if we offer each other enough value,

something good is gonna come from it, from both of us. I say that to say, now I know Amy and I are going to collaborate a lot more because really at the end of it, then we said, Hey, why don't we do this thing? You know, we're going to do a training together. She really focuses on raising private money. I really focus on doing deals and guess what? Deals need money. Right.

And so it's a perfect collaboration. Now we didn't go into that conversation, thinking collaboration of business and training. We just said, hey, let's connect. Let's see what there is out there for us to put together. Now that is what I would impress upon all of you today. So if there's something right now you guys can take, I would take this. So three to five people is what I would tell you

to connect with, because you don't know what they're up to. Maybe you haven't talked to them for a while. You don't know what people in their Rolodex that could help you with whatever you're going through and dealing with. And so it's good to just connect with people because part of it is network, right?

The network in creates the ability to do more. You don't need to ask for something. Just understand what they're doing. And if you understand what they're doing and they understand what you're doing, you might say something like, oh, I'm going to do this thing just like Amy did. And I said, oh man, you should talk to these two people about that thing. And I just connected her. She didn't ask for. So make sure you're actually reaching three to five people a day. Whether it's social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever, and reach out to them. Because if you are going to collaborate, then collaboration takes

intention. Now the thing about collaboration that you guys need to understand, first of all, REILive.co is all about deal collaboration. I'm not charging you 10 grand, 20 grand for coaching. I'm going to bring you into a community and we're gonna be doing deals together 50-50 if you are not a part of REILive.co you need to be starting today starting right now In fact, because it's the holiday of the new year. I give away a week for free REILive.co a week for free get in there. We contracted I think two properties today I think ten in the last couple weeks.

We're doing it together, 50-50 deal split. But collaboration takes time. It takes energy, it takes effort. The challenge I see a lot of times with some newer individuals is they don't want to be patient. They want that collaboration to immediately turn into money. Like right now, I hurry up. And so they take this, they listen to this episode, they watch this episode,

and they don't have patience to collaborate. They don't have patience because they need a deal right now. They need money right now. But that's short-sighted. If you want the long play, then you need to collaborate. And so the change I'd tell you guys to make, and I know I've already done this, is I'm making a big change,

and I don't need to just be, you know, on top of the mountain. I want us all to be on top of the mountain, doing it together, eating together, making money together, right? Make money, have fun, and create value. And if you can do that, you're gonna win. So that's my motto going into 2025. And that's my change. So I want you guys to figure out the change

that you need to make. What is it exactly? So for some of you, you guys are, you know, waking up too late, staying up too late, right? You still watch TV and Netflix and chill, and you're not not going to the gym or you're still not eating good or whatever these things are, you need to start to make the change because what I can tell you is those of you who are not happy with their bank account, you got to look in the mirror with that. If you're not happy with your body and figure, you got

to look in the mirror for that. All your problems, all your issues, you can solve all of them. And so then this episode is about well how do you do that? Well collaboration is one of them. In the real estate space finding leads is the biggest thing. Finding sellers. I don't care if it's through an agent, wholesaler, direct-to-seller, finding sellers. So then what changes do you need to make to go find more sellers? I you know obviously have tens of thousands of people listening to this. I don't know what you guys are all doing, but whatever you're doing likely isn't working to the level you want it to. Maybe it's even working. Maybe you're making a couple bucks.

Maybe you're making five, 10, 15, 20 grand a month. Maybe you're making a couple bucks. You're like, okay, it's working, but it's not working at the level I want it to. Again, what needs to change? I'm being redundant because people, it's like the squeaky wheel, right? It gets the oil. Like you say, you know, but do you know? Because you haven't done anything different, right? So I want 2025 to be different for you, right? If you're not happy with this scenario, and again, like I said, you could be making a couple bucks, but you want more than you need to be changing.

In my own world is about collaboration, right? It's about doing more with more people, good people that I choose to do business with. And people offer more opportunities, right? You've ever heard Brad Lee say, the more hands you shake, the more money you make. Right? You've heard the scenario shaking hands and kissing babies. The more people you talk to, the more opportunities you're going to have. And so find a way to talk to more people each and every day. That's what I told you. Three to five people, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, reach out to them. Say what's up. See what they're up to. What's new? How's 2025 going to be any different? Right? Say what's up, see what they're up to, what's new. How's 2025 gonna be any different, right?

Whatever the questions are, like re-engage with people, reach out to people, because you never know what they have going on. So in terms of collaboration, you need to get clear on what you'd collaborate with, right? So we've talked about change, you get it. You need to make change. Now let's talk about the collaboration part.

You heard my story with Amy. There was no real intention for this call on, you know, let's find this collaboration. But just organically, that started happening. Now, her and I are very similar levels and years of experience. And so naturally some collaboration is going to take place. But if I'm you guys, I need to be clear with what do I want to collaborate on? Is it finding deals? Is it finding deals? Is it negotiating deals?

Is it raising money? Is it building a business? Is it marketing? Is it finding buyers? Is it collaborating with a contract on a rehab? What are you actually trying to collaborate on? And I can't answer that for you. You have to answer that.

What I can tell you is if I collaborate with more of you guys in reilive.co, I will do more deals. You've heard me say it before on other podcasts, but in November, I had the opportunity to have a couple weeks of just kind of silence and I spent a lot of time just internally understanding what I wanted to do and whatever. And the end result of that was God or my gut intuition or energy or higher power, whatever we want to call it, kept saying do more deals. Well, guess what I created reilive.co to do more deals. Not charge you guys 10 to 20 grand to teach you, but actually just do deals with you and share the revenue 50-50.

That's where I landed at. And so my collaboration is with you guys. I want to collaborate more with you guys. I want you and I to collaborate more on real estate deals. That is the intention of my collaboration going in 2025. And if people like Amy and others can be a part of that collaboration, I would love to do that. To grow the biggest baddest ass community of doing deals in person every single day,

five days a week, doing deals creatively doing deals, you know, as wholesales, doing deals in person every single day, five days a week, doing deals creatively, doing deals, you know, as wholesales, doing deals as fix and flips, buying holds, buying more deals. So that is my intention. And I was very clear going into 2025. I took a lot of time to sit and think and understand and refine and write down. So I ask you guys to do the same thing. What are you trying to collaborate on? Why collaborate? What, you know, a lot of people get into business partners, partnerships, because they think their friend or family member has a skill set that they lack or

don't possess, which could be a good thing. But the reality is you could just collaborate with people that have a strength where you have a weakness and you don't need a business partnership. And again, that's what REI Live is, right? Is my strength is 18 years of doing deals, negotiating, underwriting, finances, raising money, having buyers. And your weakness might be a lack of that experience. So, why wouldn't we collaborate?

Right? If I can show you where to go find them, you do 50% of the work, I'll do the other 50% of the work. We share profits 50-50. That is clear intentional collaboration. So how would you be collaborating? Maybe it's you joining REILive.co. I've talked a lot about it because I know exactly how clear I am about how far that needle is going to move. We've done a lot of deals through the holidays, by the way, in the last two

weeks, we've done 10 deals. Many of you guys are like, oh, the holidays, no one was doing anything. No one was working. We were. Because everyone else wasn't. Right? And so when you get clear on the collaboration that you want to be able to do, you can actually start to move your own needle.

It can be clear, right? And maybe it's an acquisition person, maybe it's a marketing agency, maybe it's a buyer's group, whatever the case may be, get clear on that. And then the last part of this episode is going to be the accountability part. You said you're going to make these changes. You still got to write them out by the way. It's great for you to be listening to this in your car or on an airplane or wherever you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube and to hear it

shake your head and nod. Yeah, no, that's a good idea, Justin. But then to actually not write it down and to actually not do anything about it is bullshit. Like these are good ideas because I've done this a long time and I've gone through, you know, a lot. And by the way, I've paid a lot of money for coaches and masterminds over the last 18 years. So these aren't new ideas about creating change, right? And collaborating and creating accountability. But there are three things that I believe most of you aren't doing accurately or just not doing it all. And so who's going to keep you accountable?

How do you keep yourself accountable? What levers and triggers need to be given or what do you need to have for that? Now, the first thing is obvious. Accountability partners, like myreilive.co group, there's people in that group that have called them, called each other and started to hold each other accountable. Hey, did you make calls, did you make the offers, and things go out, right?

Is it a family member, is it a friend, is it maybe me calling you out on your shit? Or do you actually have the fortitude to do it yourself? Do you think you would be able to hold yourself accountable? I don't know. I would tell you accountability is probably the hardest thing to hold yourself accountable for. Right?

Like you need to write shit down on the mirror. Sticky note or one of those markers, like a whiteboard marker and hold yourself accountable because every day if you look in the mirror and all of you look at that mirror, you'll at least remind yourself you got to do this thing or this is the most important thing. If you haven't heard me say this, I'll say it one more time. There's the big six, write it down. The big six. Three non-negotiables, three must-dos. Maybe every night you go into that bathroom mirror and you write down the three non-negotiables for tomorrow

and the three most important things. Three non-negotiables are exactly that totally non-negotiable. If you can't get to the most important, they get pushed in the next day they turn into your non-negotiables. Pretty self-explanatory. But accountability for this is going to be huge. And I tell you to be a part of a community that can hold you accountable. Because the easiest thing for us to do is the same old, same old, right? New Year's stars, people get all fired up. Oh, I'm going to change my body and my life and my fitness. Blah.

I'm going to go to the gym. By the way, I was on the gym yesterday and today. There was less people at the gym in the last two days, the first and the second, than I've seen essentially as long as I can remember. And I don't know if it's because everyone's on vacation or just there's not as many people doing this whole bullshit,

oh, I'm gonna go change my life as there used to be, but very kind of a side note very funny to think about but the reality is that's why most people by day 30 they're they're not even going to the gym anymore accountability is very difficult so I tell you to hire a coach and even cheaper go to reilive.co get involved in my community let's do deals together but be held accountable. Right, get a coach, get a fitness coach, get a real estate coach. Right, I don't do it often,

but if you wanna talk about one-on-one coaching, I'm happy to talk about it. We can figure it out if it's gonna be a good fit. Don't sit there and not hold yourself accountable for the change that needs to be made. Don't sit there and not hold yourself not accountable to collaborate with the people that need you to collaborate with.

I'm a part of two masterminds every year. Those two masterminds combined are almost six or a hundred thousand dollars. Like it's a lot of money to spend, but guess what? I have a lot of collaboration with masterminds. A lot of people in my Rolodex have a lot of opportunities that come out because of these masterminds. And so I'd tell you guys the accountability of what you need to do, how you need to do it. This is the missing link everybody.

Because too many people do not understand how to hold themselves truly accountable. Because there's no repercussion. If you're going to hold yourself accountable and then not punish yourself or not doing the thing you need to do, then you're not going to be able to be good at it. You're not going to be a good accountability partner to yourself. So find someone else. Right.

And what I'll tell you is people pay attention to what they pay for. So if it's fitness, if it's real estate, if it's business, hire a coach, cause you will pay attention cause you could have checked to do it. And then still, and still some people don't do it, but that is the closest thing to be able to give you guys that accountability that that you probably need. Now again this is 2025, this is a brand new year, this is a new chapter, it is a blank page. Think that through a little bit, new chapter it is a blank page. Think that through a little bit. Really. Don't leave this episode and just, all right Justin that was nice, that was good. Change, collaborate, accountability, got it. No, no, no, no. Like what does this year mean

to you? Are you ready to go into the trenches? Are you ready for war? Right? Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to make change? Because I'll tell you, if you sit around and wait for change, it's going to change, but you're going to be left behind. Because it's going to be progressive change and you're not going to be doing anything. Are you going to force yourself to change? Are you going to fight for change? Are you going to go to war with yourself to be a better person, to work harder, to wake up earlier? These are all little battles in the war, right?

What are you gonna do in 2025? I want you guys to succeed at such high levels, and none of us are perfect. I'm not sitting around saying I'm perfect and, you know, but I have some fundamental foundations that I've set over these decades. And I hope to impress upon you a lot of those foundational rules, laws, whatever they are,

because it's really helped me over the last 18 years. And I hope to do the same for you. So if this was helpful, and you know someone that might need to be able to hear this so they can actually go win in 2025, make sure you share it with them. Also I will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, January 25th. If you want to be invited to that one day intensive, we're going to be crushing it

with my REILive.co community, REILive.co. If you want to be invited, let me know, hit me up. You can find me on Instagram, TheJustinColby. You can find me on Facebook, JustinColby. And by the way, would love to get more reviews on the podcast. Give us a review. Smash the five stars.

Give us a great review. Appreciate you guys. I'm excited for you guys. It's 2025. It's the year to go win, but you got to create it. There's a lot of opportunity. You still got to go create your own win. Love you.

See you on the next episode. Peace.