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Action Academy | Millionaire Mentorship For Your Life & Business
LIVE KEYNOTE: How AI Could Reshape Real Estate (And How To Prepare) w/ Brandon Turner
01:34:38
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- [00:00]
A
When a robot can drywall and paint, that's when I run. 10, 15 years from now, real estate will be like 100 grand. Rents are 300 bucks a month. This is risky. Like, I don't know what the future holds. I just know that we're a really good jockey. Are there any kids in the room? I don't swear hardly ever, but I'm like, I'm going to fucking solve this. Get a very clear picture on where you're headed. It doesn't actually matter. You can pivot, but you can't, like, pivot if you're not moving. You just name, like, 20 names here. This guy, this guy. And a lot of real estate syndicators, a lot of real estate educators, a lot of authors. He goes, none of them made it with their family intact. None of them. I'm in an industry that has a 0% success rate of surviving a marriage. So what are we going to do different? I went home and I cried.
- [00:37]
B
All right, guys, so we've got the man, the man for the year here, Mr. Turner. So he is taking time out to come and spend some time with you guys. So like I said before, think of some questions to be asking. And I know some of you guys have already been thinking about it and stewing on it for a bit. We're just going to be able to go. I'm just going to guide him on a few questions. And he's just going to tell you the good, the bad, the ugly of what it takes to go from somebody that's, you know, just like everybody else up and down the street to now. All of a sudden you've got $1 billion of assets under management, and now you're scaling like crazy. So we were just talking about freedom before acquisition, acclimation architecture. And so I want to start the conversation with freedom, because you said something as we were riding up here that people have a misconception about what actually yields freedom.
- [01:23]
A
Yeah. So anybody seen the movie Office Space? You know, like the don't take my stapler. So, like, that movie had a profound impact on me in that. Like, I watched that when I was high school. Anybody else watch it around high school? Like, the same age, right? So, like, we watch it back then. And, like, I was like, I never want that life. Like, I never want that. And I rebelled against, like, corporate jargon and corporate life, and I just. All of that just was, like, icky, like, growth. I don't want that world. Then, like, you know, watching shows like the Office. Anybody heard of that one? Pretty Decent. So, like, you watch it, you're like, oh, I don't want that thing. And so for years and years and years, I was like, no, I'm the anti corporate guy. I don't do the corporate thing. I'm going to be a real estate investor. I'm going to be an entrepreneur. Screw KPIs and forget, you know, you know, core values. I used to laugh at core values and say they're ridiculous and there's no reason for them. And I just. I hated anything that had to do with corporate stuff. But what I have realized to go to the end of the story, I've realized over the last 20 years that, you know, Jocko Willing has that phrase, discipline equals freedom. It's like corporate equals freedom. And I hate that in my soul. But at some level it's true. And what I mean by that is not like, you know, it's Hawaiian shirt Friday and don't touch my stapler, but like the systems and the processes and the KPIs and the core values, that is actually what it takes to achieve freedom. Because ultimately, if you want freedom in your business, how many of you are real estate people, real estate investors of some kind, how many other entrepreneurs of some kind? How do you have no idea why you're here at all? A few of you, good. Like, either way, if you want one of those two things, if you want to get out of it, like, get freedom. And we all know this intuitively, like, right? Like if we want freedom, we don't want to have to work that job or that business forever. We have to scale, right? At some level, you have to scale. You have to go to a point where you can make enough money to get out. You can either scale up or you can scale out, but either one requires you to scale and get bigger. Well, how do you scale people? Processes, systems, KPIs. And so I've. I've built, I don't know, by 20 businesses in my life, and most of them have failed. There's been colossal failures over and over and over, even ones that I run today. I've got stuff today that's just not working. I have a group very much like this, and I'm shutting it down. Like, we have our last meeting next month. Yeah, I got a failure, but it was a lot of lessons learned. And why, like, when I look at almost every single failure, maybe not even almost every single failure, is because I just didn't run it like a business. I wasn't a good enough business leader. So anyway, that's what I. That's why I'm obsessed today in, like, how do I become a better leader, a better business owner, and still wear, you know, flip flops and, you know, go to, you know, Mexico on a whim? Because, like, there is a way to be both corporate or businessy and also have a life and have a soul. And that's what I'm trying to meld those two together right now. That's what's been fresh in my mind.
- [04:05]
B
So we just talked about the, like, the power of stories that we tell ourselves. And so thankfully, Brandon was sitting next to me when we were in the Tony Robbins event where he brought up that topic of state story strategy. And there's a story that you were telling yourself when you originally created the Vivid Vision for Open Door Capital about what you wanted it to be. So if you can share that original vision with them and now describe how it's changed as you've evolved and been like, okay, cool. So we wanted to be this ragtag group that's, like, out surfing and having a good time. How do you maintain that along with what you've actually learned through the process of scale now?
- [04:36]
A
Yeah, it's a great question. So, yeah, so the story was. I read a book called Vivid Vision by Cameron Harold. Anybody read that one? Yeah, super good book is coming to.
- [04:43]
B
Speak to you guys, by the way.
- [04:44]
A
That's awesome. He's legit. So I read this book, Vivid Vision. It was basically this idea of, like, have a very clear picture. Like, very, very clear, like, artistic picture. And there's different formats for it. But where you're headed in the future, three years in the future. So I read this book, and I had been floating for a long time. Like, I mean, I was on the Bigger Pockets podcast. I was buying, like, one rental house a year, maybe flipping one house. Like, just pretty, like, just coasting for years. And the reason I was coasting is because I just didn't know what to do next. I didn't know what, like, should I go into apartments or should I go and build this business or do a mentorship? I don't know. There's a lot of things I could do. And so because there were so many options, I just did nothing for years or very little. And I was on stage at an event, and I was speaking to a bunch of people, and I realized the only reason I was there is because I could sell tickets to the event. It was like, the hot girl, you know, who, like, has no value in life, but just as hot, and she gets into every party and every. Yeah. I was like, oh, I'm the hot girl. And I was like, I have. I have no value at all. So, like, I didn't want. I don't. That doesn't feel good, right? So, like, I want to be the hot girl with skills. So I was like. So I read this book, Vivid Vision on the flight home, and I was like, I am going to pick something by the time I land on this. Like when we took off from Denver, landed in Maui, I'm going to pick a thing and I'm going to go with it. And so I did. I said, I'm going to do mobile home parks and I'm going to have a thousand pads, like a thousand units, and I'm going to have five team members and I'm going to give away a bunch of money to charity and I'm going to do a mastermind in Maui and I'm going to. And I just started writing all the things that I wanted to do and. And I wrote it into a newspaper article written three years in the future, but it was called the $50 million surfers. It said how a small team of adventure seekers built a real estate empire and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We had flip flops and board shorts and we didn't do corporate stuff. And so that was a story again, was like, we were very casual just figuring it out. But I landed, I landed, we landed. I had this vision written. I went and told my buddy Ryan. I was like, this is what I'm going to build. And he goes, dude, I love that. I want to be a part of it. And that like, those words changed my life, Ryan. I built it together. And from there we just, you know, we didn't buy $50 million of real estate in that three year time period. About 300 million. And then we went on to buy now a billion. And none of that would have been possible without the vision and without that story that we had to tell ourselves. Like, this is where we're headed. So, like story. And I don't think Tony brought this up. Maybe you did, but like, the idea of like, story works both ways. There's like your past story, right? The story we tell ourselves about the situation we're in and why we're here and what we're doing and we can tell a positive or negative story and then there's a story of where you're going. And so I just told a really cool story and everybody I showed that story to was like, I want to be a part of that. I want to be in that, I guess, encouragement for you. If there's one thing you can, you know, take from this is like, get a very clear picture on where you're headed. It doesn't actually matter. Rather, doesn't. Who cares? Like, you're like, well, I don't know if I want to do this. It doesn't matter. You can pivot, but you can't. Like, you can't pivot if you're not moving. That makes sense. Like, if you're riding the bicycle, you can't really turn. If you're just, like, sitting still, you just fall over. So just start going and say, that's where we're going. And then everyone's like, oh, cool.
- [07:44]
B
That's where he's going.
- [07:44]
A
Cool. And then everyone follows behind you because the world is absolutely desperate for leaders. Have you noticed that? Like, when. When there's a crisis or even when there's just, like, normal life, like, when somebody gets up and just says, hey, we're doing this. Everyone's like, okay, great. Like, you know, you have a group of friends and everyone's like, well, where do you want to go to dinner? Like, you just love that guy who's like, hey, we're going to Olive Garden. And you're like, okay. And nobody really wants unlimited breaststicks. But nobody, nobody likes the Olive Garden. But we just all excited that some guy chose. Now we don't have to sit there and look around for 15 minutes trying to. Yeah, who cares, right? It. There's a quote from Gino Wickman, who wrote the book Traction, which is the, like, the bible for making your business a business. But Traction, he said, is often more important that you decide than what you decide. And so I think that all the time it's like, it doesn't actually matter. None of this matters. We're just making this up. Like, humans are designed for, like, picking berries and having sex and raising kids. Everything else we just make up. And none of it matters, right? Like, none of this matters. So it's like, who cares if you're going to build a million dollar business or a billion dollar one, or you're going to have 12 employees or two, it does not matter. What matters that you tell a story that fires you up in the morning and you get up and you go and work it, and it inspires other people around you.
- [08:51]
B
What do you think is the difference between the 99.8% of people that say, I want to build a billion dollar thing versus the.02% that actually do? Because a Lot of people could be sitting in this room or listening to this or watching this and say, oh, I want to build a billion dollar portfolio. But they won't. Most people won't. So what do you think is the difference? Because, like, we're not super gifted. There's nothing special or crazy about us. Like, we're just normal humans. So what do you think is the difference between what you did and what majority of people do that's wrong?
- [09:21]
A
Yeah, I'll answer that in a story. We all like stories, right? So, all right, so in. Anybody's been in Maui? All right, Maui's great. Have you been any. Anybody been to Maui in, like, December, January, February, you know, what. What goes on in January, February in Maui. That's amazing. Anybody know?
- [09:34]
B
Podcast with Brandon Turner.
- [09:36]
A
What is it up? Okay. Yes, sir. There is a good surf the whales. Somebody away. I'm telling a little whale story. So the whales are there. These big humpback whales are beautiful and amazing. They just hang out out in front of Maui, like, all the time. February is the best month to go to Maui, if you're ready to go, because the whales are the most. Then. So we will get on a paddle board and we will paddle out about a mile into the ocean. Just right out of the paddle board and. And then. Okay, so here's the story. We get up, it's like 6am it's early. I don't want to get up. We get out, we drive down, we load up our boards, big paddle boards. It's heavy. It's hard. You put them on the truck, you drive down there, you look out there for a while, you try to see a whale really far away. You finally see one, you're like, all right, we're going. So you get in the water, you start paddling towards it or really, like, in front of it, where it's going. You try to get there. You never get that whale. That whale's gone. And then you see another one on the horizon. You paddle that one, and you get there, and then that whale's gone. And you do it again, and you're out there for about three hours. But I have done this now probably 25, 30 times, I'm guessing, in the last five years of. Of doing this. And I have never not got a close encounter with a whale. Every single time I get a close encounter of the whale, like. Like you. To me, like, we're that close to a whale. I had to, like, jump up. It's. It's wild. So the reason I tell that story is Seeing, like, what are the odds of having a whale jump up right in front of you or pop out? That's absurd. That's one in a million. So why does it happen every single time? Because I got up at 6am I put board on my truck, I drove down to the beach, I watched for it, I went out there. There was no whale. I went to a different spot, no whale went to a different spot, no whale went to different spot, no whale. And then finally, I get the whale. So it's that. It's that quote from. I don't know, a million different presidents have been attributed, but the idea of, like, luck and preparation, right? Like, I. I was completely lucky to see the whale, but I'm lucky every single time. So to go back to your question, why do some people find that success and actually do it when the majority of people don't? The majority people give up at the alarm clock. And, you know, 80 of people, their long clock goes off at 6:00am they're like, I'm not going to do it. And then out of the remaining 20, 80% of them give up. When it goes down to, like, oh, I got to lift the board on my truck, they give up. And then the 20% of the rest get down to the water, and they don't see any whales right away, so they give up. And so it's just a. A funnel that. That loses people at every single step. And so the ones who make it. It is luck is. It is almost pure luck that you build a successful business in almost every way, except for the fact that if you just keep doing it, eventually you get lucky. Does that make sense? All right, that's what I think about. Like, that's what sets people apart. Like Josh Dworkin, who founded Bigger Pockets. You guys know BiggerPockets. That's. Yeah. So Josh Dan was the founder of Bigger Pockets. I was not. A lot of people think I was. Josh is. Was I. I would say this for years. I've said it to his face. This is not like a secret thing. He's not actually a great entrepreneur. He built a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He's not a great entrepreneur. He didn't go to business school. He kind of learned systems as we built it. Today, he doesn't do any business whatsoever. So why did he build a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars? Because he just didn't give up. Like, he just literally just didn't give up. And for years and years and years, bigger pockets is 20 years old. And so if you don't give up on your, your dream and just try to get a little bit better. Every year for 20 years, it's almost impossible not to see the whale, not to have the million dollar business or the multimillion dollar business.
- [12:53]
B
Well, first off, you made a bunch of excellent points there about the 6am, 8am, wake up. Because there's so many distractions today. So who here is like now seen more than ever? Like everybody. You can learn mobile home, you can learn multifamily, you can learn apartments. I mean, we do a lot of them here in Action Academy. So you see like distractions, right? Distractions are the number one thing. So it's a, it's a huge pro, it's an advantage. But I'll also argue that it's the number one way that you guys can advance and win. And I would actually argue that it's never been easier to win than now because it's so damn easy to be distracted. Yeah, nobody else is going to actually stick it out like Action Academy. Now this has been my one thing for three years. Like, this is it, it's my one thing. And now you guys are seeing the reward of it. Three years deep and then so that's 10 years deep, then 20 years deep and 30 years deep. If you just do one thing for 10 years, you're going to be shocked at how genius you look to the outside world. So anything else that you would say maybe about your journey, if you could go back to you, maybe when you were beginning this part, especially like in the beginning of Open Door Capital and you guys were doing the ragtag surfing thing, maybe a piece of advice that you would offer that you didn't know before but you know now.
- [14:02]
A
Yeah, you know, I'll pick on Ryan Murdoch a little bit. I mentioned Ryan. He's the guy I got off the plane, I showed Ryan my vision. I said, this is where I'm going. He's like, dude, I want to be a part of it. And we built it together. I made him as. I'll give you a couple of lessons actually. In the beginning one I put Ryan, I said, well, why don't you take a third, I'll take a third. And then we had this third buddy. And we're like, you take a third? Well, one third. One third, one third. We'll just build this business. And then we built it and immediately, like within a week, we started this company. The one guy was very clearly not going to work out. I mean, he's a great guy, but he was just super busy didn't actually care about mobile home parks. And I was like, oh, dang, I just gave him a third of my company. I'm like, that's awkward. And so, like, I had to like claw that back from him. And then I had to bring in more people and I had to give them equity and, and, and I gave away most of my company early on. And I have a claw back. Today I only own 42% of open door capital, which is not a big deal to me. Like, I like that my team, I've got 11, 12 people, all have equity and they own, you know, overall they own more than half the company. That worked out well. But the lesson I learned there is in correlation to what Josh did with me at BiggerPockets. Like, I was like the face of bigger pockets. A lot of people think I started biggerpockets. Like I was the first person on board, the first employee, the first, you know, like everything there. I was the lead sales guy. I only owned 2% of bigger pockets. People are probably shocked by that. Like the 2% was all I had. And when Josh gave me that, I didn't know if I, like, if that was good or bad at the time. I was like, well, it feels kind of small. Like, does that feel kind of small? Unless it's a trillion dollar company, right? Then it's 2% a lot. So here's the point I'm going to get at here. I offered 30%, 33% to Ryan because I thought I had a million dollar business. Josh offered 2% to me because he knew he had $1 billion. Business goes back to, is Josh a great entrepreneur? I mean, not by like the business book standard necessarily, but because he had a vision and he stuck with it. 2% was incredibly generous to offer one person in your company because he just thought he had a billion dollar thing. So the amount of equity you give to an employee or to a partner is an inverse correlation to how successful you think you're going to be. That's the, that's what I learned, is that I did not have a big enough vision and Therefore I thought 30% was, was great. Because if we, you know, I never said it out loud, I never even thought it, but that my, my inside or my, my subconscious believed I had a small company. If I knew I was going to have a billion dollars of real estate, I probably would have, you know, made a little bit smaller. And I've since done that. And now when I get people, I might give people 2% because I'm trying to Have a bigger vision. So that was a big lesson learned right there. The second one is also related to Ryan, is that Ryan was my, like, tenant who lived in my extra unit. I have an adu. I had one at my property. So he lived there. We were friends. We were good buddies. We hung out all the time. We served together all the time. And he was a real estate guy. He had done dozens of deals. And so obviously he should be the CEO of my future billion dollar company. Right? Because he was there. He had a pulse. He knew how to surf. Like, yeah. He had flip flops. Like, he lived in my backyard. Like, what other qualifications would a CEO need?
- [17:07]
B
Sounds like a homeless man in Austin. I've got the same guy.
- [17:11]
A
Yeah, exactly. So that. That was the lesson. The lesson I learned there is that. And I've. I've made this mistake over and over and over and over and over. Even recently I've made this, is that I hire people that I like, that I want to hang out with, that are cool, that are like me, that we get along well, that have some experience, because I have to justify it. I'm like, well, I mean, I would. I mean, Ryan's got experience. He would be great at it. Never mind that he would hate that. Like, when I think of Ryan like, like, like now. I mean, he did it for two years and he hated every second of it. Now he's on the board. He loves that. He loves advising. He loves helping out where needed. He's actually living at one of the apartment complexes right now we have in Austin. Just try to, like, be boots on the ground, try to help improve things. But he hated being in charge, like the guy, because what. What is like a CEO or a CEO do? They're like office space, right? They're like, they're the ones having the TPS reports filled out every day and all that stuff. Like. And so he wanted to be like me. Me and him are the same guy. We want to be the visionary. We want to have fun, we want to surf. We want to make other people do all the work. And so the. Yeah, the lesson learned is, like, if you're gonna hire someone, don't hire the convenient guy or the convenient lady. Like, right. Hire the. The best. Like, did you really put in the work needed to hire the best person? If you guys want a quick resource, this is. There's no opt in or anything, so I'm not stealing your information, but write down the URL. A better life.com hiring. Just abetterlife.com hiring. I actually built this as like a. Out of frustration over every time I hire someone, I'm not doing the work I know I should do to really define who it is I need to hire. And so I was like, let me just think, what is it ever? What would be the perfect way to like sharpen my ax for four hours before I go and chop down a tree? So it's like a 17 page fill in the blank form at least maybe 14 pages fill in the blank of like, what is the problem you're trying to solve for? Let's start there. And then you define that problem and then it's like, okay, well, what is the actual role you think it's going to be here? What would the title be? What's the salary? What are expectations? What skills do they need to have? What culture do they need to have? And it just goes on and on and on. All the things you should do, but none of us actually do because we're not HR managers. Right. My HR lady probably does that, I assume, but I don't. I just hire the guy that I like. So anyway, take that document if you want. You can fill the whole thing out. When you're going to go hire someone or when you have a frustration, take that whole thing. Just put it in the chat and say, hey, write me a job description for indeed, and it'll take what you wanted. Put it into indeed, and you'll have a really cool job description. But that's what I should have done with Ryan. And honestly, almost every business I ever built. Yeah, I love this story because this is, this is my life in every way. Is you're on an island, it's called reality island, and you want to get over to success island. Call it financial freedom island, call it wealth Island, Call it, you know, play video games all day long and do whatever you want all day, and you have all the money you need island, whatever that, like dream of yours is your ideal life do down the road, that's another island. You have to get there. In this imaginary world, there are no planes, there are no boats. There is one way you can get there, and that is you got to get. You got to build a bridge. So you build the bridge and you go start building it and you start constructing this bridge. You get over there. But what happens to almost every single entrepreneur in the entire world is we start building a second bridge. Because building bridges is actually a lot of fun, right? It's really fun to be like, oh, we're going to build this bridge. Going to be metal and it's going to be cool and it's going to twist a little bit at the end. It's going to be great. So we build another bridge and then we build a third bridge. Because that other bridge just gets kind of routine. It's like, ah, another day of building a bridge. I'll build this one. And before you know it, you got 30 bridges that you're building. And you work a little bit on this one, little bit on that one, little bit on that one, little bit on that one. And it just takes you 30 times longer to reach success island, where the reality is, if you just, if you focused all your efforts on one bridge, you said, I will build this bridge until I reach that island. You get to success island, then guess what? Now you have enough money to hire other people to build your bridges for you. So then you can have a lot of fun and you can actually go out and be the, you know, crazy ADHD brain that most of us are and build 20 bridges. Because you built the one. You got to get there first. And I think one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is they just, they don't finish the bridge. They don't finish the one bridge. And it's simply because they get bored. And I'm the same way. I just get real bored. I have to do so many things at once. And we justify it with quotes like, the average millionaire has seven income streams. Yeah. But they didn't get there by seven income streams. They got there by one. Oh, dude, what's up? They didn't get there by bridge. Yeah, yeah. One bridge. One bridge. So they get there by one, and then they can go build other assets and other businesses and other things, because that's what they do. David Green, who was my co host on my podcast for years, and like my best friend in the whole world, you know, he had a great little add on to this where he said, because he's like the metaphor. Analogy guy, he's, he's like, you can build one bridge, but you can also add lanes to your bridge. And so, for example, his, his idea was, okay, he is the real estate guy. He was like, I'm a real estate guy. I'm going to make that my brand. I'm going to make that image. But I can add a lane on there. As a mortgage company now, it does take longer because your bridge is getting bigger. So it takes longer to build Italy building two bridges, but you're sharing a lot of resources because it's not an entirely new bridge. And so today it's almost like My bridge. When I think about this, actually, Tony helped with this a lot. Tony's like, what business are you in? And I thought, well, I'm in real estate investing. And he's like, what business are you really in? It's like, oh, well, I mean, I'm in. I'm in. You know, I'm in the business of being a face. An influencer. I hate that word, but an influencer, because that's actually what enables the real estate to work. He's like, no, what are you really in? I'm like. Like, I'm in the business of empowering people to achieve their goals and reach financial freedom. And I have to show them and demonstrate that that's possible and they can live this epic better life. And it's like, oh, that's the. That's the business I'm in. Okay, well, if that is my business, if that's the thing that fires me up, well, then there's different lanes to that bridge. And so I can be. You know, my. My Instagram is a lane, but also I have a mortgage company and I have a couple different businesses. And again, it's not ideal, but if you're going to build multiple bridges, if you just are so adhd, you cannot not build multiple bridges. Just build them. Just build multiple lanes instead.
- [23:24]
B
Beautiful if you have to.
- [23:25]
A
Otherwise, don't exactly.
- [23:28]
B
How many in here have kids? Okay, so probably. Okay, so I do not have kids. I was just doing that. I don't. At least not that I know of. Okay, so about probably about half the room here. So something that I find interesting, like, as a single guy that has built my companies, as a single guy, I actually got this from Ryan Pineda, where he said, hey, man, like, you think that you being single and having all the time in the world to build these companies is going to serve you. He's like, it's actually not. Because when you. I look at somebody like Ryan, I'm like, okay, you have young kids. How are you? How the hell do you have time to build a business competing against me? And he's like, because I am forced to build systems. Like, I'm forced to actually be a business owner because I don't have the luxury of having all of my time. So I've spoken to a couple of you guys, and you're like, in an action academy. And the world in general is like, I just don't have time. You know, I'm with my family, I'm working my job. How am I supposed to find time to do this real estate thing to do this business thing on the side. So I'm curious, how is your relationship with like Heather, your family and your time management evolved as you've grown and scaled is because you've scaled all of this with children, with a family?
- [24:35]
A
Yeah, great question. And it is the having the constraint forces you to be better for sure. You're like, I'm constrained, therefore I have to be more efficient. I have to use my mornings well. I can't scroll tik tok for an hour because that's an hour that I'm either taking from my business or taking, taking from my kids. So by the very nature of it, I'm, I'm way more dialed. What, what I've done typically is I try to set up very clear like rules, I guess you could say that the family can understand. So like I don't work after 5:00pm, I don't work before 8:00am and, and those constraints make it so I can just go way faster. Actually a great, a great story. I love this story. I was in a car wreck one time. I mean I was, I was going along just normal and I got T boned from me going full speed, bam into the side and I look up and it's like a four year old girl just laughing and she drives away and hits somebody else and I'm, I go after and I nail her. Also like it's because we were at, we were playing, you know, bumper cars at the mall, right? And so I love that, I love that story. Compare that to a go kart track. You've been an indoor go kart track or outdoor one. But like you're whipping around going, those things go so quick today. Like they're way faster than we were kids. We were, kids are like. But now like they go, right, so what's it, why does a go kart track allow you to go 50 miles an hour and bumper cars don't? Because bumper cars don't have any like boundaries. There's no constraints on a bumper car. So to be safe you have to go very, very slow. It's just random and chaotic. So when I think of like constraints, they're a good thing. They allow you to go faster. Otherwise you're just chaos. Otherwise you're playing bumper cars. And that's fun. But you're not going to be as dialed as when you have those constraints. If you don't have kids, you can add in other constraints in your life. But if you're just like, oh yeah, I just work from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, you know, I just work on the weekends. I just work when I want to. That's fine. That's cool. And maybe you'll get a lot done. But if you start being more efficient, like, and if, like, this is when I have to get this done, and I will do it during this time period, and I will accomplish this by next Thursday, even though I know I could do it in the next six months, I'm going to give myself constraints and then forced me to do that. It's more like adding, you know, go kart tracks. So now you can go super fast. So, yeah, having. Having the kids is like having, you know, constraints. And that's worked out really, really well. Not that I'm perfect at it in any way. I mean, you guys know who are parents. It's. It's hard because my brain doesn't shut off when the clock strikes five, right? Like, it's like I'm sitting there on the couch. I'm just, like, zoned out. I'm thinking about some complex problem. My kid's like, what do you think, dad? I'm like, I love it. And then they, like, start crying. What I say, I don't know. So, like, it is hard to be present. The best tip I have for that, I read from the book. Ooh, Brendan Burchard. It was a habits book. High performance habits Brendan Burchard. I don't remember much of that book. I remember I liked it. But I remember one thing that he said. He has a. He had a name for it, but basically a physical thing that he does every day when he walks in the house. And. And I think his was hitting the door. And so I do that every time I walk in my house and I hit the door with my hand. And that is like, a physical reminder that I am now home and I'm entering a new realm. And it's just something. And I hit it, like, you know, decently hard. Like, bam. And I'm like, now I'm home. It's a different person. This is a different Persona. I'm going to leave everything else outside. And, like, that act of hitting the door is like, I'm sticking all my problems here. Again, not perfect. But that little tip has helped me a lot. Is like, okay, now I'm present. Now I'm home. And then, you know, as soon as I get on my phone, I check my email, then I'm just back outside again, like, in my. In my head. But that's what I try to do. So that's helped me a lot.
- [28:14]
B
So we're talking a lot about integrations and different stages of your life. And you've gone from being somebody that had, like you said, you were invited to these stages and you felt with the imposter syndrome of being on the stage, like, I'm the hot girl at the freaking bar with a beard. Very Gray's Harbor, Washington.
- [28:29]
A
Yeah, very.
- [28:30]
B
Yeah, be the hot girl with the beard. To go from that to. Then you started scaling. Now you've really scaled. And now every single play that you make is probably like an eight to nine figure play. Otherwise you're not even going to make the play. I'm curious. So Jason, mindset coach that he also used to work with, he taught me one thing that I really took to heart, which was how integration works is like you have like success on this axis and you have time on this axis. And you like most people grow like this, like low and slow, but if you grow fast like this, you have to integrate 10 years worth of growth within that, like two months or 10 month period. So you can't just grow at like a rocket ship without experiencing and integrating those problems associated with it and those new identities. Can you share like, kind of each one of those milestones as you leveled up to the 10x100x version of you and how you integrated that?
- [29:22]
A
Sure. Yeah. So, you know, I started, you know, I started doing real estate. So like buying a house. House, hacking it, living in one bedroom, renting out the other buddies. Then I bought a duplex and like, you know, small real estate. Like I could, I could handle that. I bought a, at one point though, I had, I don't know, maybe half a dozen properties. I was flipping a couple houses a year and then some older couple offered me their 24 unit apartment building. Like that's a big jump up to suddenly owning a commercial property. And so that was like, that was a big jump where I had to like learn how to, how to go there. But I figured it out and, you know, we made a lot of mistakes, screwed up a lot of stuff, made some money. It's actually kind of a cool story in that. It's a weird story, but I'll share it real quick. The, the church I went to at the time was, it was a little church out there in, in Washington. The pastor of the church ended up hooking up with the youth leader, who was a woman, and she was also the leader, led music at the church. Ended up hooking up, leaving their spouses and leaving. Now if you, if you're church people, you know, that destroys a church. Like, like it doesn't get much worse than that. But yeah, it was, it was pretty rough.
- [30:30]
B
Our God is an awesome God. He raised.
- [30:33]
A
Yeah, yeah. Rough experience. But you know what's cool about that is like right before that, like right before that happened, like within a few weeks I had closed on that apartment complex from a couple I had met at that church. And what was, what was just cool in that process is I. The apartment complex allowed me to quit my job and be like, you know, low level financially free. Like I could pay my bills. And when I look back on that, I just, I think that was an interesting time in that. It's like I, you know, I'm a Christian guy, so I'm like, I, like God saw that that was coming and then lined up me to step in as the, then the worship leader and the youth pastor of that church for the next decade. I got to do it volunteer wise. And I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm saying like, that was just a cool, like moving things around, knowing that that was coming. And so I ended up doing that and my buddy Jed ended up becoming the pastor of a church. So I did that for a decade out there. And that was a huge like, you know, learning curve. Like how do you deal with a bunch of like kids like NBF middle schoolers, like, they're aliens, they're weird creatures and they smell bad and they have a weird sense of humor. I became like, you know, the leader of 30 of them at a church. So that was a. Sometimes you just like forced to level up and forced to like jump into a situation and you're like, all right, I'm gonna figure that out. Actually, that came another time I had to level up. I had like now that property. I started blogging online. So just writing what I was doing, teaching. I had a website called realestate in your 20s dot com. Which side note, I'm a big believer. I heard this from a guy named Pat Flynn. Smart, passive income. I don't know if you guys know Pat Flynn. I heard this from him. He, he taught me very early on is you when you're going to build a brand, you don't want to be one thing. You want to be the cross point of two things. And so what you meant by that is like, you could, you could just go out there, try to build a brand as a real estate guy. There's a lot of them out there, but there's like, who's the real estate for 20 year olds or people in their 20s didn't exist. I was like, I want to be that guy. So I became that guy. If you were 25 and you, you stumbled across somebody online who was teaching real estate investing to people in their 20s, would you follow them? Of course you would. You'd be like, yeah, that's my guy. Because it's so specific. Right. I know people who are like, oh, I'm the doctor real estate investor person, or I'm the how to raise private money for, you know, construction workers. Like, I. You find that cross point of two niches, eventually you can go broader. And I'm, I'm broad today, but even today you could almost say, you guys know Grant Cardone? Grant and I do the same thing. I mean, he's bigger than I am. Like, his company's worth three times what mine is. But like, we do the exact same thing. We have a very different vibe, don't we? Like, even though. And I don't even know what that necessarily is, but I'm like, we're both real estate. And then he's like, I don't know if it's fancy cars and Rolexes or you can say Ryan Pineda. Same way. I love Ryan, but Ryan's like flashier, more, you know, just a different vibe. And so I'm like the cross point of like real estate and lifestyle is maybe kind of what I'm trying to be. And so if you're trying to build a brand, this side point, I'll bring it back. Trying to build a brand, try to build it between two cross, like two niches. You don't want to go too crazy like, oh, I'm the, the teacher who has one eye. It's like that. There's not a lot of them out there. But yeah. Have you guys ever read that, that article A Thousand True Fans? Anybody know what I'm talking about? Oh, you guys should all Google this. This was so good. This is probably 20 years old, maybe 30 years old now. And it was like early Internet. And this guy, I don't remember who wrote it, he's famous. It was reprinted in one of Tim Ferriss's books. But the guy who wrote it basically said, you don't need a million followers, you need a thousand true fans. If you had a thousand people who gave you a hundred bucks a year, it's 100 grand. That's wild. And like, you could be the most obscure thing. You could be a teacher who has one eye. And there's probably are. There probably are a thousand of them out there. And if you teach teachers who have one eye how to grow a second eye, you're going to be the most popular person in that niche and they're all going to follow you. So anyway, real estate in your 20s. I start blogging there. Had no idea, no idea what I'm doing at all. I did not own a computer, by the way. Before that, I had zero skills. I mean, in high school I played with computers a little bit, but no skills in this whatsoever. Didn't know how to write, didn't know how to blog, didn't know how to do any of that stuff. I just, I read Four Hour Work Week and I really wanted to make a, you know, some kind of lifestyle business. And so in that process, I met Josh Dorgan and he, who had Bigger Pockets, which was way, you know, was the biggest site for real estate investors at the time, and it still is. And he wrote on his Facebook, I'm looking for someone to help me edit blog posts and, and kind of help run the site. And I was like, I can do that. And so I offered, I was like, I'll do that. I'll do it for free. So I jumped in there and he's like, okay. I didn't tell him that I didn't know how to write or edit. I didn't know how to spell there, there and there. I didn't know how to do anything whatsoever that he was hiring me for. I was just free for a while. Eventually he started paying me. So again, lesson of like, again, get into a new thing. Like, I was trying to figure out a new thing. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was just like super confident that I'd be able to figure it out. And the reason I was so successful at Bigger Pockets is, is because I was continually learning because I thought of it as my own company. Even today, I think of it as like my company. It's not my company. But I think of that. That's a, that's a rare thing. Again, I don't want to pat myself on the back for that, but I'm just, if you can hire somebody who like thinks of their company as their own and if you have to give them a little equity for that, it is absolutely game changing. Walker Meadows, who's now the CEO of Open Door Capital, he runs my whole entire company. He's 29, I think maybe he's 30 now. Like I hired him when he was 24. He's phenomenal. But it's because he thinks it's his company. I haven't told him that it's not. I mean, he's got some equity, but he fully believes that. It's like it is all on him. And he works till two in the morning if he has to. He takes full ownership, full control. So that's the reason I was so successful. BiggerPockets is like, I just got in there and I said, I'm going to be the absolute best of this. I'm going to figure it out. So podcasting, we figured it out. Sales on webinars, we figured it out. And I would self learn all the time, even though Josh never paid me to. In fact, there was even a moment where I was, you know, reading the four hour Workweek and I'm like, I need a, I need a virtual assistant to help me run my stuff. And Josh like, no, you don't get it. I don't have an assistant. You don't get an assistant. I was like, I know, but I'm doing all the work. And he's like, no, you don't get an assistant. I'm like, it's like, it's like 300amonth. He's like, no, you don't get an assistant. Like, fine. So I went and hired myself an assistant to work at Bigger Pockets on my dime because it was my company. And so like you just, you do it. Because I knew in. I knew it was going to be important for me to get out of the mundane of like checking my email 20 times a day and responding to comments. I built a system. Actually maybe some of you were the recipient of it. Every single new member for about five years that joined Bigger Pockets and win the forums and introduce themselves. I wrote a really nice personal message to you and it was like everyone was unique and it was very nice. This is before AI. Today AI could do this. But what I did is I. I went and had my VA. I wrote, I wrote 21st sentences. That could be the first sentence of a, of a post. 22nd sentences, 23rd and 24th sentences. And I said, there, you now have like a thousand. Yeah, combinations. Just pick from those and just post for me. And no one ever knew. And so like all of a sudden it saved me like 20 hours a week of me not having to go and post 50 times a day. Welcome to the forums. Glad to have you here. And I had to pay for it on my own dime. But because of that, now I could spend more time on higher dollar per hour stuff like figuring out webinars. Anyway, this is a long story, but So I get. I got good at that. I got good at the webinar thing. I got good at that. I became an intrapreneur, which is a really valuable thing. I don't think it's talked about enough. An entrepreneur means entrepreneur that works inside another company. Walker is really an intrapreneur. Right. He owns the company, he's the equity. He makes more money the more the company grows. And so he doesn't have to go build a side business because I made. You probably heard this quote before. It's not mine, but I made my dream so big that his fit inside of it. The same thing with Megan, who runs First Deal. Like I made the dream of First Deal. It's First Deal is like a newbie training program. I made it so big, this massive vision of where we're going, she doesn't have to build a bunch of side businesses. You can do that. Matt Buck, he's the. The head of my Better Life tribe. I made the vision so big that he would fit inside of it. So when you have a big enough vision, you can get a really amazing people and. And have their vision of what they want for their life and how they want to operate, fit within it, and then everybody wins, which is pretty cool. That's what Josh did for me. He allowed me to build my vision inside Bigger Pockets. So moving. Yeah. The rest of it, you kind of know. I mean, during Bigger Pockets years, I knew that time was coming to an end, and so I started planning the next thing. I think a lot of people make this mistake is that whether they're trying to build a company, they sell it. I mean, I've got a ton of friends who have built companies, sold them, and then got massively depressed. And we know anybody like that, why? Because they lose their identity. Maybe somebody nears. That's happened to you. He's like, you sell a company or even you just get fired. You're in a career for a long time, you get fired and it's like, oh, shoot, who am I now without that. And that's really hard for people. It was hard for Josh when he sold Bigger Pockets. Bigger Pockets sold years ago when Josh sold bp, he didn't know what to do for years and years and years. The thing that I did it, I built to mix metaphors or use the same metaphors earlier, but in a different way. I built a bridge to the next identity before I left the first one, and that was really helpful. So, like, when I was doing my real estate, I was still doing that while I Built bigger pockets. Then when I was doing Bigger Pockets, I built the commercial real estate business at the same time. So then when I left BiggerPockets, I was already transitioned to the new identity of, oh, I'm a real estate investor. I'm a commercial real estate investor. And then now I've kind of. I still do the commercial real estate thing, but now I'm back into the education side doing this first deal program. And so I always, like, I'm thinking, like, where am I at today? It's like Tony says, like, build a business you're at. To build a business you need today and build a business that's needed tomorrow. You kind of do. You kind of are doing both. And so, yeah, those are some inflection points. Anyway, that's probably way longer than you wanted, I think.
- [40:21]
B
I think everyone is. Everybody give a round of applause. Like, okay, thank you. We need some energy. All right, cool. Two guys up here talking. We need some energy. All right, beautiful. And what you were talking about, about brand was really good. My favorite quote from Naval Ravicon is, you want the bear on the unicycle. So it was like, you see a bear, you see a unicycle, you say, so what? But you see a bear riding a unicycle and you go, that's interesting. Yeah, like, I want to see. I want to see what that guy's doing or that girl's doing. What I want to go to quickly is we see the highlight reels, we see all the wins. You see, you know, that the dollars, the commas, all of that stuff. But what we don't see is like, like a billion dollars of wins also has a billion dollars of problems. So, you know, for some, like, do you mind lifting up the hood for people to understand, you know, like, what is actually required for this level of scale and this level of success? And maybe some of the stuff that you've gone through where you're like, man, like, I did not anticipate this. And this is a brand new challenge that we have completely got to expand our zone of comfort to overcome. Yo, what's up, guys? One sec. You're listening to a podcast right now, and I freaking love that. But this is not making you more money. What makes you more money, more wealth, more equity, is being in the room with the people that you're hearing on today's episode. If you want to be around hundreds of other people like you leaving corporate America, doing big deals in business, commercial, real estate, and land, check out action academy.com. go in the show link the show description and click the link to book a call with our membership, director and team. We'll give you the resources, the connections in the community to actually pull off the stuff that you're learning about on this podcast. And we'll hold you accountable to the actual implementation of the information that is actionacademy.com now let's get back to today's episode.
- [42:07]
A
Yeah. Yeah. A few things. Few months ago, I made. Well, not me personally, but my. The company value of my company, the real estate, went up by over $100 million, and then I lost it, like, two weeks later. So, like, the. The emotional roller coaster of like $100 million. I mean, really, the value dropped by several hundred million over the course of a couple years because of where interest rates are and cap rates are. Then it went up by like 100 million and then dropped by that 100 million. Basically, the state of Texas made a law that killed something we were doing with property taxes. It's a long story. Don't worry about it. But the, the point being, that was something I was like. The, the, the. The level of emotional, like, that comes with a large business, whether it's a real estate business or something else, because there's lives at stake. I mean, there's investors that invest their money. There's employees that you're. A lot of times we raise money from family and friends. Like, I have family and friends in these deals. So that's something that, That I didn't. You never hear talked about is like, that feeling. Because for. I mean, for the last, what, since 2008, it's just been up. Like, everything's been going better and better and better with all the lessons. Everybody. Nobody's really had a difficulty until like two years ago or a year and a half ago, when commercial real estate just started going like that, and then it just plummeted, especially in Austin, Texas. Like, Austin, rents are down 30% right now. It's crazy. So if you own real estate in Austin like I do, and you own $150 million of real estate in Austin, and the rents plummet 30%, and then the values beside that plummet another 30%. Your property's worth 60. 60% of what you. Or 40% of what you bought it for. Like, that's a hard hill to climb out of. And so that's been a huge. I mean, that's been the whole focus the last year. That's why I'm living in Austin now, because I'm like, well, maybe if I'm there I can see something I can be more hands on. That's why Ryan moved into the property. For a long time I wanted to be the visionary, right? I'm not the corporate guy. I don't want to do that stuff. I don't want to sit on meetings and fill out TPS reports. And I just assumed my team could figure it out. They're all really smart people. I've got 150 people. They can figure it out. But there is no substitution for a founder is what I've learned, like, and from the spirit of it and the energy of it and the, in the state and the story, like, because ultimately, like we're here in this room right now learning and growing. But as you start hiring staff, they're not doing that. Like, they're just not, they're not expanding their brain. They're not going to a Tony Robbins event to learn about State and how to get yourself in a different one. They're not doing that stuff. And that's the stuff that actually solves problems. And so that was a huge lesson I've learned the last couple of years is like, I have to be involved at a deeper level. Not forever, but like, if you, if you think of like a military operation, if you're on the front lines of a war and you're, you're fighting, the general is not actually on the front line with a gun, you know, shooting the bad guy. He's in the tent in the back looking over a map and he's strategizing, he's kissing babies and he's working the politics. That's what the general does. Until the enemy breaks through the line, gets in the tent and starts shooting. That's when the, the general picks up a gun and has to start shooting as well. And so that's why I found myself. And if you lose your skill on how to shoot when the enemy breaks through, you're going to be struggling. And so it's like, I guess the lesson learned was like, I should never have, like, let go as much as I did. From a leadership standpoint, even when you hire good people, that's no excuse for abdication. Abdication, Is that the word? There's delegation and abdication. I definitely abdicated too much. So that's been a huge challenge. If you, if you tell the self the story that, oh, these deals are gone, that this isn't going to work out, that failure is the only way, then you, you then live in the state of depression, of sadness. You're like, oh yeah, everything sucks and you never come up with good ideas in that state. And so I've really, really been thinking a lot about the last couple weeks is like, I can't let my external world dictate my state. I can't let my external world dictate my story. Like, I choose that I get to pick what it is, how I want to. How I want to appear to others and myself. And so now I'm like, I'm going to solve this. And not even that. Like, are there any kids in the room? Like, I don't swear hardly ever, but I'm like, I'm going to fucking solve this. Boom. And I said, let's go. Doesn't that feel different? Like, that feels. That feels. I don't swear, but when I say that, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna solve it. Right?
- [46:34]
B
I tingle when you.
- [46:35]
A
Yeah, right. Because, like, that. All of a sudden, like, that, there's energy and there's power behind that that says, like, I'm gonna solve this. It's kind of. Man in the arena. You guys know that quote? Man in the arena? Like, it's like, oh, they know it. Yeah. Like, I'm like, oh, for the. Like, I'm in the arena and you know. You know who's, like, super, like, turned on by that? My wife. Right. What I mean by that is, like, she's like, oh, that. That's the guy that I married. Because, you know, there's a tendency as you get wealthier. In fact, let. Let's go biblical for a minute. Any. Any. Read the Old Testament ever. You know the story of David and Goliath? You guys know the story of David and Bathsheba? You guys know that one? So David, he's. For those who don't. David's the king. He had conquered all these people. He killed the giant. He killed all these people. I mean, he's dominated the whole area. He's now the man, the king. And there's this line where it says, in the spring when kings and armies go out to war, David was at his palace, and you're like, well, isn't he the king? Well, he's. He's not at war. His team's at war. His people are at war. He's at the palace, and he's hanging out there, and he looks out, and he sees this woman bathing on a rooftop. And he's like, I want her. And so he sends his guards, go get her. She comes back. He sleeps with her. She gets pregnant. He's like, oh, shoot. And then he's like, well, she's married, so I guess I'll just murder her husband. So he ends up murdering the husband. All of this happened not because David was poor and sad and broke or. Or broken. It's because he was rich and successful. So, in other words, there is a tendency for people. And now it could be women, could be men, could be drugs and alcohol, could be a lot of things. There is immense danger to the apathy that comes with success. There's immense danger in that. Uh, and if you're not careful when you get success, it's just like for those of you who are maybe not where you want to be yet successful wise, but when you get to this point where this island, this fantasy island that you're trying to get to, it's very easy to go, you know what? I made it. I deserve to just relax a little bit. I deserve to kick back a little bit.
- [48:41]
B
I love. Well, first off, y' all appreciate that story and him being open. Yeah. And second off, what a great presentation that we led the day with. To go into this. We didn't have even spoken about this, and it's just perfectly hitting exactly what I talked about. Thanks, buddy.
- [48:57]
A
Anytime.
- [48:57]
B
Oh, all this stuff. That's why we were here. He was in my airpod while I was talking, so we can. I was like, please validate everything we just talked about.
- [49:04]
A
Perfect.
- [49:05]
B
Yeah. Two things from what you just said that I wrote down. One is the difference between, like, generals, like a peacetime general versus a wartime general. So I got that from David Osborne. So it's just like, remember, as you're. When you're a general and you're the owner of the company, there's different seasons, and sometimes, like, you have to be the wartime general. And that's why most big companies are started in recessions, because you become a wartime general by default, because if you're not, you're not going to survive. So peacetime general is when everything's going great. So that's been the last 10 years, but now it's different. That's why you guys learn how to do this today. Like, you're learning how to be wartime generals. In the beginning, the other thing you said was about the state and, like, the external state impacting you. Have y' all heard about, like, the idea of thermostat versus thermometer? Yeah. So you want to be a thermostat where you set internally the. The temperature of the room. You don't want to be a thermometer that's reacting to the temperature of the room, you want to be the thermostat that sets the temperature of the room. And if you do that, when you're with your life and you set the temperature of your life, you don't react to the external environment like it's night and day. Different. One last question is if you can give yourself one piece of advice as you were kind of going back to you in the beginning of this or that piece of advice be to, to get you to even more success today.
- [50:18]
A
Let's see. There's a lot but fun to. Okay, I'll give you. I'll give you. I'll give you a couple. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. In business there's a lot of opportunities and if you're good at business, there's a lot of opportunities. You'll start seeing it everywhere. So I, I tend to take the approach and always have is like, if there's money to be made, I should be making it there. And it only takes a couple more minutes. It's only a few more minutes. It's only one phone call. It's just one hire I gotta do. It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just. And so I just build too many businesses, too many bridges, too many lanes on the bridges. Because it's always just a little bit more. Because if you remember that line from the movie Signs, the Mel Gibson movie. Yeah, with his, his like brother. Talk about hidden home runs. He has like the home run record, but also has the most misses or most strikeouts. He said it felt, it felt wrong not to swing. And that's what I feel like it feels wrong not to swing. Anybody else feel that way ever? Like, if there's money to be made, I'm like, it feels wrong not to go after it. So like I don't need to have a mortgage company, but it feels wrong not to. I don't need it. Yeah. Like, I'm like, Brandon Turner should have a mortgage company. It just makes sense, right? It makes sense. So that, that was the big one is I, I just because you can doesn't mean you should. And that's in lines of business, that's in the customers you take on, the products you have, the real estate you buy. Like I just because I could raise half a billion dollars doesn't mean I necessarily should have. Like, if I look back on what I would do over again, I bought, you know, we, we bought. I don't know, we were at price 300 million worth of real estate when we bought our first apartment complex. And then we bought like $500 million of apartment complexes in like six months. Like, we just went like that. Why? Because I could. Because I could raise the capital. Like, I was the. I was probably the best capital raiser on the planet outside of maybe Grant Cardone. Like, we figured it out. Like, we figured out how to use Facebook ads using, like high ticket sales processes. I even hired one of the best, like, high ticket sales that sell for, like programs like, you know, like courses and stuff. I hired them to teach my team and we cracked this code and we just ramped up. You probably saw my ads four years ago when we were raising all this money. Just because we could doesn't mean we should have. I probably should have bought one apartment and then seen how it went and then bought a second one and see how it went and not bought 13 right away because it takes time to learn. So anyway, that's the. And the other lesson is to wrap back to the beginning of the conversation is I should have been reading more business books than real estate books. Like real estate books are great. I was. I'm a real estate investor. However, the pivot there is I don't like. I had a buddy say to me recently and he encapsulated this perfectly. He said, brandon, you know what? Some guys buy real estate and it's fine, but the ones who really succeed build businesses that buy real estate. Those are two very different things, right? This is like e myth. Like some people can bake a cake and some people can make a bakery. Those are different skill sets entirely. I focused 100% of efforts for 10 years on how to bake a cake, and I was really good at baking cakes. But that only takes you so far. You can only bake so many cakes, and so I can only buy a few houses a year. Had it been focused on business and systems and processes and people and how to hire and how to fire and KPIs and habit tracking and, and all of that, then I would have worked way less and way made way more money along the way. Brandon, great to meet you and thanks guys. This is really good. So you had mentioned building a vision so large that, you know, some of your operators fit within my question to you. You know, it's a bit self serving and sorry to call you out on this, but, like, I find myself in that role today where my size and my vision has exceeded the box that I was put in. How do you do you hold that person accountable For Bill, you know, you specifically says they don't go out and do a side hustle. Right. And working till 2am Stuff like that. How do you react if. If that operator, the CEO of your company, goes out and does start acquiring real estate and effectively executing on the dream that we're all here today to execute on? What? I just love to hear your response that. Yeah. You saying, like, if my. If my, like, team started building side hustles and all that because they. They outgrew it. Every one of my, like, executives, I think, at Opendoor Capital are all running side hustles. I can't stop them. Even the. Maybe Walker isn't my CEO. I don't think is. I think almost all the rest of them. But honestly, that's what make Walker. That's what I. I support it in that. Yeah. I mean, I support it. I. I don't.
- [55:04]
B
Capacity. Yeah, you support it like, in a capacity.
- [55:07]
A
Yeah. Like, I'm not going to ne. Like, even yesterday, I had a. I had a call with 100 people from my tribe and I brought on my head of property management who has a side hustle building a VA company, and I had her pitch her VA company. I don't get a piece of that. I just had to pitch it because I wanted to help her out. Now there is risk that she will leave if that girl's more successful. But I can't remember who said it might have been Richard Branson, but somebody asked him, well, what if you support your people and they leave? And he said, what if. What is it? What if you don't? Yeah. What if you don't support them and they don't leave?
- [55:35]
B
Yeah.
- [55:35]
A
If you don't treat them right. Yeah. You don't want bad people stuck around in bad culture, so you might as well pour into them anyway. So bottom line is I support all of them in their side hustles. I tell them all, though, I want this to be the last job they ever have. And I really try to instill that with them. And I know it's hard because you can't stop them. Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs. The biggest way around that is. I stopped hiring real estate investors. Almost everybody I hired was from my community. Can I just post on Instagram? I get a thousand people to apply. Great. Real estate investors are the worst employees because they're all. We're all just like, go start another business. Gonna go start another thing. Don't, don't. Don't hire entrepreneurs. Don't hire real estate investors. I hired my executive assistant, who is the world's greatest executive assistant. She's phenomenal. She had no idea who I was, didn't know what real estate was, didn't know anything. She found me on LinkedIn, like she found an ad on LinkedIn. And so if I want to avoid them building side hustles, I just have to not hire people who are going to do it. But it's not a great answer. But like, I just. You can't stop them. I think other than like Walker I gave him, he owns 15 of Open Door capital. And so he should make, you know, millions and millions and millions of dollars. Down the road, he'll probably make a hundred million dollars. He could not do that on his own.
- [56:46]
B
So, I mean, coming from someone that does, I mean, like the entire team is side hustles and entrepreneurs, right? It's like, it's a. You have to remove the compensation. So it's like when I talk to Brandon, when I talk to Caitlin, when I talk to Estefania, they're all doing stuff like Brandon's got $12 million of storage and Stephanie is building her virtual assistant company. And, you know, you have to talk to them outside of business. So it's like, what are your big goals? So if you're not meeting with your team and you're asking your team, like, hey, outside of business, like, what are you trying to accomplish? Like, what's your vision? What do you want outside of money and you're not helping them directly accomplish that, that's on you. And they're going to leave you for something they can.
- [57:22]
A
Yeah, I might. My head of property management, that woman I brought on the call, she pitched me a couple of weeks ago. I haven't, like, we haven't worked all the details yet, but she pitched me on starting a third party property management company that we would then share together and we'd be equal partners in it. And I'm probably going to do it, like, because I'm like, well, yeah, it's not revenue I'm getting anyway. Yeah. So I might as well let her run with it. I would love to ask you about relationships specifically around partnerships, because a lot of people in this room, they're, they know that this is a team sport. They want to get into business with someone else. They want, they want help. Sometimes, from my experience, you kind of get a feeling that relationships are either going well or sometimes they're not going well. And you were talking about your partnerships with like Ryan Murdoch and giving too much equity ownership. What have you learned in terms of trusting your gut? On relationships or vetting the right partnerships of who you want to be with in the long haul. And what do you do when things aren't going well? How do you have those hard conversations? Yeah, there's been a lot of them. You know, we've, we, we've renegotiated equity at Opendoor Capital 50 times probably. And every time it's awkward. Every time it's weird. The good thing is like we're all friends like in that like, like we actually enjoy each other and, and that makes it easier but also more awkward. Right. But at some level, like none of us hate each other because of is it is always weird. Couple thoughts on that one. One thing I love about real estate that we don't get in other businesses is real estate. You can, you can re negotiate equity. Every deal, right? Like for example, open to capital every fund is a new opportunity to renegotiate equity or lose people or gain people. And that's both a pro and economy means we have to do equity conversations over and over. But at the same time, like right now, like one of my business partners is, is backing like he's like, I'm done. I'm retired, I'm retiring. I'm pretty happy where we're at. And my great. He's always just going forward future deals, he's not on there anymore. So that's a lot easier to deal with. But when it comes to like removing people, it's just super awkward. But almost everybody under. Nobody's ever given me a hard time about it in those conversations. In fact, if anything, they usually come to me as like, hey, we need to retalk this. Like I'm not doing the work anymore. Like that's usually what it has ended up being. The other piece is like I have, I have generally spent more time picking out my breakfast cereal than I do deciding equity on real estate company giant real estate. Multi million dollar deals. Which is stupid. So if you're gonna get, you know, go down that route of partnerships and equity, like have lawyers sit down with them, talk about the stuff really, like it's a big decision and there's a lot of little factors that go into that. And so yeah, treat it with the gravity I wish I would have treated with the gravity that it deserves. Frosted flakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Frosted flakes and 30. We're good. Move on with the day. And what now when I think about why that is because I don't like awkward conversations. I don't like confrontation. And so I would rather just like Just give people what they want or give them more than they deserve because it avoids awkward conversation. And I don't want to have that. And that's an internal thing. I got to fix that. And I know that. And so then I'm, I'm, you know, there's ways around that, like having third parties come in. Like it's stupid. Like, you brought up, you know, David Osborne. Like, I have David's phone number. David likes me a lot. Have to go. Bundle members are there because I brought them in. David not owes me, but like, I could get on a call with David right now. David has given equity to hundreds of people in dozens of companies. You never did I ever once asked David and ask him one now one time did I ask, I could have been like, hey, can you get five minutes to pick your brain on this? What should I do here? He would have given me really good advice. And it was my ego that didn't allow me to have that conversation with him. So I should have done that. Thanks for being here. Thank you. So we're, we're to the point where kind of looking for a walker. Do you think that it starts with building a vision that's big enough to attract that and letting that be a magnet? Or is it more about active recruitment from there and then a follow up? How do you decide when it's time to give equity versus, like aligned incentive compensation? Yeah, good questions. I do believe it starts with a vision. Like, really, like, this is where we're going. I mean, any executive worth their salt is going to want that and need that or else they're never going to come on board. Like, if you attracted somebody without a big vision, they're not the right person. Like, those people want to see where we're going and they want to be like, they want to be told this is the destination, but they don't want to be told how to get there. They just want to be like, hey, we're taking France. Okay, let's go. And then they're going to figure out how to get there. But if you're like, hey, we're just going to build this and see where it goes, you're going to get people like, okay, well, okay, cool. But like most people are, it always shocks me because I'm a visionary that most people are actually not good at that. Like, for me it's just like second nature. Yeah. I see a 10 year picture of every business I've ever thought about and it's perfect and it's going to happen. But most people don't have that. And I'm wrong of course most of the time. But like I just, it's very clear to me where we're headed in every business and I think they need that. So one, it starts with a very strong vision. And then as for like equity, I would prefer in general to give as little as possible all the time. Right. Because that's the most expensive thing you can do. That said, the best people will never work without it. Almost never. And maybe you can get people with, with other minute equity, maybe like a performance based pay maybe. And that's fine, depends on what the role is. But like an executive, it would be really, really hard to get a good CEO that doesn't have that buy in that equity. I would definitely put more vesting on it. Like that's fallbacks. Yeah. Like with open door capital, like this was a huge mistake. Like I would give people equity in the deal and the day we buy the deal, they've got their equity locked in. They could leave the next day. Well, anybody who's in real estate, you don't. I mean, I know we say you make your money when you buy. That's not really true. You make your money by running a successful business plan over the course of 5 to 10 years. So why would they get their equity locked in day one when actually that doesn't, that like that doesn't make a difference. What makes a difference is you stick around. So I would have done vesting with every single deal and really aligned our interests together better. But in my other companies, like my education companies, I don't give equity right now. It's just profit sharing. But I probably will at some point. That's like they got to kind of earn that. And even then it won't be equity, it'll be options probably. And that way options are a little easier from a tax standpoint to dish out and take back and all that. I, like I said, I live in Austin. I have a coaching business. I coach on mindset and life coaching. And I'm curious, I work with a lot of my clients on, you know, how do you balance the joy in your life as you're chasing big things? You know, we all in here want a lot of success and we have huge achievements that we're striving for. So for you and you know, your long history of achieving a lot, how have you both succeeded and failed at enjoying the journey, finding the joy along the ride as you've continued to chase bigger and bigger dreams. Yeah, that's a great question, man. Yeah, joy is hard for me. Like, I, I'll be honest. Like, joy's hard for me. I don't, I'm not like a, like, my. One of my buddies calls it a we person. Like, like I'm. You're. You're not a we person. In other words, like we like, like fun. Like, I'm like, if there's a group of people that are like, we should go like drive four wheelers up in the desert, I'd be like, is there like a tent in the back that we can drink and like talk? Like that's where I want to be is like with like three dudes in the back talking about politics and business. That's we for me. So. And I've, I've just learned that just, that's just my personality. Like, I just don't get a thrill. And so that's why I like the word joy. I'm glad you said joy. Not just like excitement, happiness, whatever. Because I do get joy out of a glass of whiskey with three smart dudes or you know, dudes or ladies. We'll say dudes is encompassing everybody. But three, you know, three or four smart dudes with some whiskey or good, good tequila and like late night conversation till 2 in the morning, like, that is joy for me. And so I've learned to recognize what actually brings me joy is not what brings a lot of other people joy. And so I'm like, okay, what is my joy? Where is it at? And then I just habit track it. So I'm, I'm a meticulous habit tracker. Anybody track their habits every day. This is like the most game changing thing that I, yeah. Changed my life. Like, literally it takes like 30 seconds. I just, I have a list of 12 habits that I'm tracking every day. Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is I, I run down my list yesterday. Did I do it check or did I not do it dash? So I'm just like, check, check dash, check dash, check, check dash. 30 seconds is all it takes. But one of those is always a joy type activity. Like one of my habits is something. Did I have like, I would like. Yeah. Time with my buddies, I think is what it says right now. It's like time with buddies. Did I have time with my buddies that could be playing a sport, could be sipping whiskey, could be whatever. Did I have that time? And then I set a number, I set a goal for all my habits. How many times in the week do I want to do it? So it'd be like, you know, whatever. Going to the gym three times, getting 10,000 steps five times, date with my wife three times, one on one time with the kids four times, whatever, right? And they're business, personal, all of that. But one of them is always like a joy. Something that brings me joy. And then I just, I can. What's the word? I can gamify my life. I can literally just gamify my whole life. What I mean by that is at the end of the week, I haven't, I have a score, right? If I said I was going to go to the gym three times and I went two times, I'm two out of three. And then if I said I was gonna go on three dates with my wife and I went on one, I'm one out of three. If I said I was gonna get 10,000 steps five times, I need it six, I'm six out of five. Add that all up. What's a perfect week? What's a great week? It's a score of 43. What did I get? A 40. Okay, I'm 40 out of 43. That's like an A. I did a pretty good week. But if I got 12 out of 40 something, that's, that's a bigger problem. And so next week I'm gonna try to do better. I'm gonna try to beat my score. And then a week after that I'm going try to beat my score. I'm trying to get better and better. So I'm gamifying the actions in my life that bring me fulfillment, joy, wealth, success in my marriage, success in my business, etc. So as I'm tracking it, right. We all know in business what, what you measure improves. I measure the things that matter in my life. So that was a long answer to a short question. But yeah, the things that bring me joy would be like, would be like that, like hanging out with buddies. And if I'm tracking it, I do a good job of it. If I'm not tracking it, I just fall quickly off the that. And I'll be like, wow, I haven't had any fun in months. Super important though. So mine's more of a technical question. Curious. Especially today, obviously there's a ton of noise in the market, specifically real estate, hospitality. For a single syndication. You kind of have to sell the story more. But curious more with, like, from a fun perspective, how do you weigh the external factors? So you know, if you have a deal that's like, hey, it's 14% IRR, but there's all these great jobs and this growth that we intend that's going to be coming, we don't guarantee that that's going convert versus underwriting on actual numbers like H. Obviously if you know, city's falling apart and they're losing a bunch of jobs, you have to weigh that in on the downside. How, I guess if at all do you weigh those external factors and how do you justify that? Especially with kind of a multi syndication fund, you don't really buy them in on the story. You kind of have sole discretion. So I'm just curious, how do you handle that and kind of take those into account? Yeah, I'll see if I can address that. I mean that, that's obviously hard to do all that. And I love that you brought up the story like the reason I can, I can raise a lot of capital is because I'm pretty good at storytelling when it comes to like raising capital. And like I can, I can paint the vision very well, you know, pretty well. We use something, this gets kind of technical and I don't know, this is exactly where you, where you were thinking I was going to go with this. But a sensitivity matrix, we, I love those. So a sensitivity matrix would be like if this happens, this would be like the low case, base case, best case of like IRRs, let's say, or like what cap rates are going to be and what noi is going to be. It gets a little complex for real estate, non real estate people, but basically like how much profit am I making? What kind of multiple can I get for it? This shows me nine different possibility situations that this deal is and we'll do one of those. But it might be 10 things across and 10 things down. It's like here's a wide variety of things that could happen. And so we will say like if you, if we create one of those, obviously we're all shooting for the best case, best case. But if it's worst case, worst case, is that still okay? And if it's. If worst case, worst case is generally like a break even, then I would say, yeah, that's great then work because it's probably not going to be worst case, worst case. Now that said three, four years ago we did that and then everything is worst case, worst case times double, right? Like rents dropped 30%, cap rates doubled. Like all, all the things you would never expect. You've got way worse. And so sometimes that still happens and that's just life. So I love sensitivity matrixes when doing that. One thing I learned from, to go back to the story earlier a Couple of years ago, I was struggling with raising some capital. And this is how I got better at storytelling with raising capital. I was struggling with it. We need to raise a bunch. And my buddy's like, well, Ken McElroy, who's Ken McElroy is like Robert Kiyosaki. Rich dad, poor dad. It's like his like right hand guy, he wrote the ABCs of real estate. Ken's like the godfather of raising money for real estate. He's the. The goat. And Ken happens to vacation in the same town that I vacation in every summer, every July, that we're both there at the same time. So I'm complaining to my buddy. I'm like, yeah, I'm really struggling with this raising money thing. I'm not sure do. He goes, have you called Ken? Same thing with the David Osborne thing. I was like, no. He's like, don't be an idiot. Call Ken and just ask him. So I called Ken, I'm like, hey, can you get coffee with me? Like, yeah, let's go do it, man. So we go to coffee and. And Ken's like, here's the problem, Brandon. He's like, you're just too complex. He's like, you got an 80 page, like document. You send people 400 spreadsheets. He's like, nobody gives a about that. It's gonna be fabulous. Like, nobody gives a about that. He's like, oh. He's like, here's how I raise money. He's like, I get a whiteboard and I draw a picture of a house, stick figure house. And he says to my, he's like, I record this on my phone. I go, we're gonna buy this apartment complex and we're gonna do this to it. And he puts a couple chimneys on it. We're gonna fix it up. And then we think it's worth this much, 25 million. Today, we think it can be worth 40 million. And that difference, half that goes to you, half that goes to us. Done. He's like, five minutes, stick figure drawing. And he's like, you'll never have a problem raising capital again. And that was such a life changing advice for me. I took it. Now we do both. We have a fancy spreadsheet, we have all the stuff. But now I do whiteboard stuff. And it's all about storytelling because the confused mind doesn't buy. So we need to make it real simple. This is what it is. This is what we're going to buy. This is what we're going to do. And it changes that. So There is that the last piece is I just tell people, and I wish I did more of this and I'm gonna do more of it going forward is just tell people there is risk. Like, really know that there's risk in this. Like, you cannot predict everything, especially in the world of AI. Like, we can't see over the five year horizon anymore. I'm actually pretty freaked out about, like, just real estate, all business in general, because, like, you just can't see five years in the future anymore. And so letting people know, like, this is risky. I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know what the future holds. I just know that we're a really good jockey. Like, we don't know what the horse is going to do or is going to bounce all over the place. Horse might get a broken leg, but we're a good jockey. And I think that's the lesson I'm trying to instill in my investors right now is I do a ton of webinars. We have a ton of information. I move to Texas. So that way, at the end of this, whether I lose a property or not, whether we lose people's money or not, I want those people to look back and say, like, Brandon was a good jockey. Even though horse got shot. Like, the horse was. Was crappy. But, you know, Brandon was a good jockey, so I'll invest with him again.
- [72:44]
B
And so you moved to Austin for me and you.
- [72:47]
A
Oh, hi. Thank you for taking the. The time and energy. You talked a little bit earlier about how constraints can help you work smarter, not harder. Has there ever been a time where you felt like you had too many constraints or a time where you recognize that maybe a constraint was like, holding you back instead of helping you forward? Good question. Yeah. And it's usually because of too many bridges. So the other day, I actually did a practice. Anybody ever done, like, an ideal schedule? This is such a great practice. So you sit down with a spreadsheet and like, fill out your. What's your idea? Do you guys do this in the group? Is that like a thing you guys do? A lot of you are nodding your head like you've done this. Okay. It's such a great practice. Like, here's like the ideal schedule for me. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I did that a couple weeks ago. And then I color coded it on, like, is this family time, which, you know, surrounds the edges, Weekends and the mornings and evenings. And then I was like, this is for my mortgage company. This is for my better life tribe. This is for first deal. This is for open door capital. This is for my personal brand. This is for personal health stuff. And like, at the end of that ideal schedule, I couldn't fit it all in. It just. There was no room for it. And I was like. And you know, I like to. I like to think that it's, you know, there's always room to fit everything in. You got to be more effective. And I'm like, no, I literally cannot be more effective or efficient with my time. It is a problem. I've just taken on too much. So I have too many things. So the constraint of, like, I've got 30 minutes for a meeting with my CEO of $1 billion, like, company, like a billion dollar fund, like, that's stupid. Like, I need more than 30 minutes once a week with Walker. And so in that way, the constraints are hurting me. And that. What does that tell me? It means I'm doing too many things. I got to burn some bridges. That's why I'm shutting down a couple of them right now. And I'm kind of setting a couple of them aside. Like, you know, you don't have to even shut down a company. Like, you can just spin plates, like, let them just go for a while. So I don't know. That's, that's, that's. That happens to me every about a year and a half. I feel like where, like, I just pick up too many things, and then I just got to, like, disappoint a bunch of people and shut things down and lay people off. And then I always feel terrible. And then it's like it just happens again. It's just this thing. But I think that is just the rhythm of an entrepreneur. And I don't know if there's any other way around that. I got so much value out of the. I don't know how to manage rental properties and all of that just followed it. I still use some of the documents. I got a little download file. But I wanted to ask you about AI since you brought it up and just kind of where you see some of the biggest risks in real estate and how you think that that might. Could negatively impact from that perspective, but then also, like, where you see that there might be benefits moving forward and also how are you using it? Yeah. You guys want to have a depressing talk? You want to know my. My depressing thoughts on real AI in real estate? Okay, I'll. I'll start with this. I might be totally off on this, but here's what freaks me out. And there is a redeeming. I mean, there's a redeeming. At the end of this, I'll come back to something that's happy. But what is the value of real estate based on supply, demand and the cost of like, materials, really? Right. Like, like land is valued on supply and demand for the most part. And building is based on labor and materials. That's how we value real estate. That's why it goes up over time. It has always gone up over time. I mean, yes, there's a little glitches in it, but like, generally speaking, there's never been a period of time in America where 10 years in the future, it wasn't worth more than it is in any, you know, every 10 year period, it's always worth more. Always. That no longer exists, that mentality. So the idea of long term real estate, I'm going to hold it for 30 years. This is the first time in human history that that, that premise no longer exists. That worries me. I'm not saying we shouldn't buy real estate. We should. I think we're in a very, very important window to do it right now. Because it won't be here in 10 years. Here's why. Here's why. Here's my argument. I'd love to have somebody like, tell me why I'm wrong on this. When a robot can drywall and paint, how far away are we from that, do you think? From a Tesla robot being able to drywall? Five years, maybe more. Ten? Maybe.
- [76:45]
B
I think five or less.
- [76:46]
A
Three?
- [76:47]
B
Think five.
- [76:47]
A
Does anybody think 100 years, like it's going to take that long? No. We all know what's coming. Five is the most common number, I hear. I think it's probably about 5. When a Tesla robot can drywall and pick up a 2x4 and nail it and do that work, the cost of building a house labor drops dramatically. Right. Modular.
- [77:05]
B
The modular.
- [77:06]
A
The modular stuff. Yeah, right. It's coming down from fast. Material. Well, what's, what's material prices based on labor? Material is based on labor. Right. Like everything's free. It's just we have to pay people to get it or make it. So all materials based on labor. Well, labor again. If a robot can drywall, which is, or plum, which is like the hardest thing, when a robot can do plumbing, everything else fell before that, which means materials are now worth nothing. Furthermore, the cost of land, which is supply and demand driven, is we have a declining population and we have cities that are going to be able to expand. This is actually an interesting point. If this is 100 square miles right here. Like let's say that's a City, it's 100 square miles. What is this? Just a little bit more. It's like 200 square miles. Right, because this outer area is a lot more area, if you're into geometry, than the inside. Right. So a small expansion of a city going out 10 miles dramatically increases the amount of available land. But 10 to 15 years from now, and it might be 20, right? I don't think it's five, I think it's 10. Fifteen years from now, real estate will be like a hundred grand. Well, what does that do to rents? If you can build and own a house for 100 grand, rents are 300 bucks a month. Okay, well that's a problem if you were getting a 30 year fixed mortgage, hoping that rents were going to be at 1500 for the next 30 years and your entire retirement is based upon that. That, that's what's freaking me out right now is that I don't think we can rely on long term real estate anymore as a, as a solution. Short term though, the next five to 10 years we're going to have the best opportunity to become a millionaire that we've seen in our entire lives. Because we've got a housing shortage already and it's going to get so much worse in two years from now because they just have not built anything. Mean all this stuff being coming online right now, they started five years ago, but the new permits, the new construction, nothing's happening because of interest rates. We already have a housing, you know, like not enough of it. So two years from now all the big guys are Saying this, Ken McElroy says this, all these guys are saying that it's going to be massive and we're going to have rents going. This, I just, it's time to get in, make our money and then get out about 10 years from now. And that the, the signal is when a robot can plum and drywall, that's when I run and I dump everything I've got probably into the S&P 500 because I think those are the businesses that are going to survive. It's Google, Apple, it's the ones that own AI are going to survive. And then we have to figure out what to do with ourselves because that's a whole deeper problem. What do we do when nobody has to work anymore?
- [79:34]
B
Plot twist.
- [79:36]
A
See that answer coming. So the good news is now is the best time to buy real estate right now. It's going to be awesome. Prices are down, interest Rates are dropping. There's going to be a, there's a lag we're going to where like interest rates will start coming down before it gets super popular again. So we're going to have like two, three years from this point forward where I think real estate's going to work really, really well. I think you can hold it for a few more years after that, but then maybe just don't plan on 30 years retiring on your rental income. That's hard to say. I'm the guy that wrote the book, you know, like it's like. But 30 years from now, things are going to be completely different, I think so. Thanks again for being here. My question is around the time that.
- [80:15]
B
We were sharing where you're like your, your team started getting more equity in the company. So quick context. I'm at a point where my company's growing pretty fast. We're starting to get better at sharing the vision of our team.
- [80:27]
A
And so now I have the challenge of everyone.
- [80:30]
B
We're a small team, like nine of.
- [80:32]
A
Us total people saying employees.
- [80:35]
B
I know that they all say they want more opportunities for elevated positions, but.
- [80:41]
A
I know I'm gonna have to identify.
- [80:43]
B
Just a couple of key players to do that.
- [80:45]
A
And so how would you approach elevating.
- [80:47]
B
Those, a couple of key players without really killing the morale of those that won't end up getting those positions?
- [80:53]
A
I would build. Do you have a really a clear future org chart? Like if you have that clear future org chart, it's like these are the roles that have, you know, you don't have to tell people they have equity but like these are the executive roles or whatever. And this is, you know, CEO, COO, VPs, whatever. And you got that very clear chart. I think that even if people don't get it, they still know that it's possible because nobody stays at a job forever. So I don't know if it's demotivating for somebody to not get that, that higher level job, like the executive job that they might want or whatever, that high level job. And if you're not, you know, you're not telling everybody, oh yeah, this person gets equity, sorry, you guys don't. And so you're not going to have the morale hid there. I just, I don't know. Okay, two thoughts. I don't know if it's going to be a big deal for those people necessarily because they still have the hope of getting it later next year or whatever. But two, if they didn't get it, if they're not good enough to get that spot. Does it really matter if they leave because of it? For me, the bigger constraint is, I don't know you and your personality. But for me, it's more like I feel bad for those people. My empathy. I was like, oh, I feel so bad. I don't want them to film be mad at me. And that's where my, like, I think I've given more equity away to people because I didn't want them to be mad than because they deserved it. And that's a terrible reason to give away equity.
- [82:06]
B
Just throw a pizza party.
- [82:08]
A
There you go. Hawaiian shirt Friday. That's all you got to do. And everyone's happy with that. Just wear a Hawaiian shirt if you want to.
- [82:14]
B
Hey, guys, by the way, Mark got it. So my, my wife and I's top two rules for us in our relationship when it comes to me kind of running my business is one, our relationship is or our reputation is the only thing that matters in business. And then number two, we'll only do a deal if we can sleep comfortably at night. Brian knows this, but I have a challenge now that I'm raising money from a lot of people to get on social media, to be able to pour gas on it, to like, let really take off. My fear is that things have been going very well for me and they have, and I haven't had a stumble yet. Getting on social media when things don't go well, having to answer to investors, as you had mentioned, just scares the absolute hell out of me and is keeping my training wheels on. How do you deal with that?
- [83:02]
A
Yeah, it's hard, man. I mean, I, I, I have this dick. Maybe he's in this room. Hopefully not. This is like just complete douchebag who, like every time I post on social media, he'll go and comment on my stuff. Don't invest with Brandon Turner. He'll lose all your money the way he lost all mine. I've never lost anybody's money ever. I look in this guy's deal, he's in one of our better deals. Like, he's in a great fund that's still paying out, everything's fine. But there's no reason for him to be a dick. I just must have hurt his feelings at a conference at some point or something or just didn't shake his hand when he thought I was going to, you know, something weird. I like, got there and it's just like it's a type. But I get that a lot too. If you go into the Reddit threads, like, I don't look at them. But there's apparently just Reddit threads about me that are just terrible, like brands. You lose all your money. He's a terrible operator, doesn't know what he's doing. It sucks, but it's also. It's been the most growth I've had in a decade, internal growth. Because I have to face the thing that I don't want more than anything else is, like, I want. I mean, I want people to like me. I really want that. So then the question is, do I care more about losing people's money or having people talk bad about me? And, and what I mean by that is, like, when I. When I get really sad and like, oh, man, if I lost a deal or if one of these deals went south and I couldn't do it, am I more sad that I lose people's money or that they're just be mad at me online? And I'm like, it's probably that they're going to be mad at me online. I'm like, oh, there's something broken in here, and I need to fix that. Or at least now I know that it's there in a. In a strong way. So I guess what I'm trying to get at there is there's a. A lot of growth to be had there. And like, you even said you're scared to death of that. Like, it. It's scary. Like, if you do something and you stumble, it becomes public. That said, like, I have called, you know, dozens of my investors and talk to them. I've never had one person yell at me, cuss me out, even say anything negative. Everyone's been supportive, everyone's been kind because they know my, I guess, my heart, I think. I had a guy one time this, you know, pat myself on the back, but he said I invested in opendoor capital because of how you talk about your wife. And I was like, the point of, like, they like me, they dislike me, and if things go right, they like me. If things go wrong, they still genuinely like me. And if they don't like me, that's their problem. That's not my problem, and that's the growth that I've had. That said, the idea of, like, going on social media, it can be a scary thing. Just the pivot I would make there. And I'm sure you've heard this before, but it's like, how many people are you keeping stuck in their current life that they're not happy with because of your unwillingness to be. To confront those inner demons? You know what I Mean, like, there's other people that, like, imagine if I had never got out there and talked about real estate. Like, how many people would not be here today or not be in real estate or be financially free? Even though I was scared to post my first YouTube video and scared to post on social media and super cringy to post, and it feels super awkward. It's like you start hearing people about changing lives and. And seeing the result of it. It's like, oh, yeah, that was worth the cringe. That was worth the risk. So I just encourage you with that is like, you will. You will change people's lives for the better by putting yourself out there and doing it. And you won't if you don't.
- [86:15]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's a good one. It's the same reason why we haven't done paid ads, you know, honestly, because I've just, like, see every single ad and I'm like, oh, my God. Like, every single person's like, cringe, cringe. Like, scam, scam. That's my big thing is scam.
- [86:27]
A
Yeah.
- [86:27]
B
It's like, even if you could do this perfectly well, and it's like, off scam, like, I'm in the reds, too. Like, we. We have that success.
- [86:35]
A
What I've learned is just like, I can't. I can't heal that part of me yet. Maybe I need some ayahuasca or something. But, like, I can't heal that part of me that doesn't, like, get so sad when I read negative things about me online. And that's fine. So I've just learned to, like, not. I've just built systems around that so I don't have to deal with it. Yeah, I don't. I don't look at it like my. I don't. Like I said, I've never read the Reddit threats. I know there's a lot of them about me on Reddit. I just don't read them and I don't read the comments on my. On my whatever. Once in. My wife will tell me. She's like. She's like, this ad had a bunch of, like, whatever things that are just complete lies. And. And then I'll send to my team and I'm like, will you guys deal with this? But I don't want to deal with it.
- [87:14]
B
It's Hermosi spoke with Dean Graziosi, the other Tony Robbins guy, and Dean said, okay, cool. Well, for the impact that you want to have, like, what. What are you willing to sacrifice for the impact that you want to Have. So if you want to have a large impact, and that's what I have to go with right now is because, like, now I'm growing my following, and it's just like, dude, like, sometimes it just really sucks. Like, you have 100,000 people that are just telling you your shit. And I got, like, death threats. Like, why would I get death threats? Like, I get death threats, dude, for talking about, like, financial freedom. Like, I'm like, dude, I just. I just want to travel. Like, I just wanted you to travel and, like, hug your wife. And they're like, dude, I hope you die in a fire. I'm like. But he said, okay, what are you willing to give up? Sacrifice for the impact that you want to have? And so, like, you said, if you're going to reach a million people, you're going to reach, like, at least 50.
- [88:09]
A
Hey, Brian, thanks for your time in. Amazing beard, by the way. I had a. Not about half as long as yours, but yours is fire, so keep that going. Oh, thank you, man. But it won't grow anymore. It's stuck right here. So it's been here for years. I can't get it. You talked a little bit about your family life, your. Your children and your wife. With all these different businesses, all these different paths that you've gone. What's been the biggest challenge with navigating entrepreneurship, with being an amazing father and husband? Yeah, you know, I travel a lot. Like, actually, I'll tell a quick story. I don't think you'd mind me telling this. I. I ran into Ken McElroy again a few weeks ago up in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. That's where he vacationed. And once again, I was like, hey, you want to go to coffee? And he's like, let's do it. So we went to coffee, and I wanted to kind of pick his brain and ask about some of the deals we're doing on Opendoor Capital. And we. We talked about the deals for a little bit. We talked about the numbers and the math, and I gave my ideas on what I'm going to do. And he, you know, give some good feedback. And then he shifted the conversation and he said this. He started naming off names. It was like guys from the 90s and 2000s that you'd recognize their names. I was like, both real estate influencers, but also guys like Tony Robbins and others. He was just naming one after another after another. He just named, like, 20 names. He. This guy, this guy, he goes, brandon. And there are a lot of real estate syndicators a lot of real estate educators, a lot of authors. He goes, none of them made it with their family intact. None of them. And he goes. He goes, I didn't either. Like him. He's like, I didn't either. Tony didn't either. None of them made it with their family intact, meaning divorce and kids and. And all of them because. And he goes, this industry is not conducive to having a good family life. And he goes, if you want something to be, if you want different, you're gonna have to do something different. That was such a great message. Like that. Like, that will sit with me for the rest of my life. I went home and I cried. Like, I actually. I talked my wife, and I was like, this is what Ken said. He's. And it was the first time I was away. I was like, oh, I'm in an industry that has a zero percent success rate of surviving a marriage. So what are we going to do different? That's what I told my wife. Like, what are we going to do different? But we. We. I mean, we've been. I don't say we were on the verge of divorce necessarily, but we've had some real hard times. It's always in periods where I travel a lot, because that's what I do. I raise capital. I go speak at conferences. I'm here. I'm doing things that take a lot of time, and those are always the moments that were the most distant and that the kids miss me the most. And so what I did for my wife last year, like, in 20, at the very end of 2024, what are we, 2025 right now? So at the end of 2023, for Christmas, I gave her a crisp. The only Christmas present I gave my wife was a piece of paper that said, I will only be gone. It had 12 boxes. And I said, I'll be gone 12 days this year. The year before, I was gone over a hundred days. I said, 12 is my number. That's the only. I'll be away from the family 12 days. The other. Other than that, you're coming with me. And I almost held to it. It was at the very end of the year, like, December. It was like, we did 13 days. And that was only because she backed out the last second. So it's her fault. But. And like, that was. I think to this day, it's still the favorite. Her favorite present I've ever given ever. Because all. Like, you've heard that quote, right? Kids spell time or, sorry, kids spell love. T, I, M, e Like that's how kids and my wife spells love is time. So that's a bit of a big one. The other. And then I still struggle with that because I love this stuff. Like here I am right now. I love this. I love coming out place. I love traveling. And it's hard when you have little kids to travel. Especially I got a little 10 month old now. It's really tough. So how do I balance those two things together? Well, one, one thing I was, I was sitting in Cob or Cancun right now, right? Yeah. So Cabo, that's mixed those texted me yesterday.
- [91:49]
B
He's like, okay, I'm landing in Cabo tomorrow.
- [91:52]
A
Yeah, I don't. He's like, that's great. But word, Cancun. I was like, same thing. So I was in the other Mexican sea, whatever, Cabo. And I was there for like a week for a big conference that I was there for. And it was great. It was awesome. But I missed my family so much and they miss me and I'm, you know, and then I remembered like this little thing that like, I'm rich. Like I. I'm rich. And when you have money, that can be like when you have a problem that money can solve and you have money, you don't have a problem. Right. So I called my wife and I'm like, why are you not here? She said, because I don't want be stuck. And I was like, she's like, we talked about this. I don't want to be stuck in a hotel room all day while you're off there. I was like, we're rich. What if you weren't stuck in a hotel room? What if you rented like a sick house? And what if we brought with your parents? And my parents and a nanny and a cook and a chef. And what if we flew private down here? And I'm like, let's go extreme. Like, would that still be a crappy thing? She's like, no, it'd be amazing. I'm like, okay, well why don't we figure out what would make it amazing every time we travel? And. And so she's like, I love that. Let's. Let's figure that out. This one was already scheduled and she didn't want to come, but that's why. Literally though, I'm going back tomorrow. Like, I'm here one night. Like, I missed, I missed one night out of my, out of my thing. So anyway, that's a long answer to the thing is, it's priority, right? Is I. I recognize it. I think the reason that most people lose their families in the process of building a real estate business or any business, I mean, it's not just real estate, it's just business is because they just don't look up enough to look around and be like, well, how does my wife actually feel? How do my kids actually feel? Or they feel like they're doing it for the family, but the kids don't care. Like your spouse doesn't care. So that's been, that's been a big piece of it. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it.
- [93:36]
B
All right. With that, guys, we're gonna end it. So everybody stand up. Round of applause for Mr. Brian.
- [93:42]
A
Thank you.
- [93:46]
B
Boom. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the Action Academy podcast. My one ask real quick before you go. If you enjoy this episode, if it brought value to you, please share this episode with one to three friends that you think could get value from it. This is how we grow the show. And at minimum, if you could leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or whatever platform you listen to, that would mean the world to us is how we get in front of other entrepreneurs. If you're done sitting on the sidelines, you're done listening to the podcast. You want to be the freaking guest on the podcast? Go into action academy.com, go in the show description, the show link, and book a call to speak with our Action Academy community. We have hundreds and hundreds of people just like you buying businesses and commercial real estate with full coaches, full mentors, full support, full capital, everything. ActionAcademy.com is where you'll find us.