Four Millionaires Share the #1 Advice That Made Them Millions.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The BetterLife Podcast

Episode: Four Millionaires Share the #1 Advice That Made Them Millions

Hosts: Brandon Turner & Cam Cathcart
Guests: Craig Curelop & Mike Brockway
Date: January 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode brings together four self-made millionaires—Brandon Turner, Cam Cathcart, Craig Curelop, and Mike Brockway—to discuss the pivotal advice, habits, and mindset shifts that propelled their wealth-building journeys. The conversation is fun, candid, and actionable, with real stories, humor, and practical frameworks. The group explores how key decisions, systems thinking, leveraging relationships, and learning from failure all contributed to their financial success. Listeners get both personal anecdotes and universally applicable wisdom for real estate investing and lifestyle design.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Guest Introductions (01:10 – 06:09)

• Craig Curelop
  • Leads Denver’s #1 investor-friendly realtor team.
  • Wrote "The House Hacking Strategy" and new book “The Investor Friendly Agent.”
  • Focuses on co-living: buying multifamily and renting by the room for high cash flow and appreciation.
  • “I live up in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, but most of our business is in Denver.” (01:30)
• Mike Brockway
  • Based in Denver, moving to San Diego.
  • Full-time real estate investor (10 years); specializes in high-end, experience-based short-term rentals.
  • Recent reality TV experience on Netflix’s “Love Is Blind;” leveraged small Instagram fame for some real estate leads.
  • “I went hard into short term rentals... trying to be top 5% of the market.” (02:54)

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2. The Power of Systems & Pivotal Advice (12:25 – 31:46)

Craig Curelop’s Millionaire Moment (13:08 – 15:55)

• Inspiration: A friend’s father retired early via a real estate nine-plex—sparked Craig’s “ding” moment about real estate's potential.
• Critical Mindset Shift: “Real estate was never in my brain before… That moment between the conversation with my intern and seeing that lady [landlord] collect $40,000 from me got me to think, oh, real estate could be something.” (13:48)
• Education: Initially skeptical about BiggerPockets, trusted it after reading Brandon’s book, which referenced it often.

Brandon Turner's “Pivot” Advice (18:04 – 25:33)

• Mindset Shift:
  • Transitioned from “Can it be done?” to “How can it be done?” after discovering the BiggerPockets forum and reading how other landlords handle tenants who don’t pay.
  • “There are answers for all of the ‘yeah, buts’ out there.” (20:24)
• From Millionaire to Multi-Millionaire: Systems Thinking
  • Lesson from Robert Kiyosaki’s “Cash Flow Quadrant”: Build scalable, repeatable systems—don’t just haul buckets, build pipelines.
  • “Everything became a funnel, a system, a process. Not one-off stuff.” (25:28)

Cam Cathcart’s Take on Systems (25:33 – 26:56)

• Scaling through Systems: Initial wealth came from strong relationships and acquisitions. True scaling came from extracting those skills into a system others could replicate.
• Memorable Quote: “That is what’s taken us to the next level… take everything that’s in my head… and put that into a system…” (25:36)

Discussion: Are Visionaries Good at Systems? (26:39 – 31:21)

• Visionaries (Brandon, Cam, Mike) can conceptualize systems but not always build or maintain them.
• Importance of hiring “optimizer” or “high C” team members to actually implement, maintain, and improve systems.
• Building an external system/incentive—"if they don’t work the system, they can't feed their family”—ensures processes function smoothly. (28:04)

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3. Going Beyond Systems: People & Relationships (30:46 – 33:37)

• Mike Brockway: Success beyond first million depends on leveraging others and building teams.
  • “Initially you can push through yourself… but to make it to that next phase, it relies on other people…” (30:53)
• Brandon: His team now documents a new system each week, enabling them to diagnose exactly where a business process is broken.
  • “When something’s broken in your business, they go to your flowchart and they say… this is where it fell apart.” (32:39)

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4. The Role of Passion, Purpose, and Resilience (35:04 – 42:53)

• Mike’s Journey: Early advice was “find your passion.” Process was non-linear—he started with cashflow needs, discovered passion via doing (e.g., design in STRs, now development).
  • "You don't have to find that thing right away… you can find it throughout your journey." (35:24)
  • Even if your passion doesn’t pay well, use wealth to support it or to buy your time so you can pursue it.
• On Failure:
  • Everyone’s first deal is rarely perfect. “The first deal doesn’t actually matter… the money from your first deal does not matter at all.” (39:56; Brandon)
  • Cam’s first deal lost money, but the act of doing it mattered most: “Sort of a powerful mental checkmark… I do the things I say I’m going to do.” (41:02)
  • Mastermind groups accelerate belief—seeing ordinary people succeed helps you realize, “If they can do it, I can do it.” (42:17)

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5. Mindset, Masterminds, and Picking Your One Thing (43:13 – 51:34)

• Surround yourself with people for whom your big goals are normal or who “make the impossible look like a Tuesday morning.” (43:04)
• Exercise/Real Estate Analogy:
  • Many wealth/fitness building paths work—consistency and picking a path matter more than “the perfect approach.”
  • Brandon: “It’s more important that you decide than what you decide.” (50:33)
• Crystal-clear criteria: Decide your strategy, location, property type, price range, and goals, then relentlessly stick to it.

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6. Closing Thoughts: Best Advice for 2026 (60:00 – 62:29)

Brandon Turner (60:00)

• “Build One Bridge”—Focus:
  • “Build one bridge. Once you get there, you can build as many as you want, but focus on one thing until you get to that financial freedom number.”

Craig Curelop (60:53)

• “Live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later.”
  • Quoting Dave Ramsey, but applies beyond budgeting—work harder/better/bigger than most.

Mike Brockway (61:19)

• Network and Relationships:
  • “Get around the right people and make meaningful, impactful connections that are going to last years and stick around.”
  • Reference: Their own 10-year friendship that began at a conference.

Cam Cathcart (62:07)

• “Bet on yourself.”
  • “There’s a lot of people sitting on the sidelines thinking, I can’t do this… Bet on yourself in 2026. You will not regret it.”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “There are answers for all of the ‘yeah, buts’ out there.” – Brandon, (20:24)
• “When I stopped thinking in terms of one-offs and started thinking in terms of systems… that’s what makes you a multimillionaire.” – Brandon, (25:33)
• “I'm great at thinking through the system… But then the actual building and maintaining…I'm absolutely terrible at.” – Cam, (26:56)
• “You can find [your passion] throughout your journey.” – Mike, (35:24)
• “If you want a system to work, make sure the people working the system can't feed their families if they fail.” – Brandon, (28:04)
• “It’s more important that you decide than what you decide.” – Brandon, (50:33)
• “That moron can do it, I can do it.” – Brandon, on learning from others' stories (42:17)
• “Surround yourself with people who make the impossible look like a Tuesday morning.” – Brandon, (43:04)
• “Bet on yourself in 2026. You will not regret it.” – Cam, (62:10)

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Noteworthy Moments

• Craig’s story of skeptical beginnings and “the little Mexican lady” collecting $40,000 in checks was both humorous and pivotal. (13:48)
• Brandon’s metaphor from “Cash Flow Quadrant” about hauling buckets vs. building pipelines became a recurring, actionable framework. (21:49 – 25:33)
• The crew’s playful banter and stories about failed TV shows (“We should co-write a book... I'll write it, we'll put your name on the cover” – 02:41) added levity and camaraderie.
• Admission of failures and bad deals, with honest discussion of resilience and what actually matters for early investors (many first deals lose money, that’s OK!) (39:56 – 42:17)
• A mini-masterclass on finding your ideal business lane and role—visionary vs. systems builder, and the importance of hiring complementing talents. (26:39 – 31:21)
• Real-time practical advice: To grow through systems, document one process weekly. (32:39)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Guest Introductions & Backgrounds: 01:10 – 06:09
• Inspiration & Early Wealth Advice: 13:08 – 15:55
• The Power of Systems Mindset: 18:04 – 25:33
• Beyond Yourself: Building Teams & Systems: 30:46 – 33:37
• Passion, Purpose, & Failing Forward: 35:04 – 42:53
• Mindset and Masterminds: 43:13 – 51:34
• Final 2026 Advice: 60:00 – 62:29

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Summary Takeaways

1. Wealth creation hinges on a few key mindset shifts: move from “can I” to “how can I,” think in systems, and "bet on yourself."
2. Mastery comes from focus: “Build one bridge”—stick with one strategy/objective until you’re truly established.
3. Surround yourself with the right people: Success is accelerated by being around those for whom your big goals are merely routine.
4. Your passion evolves: Success isn’t about nailing your passion from day one; it emerges as you progress, as long as you take action.
5. Document and delegate: Even visionaries who hate “doing the system” can scale by training/hiring the right optimizers and implementers.
6. Resilience after failure: Your first deal or effort doesn’t have to be perfect (and likely won’t be)—the act of doing and learning is what matters.
7. Over-analysis kills: Don’t get caught up searching for the "perfect" strategy, market, or moment. Decide, commit, and course-correct as you go.

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For further resources, referenced books include:

• "The House Hacking Strategy" by Craig Curelop
• "The Book on Rental Property Investing" by Brandon Turner
• "Cash Flow Quadrant" by Robert Kiyosaki
• "Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat (BRRRR)" by David Greene

Episode sponsors, event announcements, and inside jokes were mostly skipped in this summary, focusing only on the rich, actionable content.

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Transcript

[A]

This is the Better Life podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Turner, here with my co host, Mr. Cam Cathcart. Thanks for watching the show today. Today we've got two special guests. We'll introduce them in just one minute. But two quick announcements. Number one, Cam looks good today. And number two, REI Summit 2026 is happening April 1st, 2nd and 3rd. It's gonna be in Austin, Texas, is gonna be amazing. I don't remember the URL, so go to the description below the video. I think it's like betterlife summit2026.com do.

[B]

You have a promo code?

[A]

Reisummit2026.com, that's probably it. I'm sure the promo code there was.

[C]

Yeah, I think Cam 10.

[A]

Oh, 10.

[C]

And I think I get another 10%.

[A]

Wow, look at that. All right, Cam 10 C A M10 gets 10% off.

[C]

That could be so wrong.

[A]

We'll make it work. Yeah, we'll make it work. And it's going to be amazing. So reisummit2026.com we're there together, hanging out in Austin and having a good time.

[C]

It's going to be blast.

[A]

All right, those are your two announcements and today's episode, actually. We've got two buddies in town and we're going to talk about the advice that made us rich or the advice that made us wealthy. And so we're going to give each. We'll go through one at a time talking about that. Before we get to that, we'll get a little introductions out of the way so you know who we're dealing with. You've heard of them before. They're big deals. But just in case you haven't, let's introduce them right now. Fellas, welcome to the show.

[D]

Thanks, guys.

[B]

Thanks for having us.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. All right, so you guys are visiting Maui right now, and you're not from Maui. So tell us, where are you from, where do you live right now, and what do you do in the real estate world? Wealth world, business world, whatever. Why are you a big deal?

[B]

Yeah, I guess I'll go first.

[A]

I guess an awkward question to answer. Why you?

[B]

Why am I a big deal? Well, I would argue that I'm not a huge deal, but huge, huge, huge. I live up in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. But most of our business is done in Denver, Colorado. So I'm the leader of Denver's number one team of investor friendly realtors. So we help people buy and sell investment properties all around Colorado, and we help people figure out Exactly. What works in such a high appreciating market. And just so happens that we also invest in what works in our high appreciating market. And what that thing is, is co living. So that's kind of what we're all in on there. So we buy, you know, large houses, single family duplexes, triplexes, quads. We instead of renting out per unit, we rent it out by the room. You get great cash flow. You get the wonderful appreciation of Denver, Colorado and other appreciating markets around the nation. And that's my, my two minute training.

[A]

You wrote a book for biggerpockets, right?

[B]

I did write a book for bigger.

[A]

What's it called?

[B]

It's called the House hacking strategy. Yeah. And we've got second book coming out called the Investor Friendly Agent too.

[A]

No way.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Not knowing. That's coming out. Big deal, man.

[B]

Getting bigger.

[C]

How much do they pay you to write a book?

[B]

How much do they pay.

[A]

Nobody pays me anything to write a book.

[B]

Dot, dot, dot.

[A]

Have you written a book yet, Cam?

[C]

I will never write a book.

[A]

Really? We should co write a book.

[C]

I would co write a book.

[A]

I'll write it and then we'll put your name on the front cover.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

My favorite thing in the world is writing. If I could do nothing but that, I'd be the happiest, Brandon.

[C]

I feel like I would. No, no, I'm not, I'm not a writer.

[A]

Yeah, I'm not either, but I just like it anyway.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Mr. Brockway, welcome to the show.

[C]

Let's go write a book together.

[D]

Okay, thanks guys. Yeah. So Mike Brockway. I'm in Denver, Colorado. We move into San Diego here in a few months to start investing in that market. But I've been in Denver for 10 years. Been investing in real estate for 10 years. About full time. Full time for about five years now. And I started off in long term rentals, did some co living, did some house hacking, and then about five years ago I went hard into short term rentals and that's, that's my focus. Higher end short term rental properties. Experience based, trying to be the top 5% of the market and going for appreciation because Denver's a nice, expensive appreciating market and high cash flow.

[A]

Do you remember where we first met?

[D]

Yeah, I think we went. We were at a. Here in Hawaii. On Oahu.

[A]

We were on Oahu. And then we went on. I don't know if we went on a hike the first time we met, but we went on a hike shortly after we met. It was you and me. And was David Green, right?

[D]

Yep. David Green.

[A]

Who else?

[D]

Dave Perret.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Military to Millionaire, who's also been on the podcast before.

[D]

Yeah, I think Dave invited me on the hike after I met him at the meetup.

[A]

You and.

[D]

You and David were there.

[A]

That's funny. Yeah, that was a long time ago.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, Rose, I think, was one at the time.

[C]

Were you in Oahu?

[A]

I was, yeah. I spent like three months in Oahu. Yeah. And so we hung out then and we became besties and. Yeah, I mean, we probably should just mention that you also were on a TV show recently. We. We should talk about that TV show.

[D]

You might have heard of it.

[A]

TV show. Tell us about it.

[D]

Love is Blind. I think it was like the number two or number one. Netflix.

[C]

Did you win? How do you do you? Can you win that show?

[D]

I think everyone loses.

[C]

Everyone loses.

[D]

Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, it was a good experience. I honestly didn't think I would ever do anything like that. But someone reached out to me on Instagram, happened to be single at the time. This was like over two years ago.

[C]

The show was shot. Two years ago.

[D]

It was shot about. Yeah, about two years ago now.

[C]

Because when you were here last at the Maui Mastermind, I remember you talked about it. So it was. It just came out, though, recently, right?

[D]

Yeah. So when I was here last at the Maui Mastermind, it was. It already filmed.

[C]

Wow.

[D]

I couldn't really talk a whole lot about it, but I was trying to, you know, get. Get advice from you, wise gentleman. And I said, hey, I did a thing. Can't really talk about it, but, like, how do I, you know, what should I do with it next if I even get airtime? Cause it's just a. It's kind of a toss up whether you get airtime or not. I ended up getting a pretty good amount of airtime in the first six to eight episodes. And then after that I went home and didn't get much airtime after that. But I'd probably say I was like one of the main six individuals.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Has that done anything for your real estate investing?

[D]

A little bit. It's different. The person that watches Love is Blind or reality TV isn't exactly the person that's an accredited investor or super interested in real estate for the most part. But I have had a few people reach out to me and say, hey, I'm looking to get into real estate or I want to buy my next investment property. Can I invest with you? Can you help me buy A house. Can you coach me? Stuff like that? But I def. It definitely hasn't been a huge influx of individual. At the same time, I haven't. I'm not like necessarily selling a course or selling and have an offering. I'm just doing my own thing right now. So I haven't been marketing to that audience or that, that new audience I have on Instagram and on socials. Yeah.

[A]

How, how much have you seen your Instagram grow?

[D]

I was at a few thousand followers before and now I'm at like, I think 17 or 18,000.

[C]

So did they pay you very little. Really?

[D]

Yeah, you got, I mean, you get paid a little bit per week.

[A]

It's like a dollar an hour.

[D]

Yeah. But they actually, I got. May have been asked to go on a different show after reality TV based. But they pay you a lot more for the second one because you're already.

[B]

Are you on it?

[C]

Did you. Were you on it?

[D]

No, I, I turned it down. It was another.

[C]

So you can say, right.

[D]

Dating TV show.

[C]

Who was the Bachelor?

[D]

It's called Perfect Match. And so Perfect Match is all prior reality TV stars. And if you didn't get married or engaged or make it on the first TV show, then you go on a Perfect Match and you try to maybe get. Have your another shot. But I'm in a relationship now and I decided a little awkwardly turn them down years ago.

[C]

I mean, actually in Denver, I went to church with a guy named Ben Higgins. I was kind of like friends with him. He was, he was on the Bachelorette then he was on the Bachelor. I think he was making a lot of money on that. And I know he was also his Instagram, he had over a million followers and was getting paid to promote things. And yeah, I didn't know him that well, but I just through the grapevine heard that he was making a lot of money from that.

[D]

Yeah, you definitely can. Especially if you're like the main character or the Bachelor and the show is hot at the time. You can, you can definitely make some pretty good money off of this, I'd imagine.

[A]

It's probably like a lot of, I mean a lot of things like celebrity wise is you don't necessarily make your money on the thing. You make your money. Like, I mean, people ask me, I mean, fairly often, like how much I make off YouTube. Yeah. Like, I don't know, like a dollar. Like how much you make off Instagram? 50 cents? I don't. I make nothing really, but I make millions off of the things around it because of the, because of Having the audience when you have the eyeballs, you have the business, as long as you know how to capitalize on it. Which is a whole different episode of a show. But I would love to do that one someday.

[C]

Lexi and I, we almost signed a contract to film a TV show probably in 2020, like, late 2021, which all the entire process was, was BS because we signed a contract, they pitched us HGTV, and we signed our rights away for literally life. Like, I don't think I can ever film another TV show again.

[D]

Contracts are no joke.

[C]

Yes. And I didn't know what I was doing because they came to us and we're like, we see you as the next Chip and Joanna Gaines. And guys are going to be amazing. We're like, we'll sign anything. Like, so we signed all this paperwork, we filmed B roll, all this stuff. They told us hgtv. And they came back and they were like, hgtv doesn't want you. But Magnolia Network didn't want us. And so they. But they were going to pay us, like, $4,000 an episode. And then we had to flip the.

[A]

How.

[C]

Like, they wanted us to. There's this pitch of like, you want to revitalize St. Louis. And I was like, no, I'm just trying to make money.

[B]

Like, I don't.

[C]

I don't really care about. I mean, I do. I shouldn't say that. And they had these specifications of, here's the houses that you're looking for, which wasn't what we looked for, and here's how you had to rehab them. And I remember looking at it, I was like, I'm gonna lose more money than I make by trying to do this. If it would have taken off, maybe we would have made more money. But I was like, this is stupid. And so I turned it down.

[D]

Definitely gamble at a whole wishful thinking.

[A]

And sometimes Heather and I did one. Do you know that, like, we did a pilot or whatever.

[C]

Oh, really?

[A]

Well, it's a sizzle reel, so it's like a 20 minute or.

[C]

That's what we did. And then they tried.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Do you have your still probably somewhere.

[A]

We should look at. Well, hey, we'll. We'll put at the end of this YouTube video, if you guys watch all the way through at the very end, I'll put mine. And if cam we find yours, we'll put yours too. That'd be fun.

[C]

So here's what made me mad about the entire process is they pitched it to us like, this is for hgtv. And maybe I Had like rose colored glasses on just thinking that. But then I come to find out is we were just filming the sizzle reel so they could go sell it.

[A]

They could shop it to all.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And so I, the entire time was like, oh, I'm gonna be the next HGTV star. Then they call me.

[A]

That's how they get you.

[C]

Yes. And that's why I'm like signing away my life, literally. I don't think I can ever be on a TV show without them getting paid for it, honestly. Probably this podcast. Yes, we're gonna get.

[D]

We're gonna get paid for work.

[C]

I'm no longer the co host because they want ad revenue from it. But yeah, they came back and they were like, well, HGTV doesn't want you.

[A]

But Magnolia Network, it's a giant funnel is what I learned. And I've gone through the a couple times. Do you know I actually grew the beard because I wanted a reality TV show. That's your story. Yeah, I grew that. I. I was watching a reality TV show with my dad, like, called Fast and Loud. It's like a car show. And the guy had a big beard almost exactly like this. And I thought, that's a tall, lanky white dude who's super vanilla. I'm a tall, lanky white dude, super vanilla. But he got a TV show. And I was at time, I was like, I want a TV show. This is 10 years ago. So I was like, I'm gonna grow a beard so I can get a TV show. So I grew the beard. I did the. The. The thing didn't get picked up, fell apart. And then I was like, it was like the worst two days of my life was filming. And I was like, yeah, never going to do that. It was terrible. But anyway, that's how I got the beard.

[D]

I met you. Your beard was short.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It just keeps going. It's like, what's the. Who's the famous Samson in the Bible where he had his long hair and he could, like, defeat everybody? He was undefeatable. He's like super strong. As soon as they cut his hair, it was gone.

[C]

Freaking.

[A]

Yeah, he cut the. Yeah, Delilah. He cut my beard and I. That's the rule. Don't cut the beard. You can't cut the stash either.

[B]

Is that why you had to. The coffee thing didn't work out right? Too much. Your hair too much.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Beardy Brew. Beardy Brew Coffee is still a thing. You can get [e-mail]. i never talk about it. But all the profits go to help kids on Maui in the foster care system. So it's a pretty cool charity. And again, all profits go to charity. And it's actually delicious coffee because it's. We just white label a group called Social Hour, which are like award winning and best coffee in the world. So.

[C]

And the nonprofit is. Is one of the best.

[A]

It's one of the best nonprofits in the town.

[C]

Zach, what's his mathers?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, dude. Zanya. They run it. They're so good.

[C]

They're mate. Well, one of the coolest things.

[A]

Village Hope. Village of Hope Village.

[C]

But they also do it them. So we were at. I was at an event with them here on Maui up in Kanapali, and they got like a text and they're like, hey, we need somebody to take this baby for the weekend. And they like, immediately shot out of there. It was so cool. They're amazing people.

[A]

So get your beardy brew coffee and you're gonna help support foster kids here on island. We should talk real estate and wealth and money.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

I want to go through you guys is like, I don't care who starts. We all have things in our life. I call them pivot moments. Right where your life is going one direction and something gets in there and makes you pivot a whole new way. It could be a somebody says something to you. Could be a book you read or a story in a book. That's what I'm thinking of. Could be a conversation with your spouse or significant other. Something made your life pivot, and it on it set you on a journey to become a millionaire. That's what I want to talk about today is what is that thing? Tell the story. What have we done? What did you learn? Why did that advice make you rich? And so does anybody want to go first? Have like, you know what you want to say, or I'm happy to go first as well, but if you guys already know, I'll let you take the first. All right, Mr. Kerlap, what made you rich?

[B]

The time I was working at a job that I hated in Silicon Valley.

[D]

Not Bigger Pockets.

[B]

Not Bigger Pockets. This is pretty Bigger Pockets.

[A]

Pretty Bigger Pocket.

[B]

Pretty Bigger Pockets.

[A]

We say that Craig worked at Bigger Pockets when I worked at Bigger Pockets.

[D]

Oh, you were?

[A]

Yeah, we were coworkers.

[C]

How much do they pay you?

[A]

No, not.

[B]

Not enough. That's why I'm not there anymore. Exactly.

[A]

Same thing.

[B]

So see, I was working at a. At a venture, like debt company out in Palo Alto, California, and I was like, hating My life, it sounds really sexy, like working with these startup companies and da da da da. But it wasn't. And I ran the intern program at the company and this intern that I became friendly with was telling me about how his dad had like worked at UPS and they went public or something and he took his money and bought a nine plex. And now he had retired at like age 50 just because he had bought this nine plex. And so I was like, so like ding. Real estate. Which was never in my brain before. And so then I started going and I kind of just like looking at all of the real estate and noticed how much real estate was actually all around. And I go home and I write a check to my landlord and we lived in like a 20 unit complex at that time. And this little Mexican lady, she's probably like 65 years old, hardly speaks English, comes in in her beater car and collects a $2,000 check from me. And I'm not the best at math, but I can do 2,000 times 20. And I'm like, did this woman just come back and collect $40,000? That was it. And so then I started like that moment between the conversation with my intern and seeing that lady come and collect $40,000 from me got me to think, oh, real estate, like could be something. And then that's when I started reading. Well, actually it's funny enough, I went on, went online to try to find some real estate books and stuff like that and I had found the Bigger Pockets something, but I thought Bigger Pockets, a total scam. Total scam.

[A]

A lot of people think that.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And then I actually picked up, so I thought it was a total scam on the Internet. And then I went into Amazon and I bought a book called the Book on Rental Property Investing. Yeah, maybe you heard of it. Yeah. And. And then Bigger Pockets was mentioned in that book, believe it or not, a whole bunch of times.

[A]

Shocking. Yeah.

[B]

And then I was like, oh, Bigger Pockets can't be a scam because it's mentioned as a book. This is like 22 year old brain. Okay. And then I was like, you know that.

[A]

Published by Bigger Buckets. Published by, written by the Bigger Pockets VP of the co host or whatever podcast.

[B]

Yeah, you're like, hey, a little bigger. And then, and then I was like obsessed.

[A]

Yeah, pay me nothing. No, I actually do make good money off book Rosies or even to today. I still make good money.

[C]

Did you hear David? David and Rob? I don't know. Rob.

[A]

Yeah, David, Rob.

[C]

They had like their podcast after the Year long.

[A]

Yeah. Revealed everything. Yeah. That podcast did so well. I didn't listen to you.

[C]

Oh, I didn't. I just watched clips.

[A]

Oh, yeah, me too.

[C]

I want to listen.

[B]

I love both.

[C]

I know, like, how much. What the drama was there.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

Do you know about the drama?

[B]

No, I didn't listen to it. I was kind of just like, yeah.

[A]

Should we talk about a Liquor Pockets drama? That's fun.

[B]

Yeah. We could do a whole episode on Bigger Pockets.

[A]

A whole episode on Bigger Pockets? No Bigger Pockets. I would say this. They're a great organization. They still are. They have a great heart. They don't want to sell, you know, crazy, you know, $50,000 coaching programs. Like a lot of people, they could have. They could have gone on a very dark path. The only problem with BiggerPockets was for a long time, not today. It's getting better. It was run by a team of people who had never done real estate investing before, which is a big reason I left because, like, nobody knew how to do, like, I'm like, I'm like the real. Like, I'm really doing this. And I got a 24 year old kid in Denver telling me what to do. And I'm like, that's. You did real estate, right? And like. But it was a bunch of people who didn't actually do real estate. And it was like super, like.

[C]

But your boss was a 24 year old.

[A]

No, but my boss was. Josh.

[C]

Changed my life.

[A]

Yeah, it changed my life.

[C]

And the thing that I loved about them is they weren't. It was like 40 bucks a month at that time for their pro membership. And that was. You got access.

[A]

I think it was like posts.

[C]

And this was. Yeah, 2019 probably that I. I signed up.

[A]

Did I convert you on a webinar?

[C]

You did not. No, dude, I did.

[A]

I did like a. I don't know. I did a webinar a week for seven years in a row. Did you. Did you go on a webinar ever? You guys?

[D]

I think I got the pro membership because of a webinar. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Everyone, Dude, I have. Majority of our sales came from those.

[B]

I have notes still saved on my computer from the webinars. And it took me, believe it or not, I literally watched four. I have notes open 40 webinars and it took me that long. This will tell you I'm not that smart.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Like, it took me that long to realize that they're repeated.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Like they were the same. Like seven.

[A]

I did the same.

[B]

So, like, kind of sounds a little.

[A]

Behind the Scenes of like, what I'm doing.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It worked. A bigger pocket. So I'm literally just rinse and repeating the process right now. This year, my goal is to do 50 webinars in 2026 for better life, which Better Life is the parent company of two organizations, First Deal and Freedom Accelerator. So I'm just going to knock out hopefully a webinar a week. I mean, we're gonna have to ramp up to that. And then I might do a couple a week. Because my favorite thing in the world to do is get on a podcast. I mean, I get on a webinar and teach people real estate especially. Like, yeah, it' fun, right?

[C]

I love it, I love it, love it.

[A]

And so if I could do. If I could do an every day, I would do it every single day. Like, forget the sales part of it. Yeah, Webinars have a sales pitch usually at the end. Like, even if that wasn't there, I love seeing the light in people's, you know, digital eyes, so to speak, where they're like, oh, I get it. Like, I get it. Maybe I can transition to. Talk about the thing that changed my. My life. It's actually bigger pockets related the story, like, the advice that changed my life. I probably told the story before, but I'll say it again. What? What? When I first got into real estate, I very first got in, I bought a house. And I did not want to invest in real estate. I just bought a single family house. I lived in it for a while, fixing it up, made it nice. And then I decided to sell it. And I realized I could. I was going to make like 20 grand when I sold it, which I ended up making 20 grand when I sold it. And I remember thinking, like, this is more money than I will make as a lawyer. Like, for a dollar per hour, I made way more than I would ever make as a lawyer. And I was going to go to law school. I even took the lsat. So I remember I called my dad and I said something like, you know, hey, I decided I'm not going to go to law school. I'm going to go be a real estate investor. I'm going to buy rental properties. And my dad thought, you know, I mean, he's been, he's a good dad. He's like, you're. You're crazy. Like, you could go to law school. You can get into a really good school. You could be a lawyer set for life. Why would you, like, why would you do this? And his, his, I mean, he was very kind about it. But he basically said, what are you going to do if a tenant doesn't pay rent? Like you're going to be stuck. The tenant's not going to pay rent. You can't afford to pay their rent. Like to your story, Craig's like, Craig, like if you have $2,000 per unit and there's 20 units, like you're gonna come up with 40 grand. Brandon was basically what he was saying and I was like, oh, you're right, you're right, I don't have any money. Landlords can't. Like that's such a risky thing. And so I decided, nevermind, I'll go back to law school. And here's the advice that changed my life is I googled, what do you do when a tenant doesn't pay rent? Because I had no idea. I was just like, well clearly if you they don't pay rent, you're just screwed. You're out of money. And I found a little website on a little form. There was no blog even yet or podcast or YouTube. It little forum called Bigger Pockets. And it popped up an article or whatever you want to go forum thread called what to do when a tenant doesn't pay rent. And I read that and my mind exploded. Like it was people, just real landlords going, oh yeah, this is what I do when I they don't pay rent. I just issue a three day notice and then I do this and then I do that and I printed it out. I still have it saved in one of these boxes in here. Yeah, I still have it from almost 20 years ago. Probably 20 years ago. Jeez. Yeah, I still have that printout and it changed my life. Not because the advice of what to do when a 10 doesn't pay rent, but what it did is that exploded my mind. And like there are answers for all of the yeah buts that are out there, right? The yeah, but what about this? Yeah, but what about this? You're gonna lose your shirt. You don't have enough money. It takes a lot of money to invest in real estate. It takes a lot of capital. There's no good deals right now. There's, you know, 2012 was a good year to invest, not 2026. Every single thing a person says that why you shouldn't invest in real estate. There is somebody out there, and by somebody, I mean millions of people who are just doing that thing. And that's why it changed my life. Because I shifted from a mindset that said like can it be done? To how can it be done? And then going Forward anytime I had a problem. Like, the go to is like, can I just Google this? Go to BiggerPockets and ask, Can I go to ChatGPT? There's an answer to everything. So that's why that. That one moment changed my entire life.

[C]

It's amazing. What about the other moment? You were telling me this the other day, and it's my. It's my favorite story that you tell. You've told it before on this podcast about the funnel or the.

[D]

The water.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I could do that too. I.

[C]

That story.

[A]

So, okay, before the episode recorded, Craig actually made a great point. Craig said, well, the thing that made me a millionaire. What'd you say? It's not the same.

[B]

That made me a multimillionaire.

[A]

Yeah, they're different things, right? So I would say that first story made me a millionaire. But I'll say the second thing, the thing that made me a multi millionaire was the concept from the book Cash Flow Quadrant. Have you read that?

[C]

I have.

[A]

It's like the follow up to Richard Poor Dad. You guys know. So I read that, right? I mean, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And my. I was so excited, and I was like, this is the greatest book in history. And I read it multiple times. I was obsessed with Robert Kiyosaki and Rich Dad, Poor dad still am, like, obsessed with that book. I love Rich Dad, Poor dad. So did 95% of every podcast guest we ever had on BiggerPockets when we asked the book that changed their life. But then I followed up with Cash Flow Quadrant. I read that, and I was like, meh. It didn't do anything for me. So I put it down. I read it one time, ignored it, and then, you know, for the next 10 years, I built my real estate business and I built other businesses, and I got in bigger pockets and I did the whole thing. And then I reread Cash Flow Quadrant maybe five years ago, and I was like, oh, my gosh. I didn't realize how much of my life changed because of that book. It just didn't hit me at the exact moment then. But the lessons internalized. So here's the lesson that in that book that changed, that made me a multimillionaire. If I want to make this more, like, viral worthy for Instagram, I'd say this. This story from this amazing book made me a multimillionaire. And here's what it was. In the book Cash Flow Quadrant, Robert Kiyosaki tells the story of a town that runs out of water, right? And they have no Water. And they're like, well, what are you going to do without water? They hire two contractors to fix the problem. First contractor grabs a couple water buckets, walks seven miles down to a river, fills up the bucket, walks back, dumps it in the town bucket. There's a big, you know, whatever, swimming pool, we'll say, and it fills up. You know, he does it every day, and he fills up the thing with water, buckets of water. Town celebrates. Everyone's excited. But then he has to go back and do it again because the water disappears, because people are drinking it every day. He's hauling buckets back and forth. Pretty soon he has to haul two buckets, four buckets, eight buckets at a time. He's got a big rod on his back. He's carrying all these buckets. Gets his kids involved, doesn't pay him because he doesn't have money. So he just has to have his wife and kids hauling buckets. And he's exhausted, he's miserable. And he does it for several months, until one day, the second contractor, a nice female, shows up. Because they're smarter than us. She shows up, and she puts the final turn on a pipe, a nice metal pipe, and she turns the crank, and cold, cool, clean water pours out into the town bucket and overflows it. And she gets to sit down and rest. And so that story, like, went deep in my soul. And that might. You might be wondering, like, why did that. Why did that change my life so much? It was simply the idea of, like, you can go out and do a thing. Like, I mean, you could do it, get a job. You can go make money. You go out there and hunt for a bear. You could do a thing, or you can build a system that delivers that thing over and over and over and over. And so in my life, the reason that made me a multimillionaire is because, you know, one through bigger pockets, I had equity in them. And I used that concept of building a funnel with the webinars, and I said I could do a webinar. I did a webinar. I sold two pro memberships on the webinar. That was like 30 bucks a month each. And I was like, well, that's cool. So I did. I did another webinar a couple months later. That was cool. And then I was like, what if I do a webinar every single week? And then what if I get more? What if I start optimizing that funnel, that pipeline, to get more people there? So then the third webinar I did I sold a hundred pro memberships on one webinar. And that was the, I mean that was the game changing thing for biggerpockets and for my own life is because we built a funnel and we just drove thousands of people every week to the webinars and it just scaled up. The same thing with Instagram, same thing with raising capital through open door capital. Everything became a funnel, everything became a system. So I guess that to, to close it out and you guys, I would love, you know, we can talk about system all we want, but we have 37 minutes left of this podcast. It's like when I stopped thinking in terms of one offs and started thinking in terms of systems. This is how I get real estate. This is how I get employees. Everything becomes a system, a funnel, a process. Not one off stuff.

[C]

100 systems is what takes you to the next level.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's what makes you multimillionaire.

[C]

Anything in life, like looking at my company, I was really great at something and that was building relationships that allowed me to buy houses and I, I became a millionaire, even like a multimillionaire from that. Then building the system of how do I take everything that's in my head and the way that I build relationships and the way that I analyze deals and what I'm looking for and putting that into a system so then I could hire seven, eight other acquisition managers to come and do that. That is what's taken us to the next level. And so I, I, I got a.

[A]

Buddy, I got a buddy who does. He built a system out of Tinder. So he hired a bunch of VAs to just line up dates for him every time he travels. Because he travels all the time.

[C]

It's me, it's me.

[A]

Yeah, it's not you. It's none of the gentlemen, this podcast. But he just lines up dates. And so he has hundreds of dates a year with Tinder girls because he built a system. And I'm not, I'm not saying you should do that, but he has hundreds of dates a year and it seems.

[C]

But you can use his process to.

[A]

Get hundreds real estate deals a year. Yeah.

[B]

I've got a quick question for both of you guys actually. So both of you, at least from my brief interaction, you guys are really great at relationships and really good at sales and really good at that. Usually the same person that's good at sales is not good at like building the systems. Is that true? And if so, are you guys the one to build the systems and follow them?

[C]

I, so here, here's here's what I would say is I'm great at thinking about the system and being like that seems like it would work. But then the actual building and maintaining of the system I'm absolutely terrible at. Now we have hired on a guy in our company, his name's Taylor. I don't think he listens this podcast, but if he does, he's, he's amazing. He is, he is absolutely amazing. And he is. What's so cool is like we will sit and I'll tell him like basically like getting all the thoughts out of my, like this would be really cool and I think this would work and I would think this would work and I think this would work. And then three days later he has like put it together into a system for us to actually use. And so the answer is no, I am not good at building and maintaining a system. I do think I'm really good at thinking through the system that would probably work. Is that, does that make sense at all?

[B]

100%.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say I, I think anybody can outline a system like they can dream, like visually a visionary can dream up a system like let's say when I talk a system that might get overwhelming to people. Let's just say the system is you are going to buy a co living property. So how would you set up a repeatable over and over system that you just buy property? So maybe it would be like, okay, I'm gonna every Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 2 to 2 o' clock to 3 o', clock, I'm gonna go to Zillow, I'm gonna do this search thing and I'm gonna put them in the CRM and then I'm go follow up with, analyze these, I'm going to make these offers, I'm going to buy these deals. And if you did that every single week, you would buy property. Now I can think of that. But here's the thing that like again, a piece of advice that changed my life. I wish I knew who told me this originally, but the idea was this, if you want a system to work, make sure the people working the system can't feed their families if they fail. In other words, like if, if you like, I don't work the system because I just, I'm already, I'm already rich. Like I'm not gonna do the system because I just, I'll go scroll TikTok instead. But like if I hire someone, an employee, they have to work my system. That's what a company is. It's a series of systems. So they have to work it. And if they don't work it, they lose their job. They can't feed their family. So the incentive is to work the system well, even if they're not good at a system. Of course you want to hire good system people, but the incentive has to be, you can't feed your family. You don't get paid if you don't work the system. So I build a system, you run the system, and then the best people, like, the people, I mean, best people are people who can optimize the system. Like I built it. You make it better, and then maybe you hire people to run the system. But you're my optimizer, and that's like the most valuable role in the world for a visionary.

[C]

But do you build? Because I, I'm terrible at building a system. I'm great at, I'm great at thinking through the system. So, like, let's use Taylor, for example, and, and just a simple thing in our business which has changed our businesses, like just walking houses and putting together a rehab budget where like, I had it all in my head. Like, he want these types of pictures, and inside the house, we want these pictures. And. And I just sat with Taylor for two hours on a zoom call, was like, here's what we need. And then the next day he had a job form built out and then an app built where you click on the app, it has every picture that you need, it takes that app, it scrubs it against our last 30 flips and the pictures that it takes, and it spits out a rehab budget. And then our home buying specialist can go through and look at that. And like, that system was built like that. I never, like, in my mind, I'm like, this is what I want. But I never could have actually taken the time to build that.

[A]

Yeah, same.

[C]

But Taylor is like, does that, does that make sense?

[A]

Yeah, they're systems people. They just think in that, in that way and they know the technology to be able to do it.

[C]

Yeah. And he like going to the disc. We talk about the disc a lot, but he's a very high C. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, that's what you'd want.

[C]

Yes. And he's a, he's a very high D and C. I'm a very high dni. So, like, when it comes to, like, data, I'm just not that guy. But I can think it through.

[A]

Brockway, are you a systems guy or are you.

[D]

I'm more of a visionary, I would say. But I can design the system. I'm just, I just don't want to be the guy doing it. Yeah, I can do it, but I hate my life when I'm doing it.

[C]

So I'm there right now in our business.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I just don't want to do the system. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[D]

I'll say it goes beyond the system. Like my. When you were talking about how you get to be initially a millionaire or wealthy and then what the next step is initially you can push through yourself. The hard work, the dedication, what you're doing individually can get you to become a millionaire. But. But to make to that next phase, it relies on other people. Those systems have to be there for those individuals or those people that are talented in that area. They can build the system. So I would say it's more so people versus the actual.

[C]

So because looking at my business, I'm really good at this. But then my entire business relied on me to build relationships and to find deals and then so building a system where it's like I can train other people to do what I did and maybe they don't even have to be as great as me, but they have to be 70% to where I was or something like that is the game changer there where you can get other people on board, then you get your.

[D]

Time back and do those more impactful things.

[A]

We hired a business coach this year, a guy named Gary Harper. Gary and Susan with Sharper Solutions. They're great. I don't get paid to say that they're great. But one thing that they insist on in their coaching I guess of us is every single week our executive team gets together and they design one system. And so we sit down and we. By what I mean by that is we actually map it out. So like lead comes in box, arrow, you know, maybe two arrows. Lead is, you know, qualified. Lead is not qualified. If it's not qualified, it goes here and like we just draw it out. Now honestly, I don't even do. I've done one. My team's done like 20 of them so far. And they get to one. Yeah. One meeting every single week where the entire executive team gets together and they build one. So at the end of a year you've got 50 plus documented built out flowcharts of how your company functions. It's beautiful.

[C]

Do you guys iterate on those or do you use every single one? Or is it like this one's gold? We're going to take that and use it.

[A]

So what the way that they use it in their coaching is then when something's broken in your Business, they go to your flowchart and they say, okay, we're going to diagnose where it's broken in here. So show me your metrics here, show me your numbers here. Oh, right here is where it fell apart because your sales guy's not good enough or because you're not walking enough things or your Facebook ads are bad. But otherwise, what most of us do is we just look at the bottom line and we' oh, we didn't make enough money, we didn't buy enough houses this year. Okay, we gotta try harder next year. But instead it's like, oh, we didn't buy enough houses because boom. And they can pinpoint in the process what's broken.

[C]

So good, because, I mean, like a lot of people, myself included, because I'm a terrible business runner, is we look at the bottom line and like, well, let's just try harder. And like, but it's like, but where do we need to try harder at? And with that, you can pinpoint exactly what it is. We need to walk more houses. We need to get better at sales. We need to. That's amazing. I love that.

[B]

All right, well, sorry, one more thing I want to add real quick. Just because I took a long time and I, like, was listening to the podcast and all that kind of stuff and it was like, I need to build systems. I need to build systems. And I'm not the systems guy either. I'm just like, you guys. And what I realized is, like, how do you figure out, like, maybe you're listening to this and it's your first or second deal and you don't know if you're the systems guy, you're the sales guy. I would say, like, for me, it's envision what your perfect day looks like. Like, for me, my perfect day is like, I'm on meetings with amazing people all day and I'm talking to them and we're like, building relationships and putting things in motion.

[A]

That's the worst day I can imagine.

[C]

That's the worst.

[A]

Is it?

[B]

I love. I love that day.

[C]

I'm more like you. Yeah, but I'm not doing anything. I'm more of just overseeing, talking and talking about cool things and brainstorming, but I'm not. I'm not actually doing it.

[B]

And then I go. I go send. Send an email and tell someone else to go do the thing that we just talked about.

[D]

About.

[C]

I don't want to send the email either.

[A]

Send me an email and tell me to write something. And I'm just going to write it. That's my ideal day. Eight hours of writing.

[C]

Much like that, though.

[A]

That's so funny.

[B]

So that's kind of like, that's how you know, like I think who, who maybe like you kind of are. Cuz like my, my business partner, he looks at my calendar and he is like, bro, like, get out of here. Like, he, he's kind of like you, Brandon. Where he just wants to like be typing code and all the systems and optimizing all day. And I'm like, that's like the worst day of my life.

[C]

That's so.

[B]

So. Yeah, I think it's just like so, so, you know, figure out what bucket you're in. And then you kind of know, are you the, the sales guy or you're the. The system operations guy?

[C]

Love that.

[A]

Mike Brockway, what advice changed your life? What made you a millionaire?

[D]

I think I'm still going through this progression. I would say right now it does come back to the who, not how and the systems and the team. But I also really early on someone told me, like, figure out what you're passionate about. Like, what's your passion? Find your passion. I thought about that. That term or that, that phrase, find your passion. Probably like, like from when I got out of college for 10 years until I was in my first job and I hated it that I wasn't passionate about it. Similar stories. I was working in asset management at a Goldman Sachs company and then Fidelity Investments after that. And I just remember I was just miserable. And I'm like, okay, what am I passionate about? What do I care about? And I think what I realized, it's, you don't have to find that thing right away. It's you can find it throughout your journey. And I started doing real estate because I wanted to be financially free. I wanted to make my own schedule, didn't want to have a boss, I didn't want to go to the 9 to 5, go to the office. And none of that, right? So I did the next best thing. Bought my first house, was investing for cash flow. But it was a means to an end. And now I'm honing in what I'm passionate about. After getting to Airbnb, I realized I like doing remodels, I like doing design, I'm creative, but I don't love, you know, dealing with Airbnbs and that being my full time thing. And so now I'm going into ground up development because I think it'll be fun to design something and create something out of nothing and just tiptoe closer to something I'm passionate about and that will also build a lifestyle that I'm. That I want to enjoy.

[A]

How do you look at people who are like, I, I. Not that I'm not passionate, but I'm passionate about things that don't make me any money whatsoever. Like, I just want to help dogs. I love dogs. What advice do you have? Do you think they should follow that passion and just be broke the rest of their life? What advice would you have for people about fallen passion when it's just a. I asked that because what's his name? Warren Buffett has a great quote and I'm gonna butcher it. But he basically says, I don't know why I. Like, I'm obsessed with stocks. It was in. It was. I could have been obsessed with being a school teacher, but I'm not. And so it's like some people are just passionate about things that don't make more. Don't make any money whatsoever. Any advice for them.

[C]

As you're getting that? It's all, I warned you guys.

[D]

It's all, okay, go pee.

[A]

We'll keep this going.

[D]

It's all situational. If you have big goals and you want to have a nice house, live in Hawaii, live anywhere in the world you want to, then you need to obviously make money. But if you're okay maybe working at an animal shelter or working for a non profit, or spending a lot of your time doing that and it meets your lifestyle, then great. Follow that passion and make it your priority. I also think that you can intertwine that into something that produces more revenue. I think in your, your case, you know, you have better life.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And a portion of those proceeds or the profits. Right. Go to charity. And so it's bringing purpose to the better life tribe.

[A]

Yeah. So you can still do your thing and then the passion comes. Because when I make money, I can donate it away and then support my actual passion, like my deeper passion.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And so people can do that as well. I think. Yeah. You don't want to be miserable. I think that's a big, like, there's. I'm not every day waking up passionate to go and do real estate, necessarily. I mean, I was for a long time, but like, there's days that you're just not passionate. I'm sure, Craig, you're the same way. Cam's probably always passionate. He's a passionate guy. But like, But I heard Gary Vaynerchuk once, the social media guy, once, Gary V. Said something like he was talking about how to get your employees Motivated and get them passionate. And he's like. He's like, people like to throw ping pong tables and foosball and video games. He's like, that's not what people need. They need a win. People are passionate about winning. When you're winning, everyone's passionate. And so, like, I. I think of that sometimes as like. Like, if you're making money and you're having, like, you're doing, you're not stuck in an office. You control a large level of what you do. You have a lot of agency in how you control your day and your life and you're making money. I don't know many people that would just be miserable doing that. Like, it's like. And then you just do that, and then you take your money and put it towards. Either put your money towards your passion or buy back your time and then go do your helping dogs, you know, charity.

[D]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

What do you say about the guy that, like, I think all of us probably our first real estate deal probably went okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Because. And I think that's a lot of people.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And so what happens if your first real estate deal is kind of a dud? How do you tell that person, like, keep going. It'll be better. Right?

[A]

Dude, I think, I think. I mean. Hi, Cam. Welcome back. How was the bathroom?

[C]

It was great, man.

[A]

Was it outside?

[B]

Did you wash your hands?

[D]

Not outside.

[C]

I did wash my hands. I wish I went to your.

[A]

Oh, you're outside. Okay.

[C]

But if I could have. If I knew that was an option, I would have.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Went outside.

[A]

There's going to be something right there.

[C]

There's nothing better than peeing and nature.

[A]

I agree. It's great. Repeat the question again for Cam, who's not here.

[B]

So I imagine that all of us had somewhat successful first real estate deals because we. If we weren't successful, we probably wouldn't have done the second one. We wouldn't be sitting on this couch right now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what do you tell the guy that has a failed first real estate deal to keep pushing? Because real estate is a fantastic way to build wealth.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, the way I look at it. Yeah. My first deal was okay. My second deal was okay. Third deal was terrible. And then I did a lot of really bad deals and then came back. So I think the same advice I would give people is what I told myself when it was not going well is like, this does work. It just didn't work for me this time. Like, millions of people have proven this work. So it's like pulling back and saying big picture, this works. And also the first deal, I tell people this all the time. Inside, first deal. Firstdeal.com check it out. Inside first deal. I'm like, the first deal doesn't actually matter. Like it matters for experience, knowledge, education, whatever. The money from your first deal does not matter at all. Like what do you make of. Even if you were amazing, you did a co living, it worked perfectly. You made 1500 bucks a month in profit, which like who does that on the first deal? But let's say you did that doesn't matter. In fact, it might even be worse for you because now you think that every deal is going to go great.

[B]

Yes, yes, exactly.

[C]

I, I, our first deal was miserable. I just wanted to get into real estate and I'd been listening to this guy talk loser. And so we, we bought a house without knowing anything about what we were doing. It was built in 1904. I thought the rehab budget was going to be like 30, 40 grand. It was $130,000. My wife and I had to move in there mattress with 18 month old and a 6 week old and our dog and we rehabbed it ourselves and didn't make any money and we ended up losing money. So it was terrible. But I, I kind of go back to what Brandon said. The, the first thing was like we did it. Like that there was something that was so like powerful about like we actually did it. Like we, we did it. We said what we were going to do and we did it. And so there was like this check mark in my mind mentally of like I do the things that I say I'm going to do, which I had been saying I was going to invest in real estate. The other thing though, and I think this is more important is I kept telling myself there is somebody out there doing it, so I can do it, if that makes sense. And so I was like, what you just said, like there are other people. There are people all over the world. And that time I was very into the bigger pockets blog posts and like people are doing it and making it work. Why can't I? And so, so we continued after that first deal and it worked out. Our second deal was amazing.

[A]

That's why I think the podcast was so big at BiggerPockets because it just told stories of people doing it and we're just normal people and you're just like, oh Jesus, they could do it.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

That moron can do it. I can do it.

[C]

That was exactly what I told Myself. Every single day is like, okay, this was a failure. But there's other people doing it, and they're doing it successfully. And we signed up for a mastermind that was like a thousand bucks a month. It was the greatest thousand dollars a month I've ever spent. Not because I learned so much, but I just saw other people in that mastermind that frankly, I. I felt like, hey, I'm smarter than. I'm better, like, at relationships, and you guys are crushing it. I can do this too, if that makes sense.

[A]

That's the biggest value of a mastermind, I think, is just being around people who are doing cool stuff and then going like, well, if they can do it, I can do it.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah. I feel like it's really powerful to, like, sit, like, be around people where your goals are their everyday life. Yeah, right. Like, I. I can't remember where I heard that, but I was just like, like, do you.

[A]

I say, yeah, surround yourself with people who make the impossible look like a Tuesday morning. Yeah, Like, I love that idea. I think it's kind of a riff off of something Jason Dries told me once. Like, do the impossible was like, get around people who make the impossible look normal.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Another Tuesday morning.

[B]

Even if it's like. And that goes for anything like real estate investing, of course. Right. Like, it's pretty crazy for any of us to even have. Like, if someone had four houses, you already have more houses than like 99% of the population. But in a room like this, you have four houses and you're kind of like a pipsqueak, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, like, you get into this room and you're only going to get wealthier.

[A]

Same thing.

[B]

Even if you want like a six pack. Right. Go hang out with people with six.

[A]

Packs and you'll get a six pack.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

We were talking about.

[A]

I'm here with Brockway. I mean. Yeah, you guys both have.

[B]

We don't have.

[C]

What about. What about me?

[B]

There's a six pack right down there.

[A]

I've gotten bigger, stronger upper body since hanging out with you. Do you think that's why?

[C]

Yeah, for sure. We're going to Powerhouse and making you put 225.

[D]

You.

[C]

You said somebody else taught you to how to bench 225. I think I was the one that was spotting you when you did that.

[A]

No, no.

[C]

At Maui Powerhouse.

[A]

No, it was here.

[B]

Wait a second. No, you can bench 225 brand one.

[A]

One day.

[B]

One day. One day. One time.

[A]

My goal was 225 by 40. And so I Did it? No. This guy Alex, at the REI summit last year. So we.

[C]

He's from Arkansas.

[A]

The, like, just a big, strong dude. He does like a.

[C]

Is he partially different?

[A]

No, I don't think so. Maybe he might be Hispanic, I think.

[C]

Is he from Arkansas?

[A]

I don't remember. I think so, though.

[C]

I. I know who you're talking about.

[A]

Anyway, this guy, big, strong guy. I just remember seeing this guy with huge arms. And I was like, dude, I've been trying to bench 225 for the last year. I want to do it by 40. This is a piece of advice. This applies to real estate. But I'm like. I'm like, I just. I can't get. I'm kicking above 185. I'm just stuck there. And again, this guy's got, like, well over 200. I did 205 once with you. That's what it was.

[C]

So he got you £15 or £20.

[A]

One in a month.

[C]

But it. Yeah, you got. You got to get your shoulder blade.

[A]

It wasn't that. You know what he told me?

[C]

Rip the ball.

[A]

I just asked him, and he goes, dude, if you're at. If you're at 185 and you can do 205 once, he goes, you can do 225 in. In. What do you say, Two months or a month? Whatever. He goes, all I want you to do. He goes, all I want you to do is I want you to do a lower weight. I want you to do it 15 times instead of doing the higher weight, lower reps like they always tell you to do. He's like, if you want to increase it, trust me. He's like, just do it. Do 165 and do it 15 to 20 times. Times and do that three sets and then do that every week. I did that, and I just went from like 205, 215, 225 in, like, in less than a month.

[C]

And that's the exact opposite advice that I would give you.

[A]

I know.

[C]

Do 225.

[A]

No, I always do a really good. I know, but he said. He said, do the lower weight. Do it more often. He's like, the other one builds you more size. You don't want size. You wanted weight. You want to do more weight. If you want more weight, do lower rep or do higher reps, lower weight. Here's the lesson, though, is I could take that advice from Cam. Can you do 225 right now?

[C]

Yes, I can.

[A]

I can do it.

[C]

20 could probably do it. I think I did 19.

[A]

I was trying to do it on my own for a long time. Here's the real estate twist here. I was trying to do it on my own for a long time, and I was not getting anywhere. I was not improving because I wasn't getting feedback from someone who's already done it. This is the power of masterminds and mentorship, is you get around people who make the impossible look like a Tuesday morning, 2:25. And he was like, yeah, just. Just do this. Follow this program and you'll do fine. And I did it. It worked. And today I don't even think I could do 205 because it's been a long.

[C]

My favorite, actually, right now, the most. The most I've. I've is there's a. There's a workout program called like 5x5. And it's squat, deadlift, push press, bench press, and rows. And it's like you just do one every day, five by five, as heavy as you can. And once you can complete the 5x5, you go up £5 and you just continue building. I like that if you're trying to.

[A]

Gain weight, you know, I like about the two. It's a system.

[C]

It's a system system.

[A]

It's not. It's not. I'm gonna go and do the bench one day. It's. I'm gonna do a five by five, and I'm gonna do it until.

[C]

Yeah, and then you'll do some auxiliary lifts and stuff. But like that, that. I probably did that in my 20s at some point, but that was the most I ever saw. And I did that for a while. Like, it was the only thing. But I just. Every. Every couple weeks, I was adding more weight to my squat, to my bench, to my.

[A]

Here's. Here's another advice that made me millions there. And that is, like in. Based on what you're saying here, and I'll use a metaphor again, that the 5x5 totally works, right? I'm sure it does. So did the thing that this guy Alex taught me to. To do the lower, whatever. So did 75 hard. I bet that works really well. So does going to lree or Pilates, right? They all work. What doesn't work is not picking one and anything works. Yes, it all works. So in real estate, like, like when newbies come to me all the time, and this is my advice going into 20, 26 and beyond is like, what should I do? It's like, it doesn't matter. It all works just like a diet, just like an exercise Program. It all works now. Could some work better and some.

[C]

But yeah, just do it.

[A]

Yeah, just do pick your thing. So if it's co living, it's like this. Does co living work for people right now in the U.S. craig?

[B]

A hundred percent, yes.

[A]

So will it work for you watching this? Yes. Now it might not work everywhere. I would not do it in, in, I don't know, whatever. The country of Iowa. Like a countryside of Iowa where there's like four tenants. Because that's just, that'd be weird, right? It's not gonna work in everywhere. But generally speaking, does co living work in Denver?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. So let's do that there. Does short term rentals work in Denver where you're at?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And Craig gives me a hard time about this all the time, but I'm doing one thing. I stuck to it.

[A]

Yeah, you just did it.

[D]

Most people out and you reduce risk where you can't.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. There is no best. There's not one thing that's better than anything else. I could find a millionaire in every single niche and mult multimillionaire in every single niche and that person would be 100% sold that their thing is the best thing for them. And so the advice going in the 2026 and beyond is just like pick your thing, doesn't matter. It's more important that you decide than what you decide.

[C]

That, that. And I think that's so important because so often and I look at this with health because I'm really bad about that where it's like I gotta find that perfect diet or perfect lifting program and if I can't find it, I'm just not gonna do anything thing versus like hey, if, if you're eating carnivore or whole 30 or whatever, whatever it may be or Paleo or I, I don't know, whatever it is.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

For me it's like I gotta find that perfect thing what matches. Like if you just pick one thing and stick with it no matter what, you're gonna be successful.

[D]

Don't get distracted either.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

It's easy to easy.

[C]

So it's so easy to be like, oh, that guy's gonna eat carbs and he's counting his macros and I'm just eating meat all the time. Like I want that. Yeah, jump over to that. And then, oh, oh, this guy's doing this and he's fasting, you know, 18 hours a day. I'm gonna do that.

[B]

So I'd say it's not even just asset class, which is what we're talking about here, whether it's co living or STRs or multifamily, but I get this all the time. It's also the market where you invest.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like there are people buying deals in every market. Yes. Every single day. And they're all doing really great things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So stop trying to like look through all the city data stats and all the craziness. Just pick a place. Probably just your backyard.

[C]

Just start there. Usually your backyard. I have that all the time with like, cause I'm in St. Louis, that's where I invest and it's cheaper there. So somebody from the west coast will reach out and be like, but how do you do it in the west coast? Like what you're saying, it just doesn't work here. And I'm like, maybe my exact strategy doesn't work, but here's 20 people that I know there that are crushing it. And so if you have to do ADUs or if you have to do high end flips, like no matter what, there's somebody in every market and even asset class that is crushing it in that specific market. Like there's no market that is a bad market.

[D]

Just.

[A]

Yeah, you just gotta pick one and go with it. That's inside the first deal program and Freedom Accelerator, which is what the Better Life Tribe now is being called. This is not a sales pitch for it, but I'm just gonna give you what we tell everybody is like, like I said, it's more important that you decide than what you decide. So like week one, we call it fast track. It's like the first five weeks of when you join the either program, we force people, so to speak, to identify their crystal clear criteria. What strategy you're gonna do, what location you're gonna do it in, what property type, what condition do you wanna buy in, what price range do you wanna buy in a good deal. We call it profitability. You nail those six things down like, and then you say I'm going to go all in on that. Like I don't care if you're trying to buy your first deal or you're trying to scale up to financial freedom. That's the two programs. It's like just do that. Decide I'm going all in on this one thing, I'm going to commit to it. And if you don't know what that thing is, that's okay. Listen to a couple podcasts and even like, oh, I don't really know what market co living works in. Find one podcast with somebody doing co living and just do it in Their market. Like, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just do it in Denver. Like, do it Denver.

[B]

We got the Co Living show.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

And you even have, like, people, like, on podcasts, like, you could literally call Craig Kerlop and say, I want to buy a Co Living Denver. And he will help you do that. And you, like, he gets paid on this. Like, on the. When you buy the things, remember, the.

[C]

Best ones he's keeping for himself.

[B]

That is absolutely correct.

[A]

Yeah. So, yeah, I think that idea of just going all in, making decisions, being somebody who's decisive. I read that in a fiction book once. It was about a military operation. Just like, I can't remember what fiction book it was, but it was like a fiction book about a military operation. And the general or like, the leader basically said to the. This other, like, civilian, like, you have to. Like, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. You have to pick. And we're gonna follow you wherever you go. But in the military, you pick and you go, what's gonna kill us is standing still. And the civilian, like, was like, oh, my gosh. I didn't know that. And I was. I was like, oh, that's really good advice. Like, kills you with standing still.

[C]

Who Was in the 50? Who. Who talks about that a lot?

[A]

Military guy. Yeah, he's here this weekend. You know that?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, we're doing.

[A]

We're going this weekend. Do you know about this?

[C]

No. Because I don't get invited anything.

[A]

Yeah. Tomorrow we're gonna go 50 reunion. Is that tomorrow at AX? Yeah.

[C]

Okay. Yeah, I did.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay. You know. Okay. Just making sure you knew that there's a 50.

[C]

Well, no, you. You had something last week that I didn't get invited to, so it's cool. But he talks about that where he's like. Like, now I can't get off the fact that I didn't get invited.

[A]

He was a mastermind for venture capitalists.

[C]

Yeah, I'm a venture capitalist.

[A]

You're not. I'm a venture capitalist. You're not a venture capitalist. The mastermind for venture capitalist.

[C]

I raise money.

[A]

Yeah. That's not the same thing. It's people for who?

[C]

What is a venture capitalist?

[A]

That's by companies, and they have multiple holdings.

[D]

Sounds so cool.

[A]

It's actually for people who own Hold Co. Yeah, that's what it was. Mastermind. It was not for real estate people.

[C]

There. There's real estate.

[A]

Let me.

[C]

Let me talk about this for one second. They have raised, like, $200,000 and, like, yeah, I' a fund manager.

[A]

I'm this. I'm like, you're.

[C]

You're not you 100%.

[B]

You are.

[A]

You can say whatever you want.

[C]

Just. Yeah, but they just, like, that makes them feel powerful.

[A]

I mean, I know people who, like, invest in a syndication and they like, oh, I have 3,000 units. I'm like, you put in 12 grand into Grant Cardone syndication. You do not own thousands of.

[C]

You're a fund manager. You're not this 3,000 unit or 10,000 unit owner. Like, oh, that. That stuff, that stuff. That's why I'm off Instagram. That is why I'm off Instagram. Especially because, like, being on this podcast, I've met a lot of these people, and I'm like, wait, you told me that you were struggling to pay for groceries two weeks ago, and you're on Instagram saying, oh, I just flipped this house and made so much money, and I've got. It makes me so mad.

[D]

Oh, don't fake it till you make it.

[C]

Oh, my gosh.

[D]

In most scenarios, yeah, I agree.

[A]

All right, what's your advice? Did you get one yet?

[C]

I have not.

[A]

What's your advice? We have eight minutes left of this podcast.

[C]

I think it's got me fired up, though.

[A]

We have five minutes for your advice, and we have three minutes for an outro.

[C]

So my advice, and it's happened in waves, but I would say, like, one of the one thing that I specifically remember, um, so. So how I got Into Real Estate, 2017, was at a buddy's house. He was flipping a house off of Zephyr street in Denver, and he was listening to your book. The book, or it might have been 2018. The book on rental or real estate investing.

[B]

Property investing.

[C]

Yeah. And so I listened to that, and I was like, oh, I like this guy. And you. I think you had an entire chap chapter in there about, like, faith as well. Are you talking about.

[A]

Mentioned it?

[C]

Yeah, you mentioned it. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna start listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast from that. Decided to get into real estate. I was like, okay, I'm gonna.

[A]

I'm gonna get you saying, to sell bigger pocketships 100%.

[C]

So decided to get into real estate. And what that looked like was, we moved from Denver to St. Louis because it was cheaper there. And in my mind, I was like, I'm going to. I'm going to. We're going to live, like, well below our means. We were living with Lexi's parents at the time, and I'm going to save up like $20,000 a year to put it down on $100,000 house. And over the next 20 years, we're going to try and buy a house a year. And by the time I'm at this time, I'm like 26, 27. By the time I'm, I'm, you know, 50 years old, I might own 25 houses. And that was my plan. But then I read which I always thought this was your book, but David Green's bur. Yes. And in the first or second chapter of this, My word, in the first or second chapter of that book, he basically. I don't, I don't know if you guys read the book or remember the book, but he compared two guys. He's like, this is Tom, this is John. John basically did the method that I was was planning on doing where he saves up. He puts it down on a house and then does it again and again and again. And this is what his wealth looks like in 20 years. And this is John where he uses the burr method where he borrows money, finds a house off market, fix it up, burrs out of it. And when I read that, that was, that was literally like, oh my goodness, like one. I didn't think it was true. I thought that like it was a scam. But I was like, okay, okay, this sounds incredible. Let's try this. And so I said, Our first deal was terrible. Our second deal, we bought for like $65,000. We put 30 into it, so we were all in for 95. We got it appraised at like 160. Bank gave us an 80% LTV. So not only did we pull out all the money we had into it, but we put in, pulled out another $20,000 that we put into the bank. Now at the end of that first one, I was like, oh, oh, David Green was right. David Green was right. My words like the burr. And so like for the first two years, that was what made us a millionaire. Millionaires is like the first two years, everything we touched, we bird. And it was incredible. And we built up, I think in two years, we probably built up 60 single family doors from that does burn.

[A]

Still work in 2026, do you guys think?

[C]

No.

[A]

What do you don't think?

[B]

So market dependent.

[C]

Market dependent. Also in St. Louis, which is a great market, like with interest rates where they're at and with the price and prices aren't expensive there, but like if you've got a bank that's only giving you like a 1.2 DSCR loan on it man you got to find a good deal.

[B]

Dude.

[A]

We had a first deal student just yesterday on the call they went on the mls. I think it was in Ohio somewhere. But anyway went on MLS found a. They sorted by how long it's been listed. They found a duplex had been on the market for 200 days. They was at listed at 150. They offered 115, got it accepted and they're going to burr it. It's like I don't know, it was 25 grand worth of work. It could be worth 200 grand when it's done. And they're going to be a dual perfect burr right now. And like this is a time I believe that burr works where last year was harder. I think that there are better deals today than there were a year ago.

[C]

Yeah. Burr's work I think for what we focus on we're. We're class A class B rental properties.

[A]

Class A is.

[C]

Yeah, class A is hard which in. In St. Louis like what we were doing was we were buying for 150. We were putting 50 into it. Getting a price at 275. It was renting for about, about the 1% rule. And that would work with lower interest rates. Now the 1% rule doesn't work with higher interest.

[A]

Are you getting the bird of work though? Can you get a bird of work? Forget the cash flow component, the equity side, can you make it work?

[C]

Because if you buy equity side you can make it work all day.

[A]

Yeah. So then you just combine bank with co living or with rent by the. Yeah. Or short term rental or midterm rentals.

[C]

If you can figure out a way to cash flow that property more than just the long term which is all we do. We only do long term rentals. If you can figure out a way to cash flow more then it'll work. But on just long term monthly, you know, year long lease. It's tough because typically I'm seeing like with that the DSCRs coming in at like 0 8.9 and most banks want you to be at one point to my. My bank's pretty cool so they'll look at my global portfolio. So I can still sometimes make it work. But yeah, it's not working like it used to. But that was what made me a millionaire was that that thought process of like using leverage, using banks. I, I'd never, I'd never thought of that before.

[B]

You know one thing that's kind of like about your story that it's like really I'm hearing is when you started Real estate investing. You had a kind of a limited mindset of like, I'm gonna do one deal a year for 25. And that's, like, really easy to just like. Like, it feels so achievable when you've never done a deal. But as you do one deal, two deals, it's so easy to just, like, exponentially grow that. And before you know it, you do 25 deals in a year.

[C]

Yeah, we did. We did in one year what I was thinking that I would do in 25 years.

[D]

Yep.

[B]

See that. So much as we grow.

[A]

Cool here. We got two minutes left. I want to end this show with 30 second piece of advice for people going into 2026. What's your best wealth? Building, real estate, investing, et cetera. Advice for people in 2026. I'll begin. So you guys have a second? Because you didn't know what's coming, I'm gonna say this. It's a piece of advice that was told to me years ago. I was on a webinar about Internet marketing. But he drew two islands, and he said, if you have to get from this island, where you are today to this island, which is, you know, fantasy island, millionaire island, financial freedom island, you can. And you can't take a boat or a plane. You can only build a bridge. Is it faster to build five bridges or one bridge? He said, build one bridge. Once you get there, you can build as many bridges as you want, but focus on one thing until you get to that financial freedom number. So that's the advice I have, is make a decision and stick with that until you get freedom, and then you can have all the fun you want with your side projects.

[B]

For me, it would be live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later. And whether that's like the frugal. Yeah, The Dave Ramsey. That's what hit me hard. And whether that's like a frugality thing, if that's kind of your road, or if it's, you're going to work harder than anybody else at this venture you're going to do, but you got to do something way bigger, way better, way harder than everybody else.

[A]

I've never thought of that quote in terms of. Of working harder. I've always thought of it in terms of budgeting. But you're right. It works both ways. That's. That's awesome.

[B]

Y.

[D]

We were just talking about this on the beach earlier. Craig and I have been friends for 10 years now and that we met at a conference. And so I would Say, focus on what you want to do and pick one thing and. And whatnot, and have that foundational money coming in. But get around the right people and make meaningful, impactful connections that are going to last years and stick around on those.

[A]

Like at the REI Summit 2026, which you can get to at reisummit2026.com. Would love to have you there. Use code CAM10. I don't know why we're giving CAM10. I don't CAM the benefit, but whatever.

[D]

Great.

[C]

Because I think I did get 10%.

[A]

I think you get 10% of the. You get some kind of affiliate on.

[C]

Go sign up right now.

[A]

Right now. And prices go up every week. That's actually a thing we do. We just keep raising the price. So you're always incentivized to sign up now. All right, final advice.

[C]

My.

[A]

My would be. And this is 14.

[C]

I've said this a lot.

[A]

14. Bet.

[C]

Bet on yourself. I. I think betting on yourself is so important. I think there's a lot of people that are sitting on the sidelines thinking, I can't do this. If I. If I can do it. If Brandon can do it, that guy can do it. If that guy can do it, like, oh, there we go. I'm done. Bet on yourself in 2026. You will not regret it.

[A]

Bet on. Bet on yourself. All right, everyone, thanks so much for watching today. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Mike. And let's go hang out on the beach.

[B]

Yeah, let's do it.