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Creating Passive Wealth: Buying Back Time with Jarod Alexander · The Capitalizing Your Life Podcast

• Glenn (00:03.18) Today my guest is Jared Alexander with Optimal Equity Group. Welcome, Jared. Jarod Alexander (00:09.705) Hey Glenn, thanks for having me. Glenn (00:12.012) Yeah, glad to have you on. We're in the same mastermind group and saw you in a few interactions and I figured I'd have you on the podcast. If you could just tell us a little bit about your story of how you got to where you're at today. Jarod Alexander (00:26.217) Yeah, yeah, thanks again. I kind of go back. So I'm originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina. And I say that because I remember growing up, my grandfather, I mean, he had me on a tractor and he was doing some construction and at his commercial property, come to find out. And I... I found out, I remember when I was probably what, 10 or 12 years old, I remember him retiring, moving out here to Phoenix, Arizona, which is where I'm currently at now. And he was about 50 years old and he lived off the money he was producing from that commercial property ever since. I mean, he's just passed 80 years old and hasn't, you know, worked a W -2 job, so to speak. since he was 50 years old and has been retired. So that always kind of stuck in my mind. And, you know, so he owned a flooring business and then I ended up passing that down to my mom and I eventually got into that as well. And so I grew up, I started learning how to make quick money. You know, I feel like, Glenn, you probably relate to this. We always kind of had that entrepreneurial. Spirit inside of us at a young age. I mean I was cutting yards, you know going around selling stuff around the neighborhood Just trying to make any money I could but when I finally got into sales I started seeing okay Hey, I can make some real money here and that was at the flooring business and and so anyway, I started you know started you know creating some revenue and but I and I'm and during this time to my mom had some single -family rentals and that I used to go help her out, you know, get, make some extra money when I was a kid, you know, doing some repairs and stuff around, around her properties. But then the, you know, to fast forward when I really got into real estate and I'll go back real quick, Glenn, cause whenever I did see my mom manage those single families, it was a headache, right? Tenants were, you know, the tenant turnover, right? The, the. Jarod Alexander (02:39.529) damage they were doing to our properties. I was going in these and just seeing just how trash they were. And so it didn't really attract me at that time. And I really didn't put two and two together that she was creating a lot of revenue. It seemed like she was just spending a lot more money. But when I got out here to Arizona, I actually met a good buddy of mine and Randy Smith. You know him, Glenn, I'm sure. And he actually introduced me to that Rich Dad Poor Dad book, right? And that, I'm sure like a lot of listeners of yours have probably mentioned that just totally changed my perspective, changed my outlook. Now again, I'm still in sales at this point. And, you know, but I knew I wanted to do something different. And I remembered back to when I was young, my grandfather, I started picking his brain of what he was doing, you know, and how he got to where he was at today. And really it was just buy real estate, and start creating what they call good debt for yourself, right? Start building assets and leveraging OPM, other people's money. And so I started out with a single family. My goal, Glenn, was just to go buy about 60 houses. I was gonna replace my W. Honestly, Glenn, I didn't realize it was 60 houses at the time. I just wanted to buy a single family. But whenever you kind of you had that number of passive income you want to create and you start working backwards and at this time it's 2021, 2022. All right, probably, yeah, 21, late 2020, early 2021. But they're cash flowing maybe $200 a month at this point, because everything just kind of shot up after that. Glenn (04:28.908) Yeah. Jarod Alexander (04:31.305) And then it turned out, you know, if I wanted to get to $20 ,000 a month, right, I'm going to essentially be right around 60 houses of what I had to own to produce that cashflow. And I bought the first one as a single family out of state in Kansas City, Missouri. And I'll be honest, Glenn, at this point, I've never bought a house myself. You know, I came out here to Arizona, I... Moved in an apartment and my met my wife and she already had a house. So I moved in with her. So I'm buying a property I've never seen and you know, that's 3 ,000 miles away But I knew I wanted to get into real estate because they say the best time to start is now right and And I was sitting on the sidelines way too much and I even saw me missing out on opportunities that I was looking at and that I wish I would have bought So anyways fast forward pulled the trigger You know, I got that house, you know, started generating some cash flow, but then I will share on that particular property. I owned it about three weeks and then I had a sump pump repair, found out the landscaping needed to be regraded. Some other repairs came up and essentially about $4 ,000 later, I wiped out my cash flow for about two years. Right. And I'm like, wait a minute, you know, what's going on here? And so. Glenn (05:50.06) Hehehe. Jarod Alexander (05:54.569) That led me to exploring some other opportunities. I ended up, I was looking at short -term rentals. We were looking at buying some larger multifamily complexes, like six and eight. I started out at four, or duplexes, then went to fourplexes, then we're even looking at eightplexes and above. And I just saw, with multifamily, I had that opportunity to scale, right? I could do one purchase, because going through one of the just... I mean that one single family transaction, it was a 1920s build. I'm representing myself as the realtor, again, on my first house, because I'm buying it from like a turnkey property management company. And learned a lot throughout that, but I was like, I don't want to do this 60 more times. And so anyways, multifamily, I saw an opportunity to scale. And then I came, you know, as a result of getting in multifamily, I went to a meetup, started learning about apartment syndications, which... Glenn (06:38.252) Yeah. Glenn (06:48.908) Ahem. Jarod Alexander (06:49.385) Not a lot of people talk about you just don't hear that, you know, walking out your front door, talking to your neighbor. It's all about 401k, stock market bonds, mutual funds. I mean, that's the way we're raised up. You know, go to college, get a career, put your money in retirement savings that you can't touch until you're 59 and a half, you know, at a minimum without a penalty and, and hopefully you have enough to retire. So. You know, again, after reading that Rich Dad Poor Dad, my whole mindset changed. And once I got in the syndication, I can learn, hey, I can put a, you know, $50 ,000 down on a property, be completely passive and let somebody else do all the work and still get pretty similar cashflow to what I was getting on that single family and still participate in all the tax benefits. And, and so I ended up, I'm the type of guy, a sales guy, I find something I like, for one, go all in, and then two, I want to shout it from the rooftops and tell everybody else. And so that's what led to Optimal Equity Group, where I started the business to help educate others on how to achieve passive income through real estate in this vehicle that I learned about. So that brings me here today, Glenn, and that's how I met you in the mastermind. Glenn (08:05.676) Yeah, so what I've I think I've read is that you have you've done six syndications where you've put some of it being limited partner. Is that accurate? Jarod Alexander (08:17.705) That is, yep. Glenn (08:19.787) Yeah, so tell us about the first time you decided to do the limited partner thing and then how do you vet your operators? Jarod Alexander (08:31.049) Yeah, great question. So my first indication that I did, so as far as I got introduced by a friend that I had invested with this particular company before, this operator, and I honestly went to Google and I don't necessarily recommend this. There's so many different resources now that I've learned about since, but I said, hey, what questions do you ask a syndicator slash operator? right, and I just kind of went through them. Now, the cool thing about the operator, and this is actually Zach with Rise 48, and I, you know, the cool thing about it is I had this list and he answered probably, I'd say, half if not more of those questions I had, which kind of gave me some comfort. I'm like, all right, he's hitting the key points, he's talking about what needs to be talked about here, you know, and. One of those, and then some of the other questions was, hey, have you ever had a deal go south? You know, what's the worst case scenario, right? Cause you know, you want to vet, hey, this is my hard earned money. I want to know it's going to be, you know, you're going to be a good steward of it, right? And what does that look like when things don't go that way? Cause it's, you know, we hear this a lot, Glenn, the no like and trust, right? I think I'm a big believer even now after being in this space a few years is, you know, anybody can take a good deal. and run it down really quick, right? If they don't know what they're doing. Or they can take a good experience with someone and not communicate, not do what they say they're going to do, right? Even if the deal is going according to business plan, right? If you're not communicating with me and making me feel good after I just gave you my money, like that's another big red flag for me. So anyways, you know, Zach kind of hit all that points. You know, Zach Glenn, he's personable. He's Glenn (09:56.3) Yep. Yep. Jarod Alexander (10:23.241) I'll answer the phone and communicates well. And so that led me to invest in that first syndication after, after I felt good. And I'll tell you too, I, and your listeners may or may not have known about this. This strategy is using a self -directed IRA, right? And that's the way I did my first investment is yeah, had my retirement account, put some money, transferred to the custodian and invested in the first deal. Yeah. Glenn (10:51.692) So real quick with that. So when it comes to, I don't know if it happens while you own the property, but say you have an IRA and you invest it, isn't it if the investment is leveraged, which most of them are, wouldn't it be taxed based on the amount of leverage there are on the IRA? Jarod Alexander (11:16.969) Yeah, so great question. So there is, and this honestly, I did not know about this before I made my first investment with this self -directed IRA, but there is what's called a UBIT, unrelated business income tax. And so yeah, there are a portion of that can be taxable from the gains. Because a lot of people think self -directed IRA grows tax free as long as you have invested in stock market, mutual funds, bonds, things like that. But if you do alternative investments, yes, it can be subject to UBIT. So definitely check with your CPA, financial advisor. I will share, there's some cool, like if you go with UBIT calculators that I know some guys that have created. And then once you take the depreciation that you get from the tax benefits and... And some of that, that you can offset some of those gains. But yes, to answer your question, Glenn, it is still taxable. So definitely pay attention to that. Glenn (12:19.948) So when they just from your experience, this isn't a tax advice. This is just for entertainment purposes only. But from when you so say, we'll just say the number is 100 ,000. You invest 100 ,000 from your IRA and then you get taxed on some of it. Are you able to take some of the income out as you're taxed on it or is it 100 % going to your IRA and then? Jarod Alexander (12:48.745) 100 % going to the IRA. Yeah, so you actually invest it through a third party through a custodian and so all that cash flow So like the one I'm in the deals still hasn't gone full cycle So I haven't seen the end of everything yet But as far as the cash flow it all goes back to the custodian and then you go to the custodian Pull it out to put it back in the self -directed IRA which you can reinvest Yeah Glenn (12:50.604) Okay. Glenn (12:54.668) This is... Glenn (13:00.876) Mm -hmm. Jarod Alexander (13:16.201) and it's taxable up to 37 % on the game. Glenn (13:20.524) Yeah, so I had a, I did a E it's called EQ RP with, I know there's a guy named Damien Lupo. He does like EQ RP where they, you pay them and they set it up. And what they do is they set it up as like a 401k. And I think it's like, I don't know if it's a loophole, but it's, the way that they presented it was that you won't have to pay that you bid tax. you have to look it up, but it's called EQ RP and a Damien Lupo is, the guy that owns it and they give you a book and everything to read about it. But what I've done, what I did is I took, I had 80 ,000 in my IRA and I rolled it into my, in that EQRP. And the way that the EQRP works is, it's like Glen Yaney, whatever, EQRP 401k. And it goes into an account where I straight up am the, the person in charge of the account. And within like, yeah, yeah. So I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to buy a property and invest this. And it was a 2020 and ended up, you know, they had the, you know, COVID happening and I actually just yanked it, just pulled it out 80 grand. And I'm like, I'm just going to pay the taxes and the penalty. And, Jarod Alexander (14:19.625) So with that, like, hit run control, right? Like, yeah, yeah. Glenn (14:46.092) But it was so easy to access that it was like, I was like, thinking, it was just like the access, because there's most of the 401ks and all that, they have a person that you have to go through. But because it was in a bank account, it's like it's 80 grand, and I could do this deal, and I won't even have to worry about the paperwork afterwards. So for me, that was the beginning of me pulling money out of my IRA. And I got really lucky that year. because of the CARES Act, you could actually, they didn't pay the penalty, you don't have to pay the penalty and they actually made it where it was, you could pay the taxes over three years, which you can't do that today. And that was my experience with trying to do the self -directed investing. Jarod Alexander (15:40.105) Yeah, so I got a question on that real quick. So, because I've definitely heard of the EQRPs and, but I haven't really dug into it too much. But so you, you know, cause I have heard of the solo 401k, the individual 401k where you can roll it over to that. But of course you have to have a business. And I think from my understanding, you can't have any 1099, you got to be self -employed, right? But, or you, Glenn (15:43.02) Yeah. Jarod Alexander (16:09.481) You might not anyways, yeah, there's there's some stipulation there either w2 or 1099 But yeah, if you roll it over into an individual then yeah that the gains grow tax -free But so that's different though than this EQRP right glenn because you're just rolling it over to this 401k check Is it pretty similar? Okay? Glenn (16:26.7) It's it's about the same. Yeah. It's similar, but I think it it gets through the u bit aspect of it. Like you don't have to worry about u bit. And that's the whole because it's considered a 401k and IRA is a different tax structure compared to a 401k even though they seem like they're the same. But when you're self directing it, it's tax differently. Jarod Alexander (16:46.857) Yeah. Jarod Alexander (16:52.553) Which is, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Cause that's a great strategy. I mean, cause somebody that's, you know, still employed, doesn't have their own business. Obviously they can't do a solo 401k, then they can just do that, look into that EQRP and avoid those taxes. So yeah, no, thanks for sharing. Yeah. Glenn (17:08.076) So what I would say from my experience, I had, we'll say about 300 grand in my IRAs and 401ks. And I'm not telling anybody to do this, but I have found that real estate is a very, it's one of the best tax benefit, like, you know, politicians and everybody always incentivize people to buy real estate. So with, certain if you do cost segregation studies on certain properties like with like I've told the story a million times, but we bought a property that was $850 ,000 purchase price property. We put about 450 ,000 200 of it down and 250 towards CapEx. We were able to write off $550 ,000 of the income. me being a real estate professional, I was able to write off 100 % of it. So that money that I pulled out of my IRA, I did it, I did 100 ,000 last year and I did 100 ,000 at the beginning of this year. But because I wrote that off, it actually, the whole, I was able to write off $150 ,000 on year one of that, of that investment. So the amount of money that I pulled from my IRA, that was gonna be taxed at, I might have to still, I still have to pay the penalty, I believe, but at the same time, I don't have to pay the taxes on it. So I just looked at it as I'm just paying a 10 % tax to have access to my money and through real estate. And that was why I pretty much drained my 401ks and IRAs over the past two or three years, just to put it in real estate and the tax benefits of depreciation and. and losses that you have when you're actually fixing up a property, I was able to offset it. So. Jarod Alexander (19:09.545) Yeah. Well, and I'm sure that that money and it sounds like just based on the scenario you gave has compounded a lot more than it would have if it was sitting in that 401k account, right? Yeah. Glenn (19:13.292) Yeah. Glenn (19:20.588) Yeah, because my theory is, and I'm kind of taken over this interview, but my theory is that, you know, the reason why I stopped putting money in my 401k and my IRAs, the second I stopped doing that, I actually became financially independent within a year because I stopped, you're putting this money into something you can't access and you only have so many masters. So I did it for... Jarod Alexander (19:25.673) That's all right, yeah, yeah. Glenn (19:49.036) five years before I actually stopped putting. So what I did is I was, I'm pretty extreme person. So I actually maxed out my IRAs, my Roth IRAs and my 401ks for five years straight. So at the end of the year, and I, and I also put it into Roth, 401ks and Roth IRAs. So it was after tax dollars going into these accounts and, but so, so to have, We'll just say, we'll just say that is, and I would max out my wife's as well. So I would have to have like $50 ,000 cash after taxes to put into these accounts. And what ended up happening is that I realized that I had to make $70 ,000 to be able to put 50 ,000 into a Roth IRA. And so I found, I thought to myself, I have partners and stuff and they all had. incomes from real estate and everything. And I was like, I'm never going to own real estate if I'm putting money into these IRAs. And so I just decided that I no longer can do that. And I have to start really focusing on my income. And when I pulled my money out of my IRAs and 401ks, my income, even though I had to pay these taxes and penalties, I was able to boost my income by like $5 ,000 a month in a very short period. because I actually shifted that money into having access to it outside of my IRAs. And what I would say is if you're a high income earner, these are probably bad ideas. But for me, I was at the point where I was becoming self -employed. And so my income was low and I was able to deduct a lot. And I was able to offset my income through depreciation through it. Jarod Alexander (21:44.809) Yeah. Well, that's, that's super powerful. And, you know, we, I, we both were just talking about before we started that we interviewed Chris Larson on our podcast. And, and, you know, I asked him that this question, I'm Chris, what do you, what do you think about 401ks? Right. What is, what is your, because, you know, it's kind of a controversial subject, right. Depending on who you're talking to. But Glenn, you just, I mean, hit a bunch of great points there and really the, you know, the summary of what Chris said is. The only time it really makes sense to do a 401k is whenever you are working a W -2 and they have a company match, right? And they're just matching your money. I mean, you're getting 100 % cashflow on that money that you're putting into it. So in some cases, it can make sense. Now, depending on the match and everything too, you got to definitely sit down with your employer and look at that. But yeah, I'm with you, Glenn. I mean, you know. I mean, you just explained not to rehash it or anything. But yeah, I think really the only time that makes sense if you are at a W2 and there is a match because there's some free money on the table you can take advantage of. So yeah. Glenn (22:55.788) Definitely. So let's talk about really, you know, you've done six deals and then really, you still have, you currently are still, is it selling flooring is what you're doing? Jarod Alexander (23:12.169) Yes. Yep. Glenn (23:14.956) So I guess let's talk about those six deals and how it's affected your life towards receiving those checks quarterly or monthly and how that feels and how that's changed your outlook on things. Jarod Alexander (23:30.121) Yeah, you know, that's a great question because so with these six deals, you know, the cash flow, so most of these, well, actually all of these are in multifamily. So, you know, I would say from a financial perspective, it hasn't necessarily made a significant, you know, difference to, you know, to what I'm doing financially. I get cash flow. Now, some of these deals were in 2021, 2022. So some of these, some of the cashflow has stopped now because they pause distributions on some of these. But you're talking $100, $150 a month, right? And so they do get paid monthly. But with that said, how it has been life transform is it opened me up to a whole new vehicle and a whole new way of investing. right, a whole new approach and which led me to start my company Optimal Equity Group. And so that has been life changing and I got to take a peek behind the curtains and see really how this syndication process works. Cause you know, when we both, you know, have our own businesses and our fund managers partnering with these operators to help bring capital. And I want to be confident in the operator that I'm partnering with that they're going to. do right by me, which in turn I can do right by my investors. Because we take this stuff very seriously and being a good steward, a stewardship of people's money. And so I think that's one of the things that led me to start my business and have a different trajectory on where I'm going in my life. And my goal is, Glenn, with this business, we can be completely remote. I can work anywhere in the world. I get to... build these strong relationships, meet a lot of cool people along the way, start a podcast, right? You know, just like what we're doing now. And I get to, you know, have these cool conversations. And, but essentially, you know, my why is to, you know, have more time freedom with my family, right? And be able to be work optional and do the things that I, you know, that I enjoy doing, right? And so, you know, I'm not the type of person that's just gonna... Jarod Alexander (25:51.145) hit that number, save as $20 ,000 a month in passive income and just sit on a beach and just do nothing. I just, I'm not that type of person. I'm not wired that way. I can barely even sit still on a weekend, watch Netflix, right? With the wife, you know, she's just, just chill out for an hour or two and just watch Netflix with her. I'm like, all right, all right, all right, you know, and I almost got to force myself to, to kind of just relax, right? Cause I'm just always going. But anyways, with that said, you know what? That's the thing that drives me today. And that's how it's been life -changing. Now, like you mentioned, I still do work my W2 in the flooring cells. And, you know, I definitely, you know, if you would have asked me two years ago, Glenn, I probably would have said, I'll be leaving this job in two or three years, right? You know, what I've realized is I'm using my W2. I've been blessed to, you know, do really well here. And so I'm using this as a vehicle to get me to where I'm going and help. I mean, the more money we make, the more money we can invest and create a better future for ourselves and our family. And so that's kind of my approach I've been taking. But yeah, it's been life changing in just all aspects of my life, really. Glenn (27:11.82) Yeah, yeah, it's definitely for me my own personal experience is that you know, I don't I like when when I think I actually work all the time and even though I left my the W2 and I came here but I could tell you that I feel guilty sometimes when I'm talking to people because I really don't feel like I'm working like this doesn't feel like work the being on the phone talking to the property managers and and you know, working on collections, like, you know, going to the parks and seeing what we need to do to improve them to make them better. It's like these are things that I was doing on my days off with my when I was at my W two. So Glenn (28:00.876) There she is. Jarod Alexander (28:02.217) There she is. Sorry about that. Yeah. My little girl, for anybody who's listening, just popped in on our little interview here and she just wanted to get involved. Glenn (28:04.62) No problem, man. No problem. Glenn (28:12.076) Yeah, it's okay. We're gonna edit it. But yeah, so with the yeah, so the time freedom is what it comes down to. And I think that's every day, I still strive towards that time freedom. But at the same time, it's like when you have that open schedule, it's like, I left, you know, it just is. It's one of those things that that's what cash flow will do for you. Jarod Alexander (28:15.689) Okay. Glenn (28:39.948) is it gives you the things that you want to you'll give more time to the things you really want to spend time on. So Jarod Alexander (28:46.089) Yeah, well, and just real quick to add on to that is, you know, when you, you know, you asked me about the financial impact on these, on these deals and what these six indications have done. Now, the cool thing about this is, you know, I probably did these six deals in a matter of two years or so. And when these deals start compounding, right? Like that's, that's going to be what's life changing there. So yeah. So I, I. Kind of mentioned as of right now, it hasn't made a big financial impact because these deals were still waiting on a few to go full cycle, but it will. And then I'll be able to take that money because I mean, essentially these deals are going to be doubling every three to five years. Right. And I'm right at that three to four year mark right now on these deals. So, you know, they're just going to start stacking, right. And compounding deal after deal, doubling. And then I just keep reinvesting that. And I mean, you look at this, you know, put these numbers down in seven to 10 years. Like you got some pretty exciting figures right there. And then, you know, the cool thing about that Glenn is right, you can take that, keep doing the same thing. But if I think if you're smart, you're going to diversify that a little bit. And I can take say a million dollars at this point and put that into something that's getting eight to 10 percent, you know, on my money. And right there, I got some. pretty good cash flow on a monthly basis. So, yeah. Glenn (30:15.5) What I would add to that as well is, you know, you said your number is 20 ,000, we're aiming towards 20 ,000, but what's gonna really happen, I believe for you, is that you get to the number of maybe, probably less than half of that number, and it'll open up opportunities that you'll be able to take advantage of. And what... what's happened for me is I left my W -2 to make, I was making $150 ,000 a year at my W -2 and I left my W -2 to make $1 ,500 a month. So through that, I was able to do that and I could tell you that like 100 % of my time is focused on growing what I have and optimizing everything and you find yourself to where that number, went up pretty quickly over time and it was only because I had rental property and then I had the $1 ,500 extra a month. So it was like I left the W -2 to work for 1500 bucks, but I actually had like $5 ,000 worth of cash flow from real estate. And, you know, things work out and opportunities show themselves a lot sooner when you're available. It's like you open that bandwidth, it actually will... give you more options to take advantage of money making opportunities. Jarod Alexander (31:49.481) Yeah, no, great point, great point. And my hat goes off to you, because yeah, people are like, Glenn, what are you doing? I'm sure, right? Why are you leaving a $150 ,000 job that people spend all this money to get in debt to go to college on, right? Have all these student loans. Sometimes you just make six figures and you're leaving a $150 ,000 job to do this. But a person like me, I get that, you know, because I'm a little right around that number right now. Glenn (31:58.7) You Jarod Alexander (32:18.409) you know, with my W -2 and, you know, and I, I've honestly thought about that transition. Now, one thing I don't have is the rental properties that we were going to buy, but you know, I don't have some of those assets that are going to be producing. So my approach is has changed. And that's the cool thing about this, right? Is I'm able to adapt and change and not just be set on one outcome, right? And I've gotten to a place, thanks Scott. I got a lot of flexibility in my W -2, which allows me to spend some time on the business and growing that and these relationships and things. But no, it's exciting, but my hat's off to you, man, because I know how scary that transition must have been at first. Yeah. Glenn (33:05.164) Yeah, it was. Yeah, I can't even I can't even say it tell you it was one of those things where I'm like, well, it's happening now and. Jarod Alexander (33:13.289) Yep, you just burn the boats, right? Glenn (33:16.492) Pretty much. They asked me when I left my the W -2, they said, how much do you how much can we pay you to stay? And I, I just thought of a number that they I knew they wouldn't pay me as a 200 ,000. And I'm very grateful that they didn't agree to that because I would have ended up leaving, you know, staying at the job and assuring myself is what would have happened. You know, I would have been like, yeah, I'll take 200 grand right now. And you know, it's just one of those things where I for me that the job was pretty tough, very stressful. And I, yeah, I was able to get out of it. And that's how it got there. So let's, what I would say is, what's your goal for the next five years? Jarod Alexander (34:08.041) Next five years is to definitely grow the business. Now I will say, I will feel comfortable sharing this in five years, I will be working or less, definitely be working on the business full time at that point. I'll be able to transition from the W -2 to the business 100%. And again, just growing relationships. I will be definitely at that $20 ,000 marker above. by that point as well. And just have the time, freedom, and really spend time enjoying it. Going back to the why, I think for the listeners, it's really important. I'm sure, Glenn, you've talked about this on your podcast before. It's really important to determine your why and what are you looking to achieve out of this. You got to have some type of motivation, some type of goals to be driving you to where you want to go. And for me, again, it's spending time with my family, enjoying the present. You know, I'm, unfortunately, just kind of speaking a hard reality is, I mean, I've just recently had some good friends that are my age that have, you know, passed away. Right. And you, and so, you know, and I, and I meet so many, so many people that, Hey, when I get to this age, I'm going to, I'm going to retire and then I'm going to enjoy the time and travel and do all that. I'm like, my rebuttal is why not do it now? Right. Like enjoy the time you have now. Don't wait. You know, and unfortunately for us, Glenn, real estate and this investing has given us an opportunity to be able to do that. cause I mean, really what we're doing is just trying to buy back our time, right? Like we're doing something we love, but we want the time freedom to be able to have the choice and have the option to again, do, do what's important to us and spend, spend time with the people that are important. So we were just talking on the, before the show, we, we both got kids the same age. you know, it. Two and a five year old, right? I mean, man, these are some pretty cool times we get to share together right now. And, you know, we're doing the sports deal and yeah, it's just, it's, it's fun to, to be around. And then like you say, Glenn, I mean, high demanding W2 job or something that you're just stressed out. I mean, that comes out on the family too. So it's important to, yeah, to be present and do it, you know, to do it, be with those who matter most. Glenn (36:22.652) yeah. Glenn (36:31.596) Awesome. Well, Jared, thank you for being on the show and where can people find you? Jarod Alexander (36:32.457) Yeah. Jarod Alexander (36:38.473) Yeah, so if you want to connect, learn more, go to OptimalEquityGroup .com. I actually got a free ebook you can download, kind of just giving a quick 10 to 12 page summary on my journey through real estate. We highlighted a little bit today and then how you can get involved in this space where you can connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, on the social platforms as well. Glenn (37:05.58) Awesome. Well, we'll put that in the show notes and thanks again for being on show. Jarod Alexander (37:10.025) Awesome Glenn, thanks for having me.