Latest / The Wealth Vibe Show / Episode #107 How JD transformed his life and finances

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Episode #107 How JD transformed his life and finances · The Wealth Vibe Show

• 0:00
  real estate while doing it for me, it's been pretty easy to manage it.
• 0:01
  You just you have to put systems in place to manage your time.
• 0:05
  So do time blocks, right?
• 0:07
  And so I'll set certain times or days where I'm going to look at real estate and I know, hey, you know, don't want you setting work meetings today because I'm going to drive around and look at properties and then what I've done to really mitigate the amount of time that real estate takes for me is I put property management in place.
• 0:25
  I no longer manage any of my properties, and so once I get a property closed, I hand it over to the property manager and then I pretty much don't hear about the property anymore.
• 0:34
  So they're full service property management, the one that I use or enjoy on my properties.
• 0:39
  And so if I buy a property that needs to be renovated, they have contractors that they partner with and they manage the entire renovation.
• 0:46
  They get tenants in there, they collect payment, and the only time that they reach out to me is if there is a repair over$500 and I have to approve it.
• 0:54
  And so honestly, if I'm not actively looking for a property, real estate takes less than an hour of my time per week.
• 1:46
  And today our guest is JD.
• 1:48
  And today our guest is JD.
• 1:49
  So, Star, say your name, right?
• 1:51
  JD That's it. That's been.
• 1:53
  I've been called a lot worse.
• 1:53
  All right. Okay.
• 1:56
  I always watch over me as I apologize for that.
• 1:58
  Well, welcome to the show.
• 2:00
  I'm super excited to have you with me today.
• 2:02
  I'm super excited to have you with me today.
• 2:02
  I am stoked to be here.
• 2:04
  Thanks for having me.
• 2:05
  Thanks for having me.
• 2:06
  And now a little bit about JD.
• 2:07
  JD is the founder of Finance, Cowboy and Peacock Insurance.
• 2:12
  Wow, I love that cowboy and peacock.
• 2:15
  We're going to talk about that.
• 2:17
  Despite not coming from a relative background, he was instilled with a strong work ethic from a young age by a father, a pastor.
• 2:25
  After playing Division one baseball for Charleston Southern University and serving in the service industry, JD transitioned into sales and started investing in real estate.
• 2:36
  Although his first flip barely broke even and his net worth was negative less than ten K and he now has a portfolio of over 20 rental properties, a network of roughly 2 million at the age of 31.
• 2:50
  Wow, that's pretty awesome.
• 2:51
  Wow, that's pretty awesome.
• 2:52
  Through his finance cowboy platform, Julie shows his knowledge and expertise with others through content and coaching, aiming to help millions achieve similar success to him and his family.
• 3:03
  Today I will discuss Jade's journey Today I will discuss Jade's journey and learn how he has transformed his life and finances.
• 3:10
  Welcome again, JD.
• 3:12
  Welcome again, JD.
• 3:12
  Thank you so much.
• 3:14
  I'm excited to dig into it.
• 3:15
  I'm excited to dig into it.
• 3:15
  All right.
• 3:16
  So let's start with your background.
• 3:18
  Please briefly tell me about your background and tell me, how did you become who you are today?
• 3:24
  So I was born and raised in a small town in South Carolina.
• 3:27
  I live in Anderson, South Carolina, as a pastor son.
• 3:30
  So I was raised great, home loving parents, good moral values.
• 3:37
  And, you know, I always let people know because I talk about money, a lot of talk about real estate.
• 3:41
  We didn't really have any money when like we were, you know, super broke.
• 3:45
  But but investing and, you know, where are we going to buy our next rental wasn't a conversation.
• 3:51
  Pastors just don't usually make a ton of money.
• 3:53
  They're doing a lot of good in the world.
• 3:55
  But, you know, investing and growing big portfolios wasn't something we were always talking about around the dinner table.
• 4:03
  And so that kind of came later in life for me.
• 4:06
  But as I was growing up, sports were super influential in my life, so I ended up playing baseball through college and I'd set out to make a goal of playing Division one.
• 4:17
  Baseball is like my number one goal in life is how can I go play Division one baseball?
• 4:21
  And what I learned through that process that's really carried over into everything I've done is most people won't put in the work that it takes to do the 1% type of things.
• 4:31
  And so if you just put in the work behind the scenes that other people aren't willing to do, there's a good chance that the cream is going to rise to the top.
• 4:40
  And I noticed that in baseball I was up at 5:00 in the morning in high school working out.
• 4:45
  As soon as school was over, I was in the batting cage, hitting in that prep, doing as much.
• 4:50
  And then I got into the working world after college and I just continued that.
• 4:54
  Like that was all I knew.
• 4:54
  That's the only way I knew how to operate.
• 4:57
  And then I realized people really don't work in the business world.
• 5:01
  They're not. They're not hustling.
• 5:03
  And people were paying me to like, do work now, you know.
• 5:07
  And I saw that I could rise to the top pretty quickly because everybody else was just comfortable.
• 5:11
  And I'm getting paid to do it.
• 5:13
  And I was like, hey, you know, this is this is the way this is the way right here.
• 5:17
  And so, you know, between those disciplines instilled in me, in sports and then my father, you know, I talk about we didn't, you know, necessarily talk about investing and money and all that stuff.
• 5:28
  I was able to pick up nuggets from him and my mom and a lot of people in my life.
• 5:31
  But, you know, when you look at my dad, he was a pioneer.
• 5:35
  He started a church from nothing, move to a new town and started a church.
• 5:39
  And so he had that entrepreneurship in him that I really come to appreciate as I've gotten older that you don't necessarily think of a pastor's being entrepreneurial necessarily, but starting from ground Zero and has a church now, probably over a thousand people.
• 5:52
  And, you know, being able to watch him do what he had to do to get there and the sacrifices that it takes and the time that it takes, you know, all of that combined and then all the experiences I've had through business have turned me into who I am today and, you know, have allowed for the success that my wife and I have been able to experience at a relatively young age.
• 6:15
  So tell me, how did you start in real estate investing and how did you manage to build a portfolio of over 20 plus rental properties?
• 6:24
  When people look at my social media, because that's the finance cowboy brand is growing larger on social media now, folks I think feel like, Oh, must be nice.
• 6:32
  He made this happen overnight.
• 6:33
  You know, I think people see that on social media and that's just not the case.
• 6:38
  I didn't start buying rental properties till 2018.
• 6:40
  I graduated college in 2013 and so I came out of college with pretty much over $100,000 in debt.
• 6:47
  And so from 2013 to 2018, for five years, all I did was cut expenses, pay off debt and work to raise my income so I could pay off debt faster.
• 6:57
  I mean, that was my life for five years, pinching pennies and paying off debt.
• 7:00
  And so we we finally got that taken care of.
• 7:03
  And we reached this point in 2018 where we got our consumer debt out of the way.
• 7:07
  We had an emergency fund for our personal finances in place, and now it was time to put our money somewhere and invest. And if you look at real estate, you can look over centuries and see it's made people wealthy for a really, really long time.
• 7:19
  So I'm pretty simple guy and said, okay, there's really no reason to reinvent the wheel here.
• 7:23
  Let's just go do it.
• 7:24
  All these other really wealthy people are doing and my best friend had gotten into it right out of college.
• 7:29
  And so that was helpful.
• 7:30
  You know, he is telling me his real estate stories for those last five years from 2013 to 2018.
• 7:35
  And so he's kind of mentoring me without knowing he was mentoring me.
• 7:38
  My father in law had bought real estate and it worked out well for him.
• 7:42
  And so we dove in.
• 7:44
  My best friend helped me find that first property in 2018, helped me negotiate it, close it, get it managed, and then once I bought that first one, it was off to the races.
• 7:54
  And, you know, I remember before buying it, I was so scared.
• 7:59
  You know, you may have a listener who hadn't taken the plunge yet and they sit on the sidelines and, man, I'm so scared to buy that first property.
• 8:06
  What if the tenant doesn't pay or the house burns down or this or that?
• 8:09
  You can sit there and play what if's forever.
• 8:11
  But for me, I came to the realization that not investing in real estate was riskier for my future than investing in real estate.
• 8:19
  And so I bought that first property and said, okay, this is amazing.
• 8:23
  How do I buy more?
• 8:24
  And so that's what our our journey was, was let's skill as quickly as possible.
• 8:29
  And so I bought those first two within a matter of four months of each other.
• 8:33
  So and I used my own money for 20% down payments on both in my own money for rehab.
• 8:38
  And so after I got done buying both of those properties, both them were purchased somewhere around 70,000, probably put close to 15,000 and rehab in both.
• 8:46
  So when it was all said and done between now Pay My Rehab, I was all in at 50 grand.
• 8:50
  And I come up and I said, I don't have any more money to buy real estate.
• 8:56
  This new properties are great, but now I'm stuck.
• 8:59
  What am I going to do?
• 9:01
  And that's when I started utilizing other people's money to buy real estate and implementing the BR method, which we can dive into, but really partnering with others who didn't necessarily want to buy their own rental properties but wanted to land and make a good return and in a very short amount of time.
• 9:18
  And so we were able to go from those first 2 to 20 to in a matter of I think it was three years or a little bit under a Oh yeah.
• 9:26
  in a matter of I think it was three years or a little bit under a Oh yeah.
• 9:27
  Let's talk about some of the biggest challenges you face when you first stepped into real estate about your first property and then the second property that about your first property and then the second property that yeah, I think the on the first property was just overcoming fear.
• 9:39
  That was my biggest challenge.
• 9:41
  I really had to back out.
• 9:43
  And I really want to emphasize this for any listeners who haven't bought yet, that's normal.
• 9:47
  But this is one of those times in life where the grass is actually greener on the other side.
• 9:51
  And I had seen it my best friend who who helped me find that property was 27 years old and already a multimillionaire because he had been buying rentals.
• 9:59
  And so I remember trying to pull out of that first deal and he's like, I can't let you.
• 10:02
  He's like, you have to buy this.
• 10:04
  This is going to be the start of something that's going to completely change your life.
• 10:07
  And so that was my biggest challenge with number one.
• 10:09
  And then number two and probably number one managing contractors, when you're first starting out and you're buying fixer uppers, you know, these properties needed work.
• 10:18
  That's that's kind of my strategy.
• 10:20
  I buy properties that are undervalued and distressed, make them pretty, and then bring them out again.
• 10:25
  And and, you know, learning how to interview these contractors, hold them accountable and make sure we're getting the work done in the right amount of time.
• 10:36
  Those are probably my two biggest challenges.
• 10:38
  And out there, one more in there was not spending too much money.
• 10:41
  That was a lesson I learned.
• 10:42
  Oftentimes when you're doing a rental, if you're new, you think you want to be Chip and Joanna Gaines and make it really nice.
• 10:48
  Well, that's fine if you're going to flip the property.
• 10:50
  But if you to keep it as a rental, we don't need to go add luxury finishes to everything and knock out walls.
• 10:55
  And that's what we did, you know, especially on our second property.
• 10:58
  And I look back and say, Man, I spent spent too much money.
• 11:01
  I eventually refinanced and paid myself back.
• 11:03
  But that's a that's a that was a lesson learned.
• 11:05
  But that's a that's a that was a lesson learned.
• 11:06
  Okay, that's good.
• 11:06
  But let's talk about fears.
• 11:08
  You know, you said you were really fearful for the time when you went.
• 11:11
  And how did you overcome your fears?
• 11:14
  What did you what did you realize?
• 11:16
  What was the realization there?
• 11:17
  What was a fear about, You know, one of the friend was not there, would you?
• 11:20
  I would jumped in. Still, maybe not.
• 11:21
  I would jumped in. Still, maybe not.
• 11:22
  I think I would have eventually, but I would not have done it as quickly and I wouldn't have scaled as much.
• 11:26
  I think the biggest fear for me is I had spent so long five years paying off bad debt that I wasn't able to compartmentalize in my mind that that taking mortgages out on this real estate.
• 11:38
  Now it was going to be debt, but it's it's good debt.
• 11:40
  It's not consumer debt.
• 11:42
  Right.
• 11:42
  We've ran our numbers and we know that we bought a property that now is worth more than when we bought it because we fixed it up and we have cashflow coming in and we still have a job so we can cover if something bad were to happen.
• 11:56
  And so again, changing that mindset of all that is bad to know bad debt is bad, the wealthy leverage it to get even wealthier.
• 12:08
  And if I wanted to reach that status and change our family's trajectory and our life, then I was going to have to work through that mentally and look at it logically.
• 12:19
  You know, we make so many decisions based off emotion and that's fine.
• 12:24
  But you have to you have to be able to push through that emotion and really see logic and say, logically, this is going to work out in my favor.
• 12:35
  Let's push past the emotion because we can't get rid of it because most of us are going to be there.
• 12:39
  But maybe we can change those emotions after logic proves itself Great.
• 12:44
  I like that, you know, and you also write about it.
• 12:47
  Most of the investors are very emotional.
• 12:50
  They all the decisions are made are emotional decisions most of the time.
• 12:55
  So if you got a little bit mechanical there, you know, you just put your emotions on the side and just think logically.
• 13:01
  You said you can do really well.
• 13:03
  I love that.
• 13:04
  So let's talk about your first flip.
• 13:06
  So let's talk about your first flip.
• 13:06
  You said you barely broke even on that.
• 13:07
  You said you barely broke even on that.
• 13:09
  So can you walk us through that experience?
• 13:12
  You know, when you just broke wine, you didn't make any money, did that give you pause to do that again?
• 13:19
  Yeah, that was that was a rough experience.
• 13:21
  I, I should have been flipping at the time, to be honest.
• 13:24
  I didn't really know what I was doing at all.
• 13:26
  But whoever, you know, whoever knows exactly what they're doing, and I wanted to jump into the deep end flipping a property in South Florida.
• 13:34
  And I lived like 4 to 5 hours away.
• 13:36
  And I had a contact down there of a realtor who also managed flips.
• 13:41
  And we go through the process and I get private money.
• 13:44
  And the way that we did draws for the private money was hard because they were having to give me money every Friday that I was then having to give the contractors instead of us putting it into one account.
• 13:54
  So that was a headache in itself.
• 13:56
  Then the flip too, took too long and I wasn't down there to push it along.
• 13:59
  And I'm starting to butt heads with the realtor who's managing the project for me.
• 14:03
  Then we finally get to the end of it and we realize that they didn't pull permits for what they were supposed to.
• 14:09
  The city had come by and said, No, we have to do.
• 14:11
  I can't remember exactly what it was, but it delayed the project by another three weeks.
• 14:16
  And then the guy who was supposed to buy the property couldn't close yet.
• 14:20
  So he asked could he rent it for two months until he could get all his documents together to the lender?
• 14:25
  And it was just a disaster.
• 14:27
  And so by the time we went through all the renovations, the time we had the holding cost out, permitting everything, I think we ended up clearing $8,000, which it was a profit.
• 14:38
  I had to split that 5050 with my lender.
• 14:41
  So I think I walked away with four.
• 14:43
  They walked away before, but then I think I gave them an extra two for their issues.
• 14:46
  So I really didn't come out.
• 14:51
  It was a disaster and it was a good learning curve.
• 14:55
  As I said, okay, I need to go to school.
• 14:58
  And that's when I really started digging in and learning everything I could about real estate and started making better decisions from that point forward.
• 15:05
  And it really, really transitioned into, you know, I don't necessarily need to flip.
• 15:10
  I have a good income, like we need to be looking for rentals.
• 15:14
  And because my goal was to build long term, well, you don't build long term wealth through flips.
• 15:19
  You make money through financing a short term capital gains to flip.
• 15:22
  So I already had income coming in.
• 15:24
  That's a benefit of working a W-2 job or or working any job while doing real estate is it can be your superpower because you can live off of that and then you can stack this huge rental portfolio and you're gonna look back 3 to 5 years down the road, you know, by me.
• 15:37
  And I'm wealthy now.
• 15:38
  And so that was a decision we made after that flip, and we've flipped some since then if we've need it in capital for another project or whatever the case may be.
• 15:46
  But the main part of our business has been stacking those rentals.
• 15:50
  And you know, at work 2018, we pretty much had a negative net worth and said, hey, you know, we're worth about $2 million.
• 15:57
  And so it definitely worked.
• 16:00
  The strategy worked great.
• 16:02
  I love that. So you so now you are a medical professional and you still have your primary job.
• 16:07
  So tell me, how do you balance your day job with the real estate investing So tell me, how do you balance your day job with the real estate investing and what advice would you give to others who are looking to do the same thing?
• 16:16
  Yeah, so I'm in medical sales.
• 16:17
  I sold medical equipment in the pre-hospital space I sell to doctors now.
• 16:22
  So the fire and EMS. And I love it.
• 16:25
  Absolutely love it.
• 16:25
  That's why I continue to do it.
• 16:26
  People ask me, why do you keep doing this?
• 16:28
  Well, I absolutely love I love the people I work with.
• 16:30
  I love helping those that I that I get to help as far as doing real estate while doing it for me, it's been pretty easy to manage it.
• 16:36
  real estate while doing it for me, it's been pretty easy to manage it.
• 16:38
  You just you have to put systems in place to manage your time.
• 16:42
  So do time blocks, right?
• 16:44
  And so I'll set certain times or days where I'm going to look at real estate and I know, hey, you know, don't want you setting work meetings today because I'm going to drive around and look at properties and then what I've done to really mitigate the amount of time that real estate takes for me is I put property management in place.
• 17:01
  I no longer manage any of my properties, and so once I get a property closed, I hand it over to the property manager and then I pretty much don't hear about the property anymore.
• 17:11
  So they're full service property management, the one that I use or enjoy on my properties.
• 17:16
  And so if I buy a property that needs to be renovated, they have contractors that they partner with and they manage the entire renovation.
• 17:23
  They get tenants in there, they collect payment, and the only time that they reach out to me is if there is a repair over$500 and I have to approve it.
• 17:30
  And so honestly, if I'm not actively looking for a property, real estate takes less than an hour of my time per week.
• 17:37
  Great.
• 17:37
  So other than this, having the property management, well, what other system do you have in place?
• 17:44
  So that's that's the main one for me.
• 17:46
  So I would say, you know, as far as looking for property, some things that I have in place, it's a small it's a small outfit.
• 17:53
  So we're not we're not building active income through this.
• 17:57
  I don't have a full team wholesaling properties or flipping properties.
• 18:01
  It's usually my wife and I.
• 18:04
  We will choose an area that we're interested in, a good rental area, and then I'll go through and I'll take the low hanging fruit first.
• 18:11
  And so I'll look on Zillow and I'll say what is, especially in today's market, what's been sitting over 30 days, Then I'll run numbers on that property and say, okay, this is what I need to get it out based on what I know rents are going to be and based on what I know, my mortgage payment after taxes, insurance maintenance is all and all that's going to be.
• 18:31
  And then I'll make an offer on that listed property at the amount that I need to buy it for it to make sense.
• 18:36
  And I'll send over my calculator to the listing agent.
• 18:39
  Tell him, Hey, I'm making an offer based on this.
• 18:41
  Here's why I have to make this amount for it to make sense here.
• 18:44
  Comps in this area.
• 18:45
  And so we'll start there because that's super easy, right?
• 18:48
  You don't have to do any off market digging.
• 18:51
  You're just making offers on list of properties less than what they're listed at.
• 18:55
  And then when I really start to attack an area, I will go and I will get on an app that I use.
• 19:02
  There's probably multiple ones called Prop stream and I'll choose an area and I'll click on all the properties and then I'll pull that list off a prop stream and then I'll go and put that list in to get better.
• 19:16
  And all that does is pull the contact information from the owners of all those properties and then I'll call them and see if they're willing to sell.
• 19:24
  Now there's there's a method to that madness.
• 19:26
  I don't just randomly, you know, call every number I pull.
• 19:29
  I start with calling vacant owners and then I move to out of state owners, then I move to out of town owners and then I move to local investors.
• 19:41
  And then I don't really call owner occupied homes that often.
• 19:45
  I don't have the time.
• 19:46
  That's a big volume game to get somebody who lives in a home to sell.
• 19:51
  And so for me right now, it doesn't make sense to do that.
• 19:53
  But some of the best success I've had is an out-of-town owner, right, who has their parent's old home or their cousins own home.
• 20:03
  And then the other is calling other investors.
• 20:05
  If you want to go buy a rental property, you can literally get on stream type in, you know, non owner occupied owners, pull that list and call ten different investors, say, hey, I'm looking to get in the rental game.
• 20:20
  Do you have a property that you would sell to me?
• 20:22
  And they understand the game they need to make a profit.
• 20:25
  You got to get a good deal.
• 20:26
  And some of the best and easiest deals I've ever done is just buying from another investor who bought a house in this certain area ten years ago for 40 grand.
• 20:35
  Well, he can sell it to me now for 90, you know, make a ton of money.
• 20:39
  It's still a good deal for me because if I were to fix it up, that house is worth 150.
• 20:44
  You know, rents are coming in at 1400.
• 20:46
  And so it's a win win.
• 20:48
  And so anyways, I can sit here and talk strategy all day, but those are kind of some of the methods that work for us to acquire properties.
• 20:54
  That's great.
• 20:54
  And then earlier you mentioned OPM, other people's money.
• 20:58
  So how are you using OPM to scale your business?
• 21:01
  Are you syndicating the deals or doing joint ventures?
• 21:05
  I've done a number of different ways.
• 21:07
  I feel like I've done about every different way you can do so.
• 21:11
  Like I mentioned earlier, I put down my whole money for 20%.
• 21:13
  I've done partnerships too, where me and a partner, you know, split a 20% down payment or a 50% down payment or a 10% down payment to lower the amount that we had to put in the game.
• 21:25
  I have worked with bankers who will lend me off of the appraised value of a home.
• 21:31
  Okay, so normally banks will lend you 80% of the purchase price, but there's a couple of lenders who have lent me 80% of the appraised value.
• 21:38
  So if I get a property under contract at a lower price and it's appraised for and then it appraises for more, then I've gone to closing and the bank actually give me money back for buying a property.
• 21:49
  I've done seller financing to where the seller holds a note.
• 21:53
  And then my favorite and the one that I use the most is I use private money.
• 21:58
  And that's where somebody in my network, whether it be a friend, acquaintance, another investor, a family member, loans me the purchase purchase price for a property and the rehab cost.
• 22:09
  Okay.
• 22:10
  And then I will go in, buy it in cash, rehab it, and then I'll turn around after I get a renter in place and then I'll refinance the property.
• 22:19
  So now it's worth more because I just rehabbed it and got a renter in place.
• 22:25
  Make one loan me 80% of that new appraised value.
• 22:28
  They'll write me a check for that.
• 22:29
  I'll pay the private lender back.
• 22:31
  I own the property now with a bank loan, and then I'll use that private lenders money to do that on another property.
• 22:36
  And I just repeat that process over and over and over again.
• 22:40
  Yeah, rinse and repeat.
• 22:41
  That's the best thing. I like that.
• 22:43
  So let's shift gears here.
• 22:44
  You founded this company called Cowboy Platform, and I think Cowboy and Peacock, something I wrote in your profile.
• 22:52
  So what is that all that come about?
• 22:54
  Yeah.
• 22:55
  So Peacock Insurance is kind of on the backburner right now.
• 22:58
  There's not that much to talk about, you know, as as far as Peacock's concerned, because we focused a lot of our resources now on the finance cowboy business I launched and I like excuse me, Finance Cowboy I launched and I like excuse me, Finance Cowboy I launched and I like excuse me, Finance Cowboy in July of 2021, I had zero followers.
• 23:14
  And it's kind of a funny story that somebody in my friend group who I'm close with and I never could get them to invest in real estate, you know, they always kind of brushed me off.
• 23:24
  And so then they start texting me in May of June of 2021.
• 23:30
  POST from this trip, a year old on Instagram who had 30,000 followers, who was telling people to invest in index funds.
• 23:37
  And so this person, because he had a small following on Instagram, was now able to convince this highly educated friend of mine to invest in index funds, all because this guy had a platform and had credibility because he had followers.
• 23:51
  And I was like kind of mad because my friend's sending me his post and I'm like, I don't want to buy index funds or buying real estate.
• 23:58
  But then it struck me. I'm like, I need to do this.
• 24:00
  Like, you know, the stuff I've done is more interesting than index funds.
• 24:04
  And so I started the account and I really started talking about personal finances more at the beginning.
• 24:12
  And then it was interesting.
• 24:13
  I would mix in different real estate, you know, topics just based on my experience, properties I bought and the Instagram world really was asking for more real estate information.
• 24:25
  I just remember people did and me questions, Hey, how do you know?
• 24:29
  No, this was a good deal. How do you know what rents are going to be?
• 24:31
  How do you choose where you're going to buy?
• 24:33
  And so I really went all in on real estate being my content, and that's what I was, you know, familiar with.
• 24:38
  And I love personal finances too. I still post about it.
• 24:42
  But anyways, we've grown to over 85,000 followers on Instagram, 25,000 plus on Tik Tok.
• 24:48
  We just launched our podcast and then I have a mentorship and so it's been so much fun to start at zero.
• 24:55
  Nobody follow me and my family and friends making fun of me for getting on there and posting.
• 24:59
  When I had 200 followers to now, you know, those same family and friends are asking me, Well, how did you do this?
• 25:05
  You know, how would you be able to grow this business?
• 25:07
  And we got a ton of people in the mentorship, and I'm able to help so many people, you know, buy real estate now and it is an absolute blast.
• 25:17
  And then I have my podcast, which you have here.
• 25:20
  So you understand we get to meet a lot of cool people when you host a podcast that like guest on a lot of people's podcast.
• 25:26
  And so I've been able to make a lot of great connections throughout the last two years as well.
• 25:30
  I love it.
• 25:31
  So you wanted to share with me like we were talking earlier, before we started recording that you had two videos that went viral and that brought you to 85,000 followers on Instagram.
• 25:42
  So share that with me.
• 25:42
  How did that happen?
• 25:44
  Yeah, when you first start, I don't know how the algorithm is now, but when I was starting in 2021, they weren't necessarily going to allow your your post to go too viral until you got over 5000 followers.
• 25:56
  And so for seven months I was just posting 2 to 3 times a day, engaging with other accounts, seeing a little bit of growth.
• 26:05
  One little hack I did.
• 26:06
  I don't know if it still works, so you guys can try it.
• 26:09
  As I set notifications on my phone for like 200 very large accounts.
• 26:13
  So, you know, politics, sports, real estate, finance and my phone would ding as soon as one of these accounts posted.
• 26:21
  And so then I would open up my phone and I would be one of the accounts that post like one of the first accounts that posted on this massive accounts new post.
• 26:30
  And I would try to post something witty or controversial where it would get a lot of likes and comments.
• 26:34
  And so then I would stay at the top.
• 26:36
  And so when all these millions of people looked at this post, they would see my name.
• 26:40
  Hopefully they would think my comment was funny or controversial.
• 26:42
  They would click on my profile and then maybe follow me.
• 26:45
  And so between posting every day engaging in my niche personal finance and real estate, and in doing that, I was able to scrap my way, you know, seven long months to get to 5000.
• 26:55
  And then I started doing these videos, which I need to do more of them now.
• 26:58
  I've just gotten kind of lazy because I got a lot of other things going on, but where I would hold my phone up to my computer and I would talk through analyzing rental properties, all the properties that I bought, I'd say, Hey, let's analyze this property together, and I'd walk it through my calculator and all the numbers I plugged in and the first one I did, it was the first one I did like that, which is just crazy.
• 27:18
  It was terrible.
• 27:19
  I've gone back and looked at it and I'm like, How did this go viral?
• 27:21
  I did an awful job, but it did.
• 27:23
  And, you know, it reached, I don't know, half million or more people.
• 27:27
  And it took me from 5000 followers to 25,000 to like two weeks.
• 27:31
  It was crazy.
• 27:32
  And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is awesome.
• 27:35
  You know, it made all the work kind of kind of worth it.
• 27:37
  And so then I just kind of rode that train, did some more videos just like that, then went viral, and then I started doing Twitter carousel type posts.
• 27:45
  So, you know, here are the five tips that help me be able to scale to $2 million in net worth in a few short years.
• 27:51
  And then I'd give the tips that help me and those would hit the explore page and and bring in a lot of people.
• 27:57
  And so we just, you know, viral our way to 85,000.
• 28:02
  But you guys got to remember it's been two years so you know it's a 700 what 30 days of of grinding.
• 28:10
  And so there's a lot of posts that got 40 likes and a thousand people signed more of those and the ones that took off.
• 28:19
  But the moral of the story is create a memorable brand, put out valuable content and show up every day.
• 28:26
  And if you do, along with networking, you'll have a pretty good chance of being successful.
• 28:31
  That's true.
• 28:31
  Like you said earlier, cream has to rise at the top and you did it.
• 28:35
  Awesome. So let me ask you this question.
• 28:39
  How has your life and my mindset changed since achieving this financial success?
• 28:40
  How has your life and my mindset changed since achieving this financial success?
• 28:43
  And what are your future goals and aspirations?
• 28:47
  Our life has gotten easier financially by a long shot.
• 28:52
  Everybody who tells you otherwise is lying.
• 28:54
  When you go from being broke to have a money, it makes life a lot easier.
• 28:58
  I'm not going to sit here and say that necessarily makes you happier, but it does allow you to do things with a freedom.
• 29:04
  And that freedom leads to a lot of happiness.
• 29:07
  You know, I can pretty much do what I want to do, and I feel confident about, you know, where I'm at now.
• 29:14
  Our financial situation for the short term.
• 29:18
  And I feel very good about our financial situation for the long term so that security feels great and we've been able to, you know, upgrade our house, our personal home and our assets pay for that.
• 29:31
  And we've got four kids.
• 29:32
  So we live on 11 acres now, got the swimming pool and, you know, life is good, right?
• 29:37
  But but the biggest thing for us is four years we didn't do it.
• 29:41
  We let our assets build and we stayed broke every time we had money, we would go buy more rental properties.
• 29:47
  And I'd tell my wife, there's been days and I was making a lot of money on my W2, but we had spent it all on rentals.
• 29:52
  I tell my wife, Hey, don't go to the grocery store today till we get paid.
• 29:55
  And some people would think that I'm crazy.
• 29:58
  You know, a lot of people I live around here are middle class, which there's nothing wrong with that.
• 30:01
  But they're expecting me.
• 30:03
  All you make good money, you need to go buy the new truck.
• 30:05
  You need to go buy a boat.
• 30:05
  You need to do this and do that.
• 30:08
  And we just didn't.
• 30:09
  We had paid off Junker vehicles.
• 30:11
  We live in a house that we bought at the time for $200,000 and just invested the rest and then built up these assets that have allowed us to live this, you know, great lifestyle that we do today.
• 30:22
  But the big thing with mindset is I learned a valuable lesson when I was in college.
• 30:27
  I had always been the underdog in baseball, and then I had a breakout season my sophomore year, starting to get a lot of hype around me.
• 30:33
  The tech became the team captain and kind of let my foot off the gas and didn't know how to handle the success.
• 30:39
  And then I had a drop off year the next year because I did not keep the pedal to the metal.
• 30:45
  And what that, you know, at the time it was a tough lesson to learn.
• 30:48
  But what it's taught me in business is getting to the top.
• 30:51
  You know, quote, I'm not at the top, but you know what I'm saying?
• 30:53
  Getting to your destination, quote unquote, isn't necessarily the hardest thing to do.
• 30:56
  It can be fun.
• 30:58
  Nobody's really you're not on anybody's radar.
• 31:01
  You're just doing your thing under undercover. Right.
• 31:03
  But then when you get to the top or whatever, your top is being able to continue to grow from there, being able to keep the mentality of I still have to hustle, I still have to grind.
• 31:15
  And not letting that foot off the pedal has been huge for me mindset wise as we've experienced success of not being, you know, I'm content with life, but not being content with my business growth and my real estate portfolio growth.
• 31:30
  Because like they say, if you're not growing, you know, you're going backwards.
• 31:35
  And so continuing to grow, even though we feel in a comfortable, comfortable state, has been a been a huge mindset of mindset shift for me.
• 31:44
  I love that how you explain it, you know, I'm getting up to the top is not that hard.
• 31:49
  I agree with 100%, but sustainability is very high.
• 31:53
  This was sustained there and then grow from there because you have a new platform now.
• 31:58
  So the old mindset is gone.
• 32:00
  It's a new mindset because you're taking off from a higher platform.
• 32:04
  So the flight has to be even much, much higher than that.
• 32:08
  So I'm going to ask you one golden nugget for my audience here.
• 32:11
  Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
• 32:12
  One golden nugget.
• 32:13
  I would I would tell you guys is Oh, you're asking me for one gold nugget.
• 32:16
  when you feel like quitting, keep going.
• 32:18
  Those.
• 32:18
  I posted this on my social media either today or yesterday.
• 32:22
  Those who don't quit usually you win.
• 32:25
  I just launched this podcast, for example, and I think the statistics you may know better me is like 75% of podcast make in a few months.
• 32:34
  So there's all these podcasts that are out there in the world, but I think like 25% of them are something like released an episode last week.
• 32:42
  And so the key to being successful in anything in life is keep going, stay consistent.
• 32:49
  When I had that failed flip, I didn't just give up on real estate, I pivoted, learn what I learned from my mistakes, and then came back even stronger when Finance Cowboy was getting 40 views and I had 300 followers.
• 33:03
  There were plenty of times where I said, This is ridiculous.
• 33:06
  All my friends are making fun of me.
• 33:08
  But I kept going and now it's fruitful.
• 33:11
  And so if you guys will continue to show up when times get tough and on those days that you want to quit, keep pushing through and you will see the fruits of your labor sooner or later.
• 33:22
  Esguerra So this brings us to our rapid fire round, and I'm going to ask you five questions.
• 33:28
  You're going to answer in one word or one sentence only.
• 33:31
  Are you ready?
• 33:31
  Let's do it. All right.
• 33:33
  So the first question is, what is one of the most important thing that you have learned in life?
• 33:38
  And how did it change your life after learning it?
• 33:41
  Hey, now play later or play now pay later so you can either pay your dues now and enjoy it later or you know, you can do all your playing now, but you can pay for it later.
• 33:53
  And when I realized, Hey, if I put in the work on the front end, it's going be a lot better for me on the back end.
• 33:58
  And I apply that to everything in life.
• 34:00
  Life has been a lot smoother and a lot less learning the hard ways.
• 34:06
  And so I live by that motto all my life, Believe me or not, in India, that's what they say all the time.
• 34:13
  Wow, that's awesome.
• 34:14
  Hey now, so share one good book that you like and recommend to my audience.
• 34:20
  I like the Fred Factor.
• 34:22
  It's a very simple book about a mailman who goes the extra mile every day, and I read it early on in my career.
• 34:29
  And what it taught me is if you just do a little bit more, just go the extra mile for people, take care of them, add a little more value whenever you think you've done enough.
• 34:39
  What's one more thing that you could do to set yourself apart?
• 34:42
  And you know, you'll be you'll be memorable and that'll that'll pay dividends. That's true.
• 34:48
  That bring you a success in one word.
• 34:51
  What does life mean to you, love?
• 34:58
  I like that.
• 34:59
  What is your biggest passion?
• 35:02
  Family?
• 35:05
  If you could turn back in time and talk to your younger self, what would you tell yourself and why stop stressing so much?
• 35:14
  Everything's going to be all right.
• 35:17
  I like that and I've heard that many times before. Wow.
• 35:22
  How can people reach out to you The best way to get a hold of me is on Instagram at Finance Cowboy, or if you're on Tik Tok at the finance Cowboy, or you can go to my website Finance Cowboy dot com.
• 35:35
  I would love to engage with each of you and answer any questions that anybody listening this has.
• 35:43
  Thank you so much Ilia really enjoyed our conversation.
• 35:46
  Thanks so much for having me.