Latest / Age Defiantly with Mark Young / [Ep 40] How to Survive "Distressed" Real Estate (Without Becoming Distressed) David Ocon

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[Ep 40] How to Survive "Distressed" Real Estate (Without Becoming Distressed) David Ocon · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

0:00
Welcome to Performance Driven Living, the podcast where we question everything.
0:05
We don't tip to around tough topics, we walk right into them, not to provoke, but to
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get closer to what's real.
0:13
You might not agree with everything you hear, and that's okay.
0:17
The show isn't about being right, it's about being real.
0:20
These conversations are meant to stretch your thinking, challenge assumptions, and spark
0:25
something deeper.
0:26
The views shared are those of our guests and may not reflect those of the host or team.
0:32
And while we dive deep into health, performance, and transformation, this is not medical advice.
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Talk to your doctor before making changes to your health or lifestyle.
0:42
Take what lands, leave what doesn't, but whatever you do, don't stop questioning.
0:50
We're here on the Performance Driven Living podcast with my guest and friend David O'Conn.
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Now David comes to us, I'm going to read this bio that the producers put together here
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and it says David O'Conn is a former elite athlete, biomedical researcher, and now real
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estate developer, he brings a unique blend of grit, intellect, and strategic thinking
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to every phase of his life, including his new book, Why We Ran.
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Now David, when people do intros and bios for me, I normally read these things and I'm
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like, that doesn't sound like me at all.
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Like wow, you picked all my high points and put them on paper, but this actually does
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sound like you.
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So I'm impressed and I'm welcome here to have a conversation with you because at Performance
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Driven Living, the entire goal of our podcast is for you to teach me something that makes
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my life better.
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And then by proxy, anybody listening gets to take your pearls of wisdom and apply them
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to their own lives.
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So thank you for being here.
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I appreciate you taking the time out of your day.
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Thank you for having me.
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Did you work in real estate?
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You got time all the time, right?
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Yeah.
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There's seasons of very big.
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You get more free time than I do.
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Too funny.
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So David, I want to start off on this topic because there's a little known fact about
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you that I think most people who know you kind of discover this because you don't talk
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about it.
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And I think most people realize it offhand, but it's like, you were a runner.
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Like you literally wrote a book years and years ago that I, what is the title to that
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one?
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It's called a Why Are We Ran?
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Why We Ran?
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Okay.
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So that's the book you wrote years ago, which is the training book, the same one.
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Okay.
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So well, this one said the new book Why Are We Ran?
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Well, I keep updating it throughout my life.
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Okay.
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Perfect.
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Got it, got it, got it.
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So the first edition of Why Are We Ran was actually a book talking about the proper form
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and everything about running.
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But you've, you've obviously been a competitive runner, which is clearly an active discipline
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because let's be honest with you.
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Even people are just like, oh, I love running.
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I'm like, Andrew, a big fan liar.
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Like no one loves running.
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Right.
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I think what people love about running and I want you to tell me this because running
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to me is one of the most disciplined sports, if I can call it a sport, is that terrible
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than I say that.
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But it's like, it, running to me is like, it's an active discipline.
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I think it's the purest sport out there because it involves yourself how far, how hard
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you can push yourself and it involves all the biological processes in your body, which
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you have to constantly train and adapt to, you know, get your VO2 max up, get the blood
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pumping more, get your times faster, you know, the training involved.
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It's repetitive, repetitive, repetitive to get better and faster, you know, just like
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in business, you got to, you know, you have all these processes and teams and just like
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the human body, you know, you have the nervous systems, the capillaries, the heart, the
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lungs, everything's working together to try to achieve one goal.
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And so running is kind of like a metaphor for life to me, like in that it's, and as a performance
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or a person, it's, it takes to be a better runner, to be a better entrepreneur, to be
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a better hired achiever, you know, you have to be disciplined, you have to be well-rounded,
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you have to have strong surroundings and really put in the work, put in the effort to
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try to be the best that you can be.
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You're funny, you say that because you talk about running being a metaphor for life, which
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I love that metaphor, by the way, because I kind of my entire life is spoken in metaphors.
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But on my grandmother's grave, she wanted the Bible verse, second Timothy, four, seven,
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and eight actually on her tombstone.
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So that's actually on her tombstone and I'll read that to you, but that Bible verse actually
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says, I fought the good fight.
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I finished the race and, and, and there's this whole, you know, letters from Paul and the
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New Testament.
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And he often refers to life as a race that I'm running the race.
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I buff it my body into compliance.
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And it's like all of these things, like literally you're saying running is like a metaphor
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for life.
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And I'm like, wow, that's a real biblical concept, be honest with you.
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Like this idea that Paul makes this comparison all throughout all of his writings and the
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New Testament talking about, it is a race that this is not a sprint.
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This is a marathon.
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This is not a, I had a really good season in life and then the next season's going to
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suck.
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This is a no.
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This is one big, contiguous race from, from cradle to the grave.
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All of this is one race.
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And I wanted, I want to actually unpack that a little bit with you because that, that speaks
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to me.
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I think we've all been in seasons of our race that didn't feel as Olympic as others.
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That I think we've all been in those places where it just, life felt like it sucked and
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we're like, oh, it's just a season.
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And it's like, well, yeah, this was the uphill, right?
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Yeah, we're running, but this is the uphill, you know, this is where I had to stop for
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water.
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And I think sometimes for, for performance driven people, myself included, like those
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up hills, we fight them, right?
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And we're upset about them.
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And I don't want to stop for water because that just slows my time, right?
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And it's like, and I've run half Marathons, Marathons, like I've done that too.
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And it's like, I hated every minute of it to be honest with you, but it's like, I
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remember like, well, I want my time to be this, but there's a water station ahead.
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And I kind of want to unpack the water station for a minute because I know you've had seasons
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of life.
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And sometimes the stop at the water station feels like all we're doing is killing our
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time, right?
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Like, I'm going to lose a minute off of my time because I stopped for water, but I personally
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feel that sometimes the stopping for water actually adds to your time, right?
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Like taking that moment and as a running coach, as an author talking about running, and
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as a person who's had ups and downs and all sorts of weird seasons through life, like
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taking that moment, taking that water break in the midst of a marathon, you know, metaphorically
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talking about life, like unpack that for me.
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So in real estate, so I deal in a very specific part of real estate, distressed real estate.
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It's called distressed real estate for reasons.
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Very difficult.
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You're buying other people's property that are in complete distress repair, you know,
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their lives are a mess or the properties are a mess.
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The banks won't finance it.
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You got a borrow hard money, it's called hard money for a reason because it's very high
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interest rate and you got to move quick and get these properties done.
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And so there was when I was very young, I'm still young, but when I was younger and naive,
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I, you know, I thought it was, I could take on anything, right?
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I was doing nine, ten projects at a time and I thought, oh, if I slow down, you know,
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I'm not going to be, not going to make as much money as I want to.
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I'm going to keep advancing to bigger properties.
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And I never stopped to try to get that water.
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And it came to a point where I took on so much that I became distressed.
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My body became distressed.
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My finances came distressed.
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And, you know, I'm in the business of storage during that.
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And then I got put in that position, which I thought was a, you know, a huge, what we
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said, oxymoron, right, kind of situation where, how did that guy become distressed?
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And it's because I, you know, I became too ambitious, you know, call it maybe ego.
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So what I'm saying is, you know, there's, as a, as a performance driven person, yes,
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you got to be ambitious, you got to have high goals, you got to want to constantly improve,
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but you also got to stop and drink some water and not push yourself to, to the point
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where it's going to be detrimental to your health, your body, your mental health,
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your business, you know, everything around you will start to deteriorate.
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If you just keep skipping that water station, you're going to end up dehydrated and passing
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out, physical, you know, metaphorically and, yeah, yeah, I was talking to, uh, to a cousin
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of mine actually recently who was like, oh, I'm trying to get in shape, you know, and
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she's like, oh, I was working out so hard.
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I'm lifting heavy and I'm like, great.
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Like that's fantastic.
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I'm going to the gym every single day of the week.
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And I am lifting heavy every single day of the week, you know, and I'm just not seeing
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the gains I want.
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Like what days are you doing recovery?
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Yeah.
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And, and it was literally, it was counterintuitive because I mean, she's not, she's not a fitness
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guru.
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Yeah.
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But, you know, asking like, what is your recovery regimen?
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Because we all know how to pop it into overdrive, but I would say particularly as performance
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driven people, I think one of the challenges that I have anyways is like, I have a real
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challenge taking a day off.
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Yeah.
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I'm very to my phone, like I am, you know, in my business, like I'm on call, like all
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the time.
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And it's like even, even weekends evenings, like it's not unusual for me to get a phone
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call because, you know, maybe I've got a client who was busy all day too and didn't have
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a chance to call me.
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So now it's nine o'clock at night and I'm getting a phone call.
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And I always answer.
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But as a person who is performance driven, we start to think that our inputs, you know,
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we start to measure.
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I know the way you think and I think and it's like, you know, every minute I'm not working
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is an opportunity that I lost income.
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Because if I were working that hour, I could have, I could have earned more.
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I could have been better disciplined.
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I could have made something better.
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But I think for performance driven people, there's that, there's that, I'll use the word
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say law moment, right?
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Like there's the, there's all of these giant things, but it's why symphonies have
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rests, right?
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It's like the crescendo isn't beautiful if there's not a rest after the crescendo.
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And I think, I mean, as a musician that speaks to me also because like the beauty of music
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happens in the rest, it happens in the downbeats.
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And I think we often miss that because we're driving too hard.
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We're running and we're trying to sprint through the entire marathon.
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And I think it's that tortoise and the hare kind of metaphor that, you know, the sprinting
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gets you an early start, but it's not, it's not lasting.
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And performance is about the long haul.
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It's the marathon.
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It's the cradle to grave, right?
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It's not about I can, I can crush it for the next three months.
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It's about how do you create a sustainable life?
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Definitely.
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Yeah.
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I went through periods where I was doing great, made tons of money, but then I, there
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was other periods where I took on so much that it, I became so stressed that it affected
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my performance, the way I analyze property, the way I delegated.
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And there's periods where I lost money just because I was just sloppy, sloppy trying
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to take on too much, and so you need to find that balance where, you know, that you're
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happy and fulfilled.
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And it's not always about, you know, how much money am I going to make this year, but,
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you know, you got to have that work life balance.
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And I know it's cliche, but you really need to, to have a sense of, hey, I am accomplished.
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I am doing well, you know, what, you know, how much more do I need at the cost of not spending
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time with my family or, or stressing out all the time or not, you know, those two friends
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are my mental health or gaining 30 pounds or my blood pressure is going up, you know,
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I ended up in the hospital twice from overeating stress, drinking, you know, to, to, to take
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away stress.
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And yeah, it, you know, I was carrying $80,000, $90,000 a month in mortgages.
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Just, you know, they'd be quite stressed.
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Oh, yeah.
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And if you miss one, they'll, they'll take, they're cross collateralized.
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They'll start taking, you know, all the properties, it's a, it's a very serious game.
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I toned it back a bit and I become more conservative and I've, throughout the years, I've made
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more relationships with, with lenders and I always align myself with older partners.
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I always pick the brains of these big juggernauts who've been through it all.
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I've seen it all, it's been through the crash, you know, and they give me a lot of advice.
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So I think seeking mentorship, people who've done it, gone through it is important because
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they're more into that race of life and they can give you advice.
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And you can't be afraid to ask, you know, I was telling you before the podcast, I, I,
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my major was biomedical science and physics, I double majored, I applied to medical school
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and dental school, right into both and did up choosing to go into dentistry at university
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in California, all right.
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My father was an interventional radiologist, I was kind of pushed to do medicine and I,
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I just didn't like being a dentist, I'm a more bigger picture guy and I ended up dropping
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out of school after the first year I was like, I'm not going to be half a million dollar
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in debt and not be fulfilled with my life, but I had no plan, nothing, you know, I'm like,
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I'm a complete failure now, I just spent four years of college, a hundred thousand
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dollars in tuition to go to USC and now, now what?
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So I started talking to real estate people because, you know, most successful people have
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a real estate portfolio and I started picking their brains and I started small with one
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little one bedroom condo and gradually started running that race and learning and and just
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growing.
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Yeah, it's a, it's a gradual, I mean, it's part of the training, right?
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Like, even with running, like, it's the same thing, it's, it's a training, like, you're
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going to start slower and you're going to speed up over time, out off through property
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management to these big investors, if I, if they were just, let me pick their brain
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and give me like pearls of wisdom, oh, it's cool, I'd ask them, like, you know, what
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do you see in this property?
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Why do you buy this property, you know, like, what are your, you know, you're, you're
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on the righting standards and how do you, how do you, um, you know, you know, if it's
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a good deal and so learning from others is very important.
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Well, and part of that is putting aside your ego, yes, in order to learn from somebody,
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you actually have put aside your ego or your ego and, and confess that they know more
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than you.
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Yeah.
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Sometimes we don't like to admit that.
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Absolutely.
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Well, David, I've got to ask you, there's, there's something on the show notes here that
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I got ahead of time and I don't know this, this corner of your life.
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I want to go in a couple different directions here, but I can't not stop on this.
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It says, you were selected to study under a department of defense combat casualty program.
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Yes.
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But in the world, there's any of me because I mean, you're not doing dentistry on, so
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in college, as the typical overachiever, 4.0 honors college, I wanted to pad my resume to
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get into either a medical or dental school.
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So I applied, I found an application online that the department of defense was looking
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for college students.
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In the biomedical sciences, specifically in biochemistry, to train and under a mentor in,
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in a military base in San Antonio, Texas, where you would simulate, they were studying
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hemorrhagic shock when someone gets shot in the battlefield, bleeding out to death, their
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body's going into hemorrhagic shock.
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They were trying to recruit kids out of college to become, you know, work for them, become
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work in the lab with them.
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So I applied, I didn't think I was going to get selected and they called me and they're
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like, we'll fly you out to San Antonio, we'll give you a stipend, you have a place to
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stay, and you'll be euthanizing pigs, because pig plasma is most similar to hearing plasma.
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These are the clinical scientific trials that are, but it's for the advancement of science
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and we're studying how the body responds under hemorrhagic shock.
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And it was very interesting, it was extremely interesting.
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However, the government, the erratic side of it, as an entrepreneur, all that red tape,
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you know, don't like that kind of stuff, but the work was fascinating, but it did open
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my eyes to a lot of things where just how, you know, creativity and how people advance
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even, you know, they're studying how the body responds and they're creating chemicals
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to try to, to see if there was any ways that we could stop hemorrhagic blood clotting
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factors.
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They're researching all these different ways of how the body responds.
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Just like in life, you know, how do you respond to a tough situation, maybe not literally
19:27
getting shot, but your business may go through a bleeding period, you know, how are you
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in a managed debt, you know, and it all relates, you know, like the body, I think, and
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like relates to life in every single aspect, and it taught me a lot in, you know, I have
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a photo where they strap me, I literally volunteered myself after signing 50 pages of
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waivers to be a human test on me where they, I have a photo, I'll show you after, where
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they put all these patches, all these IVs, and they put, you know, negative pressure chamber,
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where they basically took all the blood flow from my legs, simulating as if I got shot,
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and I was holding two pressure monitors, and you slowly start to pass out, like as if
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you're dying, and once your body, like, let's go to the pressure sensors, it turns off,
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and then the experiment, you know, and so it's the same thing, you know, as performance
20:37
driven people, if you push yourself too hard, you're going to slowly go, and I'll let go,
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and you know, we like pushing ourselves to be the best, and the hardest, so I'm hearing
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two, two themes throughout your life, and I want to kind of narrow in on that a little
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bit, because I think as performance driven people, and I can relate to a lot of this,
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and that is, you're an extremist, it's a go bigger, go home mentality, which often leads you
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to go home, because sometimes going big is we tend to bite off more than we can chew, and
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then we learn a lesson, then we go back and probably do it again, but every time bigger than
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the time before, which is probably the scarier part for the people around us, so there
21:25
is this extremist, but I'm sensing that there's this extremist, go bigger, go home guy,
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who's also learned that sometimes going home is nice too, and you know, it's that sprint
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to the water station, sprint to the water station, run, and that it's not necessarily
21:45
about keep a nice, you know, nine minute pace, maybe it is about some sprint, and I will
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tell you, like, I run not as frequently as I should or used to, but I always run
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intervals, and part of the reason I run intervals is because I don't believe that
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jogging is a natural human action, I think that people were created to sprint, and we were
22:06
created to walk, I think that in between is something we've made up, because jogging is
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something that has only existed, you know, as a sport or isn't anything else, and
22:16
somewhat recent times, you know, and we can go back to the Paleolithic, Paleolithic idea
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of, you know, we ran to kill, or we ran to not be killed, and walking was to travel,
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right, like those were the two speeds, we had fast and we had slow, and I'm good with
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that, I actually like fast and slow better than medium, so even when I run, like, I will
22:35
sprint for two minutes and walk for a minute, or sprint for two minutes and walk for a
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minute, and we'll deliberately do those intervals, because I could get into the health
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science of it, but I believe it's actually a healthier way to run, but I metaphorically
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I want to go back to this kind of the way my life goes, too, like it's a sprint
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and pause, and sprint and pause more than it's a nice and steady, because nice and
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steady to me says 9 to 5 job, and that to me sounds like taking a hot poker in the
23:01
eye, right, like I don't want a 9 to 5 job, like I want to have adventure, and you
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know, I, my stepmother made a comment to me not too long ago, and she was like, oh,
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you love traveling, you love being away, you love all this stuff, and I'm like, I do,
23:15
because I love adventure, but I also love coming home, like I like those moments when I sleep
23:22
in my bed, when I'm around my own belongings, and I'm not afraid of living in a hotel for
23:27
two weeks, but I also just like the coming home to the same address, like I don't want
23:32
to move around, like I've only moved a couple times in my life, because once I'm good,
23:37
some place, like I'm good, like I don't need to move around, like if I need to go move
23:40
around, I'll pack a flight to Barcelona, like I don't need to move into a house that's
23:45
300 square feet bigger, like that doesn't entertain me, but the idea of this sprint and
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pause and sprint and pause is metaphorically my life, you know, it's a hurry up and
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wait kind of life I've lived, which is kind of interesting, but it sounds like yours
23:59
has done much the same thing, but I want to go into when life changes here, because
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you've ground hard, you've taken a hit, you've, you've, you know, grind it out again,
24:09
take another hit, move forward, backward, forward, backward.
24:13
I know, I know about some of the deals you've talked about to me as friends where you've
24:16
just had some incredibly lucrative deals, and I also know that you've taken financial hits
24:20
where you didn't think you were going to recover, right, like that, that forward, backward
24:24
kind of thing, which by the way is really stressful.
24:28
But you got married and had a baby, you know, how does that downshift?
24:34
That has completely changed my mentality.
24:39
A lot more conservative now, because as a single person, you can take those hits and,
24:47
you know, you can bounce back, but like with a family, you can't have a wife and a child
24:55
and take those hits, you know, so instead of, you know, before I was doing five, six
25:02
projects at a time, now I'm only doing one, maybe two at the most at a time, and much
25:08
more conservative, not multi-million dollar deals, but, you know, lower price deals where
25:16
I can make consistent, you know, income and, and having a wife and kid, hum, humbles you.
25:23
You know, it does humble you.
25:25
You see how, it gives you an appreciation, I think, for, at least for my parents, like,
25:33
you know, you don't realize how much they did for you.
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And I've only had a, a daughter who's only a year and a half, I'm like, man, these, my mom
25:41
is still talking to me every day for 35 or 36 years.
25:45
And I'm like, wow, like, it's, it's, it's, it's very humbling.
25:52
And so I'm not taking as much risk, a lot more conservative, but I'm still, still in the
25:58
game, but definitely I've adapted my, my investing strategy to, you feel like you're missing out?
26:09
Not necessarily, because I've, I've, I've done so much, and I've had so much experiences,
26:16
good and bad, that I've, it's the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and I, I think
26:23
I'm at a good place now.
26:26
And my wife, we've seen, you know, it's a very humble person.
26:30
She doesn't care if I have a giant mansion.
26:33
But she's fine in, in a one bedroom condo, you know, she doesn't want to see me stressed
26:39
out and, and, and get a heart attack if it means trying to, you know, make up ton of money.
26:46
What, then what's the point? You know, like, you know, a daughter growing up without her father.
26:52
You know, so it, it does put things into perspective.
26:56
And I'm, and I'm trying to build my real estate deals with my daughter and my wife in mine so that I can like teach them, teach Ava my daughter when she grows up, you know,
27:10
leave her some kind of generational property and, and, and, and teacher how to do it properly.
27:21
I'll be the old man at, you know, in the future.
27:24
And she'll be the young person asking all the questions.
27:27
So we're, the entire conversation has been this metaphor of running.
27:31
And I love that because again, my entire life is metaphors.
27:35
And I love that. But years ago, a mentor of mine had made a comment to me.
27:40
And he was specifically talking about dating.
27:43
And he says, you know, one of the things that I'm going to recommend to you.
27:46
And he says, is you are on your run.
27:49
And you're just running along and you're doing your thing.
27:51
And he's just like, and there's a lot of distractions.
27:53
And of course, in his world, he was talking about women.
27:56
And he was just like, you know, you're going to see these girls here and there.
27:58
And he goes, and it's going to be tempting for you to slow down or speed up.
28:02
And, and, and, you know, try to be near the people that you want to be around.
28:06
You know, and he's like, but you're going, you're going to find your wife.
28:09
You're going to find, you know, your soulmate.
28:11
But what? Because you need to just run your race.
28:15
And then there will be, you know, she'll be running her race.
28:19
And you're going to figure out that you're just running at the same pace.
28:22
You know, and, and I was like, wow, that's really cool metaphor.
28:25
And he's like, don't stop your journey to find somebody.
28:30
Run your journey.
28:32
And then someone else who's running a similar journey is going to be running near you.
28:36
And I was like, well, that's really interesting.
28:38
I want to actually extrapolate that out of dating and marriage and say, I think that's true, even of my friendships.
28:44
Like the people that I find myself around on a regular basis,
28:48
they're the people who are running at the same pace as me,
28:51
or the people who are running slightly ahead of me,
28:54
that make me run just a little bit faster.
28:57
But it's like, but when I find people who are running a little bit slower than me,
29:00
my discipline is to always say, come on, keep up, keep up, keep up.
29:05
It's not to slow down to their pace.
29:08
And sometimes it's easy to just go, you know, start running at the pace of the person who's running a little bit slower.
29:13
But in that running metaphor, like I believe that you do find your tribe
29:19
by running your race and finding out who are those people around you.
29:23
And I got a message recently from a very good friend of mine
29:27
and he runs a hundred million dollar business,
29:30
and probably one of the smartest guys I know.
29:33
And he sent me a message the other day that literally,
29:36
I don't think he'll ever realize how much it meant.
29:39
Because he just sent me a message.
29:40
And he's like, brother, I just wanted to apologize to you.
29:42
Like I want to ask your forgiveness because I've been neglectful of our friendship.
29:47
He's like, I haven't reached out.
29:49
I haven't talked to you in a while.
29:50
And I have just been all over the place.
29:53
And I've been this, but no excuses building my legacy or building my empire
30:02
and not enjoying the people that I get to do life with.
30:05
Why am I building it?
30:07
And I was like, man, like that's, you know,
30:09
and we ended up connecting and we were at a conference
30:11
and got to hang out together for a few days.
30:13
But it was one of those situations where I'm like,
30:15
man, like you're a hundred percent accurate
30:18
that I want to find my tribe
30:21
and run with the people that run at my speed.
30:24
And I think when we're younger, you know,
30:27
I'm turning 50 in a couple of weeks.
30:29
I still can't wrap my head around that.
30:31
There's part of me that's like back when maybe I was in my 30s
30:34
and absolutely my 20s.
30:35
Like I ran at the pace of the people around me.
30:38
I didn't run at my pace.
30:40
And I think as we mature,
30:43
we start to figure out our pace.
30:46
We figure out what our best running speed is, right?
30:49
Like we're not trying to get the gold or maybe we are,
30:52
but we're figuring out what our best pace is
30:55
and then we find the tribe that's pacing with us.
30:58
How do you find yourself, you know,
31:00
you mentioned this downshift, this, okay,
31:03
like I'm in maybe, you know,
31:05
giving the running metaphor.
31:06
We talked about the times that it was all uphill
31:08
and then we talked about the downhills.
31:10
And you're maybe in a nice flat plateau right now
31:14
where maybe not being aggressive and investing
31:16
is a good thing.
31:17
And maybe spending time with your wife and daughter
31:19
is more important than the investment.
31:22
Life's not going to be flat roads for the rest of it.
31:25
So my two questions I put out there to you is,
31:28
how do you find your tribe?
31:31
Like how do you find the people that you want to pace with?
31:35
And then secondly, how are you preparing for the next sprint?
31:39
Because there will be one.
31:41
So one of my main business partners
31:45
who've done the majority of our deals together,
31:50
he's 20 years older than me.
31:52
He also has a wife and one kid.
31:54
And he's 20 years more of wisdom.
31:59
And, you know, when I started...
32:01
Oh, it's killing me here that I'm almost 20 more years of wisdom.
32:04
When I started, I was single, young ambitious guy.
32:09
He's 20 years older, married with a kid.
32:13
So, you know, I was very, you know,
32:16
I'd always give him, pitch him,
32:18
first try to refuse all of any deals I found.
32:21
Again, I think this is really a good deal.
32:24
He's like, I like it, but you know,
32:27
I got to be a little more conservative.
32:29
So he kind of balanced, you know,
32:32
balances me out.
32:33
I think, like you said,
32:34
finding your tribe aligning yourself with people
32:37
that if you know that you're a very impulsive,
32:42
aggressive, you know, habits, you know,
32:48
aggressive investing strategy,
32:50
align yourself with someone that can say,
32:53
hey, David, you know,
32:55
that's a little ambitious, you know,
32:58
remember now you're married, now you've got the wife and kid.
33:01
And a different set of eyes, you know,
33:03
let's be a little more conservative.
33:05
Let's invest for cash flow instead of equity right now.
33:09
Let's do things that are more predictable than speculative.
33:15
So I've had this one particular person
33:21
as far as a business partner to help me balance.
33:25
And he's what I ended up becoming.
33:29
I had a wife and one child as well.
33:32
You know, the wisdom all makes sense.
33:34
So, you know, it's good to align yourself with your tribe,
33:39
whether it's business partner friends,
33:41
or people that can hold you accountable
33:43
or give you insight,
33:45
or that know you and know your habits and personalities,
33:48
your weaknesses, and your strengths,
33:51
and kind of give you guidance.
33:54
And not afraid to speak their mind to as a friend,
33:58
or as a colleague, as a business partner.
34:00
A lot of people to me, you know,
34:03
when I was being very aggressive,
34:05
or when I was stressing out,
34:07
and, you know, going to the bar to destress.
34:11
No one would say anything to me.
34:13
Like, you know, like maybe they thought
34:15
I'd get offended or something,
34:17
or they wouldn't say anything to me.
34:19
And I was like, I would have welcomed it.
34:22
You know, like tell me, tell me.
34:25
And that's part of why I ask is this,
34:28
you know, you're in this pace,
34:30
and I'll get back to my other question in a moment,
34:32
but finding that tribe is important.
34:34
And I'll say, even as a, I mean,
34:36
I'm a go to the gym every day person.
34:39
But part of the reason why I'm able to do that,
34:42
is because I know that I have a tribe
34:44
that if I'm not there,
34:46
there's, I say a consequence,
34:48
but the consequence sometimes
34:49
is just the shame of a text message saying,
34:51
where are you?
34:52
Which is bad enough for me.
34:53
Like, I'm a performance-driven person,
34:55
so it would be.
34:56
But, you know, finding an accountability buddy at the gym,
34:59
or finding an accountability buddy to run,
35:01
or a coach that makes you do something.
35:03
We all by our nature tend to regress a little bit,
35:06
because our body is adapted to comfort,
35:08
much more than discomfort.
35:10
But you mentioned the idea of like,
35:12
if I had a person who was like,
35:14
hey, not cool,
35:16
it would have possibly even changed the trajectory of your run.
35:19
Like, your life would look different,
35:21
had people stepped up and said,
35:23
hey, what's going on?
35:24
So my question to you then,
35:26
I suppose is, you know,
35:27
and I'll back up to my other question,
35:29
but when you're looking for those,
35:31
it sounds like the real estate business guy,
35:34
that you kind of ended up together serendipitously,
35:37
and perhaps, you know,
35:38
and I sense a lot from you that you are a person
35:41
who's willing to take input from anybody,
35:43
and then filter that through wisdom,
35:45
but you're willing to be humble
35:47
and let other people be the expert on things,
35:49
which is admirable,
35:50
because a lot of people will, you know,
35:51
go down fighting that they're right.
35:53
And I love that,
35:54
but personally,
35:56
how do we go about finding those people?
35:59
Because to me, that's like one of the most important lessons in life
36:02
is finding the tribe,
36:03
finding the people who do hold you accountable,
36:05
finding the people who know how to speak your language
36:08
and deliver truth with love in business,
36:12
in personal lives, in friendships,
36:14
and in whatever,
36:16
I think we need those people everywhere.
36:18
Yeah.
36:19
I mean, for me, honestly, it's been tough
36:21
because I'm a natural introvert.
36:24
You know, I found this business partner.
36:26
I used to write posts on biggerpockets.com,
36:29
analyzing the real estate market,
36:31
just writing about the real estate market,
36:33
and my thoughts,
36:35
and he sent me a message on the internet.
36:38
It's like, hey, I'd like to meet up with you.
36:40
I think you've got some good insights.
36:42
And little did I know,
36:43
you know,
36:44
he worked at Google for 20 years,
36:48
was retired, had a lot of money,
36:50
he was kind of just testing me,
36:52
and we became business partners.
36:54
That's awesome.
36:55
I was just through the power of the internet.
36:57
I mean, as a, as a, I guess, an introvert.
37:00
But I commend you for being open to that,
37:02
because you're out blogging about the world and some guy,
37:05
like a real estate blog.
37:07
Is that tribal people?
37:09
But he found me,
37:12
but then, yeah, putting yourself out there.
37:15
So when I started real estate,
37:17
I would send custom made canvases
37:20
with quotes like, man in the arena,
37:22
all these entrepreneurs,
37:23
you know, I would mail them to these top real estate investors.
37:26
It's one guy,
37:27
I'd mail them like 10 canvases
37:29
and like his secretary and him wouldn't get back to me.
37:32
Right?
37:33
Why is this guy sending me so much stuff?
37:35
I was like, I just want to pick your brain for an hour.
37:37
I'm talking about very big heavy hitters.
37:40
And I was like,
37:41
by the way, that's about its extroverted as you can get.
37:44
It has to aggressive way, right?
37:46
Without talking,
37:47
I sent like a physical product.
37:49
And he's like,
37:50
I just come to my office and we'll talk.
37:53
And I still keep in touch with that guy today.
37:56
And he's a board of directors
38:00
at executive national bank.
38:03
You know, a lot of money taught me a lot about real estate
38:06
and how to analyze certain properties.
38:09
And it was just putting myself out there
38:12
in a conventional way, I guess,
38:14
to get attention.
38:16
And I think,
38:19
you know, people are intimidated to talk
38:21
to tightens of industry or other people.
38:25
You know, people that have made it
38:28
are very successful and that are humbled.
38:30
They want to,
38:31
they want to impart their wisdom to you.
38:33
You just got to ask and do it in the right way.
38:36
And if they see like potential in you
38:38
and see you're coming from a humbling place,
38:41
they will give you the time.
38:43
And so it's funny you say that
38:45
because in my recent book, Radical Generosity,
38:48
like one of the things I talk about is one of the ways
38:50
that we, as people who have been around the block
38:53
a few times perhaps,
38:54
can be generous.
38:55
It's like it's not about just giving money.
38:57
It's not about even just giving time.
38:59
But it's literally being able to share wisdom
39:02
and how are we generously giving that experience back
39:06
and learning opportunities for people
39:08
who are not as far as we are?
39:09
Like how do we,
39:10
you know,
39:11
what's the thing that a man needs three people in his life?
39:13
He needs one person who's at the exact same stage
39:16
as he's in for, for kinship.
39:18
He needs one person who's ahead of him for mentorship.
39:21
And then he needs one person who's behind him to mentor.
39:25
And, and, and I love that idea that there are people
39:27
in our lives who are ahead of us who we need to follow
39:30
and we need to learn from.
39:32
There are people that we need to be teaching.
39:35
But we also need those just comrades in arms, right?
39:37
Those people who are just there where we are.
39:39
They understand their struggle.
39:40
They're not ahead of us.
39:41
They're not behind us.
39:42
They're not trying to even teach us anything.
39:44
They're, they're just the people in our lives
39:46
that we get to do life with.
39:47
And I think that's that race, right?
39:49
There's, there's the runner in front of me
39:50
that I want to be like.
39:51
There's a runner behind me that I'm going,
39:53
come on, keep up.
39:54
And then there's the guy who's just running right next to me.
39:57
Ooh, I know if I trip is right there to help pick me up.
40:01
And I think those are probably the people
40:03
that we have the hardest time finding in life
40:05
to be honest with you.
40:06
Or the ones that are just right where we are.
40:10
And who, you know, the guy in front of me can't see
40:12
if I tripped.
40:13
And he's not turning around.
40:14
And the guy behind me may not even get there in time.
40:17
It's like the people running right next to you
40:19
are the ones that are going to pick you up and drag you forward.
40:21
And I think it's important to find those people
40:24
if we're in those running metaphor still.
40:26
And one of the things that I love about what you're saying, David,
40:28
is there's a humility about you
40:30
that is willing to learn from anybody.
40:33
And the fact that you put yourself out there,
40:35
you're sending gifts to a person
40:37
to just annoy him into returning your phone call.
40:39
Like I love that aggressive behavior.
40:41
Like that's something I would do.
40:43
And I love it because you're performance driven.
40:45
You see the value of his knowledge
40:47
and you're unabashedly asking for that type of input.
40:51
And how many people don't even want the input?
40:53
Like he's probably talked to dozens of people
40:56
and they've just ignored him.
40:57
And you're begging him for that wisdom.
41:00
And I think good leaders and good mentors,
41:03
you know, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
41:06
I think that's important.
41:08
But I asked you a question a little bit ago.
41:10
And I kind of want to wrap us in that direction.
41:12
And that is, you've been on this thing.
41:14
You've sprinted.
41:15
You've stopped at the water station.
41:17
We've done the uphill climbs where it felt like
41:19
it was never going to end.
41:20
We've done the downhill where we were coasting
41:22
and everything was coming up roses.
41:24
You're in this plateau right now
41:26
where you're able to take a little easy
41:28
and enjoy your wife and baby.
41:30
How are you preparing for the next sprint?
41:33
Your life is not going to be flat.
41:36
How do you get ready for that?
41:38
That's a good question.
41:41
So right now, like you said,
41:43
I'm just enjoying raising a year and a half
41:47
field baby.
41:48
It's a wonderful thing.
41:50
But you always got to, as a parent,
41:52
you got to look ahead into the future.
41:55
And right now, you know,
41:57
we're going into a recession.
41:59
And you know, you got to look at the markets.
42:02
But just, I think just keeping in line
42:09
in the sense that don't go back
42:11
to your ultra-aggressive ways.
42:14
But don't stay complacent either.
42:16
I'm always reading up on the markets,
42:18
reading up on the trends.
42:20
You know, I follow big developers
42:22
and I try to call it French investing
42:25
and best where, you know,
42:27
in the areas around them.
42:29
I always researching, reading,
42:33
picking other people's brains.
42:35
So you don't have to be actively deploying money,
42:38
but you're keeping on top of the market.
42:42
Your mind sharp so that when opportunities do arise,
42:47
you have the knowledge to do it,
42:52
you know, in a way that is not risky
42:56
because you're, you know,
42:59
from all the research that you've done,
43:02
it's a good opportunity.
43:04
It's a conservative opportunity.
43:06
There's a lot of down.
43:07
There's not much downside risk.
43:09
And so just basically protecting my family
43:14
and my downside risk and not being too aggressive
43:17
and just being humble.
43:19
Being humble is being humbled really helps a lot.
43:25
You know, I'm metaphorically taking this back
43:28
to our athletic training and that is,
43:30
you're not taking time off.
43:31
You're just an off-season training.
43:33
Exactly.
43:34
This is just off-season time,
43:36
but we train harder even in the off seasons.
43:38
And like you said, you're reading up.
43:40
You're staying on top of the market.
43:41
You're watching everything.
43:42
Even though you're not actively investing,
43:44
you're waiting for the moment for the season to begin again
43:47
when you can go in smarter and stronger than the last season.
43:50
You'd say there's a phrase in real estate.
43:53
You know, there's your sharks always lurking in the water,
43:57
standing by the sidelines.
43:58
They're not impulsive to jump into deals,
44:00
but they wait patiently.
44:02
And when the great deal presents itself,
44:05
they strike fast.
44:07
I love it.
44:08
David, I love all of that.
44:10
I love this metaphor of life being a run.
44:12
And again, it's a terrain run.
44:15
Some terrain's rockier than other terrain.
44:18
And sometimes it's a sunny day.
44:20
And sometimes it's rain.
44:21
And we run through all of it,
44:23
because we don't have an option to stop.
44:25
So I love that metaphor.
44:26
I agree with you when you made the comment
44:28
about how running is probably the purest sport
44:32
in so much as it's like life, right?
44:35
Like we're running this life.
44:37
And sometimes it's a solo run.
44:39
And sometimes it's a group run.
44:41
And sometimes it feels like a color run.
44:43
And sometimes it's an obstacle course.
44:47
But it's always a run.
44:49
And it's always with the goal in mind.
44:51
And it doesn't stop from cradle to grave.
44:53
And I appreciate your ability to humble yourself
44:57
in the training period so that you can actually
44:59
sprint harder in the seasons when that's appropriate.
45:03
I'm going to ask you, I ask everybody,
45:05
when you cannot explain it.
45:08
But what one word would you say
45:11
is describing your life currently?
45:13
One word that describes my life currently?
45:19
I'd say happy and complacent.
45:23
You know, just comfortable.
45:26
Maybe content.
45:27
Content.
45:28
That's a great question.
45:29
I hear content in all of those things.
45:31
I don't like complacent.
45:32
Maybe that's why I'm trying to do it.
45:33
But not complacent, but content.
45:35
And yeah, content.
45:37
It's good.
45:38
I love that about it.
45:39
David, I want to thank you so much for being here.
45:41
And thank you for inspiring us with the story about
45:43
how, how why we ran is able to connect us
45:46
with a life mission.
45:47
It's not just about proper form when we're running.
45:49
It's not about, you know, a ball of the foot strike
45:52
as opposed to a heel strike.
45:54
And all the mental.
45:56
Absolutely.
45:57
It's not all the mechanics of running.
45:58
But it's all about the metaphorical, you know,
46:02
training that speaks to life, like like the Apostle Paul, right?
46:06
Like I've run the race.
46:08
That is like life is about the race.
46:10
It's not necessarily even about how far you get.
46:12
It's about how you ran.
46:14
And I appreciate that.
46:15
Thank you so much for joining us today, David.
46:17
I'm sure everybody else enjoyed it.
46:18
And thank you for those who were listening to the performance
46:21
driven living podcast.
46:22
If people wanted to get ahold of you, David,
46:24
because they wanted to learn about you and your blogs on real estate,
46:26
how would they go about doing that?
46:28
I'm on Facebook.
46:30
I don't have a huge online presence,
46:33
but I do post sometimes on biggerpockets.com.
46:37
You can look up Ocon Group online.
46:40
Ocon Group.
46:41
That's O-C-O-N Group.com.
46:44
Ocon Groups to handle on bigger pockets.
46:46
Oh, gotcha.
46:47
Ocon Groups on the bigger pockets.
46:48
Gotcha.
46:49
Well, we'll put some contact information down in the show note.
46:51
So if anybody's interested in learning about what David's doing in real estate
46:54
or not doing in real estate while he's enjoying having a family right now,
46:58
that would be fantastic.
46:59
If there's any real estate investors out there listening,
47:01
get ahold of David.
47:02
Maybe he's got some insights you want or maybe you're a person who can even
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teach him more out of this humble spirit here.
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And we thank you for joining us today.
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And check out the show notes for more information from David Ocon.