Latest / REL Freedom Podcast / BEST OF: Eric & Deven Wohlwend - From Legos To Millionaire By 16 Years Old

Transcript

BEST OF: Eric & Deven Wohlwend - From Legos To Millionaire By 16 Years Old · REL Freedom Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello everybody, we've got the Real Freedom Show for you.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is Mike Swenson, host of the Real Freedom Show, and this week we are doing some of the best episodes that we've had some of my favorites, and so I want to share them with you in case you've missed them in the past.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: And today's episode I'm super excited.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: We have Eric and Devon Woolwind, and we had the entire Woolwind family on Two episodes.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: We had Eric, the husband, and Devon, the oldest son, and then we had Lila, the wife, and Ethan, the youngest son, on two separate episodes.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: But here we're talking about Eric and Devon, particularly Devon.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: He talks about how he got started investing in real estate at the age of seven with no help from his parents, and had turned that into having 46 units, being a credited investor and a millionaire by the age of 16.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: , and so now he actually runs their company, and so it's such a cool story, such an inspiring story, and one that I would also encourage you to share with your kids to show what's possible, what kids can do.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: They are homeschooled, and so this is part of their learning, their business education, and so a lot of really cool stuff.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So check out this episode with Eric and Devon Woolwind, we know you guys are going to love it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Real Freedom Show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, mike Swenson.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Let's get some real freedom together.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Hello everybody, welcome to the Real Freedom Show talking about building time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, mike Swenson, and I am super excited about today's episode.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: A couple episodes back, we had Lila and Ethan Woolwind on and they told their story of coming from not much to building a lot of wealth and real estate, and their son, ethan, has been phenomenal in building and growing his real estate assets, starting at the age of seven.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And so now today's episode, I have the other half of the family, eric and Devon, on, and we're going to talk a little bit more about their journey and then hear from Devon's perspective to what it's like to start investing in real estate, building and growing and becoming a millionaire by the age of 16 and becoming an accredited investor.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So lots for us to talk about today.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So, eric and Devon, we are so excited to have you on the show.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having us both and just had to jump in ahead of Devon.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Not a competition, Nothing in our family does as a competition, but Devon and I we're going to do way better than mom and your brother.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Awesome, I love it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Let's get started maybe with Eric you sharing your background.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: You were in the military, got into medicine and got into real estate, so talk about that journey and we'll just set the stage there from your perspective.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I know for those folks that have maybe heard the other episode with Lila and Ethan, they have a little bit of a background, but would love to hear your perspective on beginning and then we'll hop in and chat more with Devon.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely Spent four years active duty at Fort Bragg, ended up with 13 total.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: In between, that garden reserve went to school at Kent State.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: My degree is pre-med and right before med school I went in search of my life and, like an awful lot of college graduates out there, I've got that degree.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: That's never done anything for me.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: It accidentally got me a job teaching for a year anatomy and physiology and ended up fixing up my first house and the whole goal was to fix it and flip it and do a couple of those.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: So I had enough money to put a down payment on seven acres on an airport, buy an airplane, a bunch of parachutes and run a skydiving business.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: And then I realized that the guy running it today had been doing it since literally the year I was born and still wasn't making any money.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: And that did not sound like any fun to me and I thought why would I sell this house?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I just put all this work into fixing up when I can rent it out and make $50 a month every month for 15 years.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: And then it goes up to like 500 a month.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: That sounded nuts to get rid of a cash flowing asset, even if it was a teeny amount of cash flow.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: So by the time my son came along a few years later, I had done 20 of these in my first two years.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: That brought in enough money that we never had to work again.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: So I was technically retired, although that didn't stick for more than a couple of weeks and Lila said you will get out of this house very politely, but I implied I was going to get a divorce or a job one of the two and a job sounded like a drag and I really didn't want a divorce.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: So I started a couple new businesses and now we have a construction company, a real estate brokerage, many hundreds of rentals we've done over a thousand rehabs and an aviation company and a training company for bestselling books.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: And I get bored.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Every few years I go and do something new.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: And as I was going through these jumps in my life, I had kids, so I just took them with me everywhere I wanted to go and I found that you can drag a child into these fancy, expensive seminars just pay the cover charge.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: They don't throw you out as long as the kid doesn't scream.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: So Devin and Ethan have been doing this and going to different business meetings literally since they were born and I don't know, devin, when you were going to my Wednesday meeting, you were wandering out to play in the kids area, and then, more and more often, you stuck around and you spent more time in the business meeting and less time in the toy area.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: What was going through your mind then?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: What were you thinking?
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I focused more on the talking to people because I was like all right, I can play with the same toys I've been playing with for two months, three months, however long I could remember or I can talk to people and maybe learn something new.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: And that seemed way more exciting to me.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I could do something.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I could talk to these people and maybe do something.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: So I could.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I learned I heard about making money so you can buy more things.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: I probably wasn't as focused on freedom at the time, but maybe buying a new toy, whatever I was into at the time, yeah, I'd like that.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: I can do a little bit of work to get that.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: And that led me to wanting to start investing on my own.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: So by the time I was five years old, I walked into my dad's office and was like hey, dad, I think it's time for me to start investing.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: And then you replied with I said great.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And you asked me what should I invest in?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And I told him exactly the same thing.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I tell everyone else in the world invest in what you know.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: So what do you think Devin?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: What do you know?
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, the only thing I really know is Legas.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: And he said, well, go find a way to invest in that.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: And so I did.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: I had seen Legas for a long time and I found a way to invest in that and made a whole bunch of mistakes that I then learned from and have saved me a lot of money when, a couple of years later, I got into real estate.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Now you had started, because I know Ethan had shared a little bit about the story, so you were focusing on finding sets that were retiring.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Is that right, or how would you?
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: How were you considering investing in Legos?
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: So when a Legos set, when they stop making a Legos set, the price goes up a lot, and I heard bylo so high, so that makes that that made sense to me.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: And so then I thought, all right, which one are they going to retire next?
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Because I didn't really want to wait for three years for something to happen.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: And I thought about it was like you know what.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: I had seen this one set for as long as I could remember.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: Every Lego has a magazine of all their, of a lot of the sets they want to promote.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: And like I'd seen this one set and every one of them, it was the biggest set I had ever built the Lego Death Star.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: And I was like you know what, if this is their oldest one, this is probably the most likely to be retired.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: So I should probably buy that one.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: So I was just saying you used exactly what you know and everybody listening to this.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: They have something.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's just a hobby, maybe it's a toy like Legos, but they know something about it that somebody else doesn't.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And if you are creative enough, you can turn anything into making money.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: I taught a bunch of teenage girls in one of the high schools that called me in to speak to their business class how they could make money shopping, because that's what they said they were good at.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: So there is anything can be turned into a business if you're creative enough and you take action.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you learn a lot of basic fundamentals about, like you said, buy low, sell high, right?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It's those things like that that can apply into a different industry and so yeah, so then share how Legos turned into real estate for you.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: With that Lego set.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: I had done that.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: I learned some stuff from that Over the next couple of years.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I had just I had invested in smaller things.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I bought some gold and silver, some precious metals, because I had heard about that.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: I'd watched the YouTube series, the Hidden Secrets of Money, and this seemed interesting for me and I could buy a $20 piece of silver, and so I had bought a bunch of that, a bunch in six year old terms.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Then I was seven years old and was like you know, I think I'd like to start investing in real estate now.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: And I go to my dad and talk to him.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: He's like well, first you got to read Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and then, any day before you start investing, a guy come or you start buying real estate.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: You should come to the National Real Estate Convention, or OREA is a big conference we go to, and so I went there.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I went to the Youth Academy.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: I was a little under the age, the recommended age, I think.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I talked to him, the minimum age was 14.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: He was seven and I said just let him try it out for an hour and if he's not mature enough I'll pull him right out.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And by the time I got in there a couple hours later and said to the instructor hey, is my kid mature enough to be here?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: He rolls his eyes and points in the back room and says yeah, he's the one teaching of those 20 year olds how he beat him so bad at cash flow.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: My parents play cash flow every Friday night for years, and I just eventually joined in the game as soon as I learned some basic math, and so I went to the National Real Estate Convention and I was like, oh, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be here, and the entirety of real estate could probably thought of it a lot like just the game cash flow.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: I was just doing that, but in real life.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Is there just some of the basic, easy things.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: So many people contact us and say, oh, but what if I spend 90% of what I bring in?
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: It's not how much money you make.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: My wife and I combined never made more than $45,000 until like about 10 years after we started in real estate.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And, granted, we have an awful lot of depreciation deductions in real estate, but working normal jobs.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Both of us were working for $8 to $9 an hour and we managed to buy our first home.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: So it's not the amount of money you make, it's how much you keep.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Always set aside 10%.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: If you can't live on what you have, then there's no reason for you to not stick $100 aside every payday.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: You already aren't making it.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Find a way to save that $100.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Drive less, eat out less, give up cable.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: We turned off the cable.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I don't have cable now.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: If you're watching TV for hours a night and you're not already a millionaire, you can't afford it.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: And it's not the money you're spending on the cable, it's the time you're wasting.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: You could be reading a book.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: There are so many incredible podcasts like yours out there.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Just turn those on while you're driving around instead of listening to the radio and your favorite tunes.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: We listen to books on tape and podcasts continuously, and then, instead of just vegging out, going to the bar or watching TV at night, we sit around and play board games with our kids.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Like he said, every Friday night we play cash flow and you had mentioned before we started.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: You want to get into homeschooling.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: What could possibly be better than playing games with your children?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And we started out before they could count.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: His little brother, ethan, really is so ultra competitive, hence the joke.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: It's not a competition but and he learned how to play Uno because he can match the numbers and the colors even though he was barely counting, and not too far.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: We're playing one summer, we're camping in at Grandma's house and he grabs his cards and tells us his score.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I said how'd you do that?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: You can't possibly add that many numbers in your head that fast.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: He is just barely learning addition at the time and he showed me everything, had the face, you know the reverse and skip, counted them all right, did all the math in his head, and that is how he got good at math.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: But when you gave him a math workbook, he hated it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: He still has.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, he is so far behind.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I need to catch up on his grading.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: They learn when they're doing something fun, just like everybody else in the world, and that is what makes good homeschooling.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: And if you can turn that in, do you remember how you learned how to reconcile accounts, how you learned multiplication?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: And I made it important to you how you learn the Pythagorean theorem by measuring walls and one of your properties?
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: I don't necessarily remember the Pythagorean theorem, but I do remember you sitting me down in your office and had me like match up this thing here, to this paper down here, and then when everything's matched up and the number at the bottom is zero, you win And-.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: That's how I learned how to reconcile my corporate accounts, when he was like three years old.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So yeah, making it a game and making it fun.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: You turn it into a game and then obviously reward him with something a it's appropriate, like ice cream or a trip to the McKinley Monument and go see the dinosaurs, or whatever it is.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: You'd like to see where you are, but it doesn't need to be spectacular.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, when you're there, you turn that into a natural history lesson.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm, and that is how we school.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: You wanna learn about Bernoulli's principle?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Then go stand at the edge of an airplane looking back the wing.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Let me show you.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: It's cool if you memorize a formula that I still can't even remember and I'm a pilot.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: But it's way better if they're driving down the road, going like this, with their hand catching the air, and then you put them in the airplane and fly them around and let them see when you pull on this, the ailerons move and you turn and, oh, pull back, elevator.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: You go up and they learn how aerodynamics really works.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we have.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Just we integrated them into every part of our life, into the flying, into the real estate, into the businesses that we have, and they tended to get interested because they saw the benefits of what we were doing, not just us coming home like a lot of real estate investors do.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: They come home and if they make it to dinner, they're complaining to their wife about oh, tenants trash in toilets, this person didn't pay and they trash that.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: That happens every now and then, but it's not the majority of the tenants.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: And if it is the majority of the tenants, I assure you it's not the tenants fault, it's the landlords fault.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: You need to do better screening, have a lease and enforce the lease from the beginning.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Don't set them up for failure.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And that's really that's exactly what Devin's doing today is enforcing his system at his office, and that's why I'm at the home office enjoying it.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go out to lunch and he's working all day.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So, devin, talk a little bit about getting started then into real estate your first couple of properties, couple of doors, whatever that is, and how you've scaled to.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Now what is it?
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: 45-ish units here at the age of 16?
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Yep, I'm currently at 46 units.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: And I started with so I had gone to that conference.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: I learned a bunch about real estate and so I was looking for the deal.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: And I came across a deal someone who is flipping a house.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: They had gotten a loan that was about to be called due, so they were about to have to come up with a large chunk of money and they just wanted to sell quickly.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: I can't get a bank loan because banks won't loan me.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: I'm under 18.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: And so if I could find financing and close on it quickly, they would sell it to me for a much lower price than they would normally want for it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: And so that's how I got a deal under contract to buy an $80,000 house for $50,000.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Now I just had to find where I was going to come up with the $50,000.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: And that's where I had that.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: There was that much difference, that much equity that would be in the building, and so a private lender or just a regular person that was willing to loan on it.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: They saw that and was like, yeah, he's a kid and no matter what happens, I make money.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I either get the building and make a bunch of money that way, or he pays his mortgage on time and I make money that way.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Either way, it's a win, and so I made it a win-win for every person and that's how I ended up with a fairly good deal at the start, and then my dad, helping me set this up, teaching me what paperwork to do and everything, had me get around a nine year loan on the property and I was seven at the time, so I'm 16 now and it'll be paid off in the next year.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Or you know what I won at 16, a vehicle.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I was never good at saving money and I thought, if they learn rather than saving, I'm never going to pay for their college.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna buy them a vehicle.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: They are not gonna walk around.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: They've never even got allowance for anything.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: If they clean their rooms and the bathrooms, if they keep the yard mode, if they did the dishes when they were little, they'd stand on a chair and put the silverware away if that's all they could do.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: But they have always had jobs to do around the house and that's just what you do to keep the house going.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I do my part and you do yours.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: That's what we all do to earn the place of living here.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Right, and then if you do stuff for my business, you will be paid in accordance with the value you provide, just like everyone else that works for me.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: So we have always separated that and I thought the easiest way for them to get in and have money for a truck without me going out and giving them any money, letting them take responsibility for themselves, was to set up the loans.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: So he's got a loan paid off by the time he's 16 and he can buy a vehicle.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, he's got a couple more paid off when he's 18 and you just help them find the right deals.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And now the children find the deals and send them to me, and if they find something that I buy that they don't want to put in their company, then I pay them a finder's fee, just like everybody else out there.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And if they say, no, I want to do this.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I used to drive them and I'd walk through with them and thankfully Devon got his driver's license.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: So now when him or his brother want to see a house, he drives them there.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: And I actually have some 26 year old and another guy that's in his mid 20s that are following Devon around to learn how do we evaluate properties, cause he's done so many of them in the past with me.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: And then I have multiple 40 and 50 year old adults that need help with their accounting software.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Devon's done doing QuickBooks since he was three years old.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: He goes in, he helps them set it up, teaches them how to do the data entry and, trust me, you don't want to try and hire him to be your put keeper.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: He's far too expensive.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: But he will do the setup for you and it will be done right the first time.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: And these are just the things that are normal to him, as well as riding four wheelers and playing in the orchard and the pond and everything else that normal kids do.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: All right, maybe that normal if he jumps in an airplane and goes to Columbus for barbecue?
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, these are some of the ways we have integrated our entire life into everything.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: So I get to spend more time with my kids, which is really what I think is the main point in my life.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: We were already financially free when we had them and I decided I can't really give up the businesses or that money goes away.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: So even though we have money coming in, it still takes some maintenance.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: You still gotta work a few hours a week to make sure it keeps going, and it's not like I have to clock in from nine to five every day.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: So what can I do?
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: What's the most important thing to me in my life?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Being with my children.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Children that need their parents.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: They really need their dad.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: They need the masculine role model which the whole world seems to be getting away from.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Look at how many more people are in jail that didn't have a father figure in the family.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: The stats are incredible.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: If you just stick around and show respect for your wife.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Your children will learn to show respect for the women they're with or whatever.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Mine are both boys, so these are some of the real life lessons I want them to learn.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I want them to see it because they will learn from you, regardless of what you do.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: If you come home complaining about your job, they're probably not gonna wanna be in that job.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: If you wonder why they don't want to take over your business, how many people do you know?
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: How many people you're in real estate?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Have you bought all of their properties when they had a child that was roughly your age?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It could have taken over and their kids wanted nothing at all to do with their job.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Because it's not a business.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: If you own 30 to 50 and do everything on your own, that's just a job you happen to own and I have enforced the ideas on them.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Start investing at a young age.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Even if you only have a couple of bucks, you can buy an ounce of silver and then that grows up and you can buy some gold and that you can buy some real estate.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: It's not the amount of money you start with, it's the active investing every time you get paid.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: And from the time they were infants, they literally still have jars that are baby food jars and that is what they started separating their money into every time they got paid.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: So we set up a budgeting system where they have investing and a play jar.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: They get to go out and you have to let them blow some money and have fun.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: If not, what use is it making money?
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: So here we are on a weekday morning, and Devin, most of your classmates or colleagues of your age would be in school right now.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: So what does a day look like for you being homeschooled, kind of I almost say in parentheses, because you're just learning through life.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: So what does a day look like for you?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Right now, a lot of what I'm doing is I'm going, and I think my dad mentioned earlier I'm working in charge of the real estate brokerage, the management company that manages a lot of our properties.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: I'm the COO of that now.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: So I'm here.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: I have to make sure everybody gets their job done.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: All the stuff I need to do is done, that I check on all of these things, and that's a lot of what I've been doing for school the past month or two, especially as I'm actually learning the skills I'll use in life Leadership, building a team, managing a team and creating systems for a business, building a business All of these things that will be far more important to my life than writing another.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Writing one more meaningless paper Like this is the stuff I'm going to use.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Do you think that the people working for you respect you even though you're only 16?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of people out there that I bet are going to say wow, that's not real, he's just daddy's boy, so he's in there and he took over.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Tell us, how do the people treat you?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: What was the vacancy rate when you took over as COO of the company and what is it today?
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: People respect me just as if I'm any other person.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: They treat me as I am, as the leader.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Part of that is due to when I started.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: We were at 91 or 92 percent occupancy.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Right now we're at 94 or 95 percent.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Not that I'm measuring, but 95.4 percent today.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Wonderful.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: I got there because I'm getting better results than the last person there was three times his age.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm doing this and I'm getting results.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: That means that people's lives end up better.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: They like that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: As long as I'm getting results, I'm staying here.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: He started by emptying the trash and running folders from place to place.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Then he was doing so much bookkeeping at home for me when the bookkeeper called off sick or quit or whatever, we sat him down, probably at eight or nine years old, and he sent the bookkeeping chair for a day or two until they could hire somebody new.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: All of these people working in the office realized, wow, he's not just some little kid, he actually knows what he's doing.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: I was amazed by the time he's 12 or 13.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: People are coming up.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: They ignore me when I walk in and they come up and say Devon, how do I do this again?
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I knew you showed me a quicker way.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: They're asking his advice.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: It's not like he just jumped in at 15 and took over the company.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: He has worked in every part of it all the way up.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: For many years it was like a day a week because I thought that was a good form to spend a day a week learning what the business is.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Now it's turned into more of a five-day a week thing, but it probably helps them a lot more than flipping burgers at McDonald's.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, mcdonald's does have good systems.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: I might have to go learn some stuff from them.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: They are good systems a burger as a burger as a burger.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: No matter where you go, it's made the same way and using the same ingredients.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Real estate agents, are you tired of letting the busyness of life get in your way from achieving your real estate investing goals?
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I'm super excited to announce we've created the Real Freedom Investor Agent Tribe.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: It's a place for you to come, get educated and network with others so that you can make sure that you're hitting your real estate investment goals.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: So find out more on our website, realfreedomcom.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Click on the store link.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: We've got a membership.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: We've got a mastermind group and some private coaching as well.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Check it out.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I've priced it super low.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: The goal is to get you and not have price be a determining factor to keep you from your goals.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: So come check it out, Schedule a call with me and we're happy to see where your real estate journey is going to take you.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: So a few things I just wanted to highlight here that we hadn't had time to cover Devin you had wrote and published your first book at the age of 11.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: If I can do it, so can you.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: How I started buying real estate.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I think what I take away here is you guys make it sound simple and it can be that simple.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: And for somebody like me that works with investors or works with people that don't know how to get started in real estate, they tend to overthink things and overcomplicate things versus taking action.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And especially, you know, Devin, you sharing your story getting started and then even going back to Ethan sharing his story of how he got started.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: He's like, well, I just, you know, talk to this person and talk to this person and talk to this person, and it can be that simple, and so we tend to overcomplicate it versus just taking action.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, I also wanted to mention that you guys also have a book for your family to the family success triangle.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: So is there anything more that you guys want to share in regards to what you're working on and, for people that are listening, maybe, how they can reach out to you if they want to learn more?
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Absolutely Look up Real Power Family.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: We are realpowerfamilycom Instagram and Facebook YouTube.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: We're really starting to grow our YouTube channel and I'm very excited to announce that we are having a real power family radio show.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: We'll be internationally syndicated.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Should be starting the end of this month, so that'll be on AMFM 24 seven and most of the major cities around the US, canada and the United Kingdom.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Real Power Family everywhere you want to go and we hope you can achieve financial freedom as early as possible in life.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: People always told me that the youth was wasted on the young.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: They're wrong.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: The youth need to go out and have fun.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I think retirement's wasted on the old.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: We should all retire much earlier.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Then, when we're financially free, we can really do something to make the world a better place for everybody else.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: If you just live in the grind nine to five every day, then you're stuck.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Get out, get financially free and then you can do great things for the world, so I'll quickly go back to that you had mentioned.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: People get so wrapped up instead of just taking action, and you do have to learn and then go take action.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Do more by your first house.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Start investing, even if it's just what you know, whether that be Legos or Silver or anything else.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Action is going to be what produces learnings that are going to get you better results.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you to both of you.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you to the other half of your family coming on Lila and Ethan earlier and just excited for you guys and excited for your continued success on top of the success you've already had.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for coming on.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you, mike, it was great to be here.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on our technical run and starting tomorrow morning.