Latest / The Hannah Hammond Show / NFL Star's Secret Investment Strategy That Creates Millionaires - Devon Kennard

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NFL Star's Secret Investment Strategy That Creates Millionaires - Devon Kennard · The Hannah Hammond Show

• 0:00
  Everybody is either entering a storm in the middle of the storm
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  or just got out of a storm. When you're in the storm, it's
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  preparing you for something if you're allowing it, and how you
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  handle yourself in the storm is really important.
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  I'm here with my friend today, Devon Canard, just an incredible
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  human being. And but you played in the NFL
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  for 9 years. I saw the statistic that like 60
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  to 80% of professional athletes or at least NFL players end up
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  being broke or having really challenging financial issues
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  pretty quickly after their your career ends and you did not
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  become one of those statistics. So when you have that mindset of
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  like I can't control the cars I've been dealt in life, but
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  what I do with the cars I've been dealt, I can't control if.
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  We are stuck in a scarcity mindset.
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  We lose. I was jealous that other people
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  were having success that I felt I deserved.
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  I was depressed, I was angry, I was frustrated.
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  All of that was hurting me more than anybody else.
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  I was bitter. And when all of those emotions
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  made me a bitter human. There is a shortcut to success.
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  And it's welcome back to the Hannahan Show.
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  I'm here with my friend today, Devon Canard, who is just an
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  incredible human being. And he, I I love that.
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  I mean, not only are you a speaker and an author and you
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  have your own private lending company now.
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  So we're kind of in that lane together.
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  But you played in the NFL for nine years for first for the
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  Giants, then for the Lions and then for the Cardinals in our
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  home state as a defensive linebacker, right?
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  Yeah. And so I found it.
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  I was kind of doing some research on you and, and I saw
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  the statistic that like 60 to 80% of professional athletes or
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  at least NFL players end up being broke or having really
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  challenging financial issues pretty quickly after their
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  career ends. And you did not become one of
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  those statistics. And now you're very passionate
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  about helping athletes not have that outcome and be able to take
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  that money that they've been given or earned that money that
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  they've earned and then invested into assets like real estate and
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  lending and continue to grow your wealth.
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  So I'm thank you for being here today.
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  I'm excited to hear your story. Yeah.
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  Thanks. Thanks for having me.
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  And man, I've been seeing a lot of the people on the on the
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  show, so I'm glad to be one of them now.
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  And yeah. You too.
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  Yeah. And so I, I love to hear the
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  story of, you know, how really just tell me how you began, like
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  how did you get into the NFL? And then how did that
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  ultimately, what specific incident transitioned you to
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  start investing in real estate? Because I know you started doing
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  it while you were in it in the NFL, which I'm sure had its own
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  slew of challenges with with that as well.
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  So kind of take us back. Yeah, so I mean, First off, that
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  whole notion that all athletes end up going broke, There's like
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  a documentary that came out in like 2010, I think it was called
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  Broke and it's true. But The thing is, I think
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  athletes just need a break in the sense of how many people can
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  make millions of dollars at between 18 to 21 years old.
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  And just because you're really good at a sport, whether it's
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  football, basketball, whatever, now you're supposed to know to
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  be an expert in finances. And a lot of these people come
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  from different demographics, different backgrounds.
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  So you throw a kid a ton of money and they have all these
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  dreams and aspirations, a lot of family that's depending on them.
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  So, you know, they start, they start to spend it.
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  So I think the average person, if they were in that position,
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  wouldn't be that different, you know, fresh out of high school
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  or fresh out of college and you're throwing millions of
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  dollars and all the adversity, all the fame.
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  So once you understand that dilemma and that problem, then
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  it's like, OK, well, what can we do about it?
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  And an advantage I had growing up was my father played in the
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  NFL as well. So I got to see my dad's career
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  and I was really young. So most of like my growing up
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  was when he was done with the NFL.
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  So for me, it was like it gave me an idea of the fact that
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  football's going to end. My dad played thirteen years in
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  the NFL. He, you know, had a ton of
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  success. And I still know my dad post
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  career, not really during his career.
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  So having that understanding was like, I got to prepare for the
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  after. And that's why I always was kind
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  of forward thinking in that way. But while I was in college, you
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  know, it really forced me to because I started to face
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  injuries and position changes and adversity in my life where
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  it looked like the NFL wasn't going to happen.
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  And that was kind of a pivotal, pivotal point for me of like,
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  well, I have this dream of what my life is going to look like.
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  And, you know, the kind of house I'm going to have, the kind of
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  car I'm going to drive, the kind of family I'm going to lead.
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  And if it's not, if I'm not going to be able to do that
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  through football, how am I going to be able to do it?
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  And that question made me really start to figure out, OK,
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  business, real estate, these are the things that's interesting to
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  me. And I kind of just took it off
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  from there. And I believe you read the took
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  the purple pill, the rich red rich on Poor dad.
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  What? Age were you I read that while I
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  was in college. So I, I remember it was my just
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  finished my sophomore season in, in college and I had a hip
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  surgery going into my junior year and I'm, you know, it's not
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  looking good for me. Dang, am I going to be able to
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  be healthy for the season? And I read rich dad, poor dad.
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  And that really kind of pivoted a lot for me of like, man, I
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  need to make sure I'm going to be smart with my money.
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  I need to think about what I'm going to do outside of football.
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  And that really kind of spiraled me into this idea of like, OK, I
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  need to meet different business people and figure out exactly
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  what I want to do. So I started going to USC.
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  It's a great alumni network. So I started going to events,
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  getting business cards, talking with different people, finding
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  out who's successful and why. And funny story, one of my
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  biggest mentors that I think changed my life, I go to his
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  office and he's in what I would call the Lululemon outfit.
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  He had like a sweat suit on. And it was the first time.
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  This is back in 2011, 2012, first time I saw one of those
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  movable deaths where you can stand up.
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  So I'm walked in like I'm nervous for the meeting, you
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  know, college kids, suit and suit and tie trying to impress
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  the guy. And I walk in and he has a
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  standing desk. First time I seen one in a
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  Lululemon outfit. And I'm and he starts to explain
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  to me what he did. And he owns 6000 units in, in LA
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  multifamily. And he started out as a police
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  officer. He house hacked that led to two
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  properties, which led to four and he grew his empire from
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  there. And I'm like, if he was able to
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  do that off a police officer salary, then I'm going to be
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  able to figure it out whether I do or don't make it in the NFL.
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  So I think that was the meeting and the one person that
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  completely changed my life where it's like, I want to be able to
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  do that. I want to be able to have a
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  standing desk one day if I want it.
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  I want to be able to come to work and the whole office is
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  mine and, and those things. So that gave me the idea and I
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  just started learning and learning from there.
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  How did you find that mentor? So I went, there's a event that
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  they host at the end of training camp where it's like a lot of
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  alumni come and I met one guy who was in commercial real
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  estate. He was a he was a broker for
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  commercial properties, mostly not multi family but office
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  space and stuff in Orange County.
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  So I met with him, we really hit it off, but I didn't really want
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  to be a broker. So I was asking him like, is
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  there any other people you would highly recommend me recommend I
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  meet with? And he hit up two or three of
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  his friends was like, I think he'd be great.
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  He does this, he does that. And that mentor that really kind
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  of shifted things for me was one of the guys he he recommended.
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  So that's a big kind of idea and and for a lot of people have
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  just like the power of networking is really, really
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  important and it's something I lean on now, even till this day.
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  You can go much further if you build the relationships with the
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  right kind of people and you can continuously learning.
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  And you know, all that stem from getting a business card at, you
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  know, an alumni event. And that led me to the career I
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  have now. I always say there is a shortcut
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  to success and it's having the right people mentor you and
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  around you because it's, that was one of my biggest regrets
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  was waiting too long before trying to reinvest in myself or
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  put myself in these circles where there were people around
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  that wanted to actually help and that I could learn from and that
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  I could also provide value to. And it's such, I mean, for me
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  personally, it's been a massive catalyst.
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  And obviously it sounds like it was for you too.
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  So that's cool that you did that earlier on in college instead of
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  just taking no action or not learning anything or trying to
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  figure it all out yourself. Yeah.
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  I mean, if you have younger listeners and stuff out there, I
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  mean, take advantage of the fact that you have youth on your side
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  and people are willing to interact with you.
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  If you're interested in their industry, you're showing, you
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  know, the initiative to want to connect with them.
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  And I would say take the step further of actually learning
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  something about them and about their business and their
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  industry. The worst thing being somebody
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  that people want to get mentored by at times is like the can I,
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  can I take you out for coffee? And they have no idea what they
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  want to talk about, what direction.
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  I really like the targeted people who are like, I'm trying
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  to accomplish this. It seems like you've done
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  something similar. I would like to be able to sit
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  down with you and talk about this, this and this.
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  And that's how I approached it and still approach it as a mint.
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  See somebody who who was looking at somebody who's where I want
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  to be, but also I respect the people who are who are trying to
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  accomplish what I have up to this point and they have that
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  approach. So I think that's a huge
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  strategic play that I don't think enough people take
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  advantage of, but it really stands out when you do it.
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  Yeah, and a lot of people want to help, especially the, you
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  know, older generation that's really successful, that's part
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  of your legacy is giving back. Like that's the journey to self
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  actualization, which is what this show is all about, is
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  reaching your highest potential and helping others do the same.
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  But it's been astonishing to me because I now have many mentors,
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  not tons, but I definitely a handful of core mentors that I
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  meet with regularly in various aspects from business to, you
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  know, mental health, personal development and all those
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  things. But I always wonder like, well,
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  what do I pay you? You know, cuz you're, you're a
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  billionaire, like you're, you have it all.
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  Or like what I, I can't afford you.
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  And a lot of them are just like I, this is it.
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  I want to give back to you. I want to help you.
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  I want to share my wisdom with you.
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  And that fills my cup. And so it's really cool to see
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  that as you go through different phases of your life, not
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  everything is about money. And the I was raised where
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  everything was very transactional.
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  So I still have that limiting belief a little bit.
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  It was like, oh, I have to owe somebody something.
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  But sometimes the gift that you're giving them and the
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  payment that you're giving them is the fact that they're
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  mentoring you, which is so cool. Yeah, absolutely.
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  I feel like there's more and more people like that the higher
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  you you get because people do just want to reach down and help
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  help people, especially when you're showing the initiative
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  and you're showing, hey, I'm really trying to change my own
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  life and you're. So when I look up to, you'd be
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  surprised the amount of people that are willing to help.
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  Yeah, and now with technology and social media, I mean, you
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  could literally find anybody in the world.
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  I was interviewed by School of Hard Knocks.
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  Yeah, last week he was in town and I was just like I was saying
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  on my interview, just going on his channel, there's all the
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  most successful people in the world on there.
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  Like you literally have access on one channel to everybody in
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  all different industries that you could reach out to.
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  I mean, and that's just one example of a channel, but with
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  YouTube and books and all these things, I mean, every, nobody
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  accessing anybody that you want has never been so easy as it is
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  today and. One, one cheat code with that
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  that I'm using personally right now is I use ChatGPT a lot right
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  now and I have it built in where my board of directors for my
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  business is some of the brightest business business
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  minds that I respect. So a guy in private credit
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  Howard Marks, I have Warren Buffett, I have Schwarzman from
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  Blackstone and I pose questions like this is the dilemma I'm in
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  what what direction should I take my my business, my model,
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  you know what have you? I can't I can't touch Warren
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  Buffett right now. Well, hopefully one day maybe I
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  can. But like, they take everything
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  he's published on the Internet and tell me advice based on my
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  specific business, my model, what they believe Warren Buffett
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  would say. And, and I found it to be very
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  beneficial is it aligns, you know, I have about 6 members on
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  my board through ChatGPT and any pivotal moment in my business or
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  I'm trying to decide different things, I reflect on that.
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  And that's just another form of like, I mean, it's a tool that
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  I'm using to access the knowledge of people I respect.
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  I love that you brought that up because I too used, I probably
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  really talk to ChatGPT more than I talk to humans and I talk to a
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  lot of humans. But it's so cool because I also
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  have a board of directors and or a board of advisors rather.
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  And through ChatGPT and what you can do with it is so incredible.
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  And you have to pay. You don't have to, but if you
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  have the means to as soon as possible pay for the $200 a
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  month plan because it is not the same as the $20.00 a month plan
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  or the free plan. And you get access to such like
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  literally whatever you want. It'll deep research everything
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  like I could be like, tell me about Devon Canard and it'll
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  research every video you've been on, every book you've written,
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  every like everything about you. So it's so cool.
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  And just to have those thought partners is incredible in your
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  business because those types of consulting fees or those types
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  of employees when you're, you know, still a smaller
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  organization, you're not going to have the capacity and to to
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  do that. So ChatGPT is a game changer and
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  all the other tools out there in AI that there's tons of them.
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  But I mean, I've been playing with AI like I could, it'll
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  build a website for you, or you could upload a photo and it'll
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  make a video out of that photo, like for commercial real estate
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  or things like that. So it's really, really cool.
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  I mean, to your, to your point, I have the criteria of like the
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  ideal, you know, one of my businesses is my lending
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  platform 42 solutions. And I have the criteria for what
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  I will lend on. And I could plug it in and a
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  borrower sends me an application or something comes in, I plug it
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  in there. Does it fit what, you know, what
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  would, what would my board say about this deal?
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  Should I lend, should I like, and I could have a conversation
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  with it. So to your point, I mean it
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  really when you're running a when you're a solo entrepreneur
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  and you're growing a business and you want to be able to
• 13:43
  bounce ideas off of somebody. It's hard to do that every time
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  something comes up with, you know your your contacts, but you
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  can do it with chat. So you have.
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  A whole loan committee in there and underwriter actually my, my
• 13:55
  best friend Macy, I told her to get the better plan of ChatGPT.
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  She's like $200 a month. I was like, trust me, well worth
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  it, well worth it. It's like literally multi
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  millions of salaries that you're saving.
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  But she's like, Oh my gosh, like I don't even need my designer
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  anymore. The ChatGPT is doing all my
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  renderings, all my interior design, all my spec books, like
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  literally everything. So it's pretty, pretty wild.
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  It's exciting to think of where the future is going to go with
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  technology and the efficiencies. Like now we can create full OMS
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  for loans or for real estate properties that you're trying to
• 14:29
  list that used to be thousands of dollars, you know, 1500 bucks
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  every per per OM and weeks of waiting time and all this manual
• 14:36
  stuff. So that's super exciting.
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  So shifting back before we move on from that kind of your
• 14:41
  childhood, because obviously you're an overachiever.
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  You played in the NFL, which I don't even know what the
• 14:46
  percentage of people that try to play in the NFL actually get
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  there. And not only did you play, but
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  you played for nine years and for some of the best teams in
• 14:52
  history. And then you also, while you
• 14:55
  were doing that, were hustling while everyone else was partying
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  and you were trying to figure out how to build an empire and
• 15:01
  grow your business and have this life of freedom that you really
• 15:04
  wanted. And so where do you think, like
• 15:06
  that was instilled in you? Were you just born that way?
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  Was did your father end up losing a lot of the money after
• 15:13
  the NFL or did he do really good things?
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  And then still like, hey, this is what I did, right?
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  And I invested my money and I want to teach you how to do the
• 15:20
  same. Like where do you think that
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  came from? I feel like it was a a balance
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  SO1 like my my parents come from not the best area in California.
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  It's Stockton, CA, it's in North Cal.
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  It's one of it's typically in the top five list of some of the
• 15:34
  most dangerous cities in the country.
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  And I always felt felt like it was my responsibility to take
• 15:40
  the torch that my dad, like he did the hard work of getting my
• 15:43
  family out of that situation. I don't know that life because
• 15:46
  he ended up playing for the Cardinals.
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  My parents liked it here. I grew up here.
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  So, you know, I grew up. I wouldn't say we're crazy
• 15:53
  wealthy, but if I really needed something, I I had it.
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  I grew up in a good neighborhood.
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  And some people would be like, all that's nepotism or, you
• 15:59
  know, like I'm a product of that or like, oh, must be nice.
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  You, you know, your father played and it's like I always
• 16:05
  wanted to be judged by what I did with what I had and not
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  just, oh, yeah, I'm in a better position.
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  Isn't that everybody's goal? Like, don't hate on me for that.
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  But what do I do with the position I've been given?
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  And I always wanted to take the torch and go further.
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  So feel like my dad did most of the hard work and putting me in
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  a position to be successful. Got to go to get a good
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  education, got to have proper training coming up.
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  And it was my my responsibility to put the work in and figure
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  out a way to be as successful as I can both on the field and off.
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  And I feel like that was intuitively in me because I
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  remember feeling that way even as a young kid.
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  So I can't like be like, oh, I developed this.
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  Like, it was like I always wanted to like, do more.
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  Like I'll take advantage of my opportunity or show that it's
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  not just because my dad played like I wanted to be my own man
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  and stand up on my own and like, look at what I can accomplish,
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  you know, so to speak. So I had that.
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  And then a part of it was my dad, my brother and my mom, how
• 17:02
  much they poured into me. I was the youngest, so I have a
• 17:05
  older brother and sister and my brother was my coach and my my
• 17:09
  mom and dad, they just were at everything I ever did and super
• 17:13
  supportive of everything I did. And my brother was hard on me.
• 17:16
  He's almost 10 years older than me, so he was almost another
• 17:19
  father figure. So I didn't want my dad to coach
• 17:21
  me growing up, but I didn't mind my brother.
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  So like my dad got to just stand back and be dad while my brother
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  was like, you know, whipping me in the shade, making sure I
• 17:30
  wasn't soft and I, you know, had that tenacity and how much they
• 17:34
  poured into me. Like I, I was reflecting and my
• 17:37
  parents went to every college game I ever played.
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  So, you know, that's, that's a lot of traveling like, and all
• 17:43
  that. And, and they made that
• 17:45
  sacrifice financially, time wise and all of that.
• 17:48
  And I was always just motivated to to give back and be
• 17:51
  appreciative of that. That's so cool that you had such
• 17:54
  an awesome family supporting you.
• 17:55
  And did your your brother play too?
• 17:58
  Yeah, my brother, my brother played in college.
• 18:00
  So my brother and dad went to the same university and then my
• 18:02
  brother tried to play professionally and it ended up
• 18:04
  not working out. He played in Canada and played
• 18:06
  with the Indianapolis Colts for a little while.
• 18:08
  But he's been coaching high school football and he's the
• 18:11
  best D line coach in the in the state D lines coached at Desert
• 18:15
  Vista and now he's coaching at Basha High School in the East
• 18:17
  Valley. So he was my coach growing up
• 18:19
  and now he's, you know, changing lives for kids and helping them
• 18:22
  get to college and stuff. So, you know, he's definitely
• 18:25
  blessed in that way of of giving back and really being a great
• 18:28
  coach. That's so cool.
• 18:29
  Yeah. And it's cool that you guys can
• 18:31
  share something like a common passion and hobby.
• 18:34
  And so when you were in playing in the NFL, when did you start
• 18:38
  investing in real estate? And like, what did that look
• 18:40
  like for you? How, how, what was that first
• 18:42
  deal that you did and how did that progress?
• 18:45
  And, and also how did that impact you while you were
• 18:47
  coaching or while you were playing?
• 18:48
  Because I'm sure people were probably like you, are you not
• 18:53
  focused on football? Because I know that happens to
• 18:55
  me. They're like, well, what's your
• 18:56
  focus like? Where are you focusing on?
• 18:57
  And people don't seem to have the ability to comprehend that
• 19:01
  as an entrepreneur, you can do multiple things at once because
• 19:05
  you outwork them, you know, and at some point you can focus and
• 19:08
  go all in on one thing. But I did the same thing.
• 19:11
  I was an engineer while I was building my real estate
• 19:13
  business, buying properties, renovating them, selling
• 19:16
  properties for people, you know, representing as an agent.
• 19:19
  I was doing all these different things, but I was, I was
• 19:21
  grinding while they they were partying, right?
• 19:24
  So kind of walk me through that, that first deal that you did
• 19:28
  and, and how it it was, it impacted your NFL career too.
• 19:31
  Yeah, so the end of college, my true senior year, I was about to
• 19:35
  play and I had a great offseason ready to go and I tore my PEC.
• 19:39
  So I have to miss my true senior year red shirt playing as a red
• 19:42
  shirt senior. And I end up having a great
• 19:45
  season, thankfully, because it didn't look like I was going to
• 19:48
  make the NFL at that point. So I was already during this
• 19:51
  time off the field, I'm already like, OK, football's really not
• 19:54
  looking good. What is my plan?
• 19:56
  So I end up balling out my last year in college, get an
• 19:58
  opportunity to get drafted and you know, funny story and kind
• 20:02
  of Side Story with that part is as when you're talking about
• 20:05
  adversity and going. Through storms in life, I'm a
• 20:08
  firm believer that everybody is either entering a storm in the
• 20:11
  middle of the storm or just got out of a storm.
• 20:13
  And when you have that perspective, then they don't
• 20:16
  surprise you as much. And, and then when you see other
• 20:19
  people, you can understand they're, they're in one of the
• 20:21
  phases, like they got 1 coming, they just got out of one and
• 20:24
  they're in one period. So when you understand that and,
• 20:27
  and for me, I was in the storm my whole college career, you
• 20:31
  know, position changes, injuries, all these different
• 20:33
  things going on. And it was like, woe is me.
• 20:36
  Like I'm like, I've worked hard my whole life.
• 20:38
  I've done things the right way. I've made the sacrifices.
• 20:41
  I see other teammates of mine out partying, out drinking,
• 20:44
  turning up. And I'm focused, you know, I got
• 20:47
  my undergrad in three years, I got my masters in a year and a
• 20:49
  half. I'm focused on ball.
• 20:51
  So I was jealous, to be to be quite frank, I was jealous that
• 20:54
  other people were having success that I felt I deserved.
• 20:57
  I was depressed, I was angry, I was frustrated.
• 21:00
  And I remember that last year I was like, I can't, all of that
• 21:04
  was hurting me more than anybody else.
• 21:06
  I was bitter. All of those emotions made me a
• 21:08
  bitter human. And I wasn't having fun.
• 21:10
  So I remember that last year I was like, at the end of this, I
• 21:13
  want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and know I
• 21:15
  did the very best I could. And to do that, I want to
• 21:17
  glorify God, be relentless and have fun.
• 21:20
  Those are the three things that I want to be able to say that
• 21:22
  I'm going to, I'm going to hang my hat on and let the chips fall
• 21:25
  where they may if I don't make it to the league.
• 21:27
  But I do those three things and I and I do it my way.
• 21:30
  I'm not going to just start partying all the time because
• 21:32
  they're doing it and it might work.
• 21:34
  It's like, that's not the way I think will work.
• 21:37
  So I stuck to that and in the end, you know, it's crazy that
• 21:41
  that time period in my life and that storm, I feel like I was in
• 21:43
  a five year storm. It ends up being the reason why
• 21:46
  I got drafted and had the career I had because when I got drafted
• 21:50
  by the New York Giants, one of the things that the head coach
• 21:53
  Tom Coughlin said to me was your board talk during the
• 21:57
  interviews. When I went to New York and they
• 21:59
  had me and three other three other outside linebackers.
• 22:02
  They they were interviewing and the outside linebacker coach
• 22:06
  drew a whole defense on the board and like this is what
• 22:09
  everybody does, erased it and asked me to go on the board and
• 22:12
  just draw the draw the defense again.
• 22:14
  Tell me your spot and your role. But because I had all those
• 22:17
  injuries, I was watching extra film.
• 22:19
  Then I was studying more. I had to change position.
• 22:21
  So I knew this position, that position.
• 22:23
  I played outside linebacker, inside linebacker.
• 22:26
  I knew D tackle. I like I knew all these
• 22:28
  different spots. So now I only not only
• 22:30
  identified what my role was, I lined up.
• 22:32
  Everybody on the defense knew exactly where they lined up.
• 22:35
  So they they were surprised. And then it was like, you know,
• 22:38
  offensively it's like, oh, if the offense does this, this is
• 22:41
  what would happen if they if they did this.
• 22:43
  So I'm like breaking down the entire defense.
• 22:45
  And when he called me on draft day and told me they're drafted
• 22:48
  me, they said it was one of the most impressive board talks that
• 22:51
  they've had. And I attest that to the storm
• 22:54
  that I was in. If I didn't go to through go
• 22:56
  through that storm, I would not have been in that position.
• 22:59
  And in the NFLI was able to have the success I had because of
• 23:03
  that foundation I built. I changed positions in the NFLI,
• 23:05
  dealt with a lot of adversity. I wasn't always the fastest or
• 23:08
  most explosive player, but I had so much football knowledge from
• 23:13
  all that time, extra time I spent preparing for that moment.
• 23:17
  So you know, to to you and all the listeners out there, it's
• 23:19
  like when you're in the storm, it's preparing you for something
• 23:23
  if you're allowing it. And how you handle yourself in
• 23:26
  the storm is really important. And that so that's how it
• 23:29
  benefited me on the field. But to answer your question, I
• 23:32
  was, it got the ball rolling off the field as well.
• 23:35
  So where I knew I wanted to do real estate.
• 23:37
  So after my rookie season, I end up having a lot of success
• 23:40
  playing for the Giants. I end up starting even though I
• 23:42
  was a fifth round draft pick, so a later round draft pick, but I
• 23:45
  end up starting a majority of that season and I already knew I
• 23:49
  wanted to do real estate. So as soon as the season ended,
• 23:51
  I went to a real estate meet up here locally and I've met a guy
• 23:54
  who had a connection in Indianapolis.
• 23:56
  I didn't want to buy in New York, LA or Phoenix because I
• 24:00
  thought it was too expensive at the time.
• 24:03
  Like it was. I'm risk averse and I'm like, I
• 24:06
  hindsight, I wish I bought then You're talking 2014, 2015.
• 24:10
  Like I'd be doing pretty well if I would have bought bought out
• 24:12
  here. But my mindset was like all
• 24:14
  those prices seem too high for me.
• 24:16
  So I chose Indiana was the first property I ever bought and I it
• 24:20
  was a turnkey property. So property I was essentially
• 24:23
  buying from a guy who does fix and flips at scale and sells
• 24:26
  them to to investors like me. I bought it.
• 24:29
  I bought it for $86,000 with a partner.
• 24:31
  He put 12 down, I put 12 down and I did the loan in my name
• 24:36
  and the return on that property was amazing as far as
• 24:40
  percentage, but the dollar amount didn't change my life
• 24:42
  because it was $86,000 property. But I always say that was the
• 24:45
  best investment I ever made because it taught me so much and
• 24:49
  it got the ball rolling. And you know, at the end of the
• 24:53
  day, all of that transpired because of the storm that I that
• 24:56
  I happened. So the career both of my careers
• 24:59
  in real estate and business, as well as the nine year NFL career
• 25:02
  I had all STEM from the storm. I yeah, I think the greatest
• 25:08
  blessings in our lives are the things that we don't understand
• 25:12
  why they're happening or that we're resisting them or fighting
• 25:14
  them. And looking back, you know, I've
• 25:16
  done a lot of inner work. And looking back, I realized all
• 25:21
  the things that I resented and all the things I was running
• 25:23
  from or all the things I had anger towards were all of the
• 25:26
  things that needed to happen to allow me to get here today.
• 25:30
  And to become the person that I am and have the heart that I
• 25:33
  have and the empathy that I have and the appreciation that I have
• 25:36
  for this amazing life. Because I don't even know what I
• 25:39
  would be if the those things that hurt in the moment didn't
• 25:42
  happen to me. And you, like the past is the
• 25:45
  past. You choose how you feel today
• 25:47
  and if you truly see that these things happen for you and not to
• 25:52
  you, and also that you have the ability to literally create
• 25:54
  whatever you want in this world. Like now I'm doing now I'm in
• 25:58
  rooms where I'm talking about, you know, quantum realm and
• 26:01
  creating from the, the quantum field.
• 26:03
  And like all these crazy things that we won't get into today,
• 26:06
  but how the idea is the, the, the present is both, it's not
• 26:13
  just the past, it's both the past and the future.
• 26:16
  And you have the ability to truly create the future and
• 26:19
  where your attention goes, your energy flows.
• 26:22
  And so if you put your attention on all the things that you want
• 26:26
  and you have a good attention or good belief in the things that
• 26:31
  happened to you, then it'll continue to drive you towards
• 26:34
  the things that you want to attract in your life versus
• 26:36
  people that are like, well, this happened to me and this is bad
• 26:39
  and I'm a victim here and this person screwed me over and I'm
• 26:42
  not going to trust anymore because of this.
• 26:44
  It just will continue to attract more of those past painful
• 26:47
  events into your life. But just like you said, if you
• 26:51
  understand that we with the school of Hard Knocks, James, we
• 26:55
  were interviewing this, the billionaire guy that went
• 26:59
  through some crazy storms like was indicted after he was a
• 27:02
  billionaire and then he got pardoned by Trump.
• 27:04
  Like all this crazy stuff. He just got pardoned and he was
• 27:07
  like it. He's a he's into aviation and he
• 27:11
  said, I love flying because it's just like entrepreneurship.
• 27:14
  There's just so many things coming at you all the time and
• 27:18
  especially when you're learning to fly and it's like being ACEO,
• 27:22
  like it's all these fires. So if you start to understand
• 27:24
  that that's just part, that's what you do.
• 27:26
  You solve problems, then these problems that come into your
• 27:29
  life, whether it's injury or whether it's divorce or whether
• 27:31
  it's lawsuits or whether it's employees stealing from you or
• 27:34
  whatever, you're just like, this is part of the game.
• 27:37
  This is part of my life. I'm not going to get overwhelmed
• 27:39
  by it and be like, oh, this is just a never ending shit show.
• 27:42
  But I'm grateful to be able to have these opportunities because
• 27:45
  it continues to shape, sharpen my knife and fine tune my craft
• 27:50
  and allow me to and continue to, to serve others as well.
• 27:53
  Absolutely said it in another way.
• 27:55
  So in my book, my first book, it all adds up.
• 27:58
  I tell a story on it about a parable in the Bible.
• 28:01
  And you don't have to be religious to appreciate this
• 28:02
  story, but it's essentially so the master, he had three
• 28:07
  servants and one servant. He was going away from town.
• 28:11
  It doesn't say where, but he's leaving for a long time.
• 28:13
  And he gave 1 servant 1 bag of gold, another servant 2 bags of
• 28:17
  gold, and the 3rd servant 5 bags of gold.
• 28:19
  And he pretty much told them, you know, do the best you can
• 28:21
  with it. When I come back, let me know
• 28:23
  what you did. So the guy with five bags of
• 28:25
  gold, he went and invested it, did his thing, turned it into
• 28:28
  10, double flipped the bag turn 5 to 10.
• 28:31
  The guy with two bags of gold, he did the same thing.
• 28:33
  He turned 2 from the four he flipped the bag in his life.
• 28:36
  He, you know, maximized it, invested it, did his thing.
• 28:39
  The guy with one bag of gold was scared and lazy.
• 28:41
  He buried he buried the one bag of gold and didn't do anything.
• 28:45
  So when the master came back, the guy with five bags of gold
• 28:48
  said, you know master, here's 5 bag all right, you gave me 5
• 28:51
  here's 10 Guy with two bags says you gave me two here's four guy
• 28:55
  with one bag was like, I was scared I didn't know what to do.
• 28:57
  I just buried it and gave it back And you know, he he really
• 29:01
  rose up both the guy with two bags and five bags and, you
• 29:05
  know, gave them higher positions, put them in a in a
• 29:08
  better spot for more, you know, success for themselves and you
• 29:12
  know it within his organization. And the guy with one bags he
• 29:15
  denounced and never brought back up and and never told spoken of
• 29:19
  again in in the Bible. And what's the story that's
• 29:22
  really resonated with me within that is like, it doesn't matter
• 29:25
  whether you're the guy with 1-2 or five bags of gold.
• 29:28
  It's what you do with what you got.
• 29:30
  You can't always control control the the cards you've been dealt
• 29:33
  in life. But what do you do with what you
• 29:36
  got? So, you know, whether you're,
• 29:38
  you know, blessed and in some ways people would argue all
• 29:41
  you're, you're like the guy with five bags of gold.
• 29:42
  Your dad played in the NFL. You this, that and another fine.
• 29:46
  But judge me off of what I did with what I had.
• 29:49
  You know, I want to maximize the position I was in to the best of
• 29:51
  my abilities. You could be the person with two
• 29:53
  bags of gold, 1 bag of gold. But The thing is the the art of
• 29:57
  compounding, which I know you appreciate being in business, is
• 30:00
  one turns to 2/2 to 4/4 to 8. All of a sudden you could be
• 30:03
  that person that started with one bag of gold and you're
• 30:06
  bitter at the people who had two and five, but you just run your
• 30:09
  race and you keep flipping the bag in your life and doubling
• 30:12
  up. You can be in an amazing
• 30:14
  position five years, 10 years, 15 years down the line.
• 30:17
  So when you have that mindset of like, I can't control the cars
• 30:20
  I've been dealt in life, but what I do with the cars I've
• 30:23
  been dealt, I can't control. And I'm going to flip the bag in
• 30:25
  my life in all assets aspects. And that's professionally,
• 30:28
  personally, you know, in, in all aspects.
• 30:32
  So I, you know, I really try to be a person that like, I want to
• 30:34
  be a person that flips the bag that, that double S, you know,
• 30:38
  all the gifts I've been given in every way.
• 30:41
  And if I can keep doing that throughout the rest of my life,
• 30:43
  hopefully by the end of it, I'm, you know, I'm proud of what I've
• 30:46
  accomplished. And it that story also reminds
• 30:49
  me of the abundance mentality and the importance of the
• 30:51
  abundance mentality. Because if we are stuck in a
• 30:53
  scarcity mindset, we lose always.
• 30:56
  And so that one bag of gold, he was in a scarcity mindset and he
• 30:59
  was afraid because he needed to keep it for himself.
• 31:02
  And the other two that had the abundance mindset were able to
• 31:05
  create more abundance and more wealth and more service and all
• 31:08
  those things. And so that's been a big
• 31:10
  transition for me because I was raised in a scarcity mindset.
• 31:13
  Home, we don't have enough money.
• 31:14
  No, we can't get this, No, we can't do that.
• 31:16
  Then it was always like, save for tomorrow and we can't do
• 31:21
  anything because we're afraid and everything.
• 31:23
  And that was deeply ingrained in my beliefs system.
• 31:26
  Just subconsciously, sometimes I still find myself not turning on
• 31:29
  the heat because my, you know, my dad wouldn't turn on the heat
• 31:32
  because of money. And now I have the awareness and
• 31:34
  I'm like, ah, you can turn on the heat head like abundance, we
• 31:37
  have money. And so it's really fascinating
• 31:40
  to see the more you give and the more you think abundantly and
• 31:44
  understand that the world is in a 0 sum game.
• 31:46
  Like if you win, it doesn't mean I have to lose.
• 31:49
  We can both win. And I was talking about this
• 31:51
  with my friend William Lamb, who is the founder of Upgrade and
• 31:55
  his goal goal is to literally upgrade the whole world.
• 31:58
  Upgrade humanity is his mission statement.
• 32:01
  And he says that same thing as humans think in binary terms
• 32:07
  like 0 and one. And it's either you win or you
• 32:11
  lose, you're happy or you're sad, you're you're afraid or
• 32:15
  you're courageous, right? But when you're, he's a computer
• 32:18
  engineer and I did computer engineering too.
• 32:20
  It's like when you're creating these like softwares and
• 32:25
  documents, it's not just binary, it's not just 01, sometimes
• 32:28
  there's 11. And so really in the world, it's
• 32:30
  not, it's not just one or the other.
• 32:33
  Like you can be successful and happy and connected and Zen and
• 32:37
  calm and have amazing relationships.
• 32:40
  Like I truly believe you can have it all.
• 32:42
  And sure, there's challenges and there's all those things, but if
• 32:45
  you think abundantly and think that anything is infinite and
• 32:48
  possible, just the fact that humans exist and that the
• 32:52
  universe is here shows that anything thing is possible
• 32:56
  because you couldn't imagine creating a life, right?
• 33:00
  Like the existence in itself. And so that's something that I
• 33:03
  work on really is that abundant mentality.
• 33:05
  And how much bigger can I think? Because so many of us are stuck
• 33:10
  in these limited belief mindsets of, of, of just scarcity.
• 33:13
  And there's not enough to go around.
• 33:15
  And I'm going to run out and I'm going to be afraid.
• 33:16
  And what if I lose it all and all these things?
• 33:19
  But in reality, that limited mindset, it's going to continue
• 33:23
  to attract scarcity in your life.
• 33:26
  Absolutely. And that applies to all aspects
• 33:28
  of life. You know, us talking about this,
• 33:30
  you people might assume we're talking just financially or
• 33:32
  business, but I think it applies to personal relationships.
• 33:36
  It applies to the life we want to live in all aspects and in
• 33:40
  all areas. So when you really have that
• 33:42
  mindset of abundance since like I want to improve my life, I
• 33:46
  think it's best when they're interconnected.
• 33:48
  Some people, you know, being in the sports world, there will be
• 33:51
  guys who's like, oh, my life is ball.
• 33:52
  All I care about is ball. But I found that if you, you
• 33:56
  know, show up as, as the best version of yourself, as a
• 34:00
  father, as a husband, as a son, as a business person in all
• 34:05
  these different areas, it actually elevates you in your
• 34:09
  main thing that you that you really want to do as well.
• 34:11
  So it doesn't have to be 1 or the other.
• 34:13
  And if you feel like you're wearing yourself too thin, then
• 34:16
  that means, you know, you got to really hone in on the things
• 34:19
  that matter most. But we're, we're meant to be
• 34:22
  multifaceted human beings. And there's not just one aspect
• 34:26
  of our life that's important. And for some people, I was
• 34:29
  listening to Alex Harmozzi on the way here.
• 34:31
  And like, he doesn't care about travel and stuff like that.
• 34:34
  He couldn't, he's OK with just working all the time.
• 34:36
  And that's his Zen, Zen space. If that's what works for him,
• 34:40
  great. But for me, I want to see the
• 34:41
  world. And can I see the world and
• 34:44
  still be a great business person and still grow wealth and still
• 34:47
  spend a ton of time with my kids?
• 34:50
  Yes, absolutely. But how that looks and how I
• 34:52
  curate my world, it's going to be a little different than Alex
• 34:56
  and what him and Layla are building with acquisition.com or
• 34:59
  something. So I think that's really
• 35:01
  important to have clarity and what you're trying to accomplish
• 35:04
  personally and what, what you value and curate your, your
• 35:08
  world and then and the things and the principles and, and
• 35:11
  priorities based on that. Yeah, it's life by design.
• 35:15
  It's not just, you know, I think we have complete control to
• 35:19
  create whatever life that we want to live.
• 35:21
  And he was talking about that too.
• 35:22
  He went to this NLP type of class back in the day before his
• 35:25
  company. And he, the trainer said to
• 35:29
  design the wife, the partner that he was looking for.
• 35:32
  And he, as an engineer, he went and built out a spreadsheet with
• 35:35
  weighted scores and 100 characteristics of what she
• 35:38
  looked like, acted like, talked like how her personality was,
• 35:41
  what her heart was, what her beliefs were, what her fears
• 35:43
  were. But she liked to eat like all
• 35:45
  these things. And he gave it a timeline of
• 35:47
  five months. And in four months and two days
• 35:51
  or something, he was married to her and he met her.
• 35:53
  And he didn't know her. He didn't know she existed.
• 35:55
  And on the day that he created the design of her is the day she
• 35:58
  broke up with her fiance like that, say she's like, I just had
• 36:01
  this feeling and I left that day.
• 36:04
  So it's so cool to see like what you can truly create.
• 36:08
  And that's it. I encourage our listeners is
• 36:11
  like, what do you want your life to look like?
• 36:13
  Because if you don't know where you're going, then any road will
• 36:16
  get you nowhere. And so I think having, and
• 36:18
  William challenged me on this, he said have 1000 year goal.
• 36:23
  I was like what 1000 years? He's like, yeah, that's legacy.
• 36:27
  Like what is your goal for 1000 years when you're long gone and
• 36:32
  what are the things that you're doing?
• 36:33
  I also have a one year, three-year, five year, 10 year
• 36:36
  goal. That's amazing too, of course,
• 36:38
  because those are part of the milestones to the 1000 your
• 36:40
  goal. But what if we think in terms of
• 36:43
  what's my thousand year plan and how am I changing the planet?
• 36:46
  How am I upgrading humanity? And that was really, really
• 36:48
  cool. He's he called it the Jesus
• 36:50
  effect. Like look at Jesus.
• 36:52
  You know, he's he's gone, but he has impacted the world thousands
• 36:56
  of years later. Absolutely.
• 36:58
  It was really cool. Yeah.
• 36:59
  That's awesome. Yeah.
• 37:00
  So shifting backs, you bought your first deal $86,000?
• 37:04
  Mine was $76,000. So that's, that's awesome.
• 37:07
  And were you, did you flip it yourself or did you buy a
• 37:11
  turnkey? So I bought a turnkey.
• 37:12
  It was just a rental that I held on and funny story with that, I
• 37:16
  went to want to scale. So I, I bought it.
• 37:20
  I purchased it and there's a couple of the lessons I learned
• 37:22
  right off the bat, like the partnership, it didn't make a
• 37:26
  ton of sense once you, you know, the, we bought it for 86, we're
• 37:29
  charging like 12:50. So, so you know, it was killed
• 37:33
  the 1% rule, we're doing well. We're happening to split that in
• 37:36
  half with my partner. It's like this isn't like I have
• 37:39
  enough money to where I just want to buy these deals on my
• 37:41
  own and stack up on my own. So I wanted to wait a few
• 37:45
  months, see how it went. So I waited about 5 months, saw
• 37:47
  the whole process started getting statements from property
• 37:50
  manager, all that. I'm like, all right, I want to
• 37:52
  double down, but I want to buy, buy them on my own, so not with
• 37:54
  a partner and buy at scale. So I'm going to try to buy 5 or
• 37:57
  6 six and the guy ghosted me. So I learned a valuable lesson
• 38:02
  is like have have good deal flow and good, good relationships in
• 38:06
  the markets you want to invest, because everything was
• 38:09
  contingent on this guy finding me deals.
• 38:11
  And what it what essentially ended up happening is he had an
• 38:13
  institutional buyer that started buying up all the properties he
• 38:16
  had. So he had no need for somebody
• 38:18
  like me who just buying a few. So he just stopped responding to
• 38:21
  emails and and all of that. So it's like, all right, we have
• 38:23
  this one property and it's great and I'm glad we bought it.
• 38:26
  But like my goal when I first got in the league as I wanted to
• 38:29
  get to 10 to 12 grand of cash flow a month because I'm like,
• 38:32
  if the NFL stops tomorrow at that time, 11:50 grand, I'm
• 38:36
  living in a nice apartment, I'm paying for a nice car.
• 38:39
  Like I'm living, I'm living good if I can generate 10 to 12
• 38:42
  grand. So I'm like this one property is
• 38:44
  not going to do it for me. I need to get to 11:50
• 38:47
  properties, like properties just like that to get to that point.
• 38:52
  So Beech Grove IN, that was the first property.
• 38:55
  I couldn't scale there. So then I started looking for
• 38:57
  another market and I got pitched on Ohio, met the team in the
• 39:01
  offseason, went out there, visited.
• 39:03
  So I started buying in Ohio and I bought 12 units there.
• 39:06
  And then that led. And then I'm like, OK, I got 13
• 39:09
  units now, but maybe I should diversify.
• 39:12
  Should I keep doubling down in Ohio?
• 39:14
  So I'm like, all right, maybe I'll find another market.
• 39:16
  So then I did the same thing and I started to see I can replicate
• 39:19
  this and you know, as long as I find a good deal Finder,
• 39:23
  contractor, property manager and I have somebody to do the
• 39:26
  lending, I can buy anywhere. So I built the same thing in
• 39:30
  Kansas City, started buying up properties in Kansas City and
• 39:34
  you know, that was over about a five year period and built a
• 39:36
  pretty large portfolio of properties between those two
• 39:39
  markets while also investing in syndications passively.
• 39:43
  And that was kind of my strategy, like I'm going to
• 39:46
  possibly invest in syndications and then own my own real estate
• 39:49
  in the Midwest submarkets. OK.
• 39:52
  And most of my audience is, are pretty savvy investors, but I
• 39:58
  mean for Syndicate, I love that because I used to always be kind
• 40:01
  of a control freak of like, oh, nobody, because I feel that way
• 40:04
  with financial advisors, right? Like nobody here, they just want
• 40:06
  their fee. They they don't really care
• 40:08
  about my money. They're just going to buy a
• 40:09
  stock that I could buy on my own and all those things.
• 40:12
  But now I do invest in. Other GPS and in because they're
• 40:19
  like for instance, my best friend Jeremiah, he's been AGP
• 40:22
  and has his multi $100 million fund and he's been investing in
• 40:25
  storage facility and developing and mobile home parks for 20
• 40:29
  plus years. So like nobody gets the deals
• 40:31
  that he gets because he's been calling the sellers for 20
• 40:33
  years. So if I was going to go try to
• 40:35
  do a side hustle of a one off storage facility investment or
• 40:38
  development, I'm probably going to screw it up royally.
• 40:41
  And he can generate way more returns than I could.
• 40:44
  And so I love integrating passive investments like that
• 40:47
  and becoming an LP and other really good operators who have
• 40:52
  the relationships, have the deal flow, have the experience and
• 40:54
  you could generate really good returns while you're doing your
• 40:57
  business, whatever your business is in.
• 40:59
  So that's cool that you started doing that right away.
• 41:01
  That's exactly. So for me, it was like, I'm I'm
• 41:04
  focused on trying to sack Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady.
• 41:06
  I can't really worry about like what I was building with My
• 41:10
  Portfolio was like all I could handle.
• 41:13
  I wasn't able to scale that to the value I really wanted to,
• 41:17
  but I can underwrite a deal upfront and invest passively
• 41:20
  and, you know, get, you know, the average IRR is 15 to 20% on
• 41:24
  most syndicate syndication deals.
• 41:26
  So I'm like, OK, this makes sense for me.
• 41:28
  And I, you know, I'm like, this is a good, I like owning assets
• 41:32
  myself because you have full control, But I, I like the
• 41:35
  passivity of being able to invest in other kind of niche
• 41:39
  strategies that I'm not a professional in, to your point
• 41:42
  and, and in the other markets. So it's diversification and
• 41:45
  exposure and all of those things and you get to, you know,
• 41:49
  benefit from these investments. So that was a perfect kind of
• 41:52
  matchup while I was playing is like, all right, I'm going to
• 41:54
  invest syndications passively, but control my own portfolio of
• 41:58
  assets as well. And I think more people should
• 42:00
  look should look at it that way. Yeah, Yeah.
• 42:02
  I think that's super smart. And what was your kind of
• 42:04
  guideline for yourself to know what deal was a good deal to?
• 42:08
  Buy I had to learn that over time.
• 42:10
  But things I would I would look for is one the prep had to be 8
• 42:15
  to 10%. So the preferred return like I
• 42:18
  wanted, the big thing I wanted was cash flow.
• 42:20
  So it's like can I get a prep within the first year to some
• 42:24
  deals like development type deals?
• 42:26
  They might give you a higher return but your money sitting
• 42:28
  idle for. Five years.
• 42:30
  So it's like, you know, and they're inherently riskier.
• 42:33
  So for me, I was like I, I actually invested in a few
• 42:37
  private credit funds early on because it was consistent 8 to
• 42:40
  10% cash on cash return on my capital, more liquid than some
• 42:43
  other deals. And then I like the multifamily
• 42:46
  space. I understood stood that while I
• 42:48
  was coming up. So I did a lot of those deals in
• 42:50
  different markets and I would identify different operators who
• 42:53
  had, you know, strategies whether it was Class A, Class B,
• 42:56
  Class C, you know, whatever, but that will be in different kind
• 42:58
  of markets. So I diversified that way.
• 43:01
  But a few things that I make sure to look for is 1, the GP
• 43:05
  has to have money in the deal. Number 2 is looking at the fee
• 43:07
  structure. They're going to be fees because
• 43:09
  they got to keep the lights on. But you don't want AGP who's
• 43:12
  charging so many fees upfront that they're really de risking
• 43:16
  themselves by having so much upfront pay from their
• 43:19
  investors. It's not that that's not true
• 43:22
  alignment. So I'm I'm looking at that.
• 43:24
  I'm looking at their history. And now more than ever, the
• 43:27
  history of AGP is really important because there's about
• 43:30
  a time 10 year period. So when I started investing to
• 43:33
  now where most people who were GP ING deals were having success
• 43:37
  because of the nature of the market.
• 43:39
  But now the tide's going back and you're starting to see who's
• 43:41
  naked. And you know, you look at that
• 43:44
  time period and think like, oh, he's had so much success.
• 43:47
  I like seeing how are they navigating the waters now?
• 43:50
  How successful were were they before this 10 year window?
• 43:53
  Like were they in business 20 years ago?
• 43:56
  Because it's kind of it's diluted.
• 43:58
  I didn't know what in the moment, you know, but now I look
• 44:00
  back and I'm like, I got out of some deals that who knows how
• 44:04
  they would would have played out if they were were right now.
• 44:06
  So I look at look at look at them through a different lens.
• 44:09
  And that's something I always tell.
• 44:10
  And a big sign for me also is AGP, who's changing strategies a
• 44:15
  ton. Are they changing demographic
• 44:17
  area and investment type? Like for instance, you said you
• 44:20
  knew somebody in self storage. I wanted myself storage guy to
• 44:23
  stay in still stay in self storage.
• 44:26
  Like I don't want to hop with him.
• 44:27
  Oh, now he sees an an opportunity in office space.
• 44:31
  Like not that he can't have success.
• 44:32
  He might be a really bright dude, know how to figure it out,
• 44:35
  but there's somebody out there who's been doing office space
• 44:38
  for 20 years. I want to find that person, not
• 44:40
  the, you know, not the storage guy who's who's converting over.
• 44:44
  So I like GPS who have a niche and they stick to their niche
• 44:48
  and hopefully that niche includes demographics.
• 44:50
  And then another thing is the team they have in place, there's
• 44:55
  risk when they're changing contractors, property managers
• 44:59
  frequently. So I like when they have it in
• 45:01
  house or they work with that same group consistently.
• 45:04
  If they're changing contractors, for instance, how do you know
• 45:07
  that that contractors going to execute, execute at a good
• 45:09
  level, execute on time or execute on schedule?
• 45:12
  So those are things that I think about now as an experienced LP
• 45:15
  investor that I can't say I always thought about early on,
• 45:19
  but now you know, I see it from from a lens.
• 45:21
  So I'll still invest as an LP, but I would say I'm a lot more
• 45:24
  stringent today than I was a few years ago.
• 45:27
  Yep, you just don't know until you know.
• 45:30
  And it's what you don't know that kills you, right?
• 45:33
  But those are always the great lessons too.
• 45:35
  Even when. You, well, you jumped through
• 45:36
  it. We started the conversation
• 45:38
  talking about networking and it's like building the right
• 45:40
  relationships kind of speeds up that process.
• 45:43
  Well, oh, you invest as ALP, what are things you look for?
• 45:46
  So I started picking up on that and I would I build out my own
• 45:49
  criteria by talking to people who are doing it at scale, you
• 45:52
  know, GPS who are actually running deals, what's a good
• 45:55
  deal, what's a bad deal, what's a good structure, yadda, yadda,
• 45:57
  yadda. And also other LP's that are
• 46:00
  having more experience investing in them.
• 46:02
  So leveraging that can consolidate.
• 46:04
  You don't always have to learn from your own mistakes.
• 46:06
  You can learn from other people's mistakes.
• 46:08
  So you don't got to make that that same mistake.
• 46:11
  So when did you find out about private lending and how did that
• 46:15
  transition happen happen? Where do you still have a large
• 46:18
  portfolio of all those properties that you had acquired
• 46:21
  or had you sold a lot of them off?
• 46:23
  No, I still have a majority of them.
• 46:24
  I sold some of my stuff. I ended up selling the Indiana
• 46:26
  one and my Ohio stuff because Ohio I was dealing with stuff
• 46:31
  with the state there. They had like lead based paint
• 46:33
  and the city was making you use their crews to they're pretty
• 46:37
  much gouging investors. So I got out of Ohio and in
• 46:40
  Indiana I got out of because I can only buy 1 and I'm like I
• 46:43
  need a scale, but I still own everything else.
• 46:45
  So I'm still growing. I'm going to be primarily buying
• 46:47
  in Arizona moving forward. I'm here locally, so I still
• 46:51
  plan on growing my my own portfolio properties.
• 46:53
  And then I'm, I'm still in a ton of syndication.
• 46:56
  So, you know, Fast forward to today and where I got got into
• 47:00
  private lending as I started to look at My Portfolio and I
• 47:03
  wasn't seeing the same numbers the last few years on turnkey
• 47:07
  properties, how I was buying before, as I see, as I was
• 47:11
  seeing back then, you know, interest rates are higher,
• 47:13
  prices have gone up in a lot of markets to where it was almost
• 47:17
  like I was buying properties around $100,000 and charging 12
• 47:21
  to $1500, like meeting the 1% rule.
• 47:23
  It was all day. That's harder now.
• 47:25
  So I'm like my, I only have so much more capital to invest and
• 47:30
  I'm not going to get the same returns that I got 10 years ago.
• 47:33
  So then I'm looking at syndications and I'm like the
• 47:36
  the waters are getting muddy. I didn't like that I had no
• 47:39
  control. So I'm in deals where I'm like,
• 47:42
  I can't wait till these guys pay me back because I can invest it
• 47:44
  myself. But now I'm waiting.
• 47:46
  I got two more years to wait or three more years or like there's
• 47:49
  some deals that might have a capital call and there's all
• 47:51
  these different factors and I'm just sitting and waiting and I,
• 47:56
  I got really tapped into the bigger pockets community.
• 47:58
  I wrote a couple of books and I started to meet other investors
• 48:01
  and they're like, you have capital.
• 48:02
  Will you lend to me on a couple of projects?
• 48:04
  You know, I'm, I'm flipping, I'm trying to go from 10/10 a year
• 48:07
  to 20, you know, what have you. So I was started looking at it.
• 48:10
  I did a couple had no idea what I was doing.
• 48:12
  Did you know I, I pretty much use their loan docs like the
• 48:16
  borrower, like I was just winging it.
• 48:18
  But luckily I chose good operators, had good
• 48:21
  relationships. So they paid back and everything
• 48:23
  went good. But you know, when I was getting
• 48:26
  ready to retire in 2023, I was already been lending for a
• 48:29
  couple of years kind of just on the side quietly.
• 48:32
  And I was looking at all right, what's my play when I retire?
• 48:35
  And you know, I'm looking at, I can buy more properties and I,
• 48:39
  and I have bought a couple of like rehab properties.
• 48:41
  I bought food, 6 plexes, renovating them, all that.
• 48:44
  But those are longer projects. I'm like, what is a good cash,
• 48:47
  cash on cash return for my money?
• 48:49
  And I'm like this lending thing, I just kind of did this quietly
• 48:52
  in the background and it's been killing.
• 48:54
  So I read a couple of books and I just dove all the way in.
• 48:56
  I'm like, I've already been doing it.
• 48:58
  I'm going to create a business of this.
• 49:00
  And I started my lending company 42 solutions and, you know, I
• 49:03
  just haven't looked back. I, I love the model and you
• 49:07
  know, I'm going to continue to grow it out, But right now I'm
• 49:09
  able to charge double digit interest rates on my capital
• 49:13
  and, you know, deploy it out to good operators.
• 49:17
  And in Arizona, it's a non judicial foreclosure state.
• 49:19
  So I like for listeners out there, that pretty much means
• 49:22
  it's easier to take over a property if they default.
• 49:25
  So all these different factors are where it's like, man, this
• 49:28
  really makes sense for me. And yeah, I've just kind of take
• 49:31
  taken off and ironically enough, that leads to more deal flow.
• 49:35
  So now I'm seeing I'm meeting with different borrowers,
• 49:37
  investors, wholesalers, title companies.
• 49:41
  So I'm getting good deals that I can also buy.
• 49:44
  So I feel like having a business that's vertically integrated
• 49:47
  where I have lending, but I do also acquire.
• 49:50
  So now I'm able to build my own portfolio of businesses and real
• 49:53
  estate. Yeah, it's like how many areas
• 49:57
  of the value stack can you provide services for?
• 50:00
  And that's what I think about two is going deep instead of
• 50:03
  wide, two different strategies. Not one's better than the other,
• 50:05
  but it's nice, especially if you're staying in a more local
• 50:07
  market you could go really deep on.
• 50:09
  That's kind of me. I'm like, OK, I can find you the
• 50:11
  deal. I can give you the loan on the
• 50:13
  deal. I can help you raise equity for
• 50:15
  the deal. And then I could sell the deal
• 50:16
  or lease the deal on the back end.
• 50:17
  And then I can I can get the financing for the buyer of the
• 50:20
  deal or the permanent loan on the takeout in, in commercial
• 50:23
  real estate. So, so it's cool to be able to
• 50:25
  hit all those. It can make it harder to scale.
• 50:28
  Like I can't scale that specific model because.
• 50:31
  Not nationally, but not nationally, but you can go deep,
• 50:34
  deep here. I, I found.
• 50:35
  So essentially my strategy was investing wide.
• 50:38
  I was investing in several different markets and I was
• 50:41
  investing in syndications. No matter which way you, you
• 50:44
  look at it, I was looking at deals and buying deals that made
• 50:47
  sense to me wherever they were. And now I would say my mindset,
• 50:51
  like when I'm going to be redeploying that capital as it
• 50:54
  comes, is going to be more and more in the niche market.
• 50:57
  I'm going to go deeper instead of wider because yes, things
• 51:01
  don't cash flow is great in Arizona.
• 51:02
  You know, there's, there's some disadvantages, but at the end of
• 51:05
  the day, I can create asymmetric, asymmetric bets
• 51:08
  because I'm local, My wife's an agent, I have a lending company.
• 51:13
  I know I have relationships. So, you know, I'm going to take
• 51:17
  advantage of that local market in and instead of being well,
• 51:21
  you know, well known all over the country, I can really hone
• 51:24
  in and and do really good business and be a household name
• 51:27
  here locally. Yeah, it's, it's really smart
• 51:30
  and that's what I'm doing too with my company.
• 51:32
  And I don't know, I know we've, we haven't chatted in a little
• 51:35
  while, but I decided to go all in on commercial lending only so
• 51:39
  I'm not. So I'll, I'll send residential
• 51:41
  deals to you because it shiny, you know, shiny red object
• 51:46
  syndrome is hard because when you can do everything and you
• 51:49
  have done everything, it's hard to say no to opportunities that
• 51:51
  come. But part of Ben Hardy and like
• 51:54
  what's what activities are below your floor and not going to get
• 51:56
  you to that one goal that you have.
• 51:58
  And then, you know, I that's why I decided on the brokerage and
• 52:01
  the lending. I'm just doing commercials,
• 52:02
  staying in my lane of CRE and going deep in Arizona too and
• 52:06
  and still being able to service. Nationally, because once you go
• 52:10
  deep, it doesn't mean you can't go wide like it's like, but you
• 52:13
  just build a really strong anchor.
• 52:15
  Right. And why?
• 52:16
  Not to stand backyard. Yeah, absolutely.
• 52:19
  So that's awesome. I didn't know you're going
• 52:21
  commercial. But I mean, like when I first
• 52:23
  started my lending company, 42 Solutions, I thought I would
• 52:26
  lend all over the country. And I've narrowed that down to
• 52:30
  where it's like you're, in my opinion, I'm taking on more risk
• 52:33
  lending and all these different markets.
• 52:35
  I don't know, like here, if I have a borrower default, it's
• 52:38
  non judicial. I have rehab crews like so I'm,
• 52:41
  I'm willing to lend at a higher LTV than some other people
• 52:46
  because if I have to take over that property, I know how to do
• 52:49
  so And I and I know what the process is and I have the team
• 52:53
  in place to handle it. So it's like I can take
• 52:56
  strategic risk and build relationships that way.
• 52:59
  So, you know, congratulations on that, on sticking with, you
• 53:02
  know, commercial locally and I'm sure you're going to expand
• 53:04
  eventually, but that's awesome. Thank you.
• 53:06
  Yeah. And we're you know, I plan on
• 53:07
  doing kind of like a roll up with recruit the top brokers
• 53:11
  nationally. And so we'll have specific
• 53:13
  brokers under specific asset classes that do massive books of
• 53:16
  business and we'll have that. But once I like really start the
• 53:19
  fund portion of the business, because that's the brokerage
• 53:21
  side of the business, the fund, I'm going to go just deep in
• 53:24
  Arizona. Like again, I know these assets,
• 53:27
  I know I have the crews, I can sell them if I ever have to take
• 53:29
  them back. And I really understand and can
• 53:32
  be confident on the underwriting, whereas I don't
• 53:34
  understand. I so you know how I got into
• 53:36
  lending, I started doing the same thing.
• 53:38
  I was doing small loans in the Midwest, Ohio, Oklahoma,
• 53:41
  Pennsylvania, all these States and I don't have anybody any
• 53:45
  connections in the Midwest. I don't know contractors, I
• 53:47
  don't know values, I don't know anything.
• 53:49
  But for me, I was like, yeah, they're like 5000 hundred
• 53:51
  $50,000 loans. I was a little bit careless with
• 53:53
  my money and was like, yeah, that's fine, I'll take the the
• 53:56
  risk. And here's another, you know,
• 53:57
  here's 100 grand on here, here's 50 grand on here.
• 53:59
  And I was making massive returns because it was smaller, you
• 54:03
  know, so it was more of a volume model, smaller loan amount, but
• 54:07
  way bigger returns, like 10 times the returns because they
• 54:10
  were such micro loans. But then when things went bad,
• 54:14
  you know, things were great when they were great.
• 54:16
  But then when, when the market shifted and some people started
• 54:18
  defaulting. And then I was like, well, I
• 54:20
  didn't get appraisals. Like let me try to comp these
• 54:23
  properties that I don't really know how to comp.
• 54:25
  Let me try to find an attorney that I don't really know who to
• 54:27
  go to and who to trust. And then let me find out that
• 54:30
  these are judicial foreclosure states where it's going to take
• 54:32
  me 18 months of a court process. I actually, I've been the
• 54:36
  process of foreclosing right now and I got the appraisals back on
• 54:40
  three assets that I have loans on.
• 54:43
  This is my own personal money. These are like the lessons that
• 54:45
  I learned before. You know, I did these loans a
• 54:48
  couple years ago and the appraisals came back.
• 54:52
  One of them came back at $5000. I didn't even know that it was
• 54:56
  possible for a property to be worth $5000.
• 55:00
  That's rough. Yeah.
• 55:01
  So that just shows you. Yeah, if you don't know your
• 55:05
  market, you're you're really exposing yourself to be naked
• 55:09
  with the tide comes out. Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 55:11
  So I mean and I I realized that same thing.
• 55:13
  So even with some of the good operators I have, like I'm just
• 55:16
  consolidate that are out of state, I'm consolidating more in
• 55:19
  state because I'm like, even if they've been been good in the
• 55:21
  past, it's just kind of like I'm taking on added risk here
• 55:24
  because I'm really when you're doing that, you're really
• 55:27
  betting on the operator more than anything else.
• 55:29
  And when the when the economy is bad, the operator might fail
• 55:35
  from no fault of their own, but just prices go down like it, you
• 55:39
  know, they might end up upside down.
• 55:40
  So I'm like, you know, I want more control.
• 55:43
  So yeah, like being able to control that here it's and it's
• 55:47
  kind of cool to be able to just pull up on the on stuff that
• 55:49
  you're lending on or owning and stuff like being somebody who
• 55:53
  invested passively in syndications and and properties
• 55:55
  all all over the country. I would go visit once a year to
• 55:58
  my properties, but it's totally different when I can just be
• 56:02
  like, I'm going to go check on check out this property that,
• 56:05
  you know, a borrower lip money on her.
• 56:07
  I have a property in surprise. I'm going to go, you know, check
• 56:10
  out what have you that that that feels good and be being able to
• 56:14
  do that for sure. Yeah, it's like holding cash
• 56:17
  versus just money in the bank. It's like when you could see it,
• 56:20
  it's your baby. It's really, there's a different
• 56:22
  level of fulfillment behind it. But So what is your goal with 42
• 56:26
  schools, you do loans on residential properties and it's
• 56:29
  kind of like bridge loans, short term hard money, which we're
• 56:33
  not, we're not supposed to say that anymore and our business
• 56:35
  private money. And yeah, so are you.
• 56:38
  I know when we were talking last you were thinking about starting
• 56:41
  a fund or starting to raise some capital or, but you kind of want
• 56:44
  to you like things how they are too you and you have your own
• 56:47
  capital. So like where?
• 56:47
  Where are your thoughts now? Yeah, I mean, thanks for asking
• 56:51
  cuz I've actually really been thinking about this a lot over
• 56:53
  the last 6 or so months. And it's slower, but I'm going
• 56:57
  to build with my own capital and select investor capital, but I'm
• 57:04
  going to own it 100% myself. I'm not going to have to manage.
• 57:07
  You know, like there's obviously pluses of scale when you go in
• 57:10
  the fund route, but there's also it's a business in itself.
• 57:14
  And now you have a fund manager, now you have responding to the
• 57:17
  SEC that's just all this different factor.
• 57:20
  And then you maybe you have a warehouse line and it's just all
• 57:24
  these different layers that like I don't necessarily want to get
• 57:27
  into if I don't have to. So for the foreseeable future,
• 57:31
  I'm going to let the business dictate that for me.
• 57:33
  But I can make really high returns on Personal Capital and,
• 57:36
  you know, capital from friends and family who see what I'm
• 57:39
  doing and want to want to work together and, and build
• 57:41
  something together. But yeah, I'm just going to
• 57:44
  build my own lending company with my own capital.
• 57:47
  And it allows me to stay extremely flexible and it makes
• 57:50
  my money a little more valuable in the sense of like, hey, I
• 57:53
  don't have 100 million to lend out, but I can lend out X amount
• 57:57
  and I can deliver, you know, I can provide great service.
• 58:01
  I'm going to be easy to work with.
• 58:02
  So that's kind of that's kind of my plan.
• 58:04
  And that flywheel is going to generate more opportunities for
• 58:07
  me to keep buying. And you know, my, my game is
• 58:10
  going to be buying whole off market deal opportunities,
• 58:13
  rehabbing on myself, taking line of credits out that.
• 58:16
  And that continues to allow me to fund more and more deals and,
• 58:19
  and have a very strong portfolio of properties as well as a
• 58:23
  lending business that's growing, growing consistently.
• 58:26
  And you know, my, my goal is to be in this 20-30 years down the
• 58:30
  line doing more or less the same thing.
• 58:34
  And it's like one of those, it's kind of like bootstrapping.
• 58:37
  So I guess I made the decision I'm going to bootstrap my
• 58:39
  business instead of raising outside capital and, you know,
• 58:45
  in assets under management or like how many loans I fund in a
• 58:49
  year might be less, but I've taken a really good lesson.
• 58:53
  Our good friends that keeps I you know, I've been able to see
• 58:56
  what he's accomplished and he's bootstrapped his business
• 58:59
  compared to people who I know who scaled and they, you know,
• 59:03
  they'll flaunt that they have 50,000 units on assets under
• 59:07
  management. Yeah.
• 59:09
  And then yeah, they own 1% of. And then the amount they're
• 59:12
  working the stress level, the. So you're talking about curating
• 59:14
  your life like I don't want to necessarily have to answer to a
• 59:17
  bunch of people and like, I don't want to build a business
• 59:21
  that's going to make me have to do that.
• 59:23
  So I'm going to build my business a different way and
• 59:26
  like I'm excited about it. I think that's the right, right
• 59:29
  motto for me. And I don't know, in a couple
• 59:31
  years, like if things change, maybe I'll it'll shift a little
• 59:35
  bit, but I don't think so though.
• 59:37
  So you, I love that you came to that realization because I think
• 59:40
  we all struggle with it and I definitely do too.
• 59:42
  Is like, what kind of life do you want to design?
• 59:45
  Because you could go in any direction and hear all these
• 59:47
  ideas of all these entrepreneurs and you see their passion behind
• 59:50
  it or you see their success in it, or you get something cool
• 59:54
  out of it. But then sometimes you put the
• 59:56
  ladder up the wrong wall and you start climbing it and then you
• 59:58
  come, you get it and then you're like, oh shit, this is the wrong
• 1:00:00
  wall. I didn't want to climb this
• 1:00:01
  ladder. Like why did I veer so far away
• 1:00:03
  from the integrity of what I really want in my life?
• 1:00:07
  So I'm glad that you had that realization and that's where
• 1:00:10
  I've been. You know, I impulsively red
• 1:00:13
  dress syndrome paid $100,000 spent a year to to just do the
• 1:00:18
  fun docs to start a fund and not to mention like a year of all
• 1:00:21
  the licensing and the filings and the PPM and like all that
• 1:00:24
  stuff, right. And then I was like, well, I
• 1:00:26
  kind of need to build the origination side of the business
• 1:00:30
  first. I can't go raise capital if I
• 1:00:31
  don't even have a track record like really on originations.
• 1:00:34
  And so, but you know, that's probably one of the things that
• 1:00:36
  I could have slowed down a little bit on and maybe spent
• 1:00:40
  more time getting mentored by people who had done it and
• 1:00:42
  learning a little bit more about what it really entailed to have
• 1:00:45
  a fund. And I still have the fund, but
• 1:00:48
  the the strategy has switched to like let's get the originations
• 1:00:51
  up as big as we can, get a good piece of the market share for
• 1:00:54
  our business and then the fund is easy because we.
• 1:00:56
  Have because then you already have the track record, yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Yeah, but I mean, with the fund, you do all the work, you have
• 1:01:01
  all the risk, and you pretty much give everything to your
• 1:01:04
  investors. Like being an LP with a really
• 1:01:06
  good operator is a gift. It is such a gift because I know
• 1:01:11
  so many fund managers and the shit they deal with everyday is
• 1:01:15
  a lot and they keep their tiny little.
• 1:01:18
  Now they do really well if they do, or they're really loyal,
• 1:01:20
  honest people that have great reputations and great
• 1:01:23
  relationships. But I mean, it's definitely a
• 1:01:26
  scale game. Like you got to scale really big
• 1:01:28
  to make it worthwhile. And that's what I mean, at least
• 1:01:31
  at this point, I want to avoid it because as you know, in the
• 1:01:35
  lending space specifically, like when you have to deploy, you
• 1:01:39
  start to make decisions that are not always the best.
• 1:01:42
  So once again, talking to different mentors and and
• 1:01:45
  talking to people, it's like their game is volume, so they
• 1:01:50
  have to do Valium. It gets competitive to get all
• 1:01:53
  the deal flow. So you just start approving more
• 1:01:55
  and more stuff and that puts you in a bad spot.
• 1:01:57
  I never. So for me personally, I'm risk
• 1:02:00
  averse. I never want my capital to
• 1:02:03
  outpace my deal flow because then to increase deal flow,
• 1:02:08
  you're lowering your standards. So I'm nervous of that and I
• 1:02:12
  don't want to be in that position.
• 1:02:13
  I rather have my capital outpacing my deal flow a little
• 1:02:16
  bit or like, I don't know, my deal flow.
• 1:02:18
  Yeah, yeah, my deal flow outpacing my on my capital.
• 1:02:21
  And it's like, hey, I can only fund so much because of because
• 1:02:24
  of this. And yeah, miss out on some
• 1:02:27
  upside. Like got to call a spade a
• 1:02:29
  spade. If I had the capital, some of
• 1:02:30
  those deals are good. I can fund more.
• 1:02:32
  But you know, I, I'm, I'm OK with that.
• 1:02:35
  That's the trade off that you have to decide.
• 1:02:37
  And for me, I I feel like it's the right choice.
• 1:02:40
  And you can, this is, but also what I learned later is like you
• 1:02:43
  don't have to have a fund to do partners.
• 1:02:45
  You can just reach out to your small group of investors or
• 1:02:49
  whoever you have that have capital and are interested in
• 1:02:51
  lending. And they can be, they can.
• 1:02:53
  You could assign the note to them and they could fund the
• 1:02:55
  whole deal or have to deal with you and you could kind.
• 1:02:58
  Of and that and that takes a couple of documents.
• 1:03:00
  Yeah, it's easy. So the downside of that is it's
• 1:03:05
  more you have to have people have bigger checks to write,
• 1:03:08
  right? Because they're like funding the
• 1:03:09
  whole deal or a big portion. They're not able to just put 50
• 1:03:12
  grand in a fine. That's a pool.
• 1:03:13
  So then, so then you're looking at, you know, bigger investors
• 1:03:16
  that might want to do that for sure.
• 1:03:17
  But so it's, it's the trade off of the of the of the business
• 1:03:21
  and and how you want to want to structure it.
• 1:03:23
  So that it's been exciting kind of seeing all the different
• 1:03:26
  options and then really kind of holding in on what makes sense,
• 1:03:29
  sense for me. And I hope what people take in
• 1:03:31
  the lesson is like, there's no right or wrong way.
• 1:03:34
  It's a way like coming back to curating your business and your
• 1:03:37
  life how you want it and seeing that.
• 1:03:40
  And like, oh, I could do it that way.
• 1:03:41
  I could do it this way. And, and being humble enough to
• 1:03:43
  be like, oh, I feel like, like I can puff, puff my chest and I
• 1:03:46
  feel like I can create $100 million fund in the next 5
• 1:03:49
  years, 200 million. But that doesn't really fit what
• 1:03:52
  I would actually want. So why, why go that route?
• 1:03:55
  So kind of saying, you know, it's not as sexy to be like, oh,
• 1:04:00
  I have a 10 million or a $15 million, you know, business
• 1:04:04
  instead of a $200 million. But you know, when you control
• 1:04:07
  it all and and stuff, you know, I think it's worth it.
• 1:04:11
  Yeah, it's it's what is the life you want to design?
• 1:04:14
  And so many of us are run by our egos because that's what we've
• 1:04:18
  always had. That's what keeps us to survive
• 1:04:20
  and innovate and all these things.
• 1:04:22
  But when it all comes down to it, nobody cares.
• 1:04:24
  It's your life. Like what do you want your life
• 1:04:27
  to look like and to be able to say, oh, I have a billion dollar
• 1:04:30
  company or whatnot. Like if you're just focused on
• 1:04:32
  the ego of I want this amount of money or this amount of revenue
• 1:04:35
  or this amount of status or whatever, you miss everything.
• 1:04:40
  You miss the whole, the ripple effect.
• 1:04:43
  And the the thing that really matters isn't the goal itself.
• 1:04:46
  It's the impact that is caused from the goal.
• 1:04:49
  And so I, Robert Kiyosaki is the one that told me that is like,
• 1:04:53
  the goal is just a rock. And it's not the rock that
• 1:04:55
  matters when you drop it in the water.
• 1:04:56
  It's the ripples that come from the rock.
• 1:04:59
  Yeah. And so I always think about that
• 1:05:01
  as like, OK, cool, set a goal, have an amazing goal, but what
• 1:05:04
  is the purpose behind the goal? What is that goal going to
• 1:05:07
  create in my life and in the world that is worth me going
• 1:05:13
  after that goal? Because if it's just a vanity
• 1:05:14
  metric because it sounds cool or because someone else did it,
• 1:05:17
  you're missing the whole point. And you're going to be so
• 1:05:19
  detached from the journey because you're after this goal.
• 1:05:23
  But the goal doesn't even matter.
• 1:05:24
  It's it's the ripple effect. And so.
• 1:05:26
  Absolutely. Wow, That's that's great.
• 1:05:28
  And it just reminds me I was thinking of a story.
• 1:05:30
  I was speaking with a guy who created a really large company,
• 1:05:35
  went public, sold it, but he raised venture capital and he
• 1:05:40
  was like, I don't regret it. I needed it because the business
• 1:05:43
  needed to grow with velocity. But The thing is when you really
• 1:05:47
  run the numbers, if I would have bootstrapped my company and sold
• 1:05:51
  it for 1/3 of what I sold it for, I would have made more.
• 1:05:54
  And I think that was the conversation that really shifted
• 1:05:58
  my mind with what I'm doing. Like it's like, oh, I have a
• 1:06:01
  bigger, but if I have all of this other outside capital.
• 1:06:03
  So it's like the ripple effects to your point of like, what do I
• 1:06:07
  like, what do I want that ripple effect to look like?
• 1:06:10
  What do I want it to be in my life?
• 1:06:12
  And it's like, all right, I'd rather have a smaller business,
• 1:06:15
  but it'd be it'd be mine. So I think that's like I
• 1:06:18
  challenge everyone out there to think about that and curate your
• 1:06:22
  business. Like some people I just don't
• 1:06:24
  have that level of like I need to hit a billion dollars.
• 1:06:27
  But some people have that mindset of like, I want a
• 1:06:29
  billion dollar company or you said he wants to change the
• 1:06:32
  whole world. I want to change the world of
• 1:06:35
  which I can impact around me. Like I want to improve the lives
• 1:06:39
  of people in Arizona, of people who I can have touch with.
• 1:06:42
  Like I'm really deep rooted in that.
• 1:06:45
  Like can I impact people who look and sound like me being an
• 1:06:48
  African American man, a former pro athlete?
• 1:06:51
  Can I make people of color see what you can build and
• 1:06:55
  industries like we, you and I connected last year at AAPL.
• 1:07:00
  And one thing I found interesting is there was hardly
• 1:07:03
  no people of color there. And it's just I've been in real
• 1:07:06
  estate a long time, but I've never been on the lending side.
• 1:07:10
  And knowing what I know now, how profitable that business is and
• 1:07:15
  lending in different, you know, we're with the Tourax of the
• 1:07:17
  world and all these huge, huge companies in the space and
• 1:07:20
  there's so much money in it. I just didn't see many people of
• 1:07:22
  color there at all. And so I sticked out, stood out
• 1:07:26
  like a sore thumb. And I'm fine with that.
• 1:07:28
  But it's just like I want to introduce, you know, different
• 1:07:32
  business models to a demographic that I can that I can reach and
• 1:07:36
  teach and, you know, start in my own backyard and but also with
• 1:07:40
  athletes and people who look up to people like me.
• 1:07:42
  So I think that's the ripple effect that I hope to have in in
• 1:07:47
  my world and in the world and the spear that I can reach and
• 1:07:51
  being OK with it might not impact the entire world.
• 1:07:55
  Well, and so many people like, I want to change the world, but it
• 1:07:58
  starts with one person, you know, and if you're so busy on
• 1:08:01
  this massive goal and you can't even, and you're not even
• 1:08:06
  connected enough to be able to change one life like your own,
• 1:08:09
  change yourself first, right? Because that's the first thing
• 1:08:11
  is you have to show up your best and always be growing and, and
• 1:08:14
  becoming living up to your highest potential in order for
• 1:08:17
  you to be able to make the greatest impact on others.
• 1:08:19
  And whether that's one life or 1000 lives or a million lives or
• 1:08:23
  a billion lives, it all starts with one person at a time.
• 1:08:27
  So, so I, I know we have to, we have to go.
• 1:08:30
  I just want to keep talking to you.
• 1:08:31
  But what are you worried at all about the current real estate
• 1:08:35
  market environment? Like has that changed how your
• 1:08:37
  underwriting loans? Because I know we're in a pretty
• 1:08:39
  volatile weird. Everybody's a little bit
• 1:08:42
  uncomfortable in the markets with the tariffs and rates are
• 1:08:45
  high and costs are high. And what are your thoughts there
• 1:08:48
  as you underwrite deals? I mean, I'm definitely it's
• 1:08:50
  something I'm looking at and watching, but a big thing for me
• 1:08:52
  is you need to be buying right? And it like, do you have enough
• 1:08:57
  capital to sustain? So I'm like, you know, I'm
• 1:09:00
  asking my borrowers to show me bank statements.
• 1:09:02
  That's something I always did. But it's like, bro, you got to
• 1:09:04
  be able to withstand longer hold times.
• 1:09:07
  It might take longer to get a job done.
• 1:09:10
  Can you, can you handle it? The, the rehab cost more than
• 1:09:14
  you expected because maybe costs go up, what have you.
• 1:09:17
  So there just needs to be breathing room in the deals,
• 1:09:20
  which ultimately means you need to find better deals, you know,
• 1:09:24
  at the end of the day. So that's something I'm I'm
• 1:09:26
  looking at and, you know, I won't consider anything if
• 1:09:30
  they're not at least factoring in six months.
• 1:09:31
  I don't care if they have contractors on their team that
• 1:09:35
  can handle it in house. I have some borrowers that are
• 1:09:37
  doing, you know, pretty significant rehabs in a month or
• 1:09:41
  less. That's great.
• 1:09:43
  I'm still underwriting at least at six months because there's a
• 1:09:46
  realistic chance it takes 3-4 or five months to sell right now.
• 1:09:51
  So, you know, that's, that's just my mentality.
• 1:09:53
  And on the bigger projects, it's like I'm, I'm underwriting at a
• 1:09:56
  year. I rather be maybe it'll only
• 1:09:58
  take three months to do it and then, but I'm like, I rather be
• 1:10:02
  on the safe side of that. Do you have the capital?
• 1:10:04
  Can you withhold it? And it does the deal make sense
• 1:10:06
  still at six months if it's a easy bread and butter project or
• 1:10:11
  at 12 months if it is a larger project.
• 1:10:13
  So those are the things that I'm I'm looking at and seeing.
• 1:10:15
  And then I'm forward thinking on if if I had to take over a
• 1:10:20
  property, you know, I want to make sure it's a good deal, you
• 1:10:23
  know, make sure that I'm not giving out the rehab budgets.
• 1:10:25
  If the works not done to where all right, I have the rehab to
• 1:10:28
  handle it. I can take over this property,
• 1:10:30
  finish it, you know, so those are that's how I'm looking at
• 1:10:33
  it. And I feel like it's going to be
• 1:10:35
  great opportunities if people can take advantage.
• 1:10:38
  So what's great about the lending space is I feel like I'm
• 1:10:42
  I'll be able to pivot no matter what, whether it's a good
• 1:10:46
  market, bad market, people need money to fund projects and I
• 1:10:50
  don't think that's going anywhere anytime soon.
• 1:10:52
  And when you're the bank, then, you know, worst case, nobody in
• 1:10:57
  Arizona is flipping. Can I lend to other businesses?
• 1:10:59
  Can I like, you know, there's, there's other ways I can pivot.
• 1:11:01
  So I think being being the bank is a powerful position to put
• 1:11:05
  yourself in. It's the best, there's no better
• 1:11:08
  position I in my opinion. I mean, the whole world is run
• 1:11:11
  on banking. So what?
• 1:11:14
  What keeps you going and what keeps you up at night?
• 1:11:17
  What keeps me going, legacy, I would say, is keeps me going.
• 1:11:21
  And for my kids, I have two daughters and I'm constantly,
• 1:11:25
  you know, thinking about how I can put them in the best
• 1:11:27
  position to be successful. Like, I want them to feel like
• 1:11:30
  they have the resources to do whatever they want, but not
• 1:11:33
  enough to do whatever they want, if that makes sense.
• 1:11:35
  Like, you know, go and chase whatever you want, but you got
• 1:11:38
  to go be ambitious on how to build and curate a life for them
• 1:11:42
  that they understand. And I want them to see the world
• 1:11:45
  a little differently. So, you know, like my kids have
• 1:11:49
  travelled a lot already and that's something to my wife and
• 1:11:52
  I like to do with them. And yeah, I, I would say legacy
• 1:11:56
  wise, they are my legacy. And how can I pour in them the
• 1:11:59
  right way and what keeps me up at night?
• 1:12:02
  I guess I would almost say the same thing.
• 1:12:03
  Like some of the things in the world scare me.
• 1:12:05
  And, you know, I just think about where the world's AT and
• 1:12:08
  like how to protect my little girls and, you know, prepare
• 1:12:11
  them for what the, for what is the world and where and where
• 1:12:15
  the world is and what it's becoming and, and all of that.
• 1:12:18
  So I would say that's, I guess it's both it's my legacy and and
• 1:12:22
  what what keeps me, what keeps me up.
• 1:12:25
  So yeah. That's cool.
• 1:12:26
  How old are they? 6:00 and 3:00.
• 1:12:28
  Oh gosh, how cute. Do you want more kids?
• 1:12:30
  I think we're done, girl Dad for life.
• 1:12:32
  I love, I love it man to man coverage.
• 1:12:35
  I think 1/3, you know, a big talking about curating our lives
• 1:12:38
  and a big thing for my wife and I is we want to be able to start
• 1:12:41
  to travel more and stuff. And our youngest turning 4 next
• 1:12:45
  month. We're getting to that point
• 1:12:46
  where that's that's easier. The idea of starting over.
• 1:12:49
  And you know, I don't care what position you're in financially,
• 1:12:52
  having kids, it like puts a hamper on mobility no matter
• 1:12:58
  what. And you know, I think we're
• 1:12:59
  entering a phase where we want to grow our businesses.
• 1:13:02
  My wife's an Asian here locally to my businesses and we want to
• 1:13:05
  go see the world and experience. You know, I was playing for 9
• 1:13:08
  years. I didn't travel a ton, like I
• 1:13:10
  would go on Beachy vacations, Hawaii, Miami, Costa Rica, you
• 1:13:14
  know, things like that where it was easy to get to.
• 1:13:16
  But you know, last year we went to Europe and you know, we want
• 1:13:19
  to take extended trips places and stay for a month and do
• 1:13:23
  things like that. And yeah, so I don't think more
• 1:13:26
  kids are in the in the fact that we're going to mob out with our
• 1:13:28
  family of four. Yeah, well, cool.
• 1:13:31
  I'll close with this. If you could go back to little
• 1:13:34
  Devon Canard and give advice to your younger self, what would
• 1:13:38
  you tell him? Don't be afraid to continue to
• 1:13:42
  do it your way. Thank you for coming on the
• 1:13:44
  show. Thanks for having me.