Latest / The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast / Resilience and Faith: Bouncing Back After the Beating | Aaron Chapman

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Resilience and Faith: Bouncing Back After the Beating | Aaron Chapman · The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast

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  17 broken bones, but the worst of it was a head injury that made my memory erase.
• 0:04
  I
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  got wheeled back into my house several weeks later at 156 pounds, a negative net worth of one point five million.
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  We live in this environment of social media trying to tell us what success is.
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  And what people do is they compromise themselves for this so-called version of success.
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  And so there's people that are beating themselves up for being in their 30s and 40s and they aren't accomplishing what some 20 year old is doing.
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  Why do we never overthink to the positive?
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  We don't do that.
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  We are so good at overthinking to the negative
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  Whatever beating you took yesterday, whatever whatever harsh thing we experienced yesterday, we're still here.
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  Hey folks, we are back with another episode of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast.
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  My name is Rick Meekins.
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  I am your host as usual.
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  And in our studio we have Aaron Chapman.
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  How are you today, sir?
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  What's up, Rick?
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  Good to see you, buddy.
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  Good to see you too, man.
• 1:08
  Good to see you too.
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  Hey folks, if you haven't done it already, I would be honored if you would like, subscribe, and hit the bell so you get updates every time we drop a new episode.
• 1:16
  And so without further ado, let's get into it.
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  So, Aaron, we were talking a little bit before we got started about your journey, where you are, but I would love to give our audience a little bit of background who you are,
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  what you do, and why you do what you do.
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  I am basically I'm a collector of people.
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  I've discovered that my success in life has to do with how many people I get to know, the relationship I create and the experiences I have.
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  How I put money in my bank account and put food on my table is I finance investment real estate.
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  That's my main source of income.
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  How I got there, well, let me back up there.
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  Another thing that I am, you know, of course, father, husband,
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  grandfather now, which is the greatest thing that's ever happened.
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  You don't realize exactly how great life can be until you incorporate grandkids.
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  and what I discovered was I did had z absolutely no clue what it was to be a father to be till I became a grandfather.
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  That changed everything.
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  The dynamic of life is completely different now.
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  I've got this little this little critter that you can you can pick up and hold and love and you love it as much, if not more, than your own kids.
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  And then
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  You have to give them back to the child you raised who is now an adult and you gotta be like, am I am I okay handing this back to them?
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  Because I know who taught them.
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  So it's it's it's an interesting dynamic to experience and watch all these things happen.
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  And you get to you get to sit a lot alone a lot as a grandfather and think back on all the experiences of life, your children growing up, the cool things you did with them, and now
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  they're adults.
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  You don't have kids anymore, you have adults.
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  You have vague memories of kids and being a father.
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  and then you know, you get into watch these grandkids grow up and you're just you you g you you realize how much you miss.
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  And it and it's it's a big hit on you.
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  And then you get to see hang and spend time that's amazing.
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  How I got where I am today, very interesting story.
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  When I grew up, my high school years were on a cattle ranch.
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  You know, then from there it was running heavy equipment or I actually worked for a
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  welding company for in Wyoming, working in the oil fields.
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  From there I was running heavy equipment, driving truck.
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  And then I found myself in the mines in northern New Mexico in 1997.
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  Greatest job I ever had.
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  Absolutely loved it.
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  My dad was a miner when I was growing up when I was really little in New Mexico.
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  And then we moved around and ended up in the the cattle business later in life.
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  I got to hear about him in the mines.
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  Mm.
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  sold the ranch in the in the nineties and then pop it back to ro to to the mining thing 'cause that type of job just sucks you in.
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  And once you go down several hundred feet underground, it's you in this tunnel they call a a a heading, right?
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  And you're in there and you're drilling, you're loading it up with explosives, step around the corner, blow it up, dig it out, support the ground, do it again, it gets in your
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  blood.
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  And I absolutely loved it.
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  But the problem of it is it's very, very market driven.
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  they're milling this out to get the ore.
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  It's what's the market price for that ore?
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  And is that market price high enough to justify what they have to go through to get it out?
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  Well, it reached the point where the market price was not enough to justify it.
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  So they laid this all off, you know, put the project on ice for a little bit.
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  Once it went back up, they'd hire us back on.
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  But you can't wait for that.
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  So I'm hunting for for a new job, right?
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  And there's some other things that happened in my wife's health that caused us a little bit of grief.
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  But I was out of money and I could not find a job to save my life.
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  I had an amazing resume at twenty three years old, because I'd done so much in my life.
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  And everywhere I went, I was being told that I was overqualified.
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  And this overqualified thing was just destroying my ability to get somewhere.
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  And I finally asked the last guy.
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  that I went to.
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  It was one morning my wife gave me a a coupon for free diapers.
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  I had a six month old son who was on his last couple diapers.
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  We didn't have the money to buy more diapers.
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  I'm running around on an overdrawn bank account and I've got to go to apply for this job driving truck for ten dollars an hour and I get the exact same response.
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  Overqualified.
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  So I asked him, dude, what does that mean?
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  He says it means that you have enough skill sets and enough background you could do really
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  So many different things that you would take another job that pays more quickly, um, and we would have to go find somebody else.
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  I'm like, nah, I understand it now, but I don't like it.
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  So I left there overqualified, trying to keep tears from coming down my face.
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  I'm a 23 year old man with a kid and a wife, and I can't support And as I'm leaving that place to go to to a grocery store that I can get my free diapers, my gaslight comes onto
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  my truck.
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  Now I've never driven my truck to the point of a gaslight before.
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  So I had no idea how far I could go.
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  On a gas light.
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  So as I'm driving there, I found a gas station just outside the grocery store I was going to.
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  So I pulled up to a pump.
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  I pulled out my debit card.
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  The only form of payment I had, I said a quick prayer, I swiped my card, and I got a decline.
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  So it felt like my prayer was unanswered.
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  So I rifled through my truck praying for a lost dollar.
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  I found some coins.
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  I locked the locked the doors.
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  And I walked that parking lot for seemingly two hours to find enough change to get a couple gallons of gas.
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  Now, this is 1997, right?
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  People still carried change, and gas was under a buck a gallon.
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  So which was awesome.
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  So I finally get that, settled, solved that problem.
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  Now I go in to find these diapers.
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  I found the diapers, I'm standing in line, and I don't know it how to put a person in these shoes of what it feels like to be in this position,
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  You're looking around, make sure people are not noticing you picking up pennies, right?
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  Then you go in to find these diapers and you're standing in line with a coupon to pay for the only things you're standing with.
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  There's a feeling that comes in that environment about how you feel about yourself and your ability to provide for yourself and your family.
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  And as I'm leaving that store, with my eyes down, not trying to engage anybody, I got to hear the worst thing I probably could have heard at that time.
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  And that was my own name.
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  Somebody recognized me in this position.
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  And this guy's name was Keith.
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  He used to run the office where I ran heavy equipment.
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  He asked me how things were.
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  And I sugarcoated the shit out of it.
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  I did not want him to know the circumstances that I was in.
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  But he told me, he goes, you know, he he took mercy on me and said, You know, I we should go to dinner.
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  I'm like, Well, I'm not in a position to afford dinner right now.
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  He goes, No, I got a gift certificate from a client, and my client used to run the office.
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  He goes, Yeah, I'm in this thing called the mortgage industry.
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  And my client
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  Only thing I know about mortgages is on TV there's an old man and an old lady with a farm losing their farm to this thing called a mortgage.
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  So I'm not really sure I like the sound of that word, but let's go to dinner and let's talk.
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  So he took me to Red Lobster, me and my wife both.
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  We sat down, had a great conversation, and he shared with me more about the industry.
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  Gave me a business card for a bearance manager of a broker shop.
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  Called that guy, and within a short window of time, I cut a foot off of my hair.
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  Shave, my mom bought me some business like clothes and I started as a telemarketer in December of 1997.
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  Now, fast forward, by 2020s, late to late by probably 2017, 18, 19, I hit in the top one percent of the industry.
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  I was ranked number seven in the United States of several hundred thousand people that do my job, ranked number one as a real estate investment lender as far as the loan
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  originator.
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  and accomplished a lot of things because I was willing to take that beating and move through everything.
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  Now a lot of beatings since then, significant beatings, but the end result has been spectacular.
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  What what do you mean when you say take those beatings?
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  I mean, you know, obviously, you know, most of us are many of us are entrepreneurs and you know, we go through our stuff.
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  I mean, what what are you referring to?
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  well day-to-day life can be a beating, right?
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  Just getting up and you're solving problems in my business right now.
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  I'll get into more specific ones, but my business today, as I'm the executive vice president of investment lending for a national company.
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  I have a book of business that comes in through my through my brand and through all that I've built over the years.
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  But I've got a staff that handles all the day-to-day stuff, and they reach out to me for it's a problem.
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  So when you're talking about problem related business and you're always solving problems on
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  I literally feel like I'm running a hose on fires I didn't start all day long.
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  And I'm sitting at a confessional dealing with the sins I didn't commit all day.
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  So when you're being hit with that as an entrepreneur, it feels like that your entire business is failing because you're only dealing with problems.
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  That's it.
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  So there's a mental process that you have to do.
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  real significant beatings.
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  Two thousand eight comes around, right?
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  And we all remember where we were in two thousand eight when everything went to hell.
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  What happened to our to our resources?
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  Now, I'm coming up into August of two thousand and eight.
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  My business was still working.
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  I'm still making a decent six-figure income because of the amount of business I had coming in.
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  Um, but it's rolling up on August eighth of two thousand eight.
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  Eight's always been my lucky number.
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  So it's eight, eight of eight.
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  I'm like, I'm gonna go do something for me.
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  So I'm jumping on the Harley, I'm heading out of town for three days, I'm gonna clear my head.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  15 minutes into this ride.
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  I'm in Arizona, right?
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  And you're talking about noon, You can you you know what the heat's like.
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  Well, I'm cruising down the road and there's a 17-year-old in his father's vehicle.
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  It has a Ford truck.
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  He's not paying attention.
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  He puts me into another vehicle at 80 plus miles an hour.
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  I went flipping down the freeway, and it's very rare that I wear a helmet, but I put on a helmet that day because I was getting ready to head to New Mexico, long ride.
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  I hated helmets because when you're
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  When you're driving when you're running at 80 miles an hour, it feels like it feels like it's peeling your head off.
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  I I went flipping down that road and I laid on that that black freeway for about twenty minutes as they're working through this long weekend traffic to get to us because I was
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  right at the exit that was two miles down.
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  So they scraped me up, take me in, had significant burns, significant road rash.
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  17 broken bones, but the worst of it was a head injury that made my memory erase.
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  So I find myself waking up in the hospital, full beard.
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  I didn't have a beard at the time.
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  In fact, I couldn't grow when I had a piece here, it wouldn't fill in.
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  I tore up that side of my face and it filled in.
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  So that was awesome.
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  So full beard, and then I had to my memory recycled quite a bit.
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  I had to train myself how to walk, I had to be trained how to walk again.
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  And then, of course, the multiple surgeries to go through to get that done.
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  So when I came back from that,
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  You know, I left my house that morning on August eighth at 190 pounds, six foot one, seven forty, seven sixty credit score, something like that, net worth of about four million
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  dollars.
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  I got wheeled back into my house several weeks later at 156 pounds, a negative net worth of one point five million.
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  I had a credit score in the four hundreds, and I had a memory to recycle every three to four minutes.
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  So when I'm crawling back from all those things, you know.
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  We're dealing with complete shift in the economy.
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  The average person's losing a lot of things, right?
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  Their job potentially, their assets, their home, and they're dealing with creditor calls.
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  But when I got those creditor calls, I got a bit of a blessing in this whole whole situation.
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  When they would call me to ask me what's going on, ask if they had a fax machine, I'd send my first week's medical bill was one point seven million dollars.
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  They'd immediately back off, say, how can we help?
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  I was able to not have the pressure that most people had.
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  And I was able to negotiate with every creditor to get things squared away.
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  But then I come back to the industry in 2009, start to rebuild the business.
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  There's two people left in the in the the referral source arena that that I was working with that were still on the real estate side.
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  They would call me up, give me a referral.
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  I would take that referral and write it down on a pad because my memory wouldn't take things, it wouldn't remember stuff, and I'd call that person and take notes.
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  Often I would look at my pad and there would be a name sitting there.
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  So I would make that phone call and like, we just talked.
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  I'm like, what did we talk about?
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  And they I explained to them what happened and why they were dealing with this phone call a second time and I take very, very good notes.
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  Now I lost a lot of clients, but I retained a bunch of them because of the honesty, even though they were, you know, their larger transactions trained being being risked with
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  somebody who doesn't remember every but a few minutes.
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  But by doing that, I trained my brain to be able to remember again and the patience of the people who were for in business to say, hey, go check your pad, write this down.
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  You know, they they helped me get to where I need to get.
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  And since then, was able to build up a really solid business.
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  Got into the real estate investment financing piece, a lot of people coming into Arizona, redid that.
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  I was doing it in two thousand three up until two thousand seven, then two thousand nine, actually ten, they're coming back, buying up a lot of houses post-crash.
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  Yeah.
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  then I started a partnership in 2015 with a guy who was kind of like a mentor to me.
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  And he was one of the the gold standard in the industry.
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  And within six months, he destroyed the partnership, took everything and disappeared.
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  And I had to start over again.
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  But what was awesome about the startover, I learned a lot about what this guy was doing.
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  The guy was intelligent.
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  He was really, really good at what he did, but that I understood more systems.
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  And I didn't freak out about him.
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  Okay, yeah, that sucks, but that phone's still gonna ring.
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  I still have clients coming in.
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  What do I know now that I didn't know before I worked with him to be better at what we're gonna construct?
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  And I sat down with my little team and we started building this out.
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  And when that phone call rang again, we started taking on a deal and building and building and building.
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  Within the first six months, I was number nine and then number one and then became in the top one percent of the industry and just grew.
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  So by the grace of God, did that experience actually benefit me.
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  You know, he could have benefited significantly keeping the partnership, but he went and did his own thing, which is fine.
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  Now I don't know where he's at today and I don't know what he's doing today, but I think he retired and and went on about his life.
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  But I built something significant because of the things that I learned from those lessons.
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  So what I let people know is there is this big ominous foot that you can't see walking around that is going to kick your ass.
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  And what you need to learn is when it kicks you, a lot of times it propels you.
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  You just have to get back up.
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  You're gonna land.
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  You're gonna bounce, get up and start running again.
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  And you'll be further ahead when you take that beating and learn from it and grow from it and push forward than if you lay there and lick your wounds and let the everything pass
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  you by.
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  Keep moving forward.
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  The whole world's moving, you need to be moving.
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  The longer you take to recover the longer it's gonna take for you to be able to get ahead of it.
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  So get up and keep moving now.
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  Cause a lot of times those beatings actually propel you in a direction you need to go.
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  And I've learned a lot.
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  by taking a beating and then going down the path that it led me and found, wow, that actually put me where I needed to be.
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  It was it was some of the best things in the world.
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  That motorcycle accident changed my life.
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  It was the greatest education I could have gotten.
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  Now, it was significant.
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  It was not an easy thing.
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  It's decades of of pain that came frame from it, but what I got out of it mentally was beyond anything I could have gotten on my own.
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  Outstanding.
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  So tell me tell me something.
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  I mean, you're you're you're talking about this taking these beatings, getting up and getting going, but that's that's you know, I mean it's it's great in theory.
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  You know, it's it's kinda like college.
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  You know, you go through and you and you read all the things, but you know, there's there's another part to that, which is actually doing it.
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  You know what I'm saying?
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  You came home from the hospital, you're a million and a half in debt, your credit score, which is something that you depended on, you built.
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  you know, is is in in the trash.
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  You're again looking at your wife and your kid and you're just like, Hey, I d I don't I don't know, you know, what's happening.
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  How do you get yourself together?
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  What is your what is your grounding that says, Hey, you know what, I can do this again.
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  I can, you know, learn how to walk and talk and all these things all over again.
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  I can deal with these these creditors.
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  What what what is that thing?
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  To me, I was just facing the everyday's challenges.
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  That was it.
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  There was no there was no grand idea of where I was going 'cause I had no idea where I was going.
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  All I knew is that day I needed to handle this, this, and this.
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  And so when the noise of everything else got shut down, the only thing I could worry about was learning how to walk again.
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  That was the first thing.
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  Right.
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  And then from learning how to walk again, it's like at what point can I go back to to working?
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  Right.
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  So then I had to figure out what where does that come about?
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  And then I go to to work again in my industry.
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  And I wasn't going to change industries.
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  A lot of people you might want to go do something else.
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  I'm like, I don't know how to do anything else other than the manual labor.
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  And I'm not in a physical position to do that.
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  So I have to go back to what I was doing before, which is using my brain.
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  How do you go get new clients?
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  So then I've I've got to face that problem.
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  And then also then i and a lot of time it was very, very prayerful because a lot of things came about that was not Aaron Chapman, right?
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  There was opportunities placed before me that I jump in and take advantage of and move forward on.
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  But it was just facing the single problem every day.
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  Now I could have easily chosen to just lay there.
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  In fact, that was what my orthopedic surgeon said.
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  He goes, You know, a lot of guys just lay there after something like that.
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  Like, well, that's not how I structured.
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  In fact, it got to the point because I used to love hiking and and marathons and rock climbing before that accident.
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  I wanted to go back to that.
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  I wanted to go back to that so bad that it wasn't so it wasn't but a couple years later, about a year and a half later, I ended up r running a technical rescue unit for the
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  sheriff's office, rescuing people out of the superstition mountains.
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  So I did that for nine years afterwards, right?
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  Went back to something I enjoyed.
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  You know, being outdoors, doing the hiking, doing the rock climbing, doing all the off-roading, but now with air support.
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  So it's a it was a really, really cool environment.
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  But it was taking and deciding every single day what am I gonna do with today.
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  Now sometimes it wasn't a conscious decision, but it was also just knowing I'm not gonna sit here and allow this to to list this to win.
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  I couldn't.
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  I couldn't let it win.
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  And I think that's kind of the resilience I'm trying to give people when I put out this book is
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  You gotta decide that you're not gonna let the circumstances win.
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  You're gonna put pressure on the circumstances and make them bend till to the point where you need them to go, because that's all it is.
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  It's just a strengthening opportunity for you by taking the taking whatever beating it is, and you get to decide for yourself, is this gonna overwhelm me or is it not?
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  Is this something that's trying to keep me from going down a specific path?
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  And I should take another one, or should I put pressure against it?
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  Those are decisions you have to make.
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  And I think that we as mortals, if we're making decisions personally just by ourselves.
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  you're more apt to make the wrong decision.
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  But if you're you're working with somebody it closely, right, whether it be your your spouse or business partners, and I would say the greatest part you have is God Himself and
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  you're involving them and re trying to reach a consensus and sometimes just allowing things to be and just saying, I'm going to solve the problems as they come and I'm going
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  to keep pushing forward on this particular objective, you get to learn a lot of things.
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  You get to get to get to see things come about by doing that.
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  And it's
• 18:26
  I'd say conscious decision and then sometimes a lot of unconscious decision to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
• 18:31
  And sometimes we don't know what that is.
• 18:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:33
  So I I heard two different things.
• 18:35
  So where I think in my mind, you know, I'm thinking, you know, two weeks, three weeks down the road, okay, what do I need to get accomplished?
• 18:41
  You're saying, hey, you know what, I'm looking at today, what do I need to accomplish by the end of it today, today?
• 18:46
  Or what would I like to get done?
• 18:48
  And then the other thing that I heard without you saying it really is that you had a belief that whatever circumstance you were in, it wasn't the end.
• 18:56
  You had a belief that there was some some future
• 18:59
  you had a future orientation that said, Hey, you know what?
• 19:01
  I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna climb mountains again.
• 19:03
  I am gonna walk with my kids.
• 19:05
  I'm gonna carry my grandkids.
• 19:06
  I mean that that's that's that's huge.
• 19:08
  You know what I'm saying?
• 19:09
  Because I mean we hear stories all the time about people that are just like, I'm completely overwhelmed.
• 19:14
  I don't know what to do.
• 19:15
  I don't know where to go.
• 19:16
  I'm gonna die now.
• 19:17
  You know how how do you how do you maintain that?
• 19:19
  How do you maintain that, hey, you know what, I can move forward, I can grow, I can learn from this circumstance.
• 19:25
  What what do you do?
• 19:26
  What where does this come from?
• 19:27
  For me, unconsciously comes more from a faith based scenario, just from growing up in a a very, very, very faith centered household in my family.
• 19:35
  Um, and then seeing some things in action.
• 19:37
  I mean, let's go back to the credit the to the debit card, right?
• 19:41
  Said a prayer to have my debit card accepted, and it didn't get accepted.
• 19:45
  Some would say that and I was was thinking that was an unanswered prayer.
• 19:48
  But then think about the subsequent events of the next couple, two or three hours.
• 19:53
  The timing.
• 19:54
  You know, I'm picking up coins.
• 19:55
  And how many coins scattered over that parking lot would determine how long I was out there and getting enough to be able to get the gas that I need to get home.
• 20:03
  Now, whether it was people that put dropped a bunch of coins, I could pick them up faster, get my get my fuel, get my diapers, and get out of there and not run into Keith.
• 20:12
  I could have been out there longer moving around out there, picking up my coins.
• 20:17
  Keith could have come and went, not seen Keith.
• 20:19
  Yeah.
• 20:20
  could have not had to go shopping that damn day, right?
• 20:23
  When you think about all those things, look at the way that the prayer was answered.
• 20:26
  Because meeting him, there's no way in hell I was going into the mortgage industry, and there's definitely no way I'm going to become a telemarketer.
• 20:33
  When I was grown up to know that I was going to work with my hands and my back my entire life, that was what I knew.
• 20:39
  And everything changed in that moment.
• 20:41
  And it changed because my circumstances forced me in a scenario I had zero control over.
• 20:45
  And the timing was absolutely perfect.
• 20:47
  That right there taught me that there is things, there are forces that at at work that are unseen that we need to have trust in.
• 20:55
  Because look at where it all went.
• 20:56
  My prayer was answered.
• 20:58
  It was answered so spectacularly.
• 21:00
  So looking at those things, recognizing those things in our lives and paying a close attention to the little things.
• 21:06
  What we don't know is what we don't is what we've avoided in life.
• 21:10
  Because we, you know, there's things that happen like when you're driving down the road and
• 21:14
  You forget something, you gotta try and try and go back at home and you're like, man, now you're frustrated.
• 21:18
  But if you can get to a point, you can let things go and say, you know, maybe there's a benefit there.
• 21:22
  Maybe I I avoided something because of that.
• 21:25
  And it's happened to me many times.
• 21:26
  And living in a in a in a position of gratitude and trying to get to the point where you feel that way no matter what happens, always overthink to the positive.
• 21:35
  Now, I've had somebody ask me that.
• 21:37
  Why do we never overthink to the positive?
• 21:38
  Ring Zandy Yetch.
• 21:39
  I'm like, you that's an amazing thought process.
• 21:41
  We don't do that.
• 21:42
  We are so good at overthinking to the negative and I'm struggling you know, you struggle with it all the time, but I'm trying to do that constantly.
• 21:48
  You know, and and then another thing that changes my life that's been a major change in my life is taking control of my mornings, taking control of my day.
• 21:55
  My alarm goes off at four thirty every morning.
• 21:58
  It's I get out and I'm moving around, you know, getting you know, getting my body moving, listening to things that are of a spiritual nature, having a ki having a conversation with
• 22:05
  God as I'm walking around.
• 22:06
  I've got two and a half acres here, so I'm making laps.
• 22:09
  Right, seven laps gives me 900 steps a lap, and I can have that conversation at the same time, then work out and put myself, take control of my day.
• 22:18
  Um, and the the best I can offer anybody asking those questions, do you have a relationship with your maker?
• 22:25
  Do you have relationship with forces that are greater than us?
• 22:29
  Are you putting trust in whatever you want to call it?
• 22:32
  Call it God, call it universe, whatever you feel like call it, I want to call it God.
• 22:35
  I'm gonna say that there's a I have a Father in heaven, I have a Savior in Jesus Christ, and there's a Holy Spirit communicating to me.
• 22:41
  That I want to say because I believe that fully to the extent that I know that it's there, because I've had those conversations.
• 22:46
  The closer I get there, the easier it is for me to deal with what what what I say in here, because these are the are these really that hard a beating?
• 22:55
  Whatever beating you took yesterday, whatever whatever harsh thing we experienced yesterday, we're still here.
• 23:01
  Yeah.
• 23:01
  I think a lot of times people don't want to be here.
• 23:03
  So you need to find what would keep you here happily and willingly.
• 23:08
  And a lot of it, I think, that is hurting us as a as a as humans, as a culture, and as just just individuals, is what are we looking at on our phone?
• 23:18
  What are we seeing in front of us?
• 23:19
  What are we looking at on our screens?
• 23:21
  What are we allowing the external parts of the world to influence us to decide what we want when in reality we don't want it?
• 23:28
  Yeah, yeah.
• 23:29
  don't want those things.
• 23:31
  we think we want those things till we get those things like that.
• 23:33
  I I put all this time energy in that for what?
• 23:36
  It doesn't do anything.
• 23:37
  Right?
• 23:37
  I'm I I love watches.
• 23:39
  I Um I've got some that are a hundred thousand dollar watches, right?
• 23:42
  And wonder what it felt like to put that on my wrist and wear it for a couple days?
• 23:45
  It felt like freaking Tuesday.
• 23:47
  It does not change your life at all.
• 23:49
  I've driven extremely expensive vehicles.
• 23:51
  And it doesn't change anything other than it feels like Tuesday.
• 23:55
  It's like, okay, that was cool, but that was it.
• 23:57
  The only thing that has changed me significantly is my relationship with deity.
• 24:02
  And it's a constant thing.
• 24:03
  What you'll find all the time is that every day you might know there's many days you will not feel as close to God that day as you did the day before.
• 24:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:12
  when you come to the conclusion who moved, then you can get back to where you need to be to get close to them.
• 24:16
  Then you get the experiences of other people.
• 24:19
  Us right here, being able to communicate with you, having a relationship, be able to know Rick, right?
• 24:23
  And who knows where I'm going to run into you face to face, but now I know Rick.
• 24:27
  And we get to have an experience.
• 24:28
  And I know that the only things I leave this life with, and coming to the to that conclude, this conclusion as well was huge for me.
• 24:34
  I leave life with only relationship with who I became through it.
• 24:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:38
  that I built and the experiences I had, that's it.
• 24:40
  I don't get to take the watches.
• 24:41
  I don't get to take the cars.
• 24:42
  I don't get to take the money.
• 24:43
  I don't get to take the silver.
• 24:44
  I don't take the gold.
• 24:45
  I don't take my guns, the ammo, none of that.
• 24:47
  I get to take you with me.
• 24:49
  The experiences I had with you, my grandkids, my kids, the other people I did business with, the friends that I've developed relationships with, and the things we did together.
• 24:59
  We get to talk about that forever and build on it more.
• 25:02
  I believe that we go on this life to experience more.
• 25:04
  We just have to shed this mortal existence because you need to learn certain lessons here.
• 25:09
  And a lot of those lessons are in spite of the physical environment in front of us, there is an environment that's bigger that we need to put more trust in.
• 25:16
  Absolutely.
• 25:17
  Absolutely.
• 25:17
  I love that.
• 25:18
  you know, one one of the one of the things about about my experience, you know, with with faith in particular is, you know, it's something that, you know, you've you've got it's
• 25:26
  it's like a muscle, you know, you've got to keep working it.
• 25:28
  As you, you know, as as you alluded to.
• 25:30
  And I'm thinking in particular about how you shared about the gas station and and you know you were able to be in the store at the right time to meet with the gentleman, you know.
• 25:40
  You know, and you could you say that that was orchestrated.
• 25:43
  I'm wondering, have you seen circumstances like that as, you know, in in your in your later company?
• 25:48
  I mean, you talked about, you know, at high level about some beatings that you were taking, but I mean, have you seen situations where it's just like, wow, this is kind of
• 25:54
  rehearsing.
• 25:55
  I've already learned this lesson a little bit, I know what's gonna happen, or or something like that.
• 25:59
  Well, I I would say if you if you look at everything that's going on in your world, you can find those.
• 26:05
  It's e i it's easier to find things like that.
• 26:07
  So for instance, other than where I'm at today, because today I've just in the last month I've seen some stuff.
• 26:11
  Let's go backwards even further to 2015.
• 26:14
  I had a a team member of mine that I brought her on, she's very, very brilliant, smart, smart, smart girl.
• 26:19
  But we're trying to build up revenue to be able to start paying her a little bit more.
• 26:22
  And so I said, Hey, within the first ninety days,
• 26:24
  We'll see about increasing your income once we start getting some more things established and we see where you're what you're able to do for the team.
• 26:30
  Well, because then right after before that ninety days hit, that's when my business partner decided to pull everything apart, destroy it, and we had kinda had to start over.
• 26:38
  And I had to say, Hey, give me a little bit more time.
• 26:40
  But you know, so we can get this thing back up and running.
• 26:42
  We got it up and running, we hit the six month mark.
• 26:44
  Now we're actually able to to offer her something.
• 26:47
  So I thought, okay, so I came up with a number, right?
• 26:50
  And it was
• 26:50
  A 10% it you know, it was a I think it was, if I remember correctly, it was a 10% increase in her base and a 30% increase in her bonus, which was pretty significant.
• 26:59
  It was about $10,000 a year increase.
• 27:01
  Um, so I thought this would be great.
• 27:03
  I was able to put this together, thought it would be awesome, shot it off to my the the one of the the VPs.
• 27:08
  He said, No, this is the most we ever do is three percent.
• 27:10
  Mike, well, what would it take to be able to accomplish this for her?
• 27:13
  Because I think she's worth it.
• 27:14
  He goes, Well, I'm gonna need a real heavy breakdown.
• 27:17
  I don't know what influence she had on the pipeline, how did she do this and I it took me two weeks to put together the presentation for him to agree to this to show that she
• 27:25
  really warranted this adjustment.
• 27:27
  By the time he was done reviewing all, he goes, Okay, we can agree to that.
• 27:30
  Makes sense now, go ahead.
• 27:32
  So I brought her in and I was explaining to her all the things she had done to help us out and thanking her for her contribution and the and and the clemency on the extra three
• 27:41
  months that we needed because of the re restart of the business.
• 27:44
  And then I showed her her compensation.
• 27:46
  Now think about this like you went and you saved.
• 27:48
  You went lunchless for a hat for six months, so you could buy your kid that bike.
• 27:53
  So on Christmas morning, he wakes up and you can't wait to see the bicycle under the tree.
• 27:57
  He sees it.
• 27:58
  That's all you want is just all of that was worth it just to see their reaction.
• 28:02
  So I'm waiting for her response.
• 28:04
  And I slid this to her.
• 28:05
  And she looks down, she looks up at me, she goes, That's it.
• 28:08
  So I I really thought you could do better than that.
• 28:10
  What's your first response?
• 28:11
  Your first response is like, really get the hell out of here, I want all that.
• 28:14
  Now not only not only do you not get the raise, you just don't get the job.
• 28:18
  Get out.
• 28:18
  Right?
• 28:19
  I had to pause and I'd say taking her turn to coaching moments.
• 28:22
  Like, what did you expect?
• 28:23
  She goes, I don't know, just something better.
• 28:25
  Like, do you realize?
• 28:26
  And we went through the whole thing.
• 28:27
  And she said, Okay, so she came to understand, you know, that, but if still this thing kind of hung over us, I'm like, the ingratitude, I was just
• 28:35
  angry.
• 28:35
  I wanted to just just destroy everything associated with her.
• 28:39
  Well then later that exact same week, I'm driving down the road.
• 28:43
  I'm exiting the freeway to come to the office.
• 28:45
  As I'm pulling up to the to up to the the light right there at the off ramp, there's a guy standing there with his with his cardboard sign.
• 28:53
  You know the scene, right?
• 28:55
  And I reached for a place where I have cash hidden.
• 28:58
  Now
• 28:59
  When you go back to the story about the gas station, I now have hit cash hidden in my truck because of that debit card.
• 29:05
  So I reached where I had that cash hidden.
• 29:06
  I rolled down the window, I held it out.
• 29:07
  The man walked up.
• 29:08
  There was something about this guy.
• 29:09
  And he took the money, he said, thank you.
• 29:11
  And he's walking away.
• 29:12
  He unfolds it.
• 29:13
  He turns back and looks and goes, Are you sure?
• 29:14
  I'm like, Yeah, why?
• 29:16
  He goes, This is twenty bucks, man.
• 29:17
  I'm like, Yeah, it's yours.
• 29:18
  And I put my hand out there.
• 29:19
  He reached out, took my hand, pulled it to his chest, bowed his head, and audibly said a prayer of thanks to God.
• 29:25
  It asked for a blessing on me.
• 29:27
  Then a light turns green, people are honking, right?
• 29:30
  And we're sharing God bless you.
• 29:31
  And I start to drive away and they hit me.
• 29:33
  Like that's the practical application of gratitude.
• 29:35
  Gratitude is not a thing between me and God, it's an economy amongst people.
• 29:39
  You take one person, I gave her $10,000 for the year, and she I felt like she spat in my face.
• 29:45
  I wanted to take everything from her.
• 29:47
  I gave another guy 20 bucks, and because of his response,
• 29:51
  I wanted to give him $10,000.
• 29:52
  If I had $10,000 in the truck, he would have gotten it.
• 29:56
  So look at the swing in that in gratitude.
• 29:58
  When we operate with gratitude for the smallest thing, you now created this economy of reciprocity.
• 30:04
  He thanked me, I wanted to give him more.
• 30:06
  She didn't thank me, I wanted to take it from her.
• 30:10
  So we start to see these events that happen in our lives, we have to analyze it and understand it.
• 30:14
  You start to realize exactly how things are created.
• 30:17
  We have certain commandments that we've been given.
• 30:19
  The reason we have hundreds of or tens of thousands of laws in this country is because people can't follow the first ten.
• 30:25
  But when you understand following those first ten, what happens to you in your life, and then you can start attributing these things, and then you start living a life of I'm just
• 30:33
  gonna follow along with what this is, and I'll keep my eyes open for what's happening, and I'll work my guts out.
• 30:38
  And I'll pray to God that He's gonna move mountains for me and I'm not gonna get mad when He hands me a shovel because I'll get in there with that shovel and I'll start moving the
• 30:44
  mountain myself.
• 30:45
  But one of these days I'll see that some was moved that I wasn't prepared for.
• 30:48
  Right?
• 30:48
  It's it's having faith in all those things.
• 30:51
  And if I die penniless but but but strong in faith, then I died rich.
• 30:56
  Do do you find yourself like journaling aro about these these circumstances, you know, in some way to to recall them later?
• 31:02
  We should I should be.
• 31:03
  Um, I am writing I am you know, I got the book which which which which put a lot of that stuff in there.
• 31:10
  I've got these books which actually talks about some of those experiences.
• 31:13
  This one actually right here was all about that.
• 31:16
  The practical application of gratitude.
• 31:17
  A person can download all these these in the ebook form, off the same website where you get quit new where you can get Redden Economics, which is quit jerkin off dot com if you
• 31:26
  want to download the ebooks for free.
• 31:27
  but that's the best I can do with that because I did write a whole bunch of things for my kids.
• 31:31
  How I even got to where I was writing a book was post accident, I started just writing for the sake of something for my kids.
• 31:38
  I came up with 370 pages of just everything I could think of.
• 31:41
  And then I went to an event in 2016 where somebody said you need to write a book.
• 31:45
  I'm like, Well, I've already kind of written it.
• 31:46
  How do you get it published?
• 31:47
  Another guy introduced to me to this gal Anne McAndrews
• 31:49
  She helped me put these together.
• 31:51
  And that's why these came about from that three hundred and seventy pages, because nobody had read three hundred and seventy pages of what Aaron Chapman says.
• 31:57
  Nobody cares, right?
• 31:58
  But I tried to create something that somebody can care about.
• 32:00
  And then I met Robert Allen who convinced me to write this book and wrote my forward.
• 32:05
  And that's how I'm chronicle I I'm going to chronicle things is through books that can be passed on to coming generations.
• 32:12
  and then of course it's stories like this, being able to sit in on podcasts.
• 32:16
  it'll put my information out there that way.
• 32:18
  So it's findable in that regard.
• 32:19
  But as far as the daily journaling, I should be better at that, but I'm not.
• 32:23
  Well, I wanna I wanna hear more about Redden Economics.
• 32:25
  I wanna I wanna hear, you know, the inspiration behind it.
• 32:28
  I know that you read it for your kids, but you know, what what's what's what's the goal?
• 32:31
  What do you want the readers to get out of that book?
• 32:34
  So the inspiration behind it was I was at an event where Robert Allen was speaking.
• 32:37
  He wrote a book called Nothing Down back in the eighties.
• 32:39
  He's a monster in the real estate investment space.
• 32:41
  That guy, there's all there's these call things called RIAs Across the Country, Real Estate Investment Association.
• 32:47
  He's like he created that.
• 32:49
  They're all started from what he he created back in the back in the day.
• 32:52
  So he was at the event at an event at the keynote speaker, and I thought he was going to talk on investment real estate, but he's talking about the ten mistakes authors make.
• 33:00
  So we ended up talking about r you know, books and I was getting ready to do more.
• 33:04
  And and he decided it's like, you're gonna write a whole other book.
• 33:06
  I'm like, well, what is that?
• 33:07
  He goes, no, you tell me.
• 33:09
  And he helped me with the outline, and then he I would read it, I would write a chapter and send it to him, he'd look at it.
• 33:14
  It's like perfect, go on to the next thing.
• 33:16
  Go on to the next thing.
• 33:16
  Then he encouraged me to get it illustrated.
• 33:18
  So there's over a hundred thousand dollars in artwork in this.
• 33:20
  And then I got introduced to a publisher and just started going from there.
• 33:24
  And the goal behind it, I didn't have a goal when I started.
• 33:27
  It was Robert said I'm gonna write a book.
• 33:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:29
  talking to me.
• 33:30
  But now the goal is speaking to the coming generations.
• 33:34
  And because they're they have not been given an easy run on things.
• 33:37
  When you think back on when we grew up, remember the 80s, full of hope.
• 33:41
  That was it, it was the greatest decade there was, right?
• 33:44
  The 80s and the and the early 90s, absolutely spectacular.
• 33:48
  I I I feel bad for the people didn't get to experience that kind of kind of a childhood.
• 33:53
  I had a blast as a kid.
• 33:55
  All the way through high school.
• 33:56
  Things have changed so significantly.
• 33:58
  But I'm speaking to that younger generation with this.
• 34:00
  And in fact, my my my niece, Scarlett, she could she could be a little bit of a pain in the ass growing up, but she latched on to this.
• 34:08
  She's listened to every podcast I've been on.
• 34:10
  She has latched onto this book.
• 34:12
  She's read it several times, and she took it to her library at school.
• 34:16
  She grabbed two copies from me.
• 34:18
  I signed them.
• 34:18
  She took them to the library.
• 34:19
  She's told librarian, these gotta be on our shelves.
• 34:22
  No, the librarian reads.
• 34:23
  She goes, There's a lot of kind of questionable language in here.
• 34:26
  She goes, I don't care.
• 34:27
  Look at this book, this book, that she starts pointing out books.
• 34:29
  She she went like an attorney and she finally got that put on the shelf there.
• 34:33
  And she says, You know, people are come her friends are complaining that they can never find a library because it's always checked out.
• 34:40
  That's a big deal to me.
• 34:41
  The coming generation is being able to read this, identify this, and start doing some internal searching for themselves as to what
• 34:48
  they need to be doing with their lives because I really push heavy on the personal responsibility.
• 34:53
  Quit pushing it off and laying blame somewhere else.
• 34:55
  Because the more you lay blame elsewhere, the less that you are going to accomplish in life because you're saying circumstance is going to prevent you from being anything.
• 35:03
  Circumstances be damned, you can be whatever the hell you want.
• 35:05
  You just have to decide what that is.
• 35:06
  And I talk about that heavily in the first chapter.
• 35:08
  What is what is what is your what is the audience gonna grab?
• 35:11
  What is the most important thing you want the audience to grab from the book?
• 35:14
  What is success?
• 35:15
  Because only you can define it.
• 35:16
  We live in this environment of social media trying to tell us what success is.
• 35:22
  And what people do is they compromise themselves for this so-called version of success.
• 35:27
  And what you have in many cases, I'm not saying all cases, but many cases, is people in their twenties that show that they have made it in a way that they're driving
• 35:36
  Lamborghinis, they're wearing AP watches.
• 35:39
  And they're and they're they're traveling the world doing all these these these amazing things, but we don't know what their credit card bill is, right?
• 35:46
  We don't know the reality of this.
• 35:48
  We also don't know what and AI is getting pretty spectacular at these things too.
• 35:53
  And so there's people that are beating themselves up for being in their 30s and 40s and they aren't accomplishing what some 20 year old is doing.
• 35:59
  I don't have an ass for for for social media.
• 36:02
  So I'm not gonna make money doing that, right?
• 36:04
  I have to do it with my brain and with my personality, right?
• 36:07
  And so sometimes it's not gonna go to the level that some OnlyFans model is gonna get.
• 36:11
  But people are compromising themselves for the for the hope of of wealth created in something like OnlyFans.
• 36:16
  And look at the destruction that's happening to people because their idea of what success is is what this person's trying to say it is.
• 36:23
  And because of that, they're compromising their morals, they're compromising themselves, they're compromising everything around them for potential of something that isn't real.
• 36:32
  So what I'm wanting them to understand, hopefully, by reading this, is that you can define for yourself what success is.
• 36:38
  Doesn't matter what you think it is, what I think it is, is what they think it is.
• 36:41
  And they can pursue that with the help of God to get to get there.
• 36:45
  And that relationship there is the the the only real important relationship they have w in their in their
• 36:51
  personal life other than their spouse and and close family and friends, whatever.
• 36:54
  But you can lose all of them.
• 36:56
  But what the one you can't lose is your relationship with our creator.
• 36:59
  If you can make that and work on that, it doesn't matter what all the other things are.
• 37:04
  Everything will work itself out.
• 37:06
  But you also can't take what God gives you, which might be enough to sustain life and have a very good, comfortable life, but you're now discounting it and you're thinking at less
• 37:17
  of it.
• 37:18
  Because of what you're looking at online as somebody else's so-called millions that may or may not be there or billions, whatever it is.
• 37:25
  And I also have noticed that the more people are tied up in money being their pursuit, the emptier they have been.
• 37:31
  And I know a lot of these guys directly, and they just seem like empty souls because that's never enough for them.
• 37:39
  And I've been in that world.
• 37:40
  I know what it's like to have never enough.
• 37:42
  And it sucks.
• 37:43
  So the direction I'm heading today.
• 37:45
  Is a complete different thing because it's the relationships.
• 37:48
  I may not have a new relationship, but I've got the other relationship I can have the experience with.
• 37:53
  And it's and having those things to enjoy, the only time it becomes hollow is when I'm by myself.
• 37:57
  I'm thinking back on the cool moments I had with like my my my youngest my youngest child, who's the only one left at home.
• 38:03
  And I remember as an eight-year-old, the things we were doing together, she was like a chimp on Coke.
• 38:08
  She was a lot of fun.
• 38:09
  But now she's an adult.
• 38:10
  And I don't have that r that that relationship with anymore.
• 38:13
  I have a new relationship.
• 38:15
  We get to reminisce on that, but I miss that little girl.
• 38:18
  I miss my son when he was at when he was when he was a young man running around out here with his friends.
• 38:22
  I miss those things, but at least I have those memories.
• 38:25
  And those are the things of the successes of my life that I've been able to embrace.
• 38:29
  Now it doesn't mean I stop working.
• 38:30
  Doesn't mean I ain't growing my business.
• 38:32
  I'm still gonna do all those things.
• 38:34
  But I've also redefined it to where I don't lament when a deal doesn't go through.
• 38:38
  I work my guts out to make it go through.
• 38:40
  I hunt more deals, I build more relationships, I do the best I can by my clients and by my referral sources.
• 38:45
  But I also don't lament it and beat myself up and bring my value down because a deal didn't close.
• 38:49
  Mm, mm, mm.
• 38:51
  You know, one of the you you kind of touched on one of the one of the experiences I've had and I've I've seen a number of times talk to a number of guests about, you know, where
• 38:59
  they build their wealth up to a certain number, and then it's just like, you know, what is this for?
• 39:03
  I'm I'm wondering what your thoughts are on on the people
• 39:08
  I'm not saying the people in general, but you know, just the idea that, you know, success isn't defined by, you know, the number of zeros in in your bank account.
• 39:16
  What do you what do you how do you how do you advise people when they've redefined success outside of the financial structure that we're in?
• 39:23
  Well, my as far as advising them, I'm putting together a thing in the Ozarks where people can come six people at a time, no more than that, 'cause I want to give everybody the
• 39:31
  attention.
• 39:32
  But they'll spend three days, even if they've got the zeros, right?
• 39:35
  They could have a lot of zeros, but now they're they have the emptiness.
• 39:38
  What do I do with the zeros?
• 39:39
  What do I do with myself?
• 39:40
  Like let's let's take the time to really explore you mentally and physically, spiritually, to what the next five years looks like and what would make you the happiest.
• 39:49
  Let's stretch to
• 39:50
  to what that might be and let's write that down in such great detail that it's impossible to not experience as you read it.
• 39:57
  And then at that time, when you write this down, because I've d I've done this exercise and have had amazing outcomes with it.
• 40:03
  But not only are we going have you writing this down in great detail and coming back and forth and back and forth from the from the from the forest for us to really, really drive
• 40:10
  it home so you can find that detail and experience it mentally and physically, because we can experience things in a thought, right?
• 40:16
  You've had thoughts that are so vivid.
• 40:18
  Yeah.
• 40:18
  reacted to it, right?
• 40:20
  We can do that there.
• 40:21
  And not and then instead of doing the vision boards where you're cutting out somebody's yacht and putting it on there, that kind of thing, because that's coveting somebody else's
• 40:28
  things.
• 40:28
  That's not yours, right?
• 40:30
  You're not that's not your life.
• 40:31
  You're looking at somebody else's life.
• 40:32
  Let's talk about your life.
• 40:34
  Once you've done that great detail, the artist who painted everything in here would be able to read that and understand that detail well enough that could paint you in five
• 40:41
  years.
• 40:42
  So you can experience it and see it and read it and and and and start living your life towards it.
• 40:49
  That's one way we're gonna help people do that.
• 40:51
  The other thing is is having a plan.
• 40:54
  I think what for me at least, this is just Aaron Chapman, my plan is for my future is not not my future for Aaron, but the people that follow Aaron.
• 41:02
  What what's gonna happen to my bloodline?
• 41:04
  So I was worried about my kids after my accident.
• 41:07
  Because when you have something like that, you really start to pay attention.
• 41:09
  It's like, what would happen to them if I didn't make it out of that?
• 41:13
  What would they have?
• 41:14
  Because I lost everything just being incapacitated.
• 41:18
  Now, if I was gone, my family would be stuck in the same scenario without me.
• 41:23
  Then what?
• 41:23
  My wife was a stay-at-home mom.
• 41:25
  So I had to reevaluate what I was doing, and that changed things to whole life policies and then utilizing a trust and then LLCs.
• 41:31
  Yeah.
• 41:32
  now it's like, okay, so I have all that.
• 41:33
  Now what?
• 41:34
  Well, I had to open up the books to the kids.
• 41:36
  Say, this is what we have.
• 41:36
  These are the places we've invested.
• 41:38
  This is the the different LLC structure we have.
• 41:40
  Well then they become adults and then they haven't to go and move into places.
• 41:43
  Now I bought a house next door to my kids where they grew up at.
• 41:46
  So my k I my kids grew up in one house for 20 years, and then I bought the house next door, we had it, moved into it.
• 41:52
  My two oldest flipped a coin to see you got to live in the house they grew up in.
• 41:55
  And my oldest daughter, her husband, moved in.
• 41:58
  My oldest, which is my son.
• 42:00
  He's in an apartment down the street with his wife.
• 42:02
  And it bothered me that I have one of my children and their spouse next door, and the other is at an apartment and they're virtually paying the same in rent.
• 42:11
  I didn't like that.
• 42:12
  So then, of course, my daughter has kids, and I have grandkids that live next door.
• 42:15
  And my son, I'm talking with him, is like, we got to do something about this.
• 42:18
  Well, we're in Arizona.
• 42:19
  I didn't have the disposable capital to buy another house in Arizona at the price that they're at.
• 42:23
  But he l works for FedEx and can transfer.
• 42:25
  Now my third child ended up getting married and she moved to Idaho because it's cheaper.
• 42:29
  So I ended up working it out with them to where I could sell a property I had in Arizona, use that to buy two houses in Missouri, because I had a place in Missouri and I could buy
• 42:36
  a house not far from there.
• 42:37
  So I bought two houses there, put those in the trust, and then put them as renters into the trust.
• 42:42
  So then I put my house in the trust, like, you know, this is a kind of a thing.
• 42:45
  So now we have, I guess, six houses that are in the trust that family members live in that pay rent to the trust.
• 42:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 42:54
  per month per house goes into the middle as a home warranty.
• 42:57
  Something breaks, then that home warranty kicks in, it pays for that breakage, and they don't have to go for it, they don't have to go to their pocket, I don't have to go to
• 43:04
  mine, and we continue to build up the family assets.
• 43:06
  So now my focus is how do I make sure that every single member of my family from here on into forever always knows they have a place to live.
• 43:15
  They don't have to worry about renting from the stranger.
• 43:17
  It's the family trust owns these homes.
• 43:19
  And then the if somebody passes, we have a home to go on to the next generation, or we sell that and buy two or three, however, we're gonna do that.
• 43:26
  But that's that's what we've built.
• 43:27
  We now have that structure.
• 43:29
  The family has a trust, they have a board.
• 43:31
  We we meet often, we vote on what we're gonna do.
• 43:33
  Now I'm removing everybody to Missouri.
• 43:35
  I'm selling most of my Arizona assets, moving the whole family out there because we have acreage, and now I'm gonna watch my grandkids grow up around each other.
• 43:43
  Instead of the grandkids here and the grandkids in Missouri, they're gonna be grandkids all together.
• 43:47
  I'm changing the direction of our of our family in the sense that there is no hierarchy of in a family anymore.
• 43:53
  You don't have the elders with the with the with the parents and then with the kids, with the grandkids anymore.
• 43:58
  You don't have that dynamic.
• 44:00
  It's gone.
• 44:01
  I I experienced that dynamic as a kid that my grandparent, my grandmother, and her brothers and sisters passed.
• 44:06
  That's gone.
• 44:07
  You know, we would go to family reunions and you would have that older generation in wheelchairs with oxygen on, right?
• 44:14
  And they're sitting around talking.
• 44:15
  And you know, that part of the family, they had some interesting folks in it.
• 44:19
  There would sometimes be rival gangs uh represented at our family reunion, our big family reunion, and they would go at it.
• 44:27
  And then the next then the elders would wheel up and they'd be pointing at them and they would calm down, right?
• 44:31
  Because there was respect there, even though there was this stupid hatred amongst each other because of what colors you had on.
• 44:38
  But then the next day, this I'm sorry, cuz and they're sitting around the outdoor chapel, how I might my my
• 44:43
  My great uncle's preaching and it was just an amazing experience to see that.
• 44:47
  And our kids don't have that.
• 44:49
  My kids don't have that.
• 44:50
  My grand my parents are divorced.
• 44:52
  One lives in Missouri and one lives here in Arizona.
• 44:54
  My par my grand my children don't get to see that dynamic.
• 44:57
  I'm changing it.
• 44:58
  I'm taking my grandkids and my kids to a place where we can start that over again.
• 45:02
  I'm encouraging people to do that.
• 45:04
  Bring your family together.
• 45:06
  The most important people of your world is the one who carry your blood and carry your name.
• 45:09
  So let's start this.
• 45:10
  Let's change how the go how the world is done.
• 45:12
  Let's quit fragmenting us.
• 45:13
  So I'm bringing them back together.
• 45:15
  We're going to be raising we're going to be back to to to the gardens and the and the the cattle and things like that because that's what I miss.
• 45:21
  And they want to do that.
• 45:22
  We're going to do it together.
• 45:23
  So me encouraging people to not only write what you find to be to be your your ultimate goal in life and it doesn't have to be wealth.
• 45:30
  It can be whatever you want it to be.
• 45:32
  And now you're now you have this thing to pursue.
• 45:34
  And when you achieve it, do it again and again and again and again.
• 45:37
  But then what about the people that are gonna follow you?
• 45:39
  What are you doing there?
• 45:40
  What is going to happen to your name when you pass?
• 45:43
  Right now my name will be on a book, but what else is it gonna have?
• 45:47
  Right?
• 45:47
  So what what what's gonna happen there?
• 45:48
  So changing the lives of other people and especially the people who came from you, who are related to you, to me it should be the ultimate goal for everybody.
• 45:56
  Yeah.
• 45:57
  Yeah.
• 45:57
  Yeah.
• 45:58
  Yeah.
• 45:58
  Leaving that legacy.
• 45:59
  I love that.
• 46:00
  I love that.
• 46:00
  one last question for you.
• 46:01
  Name of the show, of course, is the Relentless Pursuit of Winning podcast.
• 46:05
  as you said, you know, we all define winning however we need to.
• 46:09
  The difficulty, the challenge, and we talked about it little bit, but difficulty to challenge that a lot of people have is maintaining that relentless pursuit.
• 46:17
  What would you recommend to someone to maintain that relentless pursuit?
• 46:20
  So I know everybody's different, right?
• 46:22
  I tell people I get up at four thirty every morning, I do what what I do, they're like, I can't do that and I can't do that, I can't do this like what can you do?
• 46:29
  What is the one thing that you will pursue every single day without failure?
• 46:34
  And so I can't define for anybody what that is.
• 46:36
  I can't define for them what what what success is.
• 46:39
  I can't define for them what happiness is.
• 46:41
  I can't define what a great relationship is.
• 46:42
  I can't define any of these things.
• 46:44
  I can define it for me.
• 46:45
  I can barely define it for my kids, right?
• 46:48
  Um and they're they're growing up in what I'm creating.
• 46:50
  but I think it's what's worthy of pursuit.
• 46:53
  A person has to answer that question for themselves.
• 46:56
  Because if it's gonna be a relentless pursuit, what w is worthy of your pursuit?
• 46:59
  You know, it's a it's a lot like you know, being in high school and you're attracted to the opposite sex.
• 47:04
  Is it redheads, is it blondes, is it curly hair, is it straight hair, is it short hair, is it long hair, what is it, right?
• 47:10
  Then you want to relentless per pursue what is going to make you happy, you're going to enjoy a relationship with.
• 47:15
  It's the same thing.
• 47:16
  What is the relentless pursuit that you want to put forth in your life?
• 47:19
  What is worthy of your time, your energy, your talents, and your prayers?
• 47:23
  What's worthy of that is where you pursue that, and then you do it every single day.
• 47:27
  And there's gonna be those days that you're gonna have to have the voice in here that says, get your ass up and move and go after that.
• 47:33
  That was for me today.
• 47:35
  4 30.
• 47:35
  My alarm goes off.
• 47:37
  I did not I was I had I was I've been out of town for four days at corporate dealing with executive And I'm tired.
• 47:43
  I'm like, I wanted to stay there, but no.
• 47:45
  I I said every day I've got to move, I've got to spend time with God, I've got to get my body moving, I've got to get it exercised, and I gotta start my day.
• 47:51
  So that's what I had to do.
• 47:52
  I had to have that voice.
• 47:53
  And that's actually, if you look in the book, there's a picture of it.
• 47:56
  Of and my my brother actually drew that out to where it's a it's a a me standing over me telling me get my ass up, it's right here.
• 48:03
  And so for me, it's just a relentless pursuit of what am I going to accomplish today?
• 48:08
  And how and and for me anymore.
• 48:10
  How am I going to further my connection with my creator every single day?
• 48:14
  'Cause what I think is gonna be a good day sometimes, if I put it all on me, it's not that great of a day, but I put it all on him, it's amazing and a spectacular day every single
• 48:23
  time.
• 48:23
  That's bold.
• 48:24
  That's bold.
• 48:24
  I love that.
• 48:25
  I love that.
• 48:26
  Worthiness.
• 48:26
  continuous pursuit, connection with God.
• 48:28
  I love that.
• 48:29
  If someone wants to get your book, get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that?
• 48:32
  So you can go to AaronChapman.com, just comes directly to me and you can reach out.
• 48:35
  You can email me at info at AaronChapman.com.
• 48:39
  The book is on Amazon.
• 48:40
  The audio is on Amazon.
• 48:41
  The cool thing about the audio, you've got Robert Allen, who's a monster in the real estate investing space.
• 48:46
  Dolph DeRus, another monster in the real estate investing space, who's an international investor.
• 48:50
  He wrote my afterwards.
• 48:51
  They both did the reading for their forward and afterward, and I read the audio book itself.
• 48:56
  So you get to spend three and a half hours listening to me.
• 48:58
  hardest thing I've ever done, trying to read my own shit, right?
• 49:01
  And that took me seven days to get three and a half hours done.
• 49:04
  Um so you can do that and you can download that from Amazon.
• 49:08
  If you can't spell redneconomics correctly to find it, go to quit jerkin off dot com.
• 49:13
  You'll find it there, and that way you'll get the spelling.
• 49:15
  You can order from that location too.
• 49:17
  you can and Aaronchapman.com will get you there.
• 49:19
  But those are the places the best place best places to get me.
• 49:22
  You can go to S G O C underscore Aaron Instagram if you want to connect with me there.
• 49:26
  but I mean I it
• 49:27
  And if you want to schedule a time to talk, info@aaronchapman.com is being monitored by us by my assistant Bree.
• 49:33
  She'll schedule a time for us to chat if you want to get deeper into how do I go about real estate investing, how do I build a portfolio, how do I get my family protected with
• 49:41
  that, with that insurance as well as you know, the the right entity structures.
• 49:45
  I've got I've got connections with people in these industries that give my clients an enormous discount and enormous services to help them really build that foundation to
• 49:55
  bedrock.
• 49:56
  So you can build that skyscraper of of assets for your family for the future.
• 49:59
  Because let's just be down with this, right?
• 50:01
  When I'm building my this this trust as the grantor and the trustee, it's not for me.
• 50:06
  It's for my beneficiaries.
• 50:08
  I had to wrap my kids' hand skill skull around that.
• 50:11
  I I literally have nothing.
• 50:12
  It's all gonna be passed on to the next generation.
• 50:15
  Now it doesn't mean I live a bad life.
• 50:16
  I live an amazing life, but all of it belongs to those who are coming forward.
• 50:20
  And I want them to learn that everything that they do.
• 50:23
  is to the generation coming after them.
• 50:25
  Yep.
• 50:25
  Yep.
• 50:26
  Yep.
• 50:26
  We're gonna be doing the same thing.
• 50:27
  So I appreciate you saying that.
• 50:28
  you have a QJO investment tool.
• 50:30
  Did you wanna talk about that for our audience?
• 50:32
  Yeah, so I actually have a couple things that that go by that.
• 50:34
  So QJO, meaning the quit jerkin off investment tool.
• 50:37
  And you go to you can download on your Apple Play or you can do it on Google Play.
• 50:42
  I think it's it, yeah.
• 50:43
  So your your your i whatever those stores are, right?
• 50:47
  For Google and your your iPhone.
• 50:48
  My mind's not working quite right, but you can look up the QJO investment tool.
• 50:53
  And what's cool about that tool is I wanted to understand.
• 50:56
  What is a person really getting when they're financing a home?
• 50:58
  Because a lot of people think they're going into debt.
• 51:00
  You know, you're buying this house, you're you're spending you're you're financing this thing for 30 years, and they're thinking this is debt.
• 51:06
  Guys, the financing is the greatest asset in the deal.
• 51:09
  And the reason being is you're what's happening with the US dollar with inflation right now?
• 51:12
  It's it's completely eroding.
• 51:14
  Let's go back 30 years ago, because we're talking about a 30 year mortgage, because that's what I do.
• 51:17
  In the last 30 years, so in 2024, I'm I'm picking up my daughter from from high school, halfway through the day, coming home, she's like,
• 51:24
  Saw we saw a Taco Bell.
• 51:25
  She goes, Hey, can we go get some tacos?
• 51:26
  I'm like, sure.
• 51:27
  So I pulled through the through the drive-thru and she ordered these specific items that brought back a memory.
• 51:32
  She brought ordered two crunchy tacos, two bean burritos, and a drink.
• 51:36
  And it hit me because 30 years before in 1994, I walked into my very first Taco Bell in Moses Lake, Washington.
• 51:44
  I ordered that exact same thing off their value menu for $1.99.
• 51:47
  Do you know what I paid for hers?
• 51:49
  $13.89.
• 51:50
  The tacos didn't get bigger and it wasn't discovered by the the World Health Organization that they are a superfood, it's because our dollar became s worth that much more less.
• 52:00
  That was a 800% swing in the buying power of the US dollar in 30 years.
• 52:04
  Why is this important?
• 52:05
  When you're buying a house for an investment property or you buy a house to live in, you fix in that interest rate for 30 years, your cost is set for 30 years.
• 52:12
  You're paying the same dollar amount for 30 years.
• 52:15
  And people will say, well, if you look at that inflation, that what what
• 52:18
  interest is doing.
• 52:19
  You borrow a buy a house for that's worth two hundred thousand, you get a loan for $160, you're gonna pay four hundred and two thousand dollars in principal and interest.
• 52:27
  Pay extra.
• 52:28
  Do it do a debt snowball.
• 52:30
  Wipe out that payment be like, no, don't do that.
• 52:32
  Because every time you make a payment, what you're given the bank is worth just a little bit less than it was the month before.
• 52:37
  And when you reapply that at just a nominal single digit rate of inflation, you're only giving back about a hundred and forty one hundred and forty six thousand dollars.
• 52:46
  You borrowed 160.
• 52:47
  You paid 402, but the value of that 402 is 146.
• 52:52
  The bank didn't even get paid back what you borrowed.
• 52:54
  So leverage high, leverage long, and payoff slow.
• 52:57
  That tool will calculate that for you.
• 52:59
  So you go to the mortgage amortization schedule.
• 53:01
  You click on that, which is the third calculator.
• 53:03
  You'll put in the percentage down.
• 53:04
  20% is what we normally do.
• 53:06
  Put in $200,000 in there.
• 53:08
  Put in an interest rate, say 7.5%, and it'll tell you.
• 53:11
  what your payment is on that.
• 53:12
  Now the rate could be 6.8 or whatever it's going to be, but it will tell you what that is.
• 53:16
  Then there's a calendar icon in the upper right hand corner.
• 53:18
  You click on that and then you can scroll all the way forward for for 30 years and see, save and close that you could see what the total amount you paid, yeah, all of the
• 53:28
  principal and interest, but then the inflation adjusted principal and interest based upon what, you know, not even the real rate of inflation.
• 53:33
  Real rate of inflation is 13, 14%.
• 53:35
  But you say you're giving the bank back less than what you borrowed.
• 53:38
  There's huge value in that.
• 53:39
  What's amazing there is people are buying houses, you're paying you're b using somebody else's money to finance all of it.
• 53:45
  You have somebody else paying it back.
• 53:47
  Well, as your clinics your tenants paying off the mortgage, but you put in twenty percent plus costs was your investment.
• 53:54
  If they pay off your mortgage over thirty years, that is equivalent to about eleven percent return on investment just right there.
• 54:00
  Just then paying off your mortgage.
• 54:01
  Because you 'cause that because now you're increasing what you invested in there.
• 54:04
  Now if the property is appreciating at two to two and half percent per year, a nominal amount, that's another ten percent on what you invested.
• 54:11
  You're already making twenty to thirty percent return on your investment before any cash flow.
• 54:15
  Then you get into the tax benefits.
• 54:17
  People are making thirty to forty percent by putting twenty percent down on a home.
• 54:20
  They don't realize it.
• 54:21
  They're so worried about the interest rate and the cash flow that they fail to realize that they're actually making twenty plus percent on the money just by buying the house and
• 54:29
  sitting on it.
• 54:29
  And having somebody else pay for it.
• 54:31
  Who cares about the cash flow?
• 54:32
  But the cash flow will come with inflation.
• 54:34
  So it changes the dynamic of how a person looks at a real estate investment when you understand that the real value is in the leverage.
• 54:43
  They shop that leverage so much and then they want to pay it off that they don't realize that they just they just actually work themselves out of an additional 10 to 15% return on
• 54:52
  their investment every year.
• 54:53
  And people who pay cash.
• 54:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:55
  screwing themselves.
• 54:56
  And that's why this tool was created.
• 54:58
  There's another tool I have out there called the QJO entity vault.
• 55:02
  You can look that up, www.qoentity vault.com.
• 55:05
  And when I talked about all the entity structure I have, the trust, a Wyoming holding company, and LLCs in the estate that I have, the real estate and other holdings, that's a
• 55:14
  lot of paperwork.
• 55:16
  That's a lot to hand off to my next generation.
• 55:18
  Say, okay, it's all in Google Drive or in Dropbox and I have a bunch of pro documents to say, figure it out.
• 55:23
  That's not easy for them to figure it out.
• 55:24
  You and I are building something for our family's future, but they don't know what we have in here.
• 55:28
  And they can't sort through all out paper paperwork and figure out what did Rick build here?
• 55:32
  I'm trying to figure all this out.
• 55:33
  So when you go to that that website and you click on the video, it shows you that what I had built was a s was a software that as you type in the entity that you're building, it
• 55:43
  creates an org chart of all of them in front of you.
• 55:46
  And as you click on that entity and open it up, it stores all the paperwork.
• 55:49
  It has your operating agreement, has your EIN, has your has your notes for for meetings, it has your formation documents, and everything that you can store in there.
• 55:58
  If that entity has assets like a house, you click on the assets section.
• 56:02
  It has that house information in there.
• 56:03
  You keep the appraisal, the note, the deed of trust, the other payment paperwork.
• 56:07
  It's all right there.
• 56:08
  If it has a bank account associated, you can tie it to that bank account with Plaid.
• 56:11
  You can build everything out.
• 56:13
  We're in the future going to have documents in there for legal documents to be able to do to do transactions with it.
• 56:18
  No nice.
• 56:19
  when I something happens to me, my daughter needs to be able to log into that and know where everything's at.
• 56:24
  So I have her right now in charge in the trust of maintaining that that that whole profile, maintaining the entire system to make sure that nothing gets lost.
• 56:32
  Because I'm not putting all this time and energy into it just for the next heirs to the next generation, not even know where it's at.
• 56:38
  So we as entrepreneurs, I hate paperwork.
• 56:41
  I'm sure you hate paperwork.
• 56:42
  We all hate paperwork.
• 56:43
  We like going out and doing, not writing down about it.
• 56:46
  So now I have a system here to make sure it's organized, it's visible, it's easy, and you can pass it on to the coming generation and know that it's safe.
• 56:52
  I love it.
• 56:53
  I love it.
• 56:53
  This is great stuff.
• 56:54
  This is great stuff.
• 56:55
  I will make sure that that's in the show description.
• 56:57
  Thank you so much for being on the show.
• 56:59
  This is this is this has been inspiring.
• 57:00
  It's been educational.
• 57:01
  I appreciate you.
• 57:02
  And folks, thank you so much for watching or listening to another episode of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast.
• 57:07
  We'll catch you next time.