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Why This Builder Shut Down a $35M Company w/ Dave Rossi · Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew

0:00
Dave Rossi built a $35 million construction company,
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then shut it down completely because he realized he was living the wrong life.
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In this episode, he breaks down the difference between fear-driven decisions
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and objective reality, while chasing success backwards and the framework
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he uses to know when to walk away from a bad deal or partnership before
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it costs him everything. Dave is the founder of CQ Construction.
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Building luxury custom homes and development in Silicon Valley.
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And he's here to unpack how to rebuild an eight-figure business after losing it all.
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if you want more frameworks like this for how you think about your business
0:42
and your deals, check out realdealcrew.com.
0:45
Let's get started.
0:50
Dave Rossi joins me here today.
0:52
You can learn what he can help you with by heading over to Dave Rossi Global
0:56
dot com. The clickable link is gonna be in the show notes.
1:00
I really appreciate your time here today,
1:02
Dave.
1:03
Zach, thanks for having me and I look forward to making this interesting.
1:07
Yeah, well you said we're kind of in the complete ends of the world when when
1:11
it comes to some of this stuff,
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not only geographically, but probably just location wise.
1:17
You're in a heart of Silicon Valley helping people with construction.
1:21
And I'm well, we're gonna hit actually eighty eight degrees here
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in near Fargo today.
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wow, that's that's quite the opposite of where it is today in California,
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but won't last for long. It's always seventy eight and sunny in Silicon Valley.
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Yeah. So we went from spring to ninety nine degree weather and
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now w we might get that for a week and then we're we're back to fall again.
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So you know, we before we hit record,
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Dave, we're gonna hit on a couple of things b around real estate
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and what you've done in real estate,
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but
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What I think is really important is that we frankly don't spend a lot
1:59
of time on mindset and a few other things on this channel.
2:03
I just think that actually when it comes to our investments,
2:07
that's probably one of the best or the most impactful investment we can make
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is in our in ourselves and in our education.
2:16
Can you talk a little bit about what we were chatting about earlier,
2:20
about building better men and in turn
2:23
Building better businesses.
2:24
Well, definitely, you know, I had a reset in my life and instead of going into
2:28
the details, I really adopted a philosophy of
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of chasing truth and integrity over money and and deals.
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And, you know, we always had this statement,
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it's not how much you do, it's how much you keep.
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And I think how much you keep has a lot to do with how much you keep
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in terms of sanity, in terms of your time,
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in terms of balance, in terms of health.
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And so I set out to be a better man and I set out to build a better company
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and I set out to have those merge.
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And I think that gets lost in translation oftentimes.
3:01
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
3:03
You know, it it is one of those things that I just I sometimes struggle with
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the with that I I don't think people really realize what it means
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to when you're building a business,
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how it is like a top down approach.
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You know, it's your mentality y if if you're running your business ethically
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and upright.
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how that actually impacts everybody around you and everybody you're working with.
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Yeah, and I think I learned this from a spiritual perspective.
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And I say spiritual, I don't mean woo-woo we're or religious.
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I mean having awareness to differentiate different emotions and to choose
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or make choices and behaviors for my business that are based on more logic
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and reason and and spiritual practices in terms of not being,
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you know, pushed by fear or by chasing deals or by money.
3:57
And I think as I drew up into this
4:00
this part of my life, I began to find support for that.
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And I think the biggest support would be someone like Ray Dalio as well
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as Warren Buffett that really support integrity and honesty and reality,
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objective reality versus some kind of subjective amalgamation of of numbers
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to fit a fear-driven desire versus a logical driven desire.
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And I think when you do that, the the script gets flipped.
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I think for me,
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For most of my life, 17 years in my business I ran before this,
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it was success equals happiness.
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You go get success, you're gonna be happy.
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And I drove that train. Hey, let's find success.
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And when I have more success, I'll be happy.
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And that's called forward gapping.
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People forward gap and think, I'll be happy when I get the next deal.
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I'll be happy when I make a million bucks.
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I'll be happy when I add this new house.
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I'll be happy when I get the vacation house.
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I'll be happy when I get married.
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And the problem with forward gapping is you tend to always forward gap.
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It's more of a process than a statement.
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And so it's kind of you keep doing it.
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And when you flip the script, and I think,
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you know, my research has yielded that Warren Buffett really believes in this,
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which is happiness equals success.
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When you find a balance and a contentment,
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you're more you're more logical,
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you're more rational, you don't chase deals.
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You see the numbers from a more objective reality.
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than trying to take a square peg and round the edges and sand them off
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so they fit in that round hole.
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And I think subjective reality and fear and the drive for happiness,
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for success, does that. And so in in my own change and through whatever channels
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I went through, I found support for that for that process through those two people.
5:35
Mm.
5:36
That's a interesting way of flipping the script there because I I do find that
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for the most of our society it is that pursuit of wealth
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in in monetary means. It's it's almost more of a possession type type
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of world, you know, it's it's objects and and material wealth that that makes
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somebody ha happy versus what you're you're talking about.
6:05
Well, it's the perception of happy.
6:06
And I I was there. I had, you know,
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when I chose to leave my marriage,
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who was my business partner for seventeen years,
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I had four houses, three investment houses,
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one house I lived in, you know,
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eight thousand square foot house on six acres in Silicon Valley.
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I had two buildings, two commercial buildings,
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a hundred employees, two boats,
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three kids, private schools. And I realized that I wasn't happy.
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And what I realized was and and what made me hit reset was
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basically a line from a Leo Tolstoy book called The Death of Ivan Illich,
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in that at the end of this book,
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he looked up to his family and said,
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What if I lived my whole life wrong?
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He wanted to have one career and he chose a different career.
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And now he's looking at his deathbed thinking,
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What if I wasn't supposed to have this career?
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What if I was supposed to be happy and do something more intrinsically valuable?
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And so although I set out for that when I left my marriage and I I lost
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my buildings or sold them to pay off debt and lost my primary residence and
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put things in trusts and basically started from zero.
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I decided to live my life with that phrase,
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living my life right and not living it wrong.
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And and it and I did rebuild my life.
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And I currently have a eight-figure business and doing luxury custom homes
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and development in Silicon Valley from starting over again.
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And I think you can live the way Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio would would say,
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which is
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Happiness equals success. And I stopped chasing success and
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I started chasing happiness, balance,
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my life versus my career.
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So one of the things that you mentioned is reacting out of fear.
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I I think that's one of those things that we we as a human race,
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we we will do that. We will do anything to avoid what we perceive
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as a painful instead of of trying to work towards what you're suggesting
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in happiness or or pleasure of of whatever.
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Like what type of mindset does somebody have to go through or what did you do there?
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to what this ha this couldn't have been like an overnight change.
8:08
That's great question. you know,
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I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding
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in that desire is actually and can be fear.
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You think desire is good. Okay,
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I I want this. But if if desire crosses I need this to be whole or I need this
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to survive, then your your energy is going to go towards survival,
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not logic and reason in numbers.
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And so oftentimes we misunderstand numbers,
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we misunderstand presentation.
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And I wrote I wrote about this in my first book that I often brought flowers
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to a knife fight because I didn't understand the the paradigm of
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the situations I was in because I had misunderstood data.
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I had misunderstand where people were because I was more focused
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on my own attachment to the outcome.
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And I was driving towards the outcome and missing the lead up and
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the narratives and the paradigm that brought me there.
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And I think we often say,
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Hey, I need this. So I really want to work harder.
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And we often talk at something and we talk at a situation and we keep pushing
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our narrative for this attachment for need.
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The attachment, I need this to be successful.
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I need this to fit my map or my narrative for my future.
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And that mindset really does obfuscate reality.
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It's more subjective than objective.
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And the more you can look at objective reality,
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Assumptions is is a form of this.
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We assume things. We also assign meaning to things.
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Hey, did they call me back? They're mad.
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Or they didn't call me back. This deal's falling apart.
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I need to do something. And and it isn't always that.
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It's not that you can't, I'm not suggesting that you don't have those thoughts.
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I'm suggesting how you react to those thoughts.
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I'm suggesting how you process that data versus automatically being stubborn
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and saying, This is the reason why they didn't call me.
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It's because the deal is fallen apart.
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If there's no facts for that.
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Then you don't need to react to that.
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You can get clarity rather than make a decision.
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So it's it's a different r approach to these feelings rather than just reactivity.
10:06
Does that
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Hmm.
10:08
answer your question?
10:10
Yeah, I th I think so. You know,
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it it is one of those things that I think a lot of people frankly struggle with.
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and it it's it's actually one of those things that's just kind of hard
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to break break through and and out of out of your out of your paradigm.
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Sometimes you're so close to a problem maybe you just don't even recognize it.
10:32
Well, I think that's very true.
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And I think you put it this way:
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what does a tree do every single second of its life?
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It looks for light with its leaves,
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it looks for water with its roots.
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That's it. What does your heart do every single second of your life?
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It pumps blood to save your life.
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What do your lungs do every single second?
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It pushes air to save your life.
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It has no other purpose for doing that.
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And your mind is the same thing that a tree does.
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All it does is try to save your life.
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It has no objective.
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purpose other than misleading you beyond its ability to survive.
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And so the reason why I think people get so focused on these,
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what you said is difficult for these mindsets to shift these mindsets
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to shift is we're wired for survival.
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And that's a very high order of drive and motivation.
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And that's work. And for for survival for for for us is deals and money
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and our structure. For a tree,
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it's light and water.
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For us, it's it's money and it's survival and it's food.
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And it's also what car we drive and what house we're in and how we look
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and our identity and our perceptions.
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These are all a very complicated web of survivability that the brain focuses
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on and puts forward. And the difference is when the emotion of these things trumps
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data or objective information.
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And that's where people go wrong.
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I've made so many mistakes, leading my
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drive for success or my drive for being masculine or my drive for being
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to fit into my neighborhood or my drive for being competitive with other men,
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my drive for having brighter peacock feathers than the other peacocks around me.
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All of those drivers cause me to miss data.
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and and then I think now changing my perspective is saying I'm not going
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to I'm not going to miss any mistakes.
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I'm not going to chase deals. I want to slow down.
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I want to find clarity. I want to ask what I'm missing
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Not what I know. I wanna stop assuming and stop assigning meaning and find facts
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to go forward, not the opposite.
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Yeah, you you've mentioned something too that like really struck my
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ear is the concept of subjective beliefs.
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You know, and you've you've kind of brought up a a number of things and
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it could be a number of things that have kind of put us into our mindset
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and our belief structure, our worldview for that matter.
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We hit on the fact that people respond to pain.
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In fact, we will have such a belief system or a worldview that when we start
13:00
to feel threatened or your your your ability to even question
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how somebody thinks about something,
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you can we s we see it in our society.
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It actually can be
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met with violence in in some ways because people are so threatened or it's such
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a painful process to go through.
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Like have have you experienced that?
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And if so, like how have you coped with it?
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definitely. The pain of failure the pain of failure is to subconsciously
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to us as animals is closer to dying.
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It's a lack of survivability. And so oftentimes we assess situations based
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on what's a higher chance of survivability versus a lower chance of survivability.
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And the survivability is driving your choices.
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The definition of survivability is yours.
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It's not universal.
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What what I think is survival is very different than a kid growing
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up in Afghanistan or war torn Iraq.
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Their definition of survivability is can I get it to the store when I
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hit by a landmine? Mine is, you know,
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prior to my changes, are am I gonna get this deal?
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How am I gonna k gonna keep funding four houses and two buildings?
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And where's the next deal coming from?
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And what's my AP and my AR? And who is the AR from and what does that look like?
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You know, how am I gonna get through this cash flow crunch?
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That's a that's that's
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Universally my reality. And that's my survivability.
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That's my paradigm of how I survive.
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And if you start, and so what I learned to do is instead of trying to find ways
14:30
to survive, I found ways to adjust.
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So in the past, when markets shifted,
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I said, How do I survive these market crashes?
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You know, when I did it through survivability,
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now it's like I need to adjust quickly.
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I need to not hold on to.
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What I've already built and let go of things.
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And consolidation is one of the most important aspects of any business
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is to react accurately to objective reality,
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then keep your head in the sand saying,
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I can hold on, I can make this happen.
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Optimism is good, but it has to be coupled with realism.
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And the second you lose realism and optimism,
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then you're looking at things through an overly optimistic lens.
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Than an optimistic lens for motivation and a realistic lens for decisions.
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They can both coexist at the same time.
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And I think that's where survivability creates optimism
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and unrealistic optimism rather than realistic responses to the market.
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And I think that's really important.
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And that's also hard to do because it's a survival instinct.
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It's very driven by the the animal of in us to survive.
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But wonderfully things happen when you decide to thrive rather than survive.
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Just to remind everybody, you can find more information at Dave RossiGlobal.com.
15:40
I'm going to have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
15:42
If you found some value in what we're chatting about so far,
15:45
do us a favor. Share this with one of your friends.
15:48
If you're watching us on YouTube,
15:49
give us a like and subscribe.
15:51
One of the things that I kinda wanted to chat with you about is this this
15:56
man manhood or you you even have the idea of called the Omega Man framework.
16:02
there is something on the internet right now called this red pill stuff.
16:06
How have you been pulling yourself away from that?
16:11
Or maybe you're going all in, or let's let's kind of unpack some of that.
16:14
Well, I don't I'm not an anti masculine person.
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I'm not an anti alpha person. I'm not an anti anyone chooses whatever they want
16:21
person. I'm here to give a counterbalance.
16:24
I'm here to give a perspective of what's worked for me.
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And I did research and have comparables.
16:30
And if that resonates with you,
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there's options for you. You don't have to go down that path.
16:36
I think, you know, this I happened last night.
16:39
I was
16:40
Playing with AI and I was asking about the story of Jesse James,
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watching a a movie about Jesse James.
16:45
And I was asking to AI what what happened to Jesse James and his family
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and his kids and all this stuff.
16:50
And I I recognized that a lot of the answers were very subtly words that I use.
16:56
And I said, Hey, are you, are you mirroring me?
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Kind of using a Chris Voss, never split the difference negotiating tactic.
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I said, Are you, are you actually giving me words that resonate with me?
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And what percentage of the words you're using are specifically mine?
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And I said, Yes, my algorithm is to connect with you using words that
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are familiar with you to create comfort.
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And I said, But that's not accurate.
17:19
What percentage? He says, Well,
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20 to 20 to 30% of it is influential persuasion.
17:24
But the facts are right. Yeah,
17:26
but but if the facts are right,
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but they're persuasive, then my mind is going to get swept away with something else.
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And I'm going to think badly of this person or better of this person because
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it connects with me. It's not objective at that point.
17:39
And I think people's ability to see through masculinity as a trap of influence,
17:45
to say, real men do this. And to be a successful man,
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you do this. And there's a subtlety,
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and you know, marketing does it,
17:52
real estate does it. You know,
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everyone's selling masculinity for politics or for clothing or for food.
17:58
And if you start buying into that persuasion,
18:00
then you again you lose the ability to see things objectively.
18:04
Comfort, connection, you know,
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alignment are all things that are very persuasive for us.
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And we feel very aligned with these people because the words they use,
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that's one of the first things in Chris Foss's book for negotiating is to mirror.
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And I do mirror, I do use these tactics because they work,
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but I don't want them to work on me.
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I want to remain objective and I want to remain clear and I want to remain
18:26
sovereign and I want to remain prudent.
18:28
I want to be more like Warren Buffett and less like,
18:31
you know, someone who changes business perspectives with the wind.
18:36
And not that I can't change your mind.
18:37
I think it's healthy to change your mind.
18:39
I think it's healthy to have an open mind.
18:40
The healthiest thing is to have an open mind,
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but at least have some rationale and intention on why you believe what
18:46
you believe now that's not persuaded or manipulated.
18:50
I'm not sure that answers the question or not,
18:52
but
18:53
I think that's the important thing is seen through how everybody else
18:57
in the world is trying to manipulate you.
18:59
Well, I think in in your world,
19:01
I mean, that's having that knowledge,
19:04
you probably wouldn't have even recognized that you were being influenced
19:08
in that way.
19:10
Yeah, and I I had a
19:11
question with my wife. I said,
19:12
I said, Yeah, look at this. This is amazing.
19:14
Even AI is programmed. 30% of its words were words that I
19:18
use specifically to connect me to a reality that isn't objective.
19:23
It wants to connect with me. And she's like,
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Well, I like that. It makes me feel comforty.
19:26
And I said, That's exactly why I did it.
19:28
It was it was such an interesting conversation.
19:30
And I was really happy that I saw it.
19:33
And I think that was a cognitive,
19:35
you know, skill.
19:37
That I think everybody should learn.
19:38
if anyone's familiar with Robert Green,
19:40
48 Laws of Power, he talks about this,
19:43
that perspective affects so much,
19:45
pre-framing affects so much. Pre-framing is scientifically proven
19:49
how we present situations. and I think anyone in business who wants to excel,
19:55
I don't mean just excel. Well,
19:58
let me back up. I think you have to define what success is first.
20:01
And I think if you want to be successful based on that definition,
20:04
you have a better likelihood of of hitting that if you're objective,
20:07
sovereign, as a whole person and not subject to being influenced for comfort,
20:12
and don't let comfort persuade the facts.
20:15
There's a lot of thinking going in there,
20:16
Jack. You really maybe
20:17
Yeah.
20:19
Well, this is just a unique experience.
20:21
I I typically I like I said, I don't get to talk to a lot of people regarding this
20:26
kind of thing. You
20:27
Yeah.
20:27
know,
20:28
And it's rare. But let me tell you something,
20:30
it is scary. I don't want to, I don't want to sugarcoat it.
20:34
It is hard for me to walk away from a deal because I feel inside that
20:41
the team doesn't match my client goals or my client profile.
20:45
And I second guess myself, hey,
20:47
this is a $10 million house to build,
20:48
$20 million resale project. Like,
20:51
do I do I want to walk away from this because I believe that the team doesn't match
20:55
my profile?
20:56
That's hard to walk away from.
20:57
And I have several times to say,
20:59
no, it doesn't mean my profile,
21:00
I'm walking away. It took me a lot of years in in in running my
21:04
own businesses and until my collapse.
21:06
And I hope people don't have to have a collapse.
21:08
I did lose everything when I left my marriage.
21:09
Like I said, everything went into trust.
21:11
I lost my house. I started over.
21:12
I legitimately lost everything.
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And and I think you have to deal with the reality of hoping not to have that happen
21:20
to you to become more objective and finding
21:23
More clarity in your decision making process.
21:25
Well, you you've brought this up a couple of times here now,
21:28
you leaving your marriage. Like what do you mind sharing what happened there that
21:32
caused you to to make that type of decision?
21:36
Well, it was part of the Leo Tolstoy,
21:38
What if I lived my whole life wrong?
21:39
I married this person thinking she helped my life.
21:42
I married her because I thought she'd be a good partner.
21:44
I keep he was thought. There was a perception that she was a good partner.
21:48
I was from the Silicon Valley,
21:50
you know, the four eight area code for for phone numbers,
21:53
and she was from Philadelphia and she had a master's in math and
21:56
a PhD from Princeton and an MBA from Wharton and
21:59
This was someone working in the Silicon Valley who was smart and different.
22:03
And and I had the perception that everything that she possessed was
22:07
a really great match. And very quickly it unfolded that wasn't a good match.
22:13
Although we started a business quickly,
22:14
had a child quickly, another child,
22:16
and now I was kind of locked in.
22:18
And it was not a good match. And I lived the wrong life for 17 years,
22:22
not acknowledging the facts that I made a mistake.
22:26
I misunderstood the perception.
22:28
I perceived something that wasn't real.
22:30
I perceived she was a good match.
22:32
She was not good partner. There was emotional abuse.
22:35
There was, you know, was not a good business person.
22:37
A lot of her degrees were to compensate for some,
22:40
you know, psychological confidence issues,
22:42
self-confidence. She was an overachiever to to compensate,
22:45
you know, her own shadows that I didn't see.
22:47
I thought they were, you know,
22:49
great traits. And I had to come to grips with my own mistake and come
22:52
to grips with what I perceived wrongly.
22:55
And I me stepping out of my marriage was not just leaving a marriage.
22:59
It was leaving a business and my kids and financially what that would do to me,
23:04
legitimately breaking down this business.
23:06
And I offered to buy her half and she said no.
23:08
And I said, I'll sell my half to you.
23:10
She said no. And I said, Well,
23:11
I'm not going to stay. The business will just have to be shut down.
23:14
I'll shut it down. I'm not going to stay married anymore.
23:16
So I just shut it down. $35, $40 million a year construction company just said,
23:20
done. Close the doors.
23:22
My happiness is that important.
23:24
Your happiness is that important.
23:26
When I realized I wasn't living the wrong life,
23:28
the one thing I realized is every second I was living the wrong life,
23:32
I was not gonna live the right life.
23:34
And the business I started with her was a commercial engineering company rather than
23:40
what I'm doing now, which is luxury construction.
23:42
I'd done high-end luxury commercial hotels and things like that,
23:45
banks and law firms. And then I shifted to engineering with her.
23:48
And then now I'm back to luxury home versus luxury commercial.
23:51
And that 17-year period, I realized every aspect
23:55
of my life was wrong. I was living it wrong.
23:58
I chased a dream. I chased money.
23:59
I chased ideals. I chased success.
24:01
I thought she was a good partner both romantically and for work.
24:05
And those were all of the decision making process that got me swept away with
24:10
the excitement of finding this perfect partner to to build my business
24:14
and build my life with. And all of it was a perception and wasn't real.
24:17
And so the the the the the the reality was I saw that eventually.
24:24
But I didn't at the moment. And so now I never want to miss things again because
24:29
I know what the consequences could be.
24:30
And I have a healthy respect for instead of saying what's right about this deal,
24:35
I say, what am I missing? Not what's wrong.
24:38
What am I missing? What have I assumed?
24:41
What have I assigned meaning to?
24:42
What am I going on a wing for?
24:45
And at what point do I need to get more data to make a decision?
24:48
And that's incorporated into my decision making process now.
24:51
So you mentioned you weren't or aren't religious.
24:55
Why why get married at all?
24:58
You know, I think marriage at the time,
24:59
and I write about this in in my latest book,
25:02
there's a program that we've been taught about life.
25:05
And I was taught my parents met in high school,
25:08
they were partners, they have a wonderful marriage,
25:10
my parents, and I was programmed that life was partnership.
25:14
Life was find a good partner and build a life.
25:17
And that meant marriage. And so,
25:19
marriage is partially religious and partially transactional.
25:22
And that's just what
25:24
Life meant to me at that time.
25:26
and so that's what I did. And not thinking about it,
25:30
not having the rationality of your question right there was why do it?
25:33
It was more like that was the right thing to do.
25:36
It was also a program. I didn't choose that belief that marriage was
25:41
the next thing to do. I'm sure half your listeners may not believe in marriage.
25:45
And it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not believe in it.
25:47
What I'm advocating is that you process why you believe that and what made
25:51
you believe that and what's the circumstances that caused you to believe that.
25:54
And do you want to believe that going forward?
25:56
What exactly do you want to believe that's truly your choice,
26:00
not something that was given to you by somebody else?
26:02
So you're gonna have to forgive me on on on this,
26:05
but t to be to be direct, it it it sounds like you know,
26:11
every everything in in your world is is more of a subjective belief
26:16
or or following your feelings versus versus anything else.
26:20
I know you keep saying that there's rationale or or
26:25
bel objective beliefs here, but I I'm not to be honest with you,
26:29
I'm not really hearing that.
26:31
Well, I think you I think you're astute to say that because it's about
26:34
not f letting your feelings well,
26:37
there's a difference between emotion and intuitive feelings.
26:40
I think that's an important thing to delineate between.
26:42
And that's what what a lot of people find difficult.
26:46
there can be happiness as an emotion and happiness as a state of being.
26:50
They're different things. I can go to a football game or
26:55
Have wine with friends or be in a situation that I just love,
26:58
that's happiness as an emotion.
26:59
My body is releasing neurotransmitters that connect with the belief structure that
27:04
says, hey, this is what we remember as being great.
27:07
So my brain's gonna release dopamine or serotonin or whatever.
27:10
And that's an emotion. And usually when that event ends,
27:13
those emotions will leave. That the chemicals will stop.
27:16
We all know that from alcohol or from sadness.
27:19
Emotions are transient. Biological emotions are transient.
27:23
States of being are not. And so to be happy as a state of being,
27:27
without emotion, without external things,
27:29
without a dinner or event or going out on a boat or whatever,
27:33
but just happiness sitting by myself is an inner inner happiness that comes from
27:38
removing the things that make you unhappy.
27:40
And so I I've worked to not let transient emotions based on you know mental belief
27:47
structures
27:48
Hitting stimulus. These are the numbers.
27:51
This is the situation. These are the deals coming at me.
27:53
And this is what I believe. I feel happy.
27:56
This is exciting. I like this.
27:57
This connects with me. That emotion I don't want to confuse with clarity
28:02
and intuitive ideas. Like, wait a minute,
28:05
wait a minute. I don't think this client meets my profile.
28:08
But it really looks great. This is a great deal.
28:11
Like I really like the idea of building this house.
28:13
Like I really like this deal. Let's let's try harder.
28:16
I don't know. Like in the back of my mind,
28:19
I'm kind of feeling like, you know,
28:21
and the thing I learned is that bad deals and bad relationships are much worse than
28:26
walking away from them. And I learned that.
28:28
I learned to walk away from things because something that goes down a
28:31
row down a road that's bad. I've been in lawsuits.
28:33
I've been in long-term lawsuits.
28:35
I know what this feel like and I know this look like.
28:37
And I would rather to stay away than ever have those situations again.
28:40
And so we always roll the dice thinking that I can navigate myself through this.
28:44
So your question, I think, is really astute.
28:45
I do manage the difference between emotions as a feeling that get me swept away
28:52
or have me have fear. And I manage that with intuition and ideas and thoughts.
28:56
And I spend a lot of time trying to to weed those out.
28:58
And then I try to use the facts and the data to decide which which is which,
29:03
if that helps answer your question.
29:04
It sorta does. I I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you another thing regarding
29:10
man and leadership. Where do you think is the line then as as a man
29:15
in in the household regarding like what aspects I know you mention a partnership,
29:22
but as as
29:23
there's a g give and take when it comes to that.
29:26
You're you're gonna have to take leadership even in your household.
29:30
And there is a duty that I think men have to the household.
29:35
Like where where does that line where do you draw that line?
29:41
I agree. I agree a hundred percent with you.
29:42
I draw that line, I think, at a very high level.
29:45
I think duty, I think the honor of duty goes with having the strength to honor it,
29:50
first of all. I think whatever you need to do,
29:52
if you need to do it to honor duty,
29:54
you do it. And I think a lot of people begin to rationalize
29:57
or have sabotaging thoughts about why they don't have to do certain duties because
30:02
they rationalize why it's okay.
30:03
I'm
30:04
Not that person. I work really hard never to say I'm going to
30:06
be influenced by laziness or fear or sabotage or embarrassment or vulnerability.
30:13
I'm going to make the choices I need to make at the highest level
30:17
of integrity and truth and not let anything distract me from honoring my duty
30:22
as a man, as a father, as a partner,
30:25
as a business owner, as an employer.
30:27
And I think that means leading from ahead at times and it means leading from behind
30:31
at times. It means
30:32
Doing what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it and
30:35
not letting fear stop you from doing the things you need to do.
30:37
And that goes with saying the tough things when you need to say it.
30:40
And that goes from putting my own fears at bay to do the right thing over
30:44
my own personal gain for not to feel embarrassed or feel vulnerable.
30:47
It means standing up for yourself and having boundaries.
30:50
I don't mean walking around crying on people's shoulders.
30:53
I mean setting boundaries that have real severe consequences that honor integrity
30:57
over gain. And that's back of survival versus
31:00
Surviving versus thriving. Because again,
31:03
being in the wrong life is not being on the right life.
31:06
And if I can't protect my boundaries,
31:08
or I can't honor my marriage or my family because I'm afraid or I'm vulnerable,
31:14
then that's not honoring truth.
31:16
That's not honoring objective reality.
31:17
That's not honoring the emotion that comes with being having pride
31:21
and just doing the right thing for the right reasons.
31:23
And this again, these are not all my philosophies.
31:25
These are things I collected through.
31:28
Lots and lots of books and lots of lots of experiences.
31:31
And I think the most important aspect is the things that I would connect to to now,
31:34
like even from a Ray Dalio or from a Warren Buffett,
31:36
they would they would connect with a Neville Goddard or a Napoleon Hill
31:42
or Bhagavad Gita or Dhamin Pada or the Up and Chad.
31:45
These are these are c consistent threads throughout time that
31:50
say essentially the same thing.
31:51
And when I have the experience and I've seen it in different texts with different
31:55
words.
31:56
Is when I give it some some validity to experiment with it.
31:59
So what I'm saying to you isn't imagining,
32:01
imagined out of the air. It's very much something that's studied and practiced.
32:06
Yeah, well I'm not saying you've imagined it out of the air,
32:08
but I'm I'm not sure if I'm a hundred percent in agreement with the
32:12
way it's with any of those individuals as well.
32:16
Like when when it comes to that.
32:17
And that's okay, of course, yeah.
32:18
Yeah.
32:19
I mean that
32:20
you know, we could go down any number of rabbit holes that would reinforce
32:25
the other side of it as well. So
32:28
hundred percent. And I it's not for everybody.
32:30
I'm sharing my experience and I really respect everyone's path to the same place.
32:34
And everyone's trying to get to the same place.
32:36
And I would say this you can't speak butterfly to a caterpillar,
32:40
not say that a butterfly is better,
32:42
but a caterpillar just doesn't understand that it might be a butterfly
32:46
one day until it experiences it.
32:47
And and you can't talk calculus to someone that doesn't understand algebra.
32:52
These are context differences.
32:56
And context creates more comprehension.
32:58
And so it's not that that your comprehension is wrong or bad.
33:01
It's just your contexts are different.
33:03
Someone in, like I said, Afghanistan really couldn't relate to me saying,
33:07
I have a client that wants to put a $800,000 TV in his house,
33:11
which I've had. In fact, this person put four of them in their house.
33:15
And you know, someone in Afghanistan or war-torn Iraq does isn't going
33:18
to have the context to understand the complexities of that question.
33:22
And that's
33:23
Everyone's experience and that's okay.
33:25
Well, this has definitely been one of the more interesting conversations I've
33:29
had in a while. I d wanna call everybody out again.
33:32
You can learn more at Dave Rossi Global dot com.
33:36
That's gonna be a clickable link in the show notes.
33:38
is there anything else we should have tried to hit on here?
33:41
I you know, we we did barely touch the real estate stuff.
33:44
You had some unreal stories.
33:47
Yeah.
33:47
when we when we first started,
33:49
like maybe we should hit on a couple of them.
33:51
Like you it was
33:52
Which well,
33:53
of course. Yeah, I mean I had a client,
33:55
well, I'll expand. I had clients call and say we'd like to buy this house
33:59
and we'd like to talk about, you know,
34:00
building a project on it. And so we went and walked the property and they wanna
34:04
we want to tear this down. It was a two acre property in Atherton.
34:07
And they we want to tear this house down.
34:08
They bought it for fifteen million dollars.
34:09
And I said, is there a basement in the house?
34:12
thinking demolition would have a different cost if there was a basement.
34:15
And they said, I don't know, I've never been inside.
34:16
Okay, about a fifteen million dollar house,
34:19
never been inside, great, we're gonna mow it down.
34:22
And as we can start, the house next door comes for sale also for 15 million.
34:26
So they say, hey, we want to buy the house next door,
34:29
two more acres, $30 million into this project.
34:31
And we want three acres for ourselves and one acre for a spec house.
34:34
Do you think you could build us a spec house?
34:36
We can get our money out of this.
34:38
I'm sure we could we could rent some numbers and figure that out.
34:41
And we did. And in that process,
34:42
someone came up to them and said,
34:44
I like to buy your four acres for $50 million.
34:46
And the client said, No, we're not selling it.
34:50
And scrap the spec portion. We're going to keep all four acres for ourselves now.
34:54
And by the way, we just bought a house in Beverly Hills for $25 million.
34:57
And can you go renovate that house?
34:59
These are pretty surreal conversations.
35:02
And you really have to pivot and you really have to know your client
35:05
and know what they want. There's just no room for waste.
35:08
There's no room for emotion. There's no room for for my personality
35:13
to get involved to prevent the movement of of transactions like that.
35:17
So these are pretty fun.
35:18
situations to be in and really challenge your skills and challenge your your fear
35:22
and and execution.
35:26
Yeah, this is just a completely different world.
35:28
Y you know, we we talked briefly about where I'm located and I I don't even know
35:34
if there's even lake property that would rival the numbers that you're talking
35:39
about.
35:41
Yeah, it's it's it's pretty insane.
35:43
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a lot of our clients,
35:47
these aren't all of our clients.
35:48
I've done bathroom remodels for,
35:49
you know, teachers. again, we have a client profile and it d money is
35:53
not is not relative to that profile.
35:55
It's it's the person, it's the project,
35:57
it's the people involved. we we wanna help people and we wanna build their projects
36:02
and we wanna build them with integrity and honesty.
36:04
And if they wanna cut corners.
36:06
You look I look at this way, as a contractor,
36:08
and we do development as well,
36:09
but as a contractor, if someone says this is how I want to do it,
36:12
that's like the patient telling the surgeon how to do surgery.
36:15
And I've learned that a lot of construction projects go south when they stray from
36:20
a model that isn't proven. And trust is such an important factor.
36:24
And and I've d distilled this into building partner versus a building vendor.
36:28
I don't ever want to be a vendor again.
36:29
Not because I don't mind competing,
36:31
not that I don't think that model doesn't have some merit.
36:34
But in my market, in the types of projects that I do,
36:37
partnerships, collaboration, honesty,
36:39
authenticity, working together,
36:40
transparency, there's no jockeying for more money.
36:44
It is 100% honesty when nobody's looking.
36:47
And that's the model that I that I stick with now in this market with these people.
36:52
And it's it's not letting the patient decide how we do surgery.
36:55
This is the model, this is how it works,
36:56
and this is what's successful.
36:58
And I'll be open to changing that if I find other other aspects of it to make
37:01
it and refine it.
37:02
Well, I'd be curious regarding that.
37:04
Like you you defined your avatar,
37:06
you know what you're after, you're you're leading with those values.
37:10
D this second go around,
37:13
have you seen your business grow quick more quickly because
37:19
of that niching down and i identifying to the level that you have,
37:23
or how did that how did that look?
37:25
Well, it was definitely new to take on that level of integrity.
37:28
and it's been much more successful in lots of ways.
37:31
Number one, the projects are much easier.
37:35
Everything's easy. The jobs are smooth,
37:37
there's a lot of a lot of joy,
37:39
there's a lot of camaraderie, there's a lot of collaboration,
37:41
and and the result end result or the project has always been better now than
37:46
it has in the past. There's no fighting,
37:48
there's no finger pointing, there's no throwing people under the bus,
37:51
there's no
37:52
protecting downside risk. I can be honest about my mistakes and
37:56
I structure these and say, look,
37:57
there are things in construction that are variable.
37:59
You're gonna have to expect that.
38:00
There are things that are going to cost money that aren't necessarily my fault.
38:03
And unfortunately you're gonna have to pay for them.
38:06
There are gonna be tariffs or wars that are going to increase prices
38:09
or windows are going to get delayed and it's not necessarily my fault.
38:12
And I you have to understand that to do business with me because and if
38:16
I make a mistake, I will pay for it.
38:17
Likewise, it goes both ways. And we will.
38:20
We'll honor our own mistakes.
38:22
And that's an important distinction is to always make it reciprocal
38:25
or or it's asymmetrical and that's not.
38:27
And that comes from a book, you know,
38:28
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
38:30
It's got to be a win-win. It can't be a win-lose or a lose-win or or lose lose.
38:34
It's gotta be a win win. And so I'm always setting up situations where
38:39
if both parties aren't winning,
38:41
then I'm out. If someone's gonna squeeze me,
38:42
I'm out. If I'm gonna squeeze them and they don't see it,
38:46
I'm out. I don't want to take advantage of somebody.
38:48
There has be clarity and transparency and a win win,
38:50
or it's it's gonna be a disaster.
38:52
And I believe that. And again,
38:54
that's a book that connected with a lot of other philosophies that I really
38:57
put a lot of a lot of faith in.
38:59
And that's my decision making part of my decision making process.
39:01
But no, my business has been a lot more successful.
39:04
now I talk about more mundane things like hey,
39:08
on your twenty million dollar house,
39:10
how many inches deep is your vanity?
39:12
Is it eighteen, is it twenty one,
39:14
is it twenty four? Like those are mundane questions.
39:16
But
39:16
But it's someone's life. It's my client's life.
39:18
And I take a lot of honor in that not being beneath our discussion.
39:22
And so while I'm building a business and I have,
39:24
you know, 20 employees and I have lots of vendors and we're doing,
39:28
you know, million and a half dollars a month in revenue,
39:30
I'm happier. My life is better.
39:34
I'm balanced. There's nothing to hide.
39:35
There's no r there's no anxiety of what I've misrepresented.
39:39
There's no fear. if things happen,
39:41
I have confidence and trust in my clients and in my team.
39:45
But I don't have to live with any kind of fear when I go on vacation
39:47
or and the money has been I mean,
39:49
I've made more money and I've made it more happily than I ever have in my life.
39:54
Well, Dave, this has just been a very interesting conversation.
39:57
we're gonna jump into the rapid fire and start closing out this episode,
40:01
but I just want one more time if there is anything else that we should have maybe
40:05
tried to hit on.
40:07
I'm sure there's a lot, Jack. I think on the development side,
40:09
how I process deals is is interesting.
40:12
I think high process construction deals and how we deal with minute problems
40:16
and how not to let small problems turn into big problems.
40:18
Certainly leadership in in staff and leadership with clients is always fun topics.
40:23
And I'd be happy to come on your show again.
40:25
Maybe to let some of this settle in and think about how how in left field some
40:29
of these principles are.
40:31
But you know, on my construction side,
40:33
CQ construction, you can see what we've done and it's definitely
40:37
an interesting approach to the world and and we're kind of an outlier
40:40
and we're gonna stick with it and we're gonna keep going with it.
40:43
Well, stay stay updated, subscribe to the channel for part two.
40:47
I think we are gonna have to dive into some of those in another episode.
40:51
But if you're ready, Dave, we'll jump into the rapid fire and close
40:54
out this episode.
40:54
All right, let's go it. Let's do it.
40:56
What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?
40:59
That that more means better.
41:01
If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice,
41:03
what would it be?
41:04
Slow down, look at objective reality harder,
41:07
stop being reactive and have methodical responses versus reactivity.
41:14
Do you have a book recommendation or what are you reading right now?
41:17
boy, I'm reading obviously my book,
41:18
Alpha's die early, I would recommend to everybody.
41:20
It really helps you for business and anything.
41:22
but I do recommend a lot of books.
41:24
I do read a lot. I'm reading a book on body language right now,
41:29
which I'm really enjoying by Chase Hughes.
41:30
And Untethered Soul is a really great entry level psyche mindset book.
41:34
Ray Dalio's Principles is a wonderful book.
41:37
Never split the difference. Chris Foss,
41:39
wonderful book.
41:40
and some of his tips need you to be sovereign and have self-mastery
41:44
to implement his tips, but that's also a great book.
41:47
And then finally, what single tool or process have you implemented that
41:51
has had the biggest time saving impact?
41:52
Higher levels of of accurate communication,
41:55
pushing and and and listening to the extent to finding consistencies
41:59
in people's speech to realize that they're not having a conversation.
42:01
They're talking at me and not getting the value from them.
42:03
And so I very quickly say, I'm not sure we're having the same conversation.
42:07
The skill of listening, not so much to listen,
42:11
but so much to make sure you're collaborating.
42:12
I value my people's understandings and skills.
42:15
And when they're not connecting,
42:17
I want to reset them.
42:18
Get them refocused so I can get the most out of what their what their minds contain.
42:22
So I think listening and re recalibrating conversations is an undervalued skill.
42:26
One more time. It is Dave Rossi Global.com.
42:29
Clickable link in the show notes,
42:31
but really appreciate your time,
42:32
Dave. It was great to meet you.
42:34
And Jack, so happy to be here and I'm I hope I didn't fail in
42:36
it being interesting interesting and different.