Ep #439 – Reed Goossens – Author: Investing in the US
Here is some of what you will learn:
- Getting started in Multifamily
- Choosing your market
- Getting a mentor
- Systems that support you to be successful
- Finding the right partner
- Helping tenants through a crisis
- Becoming a problem solver
- The supporting pillars of life
To find out more about our guest click here.
Full Transcript Below
Ep #439 – Reed Goossens – Author Investing in the US
Intro: Hi, my name is Rod Khleif and I’m the host of “Lifetime Cashflow through Real Estate Investing Podcast” and every week I interview multifamily rockstars. We talk about how they built incredible wealth for themselves and their families through multifamily properties. So hit the like and subscribe button to get notified every Monday when a new episode comes out. Let’s get to it.
Rod: Welcome to another edition of How to Build Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing. We’re in for a real treat today. I’ve got my friend Reed Goossens on the line and Reed’s been on the show before. He’s an Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. I have no idea but we’ll ask you later. But Reed’s a podcaster. He’s a best-selling author. He’s got two thousand doors I’ve been stalling him around. Great guy. Welcome to show again buddy
Reed: Yeah we’ll look, thanks for having me back. I know, it’s good to see you virtually after. It’s really weird time right?
Rod: Right right yeah everything’s virtual. It’s a little crazy. So by the time this airs, we’ll have had my livestream event. So you know knock on wood we even have in our announcements hey this is new tech, if you know if there’s some speed bumps, be patient and be nice. Don’t take our butts but anyway so welcome back brother. Why’d you take a minute because spent a long time since I’ve had you on the show. Take a minute and talk about your background because it’s very interesting and then well then we’ll just take this conversation wherever we want to go
Reed: Yeah look, for those people who haven’t heard. I’m sure you can rewind whatever the episode was. It was a probably two or three years ago that I was on this.
Rod: Yeah long time.
Reed: So yeah the quick elevator pitch moved to the United States in 2012, to chase a dream and you know really just to live his next part in New York City. I really loved New York City. I still do. I don’t live there anymore but I now live in LA with my wife but I always, I was chasing her at the time as well so I came to the United States. I didn’t have a job. Moved here, found a job as a structural engineer and I went door knocking – every single engineering joint that I thought didn’t have HR because without the HR component, the less than 50 employees, they wouldn’t have HR and they wouldn’t see those you know educated in a foreign country. So they wouldn’t see my resume at the window. So got a job, quickly started, I already had the bug for real estate investing prior to moving the United States picked up the book Rich Dad Poor Dad back in 2009. I really have an inner burning to be my own boss and not to see the cubicle and but also de burning to live in the United States and so made the decision to uproot my life moved to the United States, had no job you know no established network, sort of boots on the ground, and then it was a rough time over the first six months trying to find a housing and jobs and in a new relationship and all that sort of stuff and, but got through it and then quickly realized that how incredible the United States was for investment opportunities first employments but also just the educational resources out there. I think was at my first rear event within the first two weeks
Rod: That’s REIA for those
Reed: REIA yeah Real Estate Investor Association and I think within six months of moving to United States, had purchased my first triplex all-cash because I didn’t know what a credit score was. I didn’t have credit. I did know an LLC was. Over the last eight years I’ve worked extremely hard finally quit my W2 job in 2017 because I got my green card you know I’d the visa issues as well guys for those people who are listening and we got married and I built 2,000 units with my business partner Andrew Campbell at Wildhorn Capital, achieve financial freedom and using my old shtick for anyone out there is like if I can do it, moving halfway across the world and then so can you. So that’s really the elevator pitch
Rod: Yeah so Reed’s also got a podcast. It’s called “Investing in the US” and he’s written a couple of books. One of the books is the same title “Investing in the US” and then another one for it really kind of I think for expats which is “Ten Thousand Miles to the American Dream” and most bestsellers. So Reed let’s, I’ll tell you what, let’s talk about getting started as it relates to you know, you’ve got your partner, getting started as it relates to you know let’s kind of walk through the sequence of getting into this business. So how did you select your market? Let’s start there
Reed: Yeah so if you break it up, in terms of just well the first ever deal I did that triplex was the selection of the market was literally I could get on a Greyhound bus from New York City and I could afford it. It was a four hour drive. That was all it was. So that was the start of it and really when people asked about raising capital and doing all that good stuff, my advice to everyone is you know go out and run a little bit and maybe do some smaller deals by yourself to give you the confidence to them and give yourself the permission to go off and do more. So I really recommend that for a period of time and it wasn’t until back in 2013 when I had a very influential conversation with a good friend of mine that you know opened my world, my eyes to the bigger world of syndication. Other people’s money scaling the business right that’s really what we’re at you know we can all go do triplexes in duplexes until the cows come home but you want to go and amplify this to do 50, 60, 100, 200 units you know and now we’ve done 2,000 units in the last four or five years. So that mindset shift is massive right and how do you go and give yourself permission to go do that? Well you haven’t done anybody deals it’s gonna be very hard to go do that but what you have to do at the same time is you have to sort of be nearly writing or turning to different spokes. One spoke is the deal flow. You go beyond writing deals, choosing markets, you know analyzing the best deals you can in the chosen markets you’re doing. The other spoke is, well I’ve got to be finding investors and pitching to investors and creating pitch decks and making sure I’m getting
Rod: Well if you don’t mind, let’s drill down to one of those. So what markets are you in now? You’re in several I think, aren’t you?
Reed: Not several, two major markets which are Austin, Texas and San Antonio, Texas. We started in San Antonio and then moved up to Austin and the reason so I moved to, I lived in LA, my office is here in an awesome beach, most beautiful part of the world but the reason I chose those markets was really from the affordability component of it. Also the influx of population from a macro point of view, I’ve come from a country where supply and demand very similar to most coastal markets in the United States. You’ve got high demand but low supply. And I saw trends like that starting to occur in places like Austin, Texas specifically and a little bit in San Antonio
Rod: Definitely in Austin yeah.
Reed: So when you’re doing that, when the demand is high but the supply is low, buy existing assets and in a barrier to entry for new product which I mean when I say barrier to entry I mean like okay how long is the planning approval going to take you know how much this, how long’s construction going to take like all these things that are barriers to the enter the market for new product. Buying existing product means we’re going to do just fine over the long term. And so that’s our investment thesis now today in 2020 and has been for the last two or three years
Rod: So your first deal, sorry sorry I interrupted you again I apologize forgive me. Your first deal, did you already have a team put together? I’m not talking about the triplex. I’m talking about your first syndication you raise money for. Did you already have your partner then? Did you do it on your own?
Reed: Yes the first deal I did and back to that conversation I had with my friend about OPM and other people’s money. The key element of that is he, I said, the story goes, he came down from Canada. He’s good mate of mine and I was boasting to him about my little duplexes and triplexes I had in upstate New York and he turns around says, hey Reed I just closed on a 70 unit deal. I said seven zero? Yes 70. How the hell did you do that? He’s a mentor, other people’s money, raising money from friends and family. I said okay got it okay then you go and get a mentor. So when I got out went get on a mentor and through that mentor I was able to learn a little bit but then when I moved to LA, I met a gentleman who was very influential in the fact my growth but he had found a really great deal in Houston, Texas. He came to me, we became friends, and he said, hey Reed, I got this great deal but I don’t know how to raise money and I said, I’ve got this mentor apparently to raise some money like you guys should connect and let’s connect and they’ve got off to build a huge huge company bond themselves and that was really what the first deal was. It was through meeting someone else and they actually met him through a meetup group that I started here in LA for other real estate investors. So put myself out there. I didn’t have a lot of experience at the time, just happened to meet him you know it was kismet that I met him and then he was working for another real estate investment firm that was buying multifamily in secondary markets like Houston and he was an underwriter for them and an asset manager. And he sort of had a bit of a deal flow and he just saw this deal that came across his table, 250 unit deal. It was a seven cap back it was a built in 2000. So it was a really hot deal and at the time in 2014-2015, there was blood in the streets in Houston. So you could pick up those types of deals and really just through you know at the time my confidence was I didn’t know how I could raise any money I was like. Hey, my main mentor good, now I went to my mentor, he said, I don’t know if I really want to do this deal like thanks for introducing me but no thanks and then I went back to my mate and I said, look I don’t know if he’s interested. So I had to go and he’s like we ask again and so I went to asked him again and I pushed and through that pushing got him on board, got some other people on board as well, and it was really just a combination of doing whatever you can to get
Rod: How much was that first raise?
Reed: Like three and a half mil
Rod: No that’s a big one
Reed: Well let’s, I’ll put my hand up it was not, I did a very small portion of that. I was just I was just the glue to help make ignite that introduction
Rod: People together. Got it. Listen guys, that’s a great way to start in this business you know some of the most successful people I know, I call them super networkers and I would consider you one Reed for sure so and hope you didn’t the closure guys he started his own meetup you know and in today’s day and age, there’s so many free, or practically free ways to build reach through meetup, through Facebook, through Instagram, LinkedIn, my wife just told me I should have Tiktok on the list you know. I don’t know what the hell that is you know there’s so many ways to build reach you know I said, anyway so you know meetup is certainly one of them but that’s awesome. So let me ask you this question you know I just had these three, I won’t call them kids I’m 60 so I can call them kids. They were all in their 20’s on the show altogether. It was an episode called young rock stars. Anyway, what was interesting was all three of them had partnerships and they had more of an outgoing personality with more of analytical personality but in your case you’re both. You’re already an engineer and you’re definitely outgoing. Is your partner more analytical or
Reed: I am the analytical one. I’m the one who oversee or in today’s, we’re now fast forward to 2020 I actually don’t, I love doing this. It’s become as part of my DNA to do this stuff and my outgoingness but it actually my business partner focused a lot on the capital raising, a lot on the finding the deals. What the analogy I use is he shakes the lemon tree. I determine if we make lemonade or lemon juice.
Rod: Love it. I see that combination or this exact same dynamic, I see that combination in hugely successful partnerships day in and day out. I’m an example, Robert’s the analytical. He’s a CPA, done billion dollars with the commercial deals and he’s the analytical side and I’m the you know the mouthpiece you know, works really well.
Reed: Yeah and the thing is, if you’re not good at say the analytical piece, it’s very easy we in today’s world and a piece of advice for all those folks out there trying to chase deals, the thing that I realized when I was grown and hard at my day job, I was working for a big developer here in Los Angeles you know working big hours, have try to have a life but also trying to get deals underwritten and I’m talking 50 to 60 unit deals. This is back when, after I did that 250 with my mentor, I started to break out and do stuff on my own. But what I quickly realized that, I was the bottleneck. I couldn’t, as the analytical guy and have developed my own spreadsheets my underwriting processes, I needed to get the hell out of my own way and so what I did was I went into USC. I had a made at USC I’d been an alumni at USC that I could post on their job board I needed to undergrad analysts and I pay them 15 bucks an hour and they’ll do two or three deals a week and that immediate that little system there and this is advice to those people who aren’t analytical and they need to get the hell out of their own way is build the system that will support you to be successful because that is the most important part about realizing that as the entrepreneur, you can sometimes be the bottleneck
Rod: Listen, every CEO is the bottleneck. There’s no question on the bottleneck. Like in my organization, I have been ever since I had an organization you know built 24 businesses and I was a bottleneck in every single one of them. So but one thing you said and I want to hammer home for you guys listening, every business is nothing but people and systems. And so what he just said really is very illuminating because you need to set up the systems. That happens to be one of my superpowers as well and setting up systems and you know there’s a great book about the topic called E-myth by Michael Gerber you know by basically McDonald’izing your business. So that you know, well, just read. It’s a great book. So you set up the systems, when did you line up with your partner? is that the back then?
Reed: Yeah so there’s a period of time where I was had little systems set up you know at least these getting deals underwritten well, still working full time, still trying to have a life and all that good stuff getting in the best and final on this sort of 50 and 70 unit deals in Dallas Fort Worth but the problem was, I didn’t have the broker relationships. And everytime I was getting the best and final call. So clearly my underwriting was good. Clearly, they saw something but I soon as I start to get that relationship you know I was losing out million you know five or six million dollar deal by thirty or forty thousand bucks because I wasn’t getting the answers to the test because they didn’t have that broker relationships. And I was losing deals to other folks we probably all know in the industry to their students. And so I was like I need to do something different. I need a business partners boots on the ground and that’s when the second epiphany came like yep need again you’re in your own way. You need to just focus on your system to building and underwriting and management because that’s where I come from. I’m a structural engineer built half a billion dollars worth of infrastructure across the globe. I built stuff in the London 2012 Olympic Games back in the day. I built projects here in LA. So I come from that institutional construction management, project management mindset. Focus on that and what let someone else i.e a business partner worry about shaking the lemon tree I just spoke about. And so again another meeting through friends of friends. I met Andrew Campbell. He’s a little bit older than me but sort of in his 30s hustler like I am. He was working full-time as well. He was looking at deals. He lives in Austin, Texas but he was looking at deals in San Antonio. He was asking me about my advice. He wasn’t the detail orientated guy like I was. And again instantly through a couple of months of courting one another and I’ve been in partnerships before. You sort of got the sense that this is going to go somewhere and so yeah we have two most important things, we had complementary skill sets. He had a super power of being boots on the ground and I had a superpower of building systems and had already had the underwriting team going plus my background. So we just sort of you know it was a match made in heaven and we’ve gone on to build a little quite a nice little portfolio
Rod: Love it. Listen. Something you’ve said, I want to, guys I want to give you a resource and you know a lot of partnerships don’t make it because they’re easy to get in into like a marriage and very difficult to get out of. And it’s so critical to ask all the hard questions upfront and I’ve created a resource that I will give you guys for free. It’s a list of questions you should ask if you’re considering getting into a partnership. Just text the word “partnership” to 41411 and I’ll get you a copy of that. Again, that’s “partnership” to 41411. I want to take just a second for to let our sponsor talk for a second.
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Rod: Okay we’re back so we talked about systems, we talked about team, you’re the analytical piece of the team which is shocked me I would not have guessed that by the way and let’s see let’s talk about the elephant in the room that comes on break early these last few weeks because we’re in a different world right now. It is a completely different world. So let’s talk about Covid and you know I know we before we started recording you said you’re in the 90s as far as your collections but this is April and May’s and I think May and June we’re gonna see some some pain in the industry. But to talk about what some of the things you’ve done been doing thought you might have let’s just kind of riff on this year again
Reed: Yes so obviously been the whole stuff hit the fan. I won’t me to swear but when I hit the fan in late or mid March it was a very quick reaction from myself and my property management team to make sure that our staff and our tenants are safe. So we implemented very quickly we shut down the leasing center, we shut down the amenities, and we in to be put in protocols about how work orders would be handled from the on-site team. So that was all taken care of pretty quickly. We then needed to pivot very quickly, okay what about collections, people are gonna have uncertainty around this and uncertainty drives really what’s gonna we’re now in a recession. When people are uncertain about something that they’re gonna hold their chips closer to their chest
Rod: They’re paralyzed
Reed: Yes and their reptilian brain just takes over right. They want a fight or flight so we have to make sure that we had payment plans put in place. Flyers go out to the tenants to make sure that they knew where they could apply for rental assistance if they needed to be. But also looking at our demographics within each asset to understand what is coming down the lot. How many people may skip rent, how many people can’t afford rent. So when we sent out that email to the tenants, we had you know each asset was different, we had people reach out and say hey thank you for the information. I’m just putting my hand up. I can pay April but I might have an issue paying May and so we’ve documented all those folks we’ve had conversations over the last couple of weeks and it’s actually boiled down to when we you know in early April we thought okay we’re gonna be around 90% collected and actually bumped up to 97% collected across the portfolio and it’s because we tried to lead with education first with the tenants that their safety is important but also that we wanted not kick them out. We’re not a bad landlord. We want, if you’ve been a good paying tenant this whole Covid is not your fault and you’ve lost a job based on that. We’re not going to punish you. We want to work with you. So coming into the end of now in the end of April the payment plan was just for the month of April. We have a few folks who going to be spilling over and have existing debt for for the remaining months. We are working with those folks and putting in another payment plan. But overall we determined that there was about 10% of our portfolio in terms of renter base was in their really susceptible, servers, construction, yeah we just, we had to go and determine what that was because 1,900 units is a lot of mouths to feed. And so that’s really what we’ve done on the operation side and then as we’ve gone out to investors we’ve out to explain, give them a lot of information. We overcommunicate. Now through that, they’ve been able to take solace that we know we were on top of our game. We have pausing distributions now immediately our first distribution for 2020 was gonna come out in early April but the fact is, now Covide didn’t affect operations in Q1 but the uncertainty back to that uncertainty piece I was talking about earlier, we decided to keep cash. We’ve stopped all construction projects unless something need to just be finished like a leasing Center or whatever. So all of that is to conserve cash and make sure that we’re doing the right thing. The third thing we did was, I reach out to all my lenders at the end of March and say hey nothing’s an issue right now. I don’t know if it will be but I want to have a conversation and I let’s just start there. And what we end up boiling down to is such as move all the ACH payments for each month to the to the ninth the 10th in order because when rent is due on the fourth I can have a bit of a better line of sight to whether we’re going to make them you know the mortgage distributions or mortgage payments by the 10th and it turned out that we’re fine. Now, as we come into June, obviously May and June, not sure that’s going to change, hopefully it doesn’t change but again having those conversations with the key people in our team, the brokers, the investors, our tenants, our property management team, our construction team, making sure everyone’s aware of where we’re going and where the North Star is in order to give certainty to everyone involved. That is the most important thing as you manage an asset. So yeah
Rod: Yeah I know yeah I said exactly the same things six weeks ago and overcommunicate right now with the tenants, with the lenders, with the you know proactively seek out the lenders. You’ve done everything right, perfectly actually and pausing distributions, we didn’t do that just because we have big operating reserves but it is very prudent to do that right now. And definitely we’re halting capex right now no question but you know that proactive over communication makes all the difference in the world, letting your residents know you care about them critical love it. So let me ask you some more global questions that I love to ask that I may have asked you last time forgive me if I did. But what type of person you think is best suited for this multi pending business? If there is one or what are the traits or superpowers that you think lend themselves to be an operator in the multifamily space
Reed: I think to be an operator in any business and not just a multi-family but it we speak literally talked about motivating is you’ve got to be a problem-solver. You’ve got to think laterally. You’ve got to think outside the box there’s gonna be speed bumps along the way and there’s gonna be roadblocks that you have to navigate around and that’s part of having a business it’s part of life but understanding that you’re not gonna lose, you’re not gonna panic, you’re not gonna lose, you know you’re not goona stress, you’re not going to yell, you know you’re not good let it get out of control. So being a problem solver first and foremost I think is a really really good superpower that you need to have when getting involved in this business and a level head because you know back to you know concerns about where we’re headed, having a level head and leading with the level head gives everyone else in the team the assurance that you know what you’re doing and that’s super important
Rod: Good stuff good stuff yeah and guys you know anytime you’re looking at, you’re in acquisition mode. I will tell you the people that can solve the problems on an asset are hugely successful. They look at it with that eye because they see things other people don’t see you know the other people see the hair on the deal they see an opportunity by fixing a problem. So that’s really sound advice. Let me ask you this can you think back to a setback or a failure that positioned you and doesn’t have to be in the real estate space if it doesn’t apply but that position you for future success, the setback, the failure, and you got your butt kicked with something
Reed: Yeah I get this question a lot and I also get people coming up to me like you know with the whole mindset of I wish I’d done you know the old Chinese proverb of planting a tree 20 years ago the next best time. I never look at setbacks or “failures” as setbacks. I look at them as lessons and you have to look at that because when you, my first deal that triplex I spoke about an upstate New York either drive-by shooting at that that place. I learned very quickly what section 8 housing was as a fresh-faced bushy-tailed Australian realizing what the ghetto was and realizing that 38k that the reason the property is worth thirty-eight thousand bucks is for a reason right. And that was a first deal now if I had never taken, if that was gonna set me back and I’ll more than admit that was just one little setback and it was it had nothing to do with any of our tenants. But it’s still you know rocks you a little bit and you got to get up off the ground, come dusting off and get back on the horse because there will be some stumbles along the way. I flipped a house in Philadelphia which wasn’t my third or fourth deal that I did before I was getting really into the big multifamily and we had the general contractor. He stole all our products see we have to take him to court his brother ended up in jail like there was a whole screw around at end up taking six months longer and interest reserve payments and like it was only my dad had invested in the deal. But I promised my dad a certain return and I dipped into my pocket to make sure that happened. Again these are early on deals that you learn and this is from a background of building big infrastructure and understanding how to put in contracts but the unknowns of just people and managing people can sometimes bite in the back. But you’ve got to understand that that’s all level-headedness has got to be like well ok, I know myself but I did everything I can to try and make this deal successful. I’ve communicated to at the time you know whoever was involved in the deal and I’m willing to dip into my own pocket to make people if they know, no one lost their money but I dipped in my pocket to make sure they got the return that I promised them. And that’s the most important thing. So integrity to me is really super important and you don’t build integrity until you’ve had a few little trips and failures along the way or lessons as we like to say. So I hopefully that answer the question and
Rod: Actually you know honestly that’s actually when you show your integrity is when you actually, it’s what you do and no one’s looking. That’s our number one core value actually. Our core values are the acronym FAMILY but the I in Family is Integrity and that was actually the number one we selected as a team. No I loved it. So another question I’m sure you get all the time is you know if you went back, you’re in your what you’re almost 40 are you? Or 35?
Reed: I’m just 34
Rod: Thirty-four wow you’re younger than I thought you were. I thought you’re older than that. Okay your maturity level is very high. So your communication style threw me off. Now let me ask you this if you went back to tell your 20 year old, with what you want know now about investing in real estate, what might you do differently?
Reed: Honestly, Rod and I don’t I don’t say this to brag but I say, everything that have happened in my growth and I go back to the analogy of Tony Robbins. You can overestimate what you can achieve in a year but you can’t underestimate what you can achieve in a decade. I never thought moving to the United States that I would be sitting here talking about you to nearly two thousand years, never in my wildest dreams and that happened, and I picked that book which they put at NU over ten years ago. So really that journey there’s been ups and downs and there’s been times where it’s been dark. And I’ll be the first one to admit it but you also got to enjoy it along the way right along that journey I’ve had personal loss. My mother died two years ago that you know I wish I was at a financial state that I am today that I was back then I could have been spent more time with her back in Australia. So there’s been issues along the way from a personal point of view that I’ve learned but I’ve also to realize that this is a journey. And if you’re so focused on what the goal is and not actually enjoying the today, the ins and outs, and the journey, you’re gonna miss it. And life’s gonna pass you by like that and things can happen that you’ll all regret. And so there’s not one thing that I would say to myself. It would just be like enjoy the journey a little bit more and life’s gonna be great because I know Rod, the last 10 years been freaking awesome. I know the next 10 years go to be even better and I don’t need to worry about what’s gonna happen in 10 years because I know that I have the, I backed myself to get to this point. I know I have it within me to get to ever I’m going the next 10 years
Rod: That is really profound advice that you just said Reed I gotta tell you. You know because and I tell my story at my live events and how I you know what made me lost 50 million dollars. Now I’m back to success again but and then I here’s what I say on stage so I’ll share with you. I’m an expert at making money in real estate. I’m an expert at teaching others and them make money in real estate. I’m an expert at teaching the systems to set up real estate but anybody can do that. What the difference with me is I don’t let you lose sight of your children, your family, your art, your soul, and so what you just said really resonated with me brother. It’s so freaking important and guys those are you listening. You’ve must celebrate the progress every single day consciously because the happiness doesn’t come from the goal. I talk about building the state million dollar house on the beach within two months of moving in I was depressed. It’s never about the goals it’s about that continual progress and growth because that equals happiness. So really glad you brought that up brother. So let me ask you this, what do you think is the biggest reason people fail in this business?
Reed: Oh number one thing is mindset on the front end you know going into this business, the analogy of the Tony Robbins overestimate what you can achieve in a year, underestimate what you can achieve in a decade. Give it time right. It doesn’t happen overnight anything people getting into this game thing and you’ve got to get rich quick. You’re not. Real estate is inherently a long term play. It is planting seeds and those seeds will hopefully one day sprout into big oak trees but they you know Helens at Oak Tree take you grow ten years a decade you no longer. You have to have that mindset going in because if you have a mindset of I’m gonna get there in twelve months and then you get to in twelve months your likelihood of failing or giving up is a lot higher than you say well I’m gonna go in with a five-year plan or a ten-year plan and that’s okay that it’s gonna take that long. I don’t need to compare myself to anyone else. I don’t need to run anyone elses race. I need to run my own race. And that is the most important thing when you’re coming to why people will fail because they too busy looking at other people, run in other people’s races for them, comparing themselves to one another and not focusing on the fact that I’ve got my things going on. I’ve got my own personal stuff it’s going to be a challenge to get through it and it will take time. And it’s building, slowly building those building blocks in the foundation to get towards where you’re going. So, the number one thing is mindset on the front end
Rod: No question. That’s my whole message, 80%-90% of this is mindset. The 10%-20% real estate, entrepreneurship, business development, all that stuff, mechanical stuff. So what’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten in this business?
Reed: The best advice is actually for my dad and the best advice was a fool and their money are easily parted. Don’t be a fool. And what does that mean? You can mean anything to anyone right and for me, if I’m gonna be a fool, how do I look like a fool? Well if I don’t know what I’m talking about well if I don’t know what I’m talking about I need to go read about or I need to go to get educated about it. So really leading with education and always continuing to know that your humble enough that you’re not gonna know everything coz that’s okay. And you’re going to continue learning and get back to the journey story, I’m a continual student of life and I want to continue to learn to have that hunger to learn because I don’t ever want to get to the point to say I know it all because then you get your head stuck in the clouds and things go wrong. So that’s why it’s always to be a fool and their money or easily parted. And that same can apply to any stage or whether you built a business like yourself Rod, you built a business and then something could have happened that you completely white besides white and you might have been a fool at the time you know what I mean like it can apply to any stage of the business growth. But really starting out with being educated and continuing to want to learn as you grow. And I think that’s the most important part
Rod: Yeah no question and you know I didn’t go to college. I didn’t have much of an education but I’ve gone, I think I’ll show you a picture here real quick and those on YouTube can see this you can’t see it on iTunes. But it’s a picture of me because I collected the lanyards from my boot camps for a long time and I put them on my arms and can you see that Reed?
Reed: Yeah yeah yeah that is incredible
Rod: Must be like 200 lanyards of all the event’s events that I’ve gone to you know that’s my education. That’s probably somewhere between I don’t know three or five hundred thousand dollars worth of education there but anyway, I really did that just recently and I got a lot of fun out of
Reed: That’s awesome that’s awesome
Rod: But so, are there any quotes that you really like? what motivates you? what juices you? I have quotes on the wall here you know are there any things that you really like that help you stay juiced and focused on what you want instead of
Reed: Yes here’s one thing I’ll say to you Rod is that, for the longest period of time that pretty much the majority of my time that I’ve spent the last eight years in the United States, my North Star was achieving financial freedom I’m working for myself that was my North Star. Along the way I’ve lot of personal loss and I questioned myself what am I doing here chasing this dream and feeling very guilty about the whole process. And now that I’ve got to the point where I am my own boss. I do have, I run teams, I’m running this great portfolio I now get diploma I’m like what’s the new North Star? I’m 34 years of age and I don’t necessarily have a massive answer for that right now but I’m okay with that because I’m still developing myself as an entrepreneur but understanding back to your point of we spoke about earlier about the pillars in life and business just being one of those pillars but having family and health and wealth and having fun and enjoying the journey because you see so many people who just, their whole self-esteem is based on their wealth and their business and if that goes away, the only way you’re going is down right. So you’re not supported by family or your health or enjoyment in life and I think so gratitude is really something that makes me move forward in terms of what just you know my whole shtick when I moved the United States was the fear of regret and I never want to have to look back in my life and go jeez, I wish I’d done XYZ. So what makes me tick is I want to go and challenge myself every day to be uncomfortable, be comfortable getting uncomfortable and continue doing and let the path just roll out in front of me and see where it takes me.
Rod: I love that. Guys, those are you listening, don’t fear failure. I’ve had 24 businesses. I called seminars, most of them are spectacular flaming seminars. None of them were as big as the $50,000,000 one in 2008 but three or four were worth tens of millions of dollars with most event spectacular flaming seminars. But don’t be afraid of failure, be afraid of being in the same freakin place you are a year from now unless you love where you are right now, super love it. But if you don’t be afraid of that I love that don’t feel regret in that it’s awesome. So, boy this has been a lot of fun for me. So what do you do, do feel like there are opportunities coming? I heard Jay Abraham use the term “ethical opportunism”. I just love that. I’ve been found that all over the place you know keeping your integrity you know our number one core value for both of us. But we know there’s gonna be opportunity out there
Reed: True yeah I think
Rod: I saw this ’09, ‘10 and ’11
Reed: Yeah I guess, turning the tables a little bit like I’m sure you’ve gone through, you’ve you’ve got the gray hairs that we all that we all wish we have you know like I definitely develop gray hairs in the last little while I’m through building a business. But I’m definitely looking forward to what the future holds. I’m interested in the psyche we spoke about this before, the beauty, not the beauty, the silver lining to this problem that we have today Rod is that, this applies, in 2009, it wasn’t a very much an American-based issue right it’s spread around the world. Today, everyone is like this this is the whole freaking planet right in Australia rinsed you, in Canada rinsed you, in Mexico rinsed you, like we are in, if your real estate owner in those countries you still got the same issues what we got here. So we’re all gonna make this starting blocks at together you know how we get out of those starting blocks by both as a local city that you’re invested in, as a country, as a human race, is gonna determine how quickly we can get back to some sort of normality. I do think that this public health issue has completely sideswiped a lot of people and it’s brought a new element of you know when we look forward like you know you look at all the models of in the history of you know peaks and troughs and peaks and troughs and peaks and troughs. This is gonna add a trough but it wasn’t necessary systemic related so that’s going to add another wrinkle to how we move forward in investing and how we have contingency plans to make sure that we are prepared next time because there will be a next time. Let’s not forget about that. There will be another pandemics for sure. So, yeah there’s gotta be opportunities. You’ve got to keep your eyes your head on your shoulders at the same time as well
Rod: Yeah well listen brother. It’s really been a treat to see you again. I’ve been way too long and I very grateful to have you on the show and you know I look forward to hopefully connecting once people can actually shake hands again.
Reed: Exactly. I appreciate being asked back and you that you do a great job and just I wish you all the luck
Rod: Thank you buddy. It’s good to see you. Bye now.
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