Cory Jacobson and Ryan Bevilacqua are experienced entrepreneurs and real estate investors with over twelve years in business, sales, and hospitality. They host The Wealth Juice Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally, where they interview top investors and entrepreneurs, and they’ve built a 37,000+ follower Instagram community sharing real estate insights. Their portfolio includes 80+ units across rentals, multifamily, and a boutique hotel, and they co-own a short-term rental company managing 100+ units. Their drive for growth, community, and helping others fuels their continued success.

Here’s some of the topics we covered:

  • That Wild AHA Moment Renting to Their Fellow Employees
  • Why Adding Value Everywhere Changes the Game
  • The Secret to Building a Power Team and Managing Like a Pro
  • How Long It Really Takes to Land That First Deal and What Comes After
  • Why Sales Skills Are Your Secret Weapon in Multifamily
  • The Exact Moment Cody and Ryan Knew Real Estate Was Their Future
  • A Proven Strategy to Break Into Any Industry You Dream Of
  • Why Keeping Your Promises Can Make or Break Your Reputation

To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 72345 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com

Full Transcript Below

01:20:08:25 – 01:20:28:18
Rod
Welcome to another edition of Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing. I’m Rod Cleef and I am freaking thrilled that you’re here. And we have a very interesting interview today with a couple of guys out of Philly, Corey Jacobson and Ryan Bevilacqua. And, they have a podcast as well that I was on called the Wealth Juice podcast that you guys need to check out.

01:20:28:20 – 01:20:31:19
Rod
But, we’re gonna have some fun today. Thanks for coming down here, guys.

01:20:31:23 – 01:20:32:14
Cory
Thanks for having us around.

01:20:32:15 – 01:20:41:15
Rod
So. Yeah. So why don’t you. You know, let’s start with your story. And I don’t know if you guys want to take to tag team. Whatever. High five. When, whatever how you want to split it up here.

01:20:41:18 – 01:20:58:16
Cory
But I always like when I tell the stories. Okay, I’ll, I’ll tag them in a little bit, but yeah, basically, 2018 is when we started investing in real estate, I was renting, I had, you know, $7,000 a month in rent. And I was told actually by a boss that I was working with, hey, we want to pay you more money, but we can’t afford to pay you too much.

01:20:58:16 – 01:21:12:01
Cory
You know what you should do? You should buy a five bedroom house and you should rent out for the bedrooms. It’s the people that work here. I was like, okay, I mean, I don’t know if this is gonna help me stay here too much longer, but what I did is I bought a three bed, two bath. I lived in one of the bedrooms and I rented out the other two bedrooms.

01:21:12:02 – 01:21:28:21
Cory
My brought my friends with me from the from renting. So I went from paying $1,000 a month in rent to living for free. And that’s when I was like, wow. I for the first time ever, I was able to save money because I was living paycheck to paycheck. And so I was 26, 27. And now, seven years later, that property is like $250,000 worth of equity.

01:21:28:21 – 01:21:35:18
Cory
So it got me my start. I was able to save up cash. I bought a duplex $125,000 duplex, $300 a month in cash.

01:21:35:21 – 01:21:36:10
Rod
Here.

01:21:36:13 – 01:21:50:19
Cory
In new Jersey. And, yeah, just over the bridge in new Jersey. And, you know, $300 a month in cash flow wasn’t too much, but I sold the property three years later for 100 K and profit. And I was like, wow, this is really a game. It would take me forever to save up that much money from my job, right?

01:21:50:19 – 01:22:08:06
Cory
I saw that I was doing that. We had been friends forever. We went to college together. I knew there was some synergy. I didn’t know how, but he was like, let’s do this thing together. Let’s buy real estate together. 2020 we started our podcast, social Media. And we started buying small duplexes and, single family in new Jersey together.

01:22:08:09 – 01:22:24:07
Cory
And then the podcast really started to take off. We got to interview amazing people like yourself, started a partner with other people, and we scaled, you know, to just over 80 units. We don’t own all of those ourselves. We’re partners in some of them. But really, the social media and personal branding was the thing that took us to the next level.

01:22:24:07 – 01:22:30:28
Cory
And it was like, I just never knew real estate was a thing. And once I learned how to house act, that was the biggest thing for me that that changed everything.

01:22:30:28 – 01:22:47:27
Rod
No. That’s awesome. So you know what? Let’s talk about branding for a minute because you guys started a podcast. I’ve got, you know, I’ve got a coaching program with the Call My Warriors and something I’ll brag about for a minute is they now own, I think, somewhere between 265 and 275,000 units under my tutelage, something I’m very proud of.

01:22:47:27 – 01:23:04:25
Rod
But there’s dozens of podcasts in there, a couple of award winning ones and I, I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like we live in the greatest time on earth to create reach. I mean, with social media, with podcasts, with, you know, and your ability to brand. So why don’t you talk about your branding strategy, how you created reach?

01:23:04:27 – 01:23:20:27
Cory
Yeah. So I’ll start with this. We had an interview with somebody on our podcast. And again, it started out with just Ryan. I just riffing and we felt like, hey, there’s so many podcasts out there, but how many of them tell the story of coming along the journey with us? Just sharing our journey. We started the podcast. We had two units, so I wasn’t trying to be some authoritative figure.

01:23:20:27 – 01:23:34:11
Cory
I was just like, hey, we’re telling our story. Maybe it can help you, because I was listening to people that already had a thousand units and I felt like, wow, I’m so far behind. Like, I don’t know how to get there. So when we started our podcast, we had somebody on his Name is Brennan. Shout out to at Budget Dog on Instagram.

01:23:34:11 – 01:23:50:13
Cory
He told us that. He said guys, attention is a new currency. And I thought, wow, okay, what does that mean? Because your ability to create attention allows you to create connections that can get you to the next level and start to have you make money. So we started the journey with just the idea of like, hey, maybe people will listen and it turns out they did.

01:23:50:16 – 01:23:55:04
Cory
Chad Carson was the first guy to be like, hey, I’ll come on your podcast and just and riff and

01:23:55:07 – 01:23:57:07
Rod
He’s, that name is you, the land guy.

01:23:57:07 – 01:24:00:26
Cory
He’s the small but mighty real estate investor. He’s in Tennessee, used to play college football.

01:24:00:26 – 01:24:21:15
Rod
Great Scott thickset, that guy. No, no, I’m thinking somebody else. Anyway, you know, I want to interject something that you just said. You said maybe we could help you when you started the podcast. And I’m going to tell you the secret to building reach in any category in social media, anywhere, is to add value and and be consistent.

01:24:21:18 – 01:24:37:11
Rod
And that just resonated with me because when I started my podcast, that’s exact same thing. I used to make free phone calls for my listeners. 30 minute phone calls had nothing to sell. In fact, my my first episodes, I used to say, I’ll never sell you anything because I never planned to, I had been I’m a fucking liar because I sell everything, but I never planned to, you know?

01:24:37:18 – 01:24:49:03
Rod
But anyway, did we buy the way? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So. So, you know, that approach to wanting to add value is really a, I guess what I want you guys listening to hear is that’s a big secret in all this.

01:24:49:09 – 01:24:49:28
Cory
Without a doubt.

01:24:49:28 – 01:24:50:23
Rod
So please continue.

01:24:50:23 – 01:25:03:24
Cory
Yeah. So I mean, once we started to grow the podcast a little bit, we started to organically network and get in rooms with people who were just a little bit better than us, like, hey, you have a couple units, let’s chat with the guys who have ten. And when they came on the podcast, they realized, you know what you guys are pretty good at?

01:25:03:27 – 01:25:16:17
Cory
We call it reverse charisma, and I. That’s not original. I didn’t make that up. But it’s like instead of trying to to be the most interesting person in the room, why don’t you try to be the most interested? And we would interview people and be like, ask them a bunch of questions, and they’d be like, you know, you guys are pretty good at this.

01:25:16:17 – 01:25:31:18
Cory
Like, you have a you have a story to tell, sure, but you help amplify others voices. And that was when we were like, you know what? We are going to we are going to take this podcast and just continue to do it. We were doing it once a week. Now we’re doing it twice a week, and every single day we post on social media to try to add a little bit of value to someone’s lives.

01:25:31:18 – 01:25:44:08
Cory
And now we we, we mentor other people as well. But it didn’t start out like that. Started out, hey, hopefully people will resonate with us. And I know I’m like stealing a bunch of this, but like that’s that’s kind of the the starting point in the journey.

01:25:44:10 – 01:25:45:08
Rod
You want to add to that, right?

01:25:45:14 – 01:25:46:11
Ryan
I think you nailed it now.

01:25:46:11 – 01:26:05:18
Rod
Okay. It’s box for us. Yeah. Well, you know, another thing you said that’s really important. I love that, you know, your comment about amplifying other people’s voices, that is, really well said. But you got in rooms of people that were further ahead than you were. You want to be around people that think what you think is hard, is easy.

01:26:05:20 – 01:26:23:07
Rod
You know, I that’s that’s the secret to success. And, you know, that’s, that’s why, you know, coaching programs work well. My coaching program works so well. I used to have a mastermind. It was the largest of its type for multifamily is about, I don’t know, 40, 50 billion in assets in there because I wanted to be around people that thought what I thought was hard was easy, you know?

01:26:23:09 – 01:26:35:20
Rod
So, so you, you built a podcast. I know that, you are you went from single family to small multifamily. You want to talk about that? Why that transition? Yeah.

01:26:35:20 – 01:26:49:24
Cory
So right now we’re buying properties 5050. We will literally save up our own cash, deploy it, save up our own cash, deploy it. And to go back to what you said about like having our problems be we thought they were big, like when a tenant wouldn’t pay rent. I was like, oh my God, what do I do? I remember the first property I bought.

01:26:49:24 – 01:27:03:09
Cory
It was raining inside my property. Day one. Like through the windows. I got a text on a flip phone from a tenant and I was like, this is the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life. Like, I cannot believe I did this. And then I realized I made one phone call to somebody who I’d met, and he’s like, this isn’t a problem.

01:27:03:09 – 01:27:08:02
Cory
I have hundreds of units. This happens all the time. It’s $1,200 and we fix the window and I’m like, replace.

01:27:08:02 – 01:27:10:13
Rod
The window or a tube of caulking one. Exactly.

01:27:10:13 – 01:27:31:01
Cory
So that was when I realized, like getting in the rooms of people who are their problems are like, this is not a problem. So we started to buy small, single family, a little multifamily, and when we realized is that we can actually get into larger deals by partnering with people, being the marketing arm, being the investor relations, helping them underwrite deals when they were the operators that were on the ground.

01:27:31:01 – 01:27:46:08
Cory
And that was how we decided, hey, we can actually buy an 18 unit, we can buy a ten unit, and we don’t have to be the sole owner of this property and bring 700,000 or $1 million to the table of our own money because we didn’t have it. So we were able to create relationships, build a base. People started to know, like and trust us.

01:27:46:08 – 01:28:05:09
Cory
And then we were able to get into larger deals while still actively participating in the deal, obviously, and managing it at some level. And then that’s when things started to grow for us. But it was all through connections that we made in the podcast and what we realized is that our properties that were 30 minutes away, that we were self-managing, once we switched over to property management, weren’t we weren’t really going to these properties.

01:28:05:09 – 01:28:23:17
Cory
So I was thinking, what’s the difference in managing a property through a property manager that’s 30 minutes away? Could I do it two hours away? Could I do it on a plane right away? And what we realized is that once we built the teams in the right areas, we were able to, you know, start to partner with people and not have to show up and be the guy who’s fixing and getting calls at 2:00 am, because that’s why people don’t want to get into real estate.

01:28:23:17 – 01:28:29:20
Cory
They don’t want to take the maintenance calls at 2 a.m. and we realize, you know, you don’t have to do it if you do it the right way. And that was that was big, a big shift, right?

01:28:29:21 – 01:28:31:24
Rod
So did you go to other states or were you.

01:28:31:26 – 01:28:50:05
Cory
Yeah. So we started out in Philadelphia and South Jersey, which I by the way, I could still buy deals there. I recommend it if you’re like local to that area and we love it. We have a network there. But then I turned that $100,000 profit from that one small $125,000 duplex. I, I met my, now fiancé. She loved Tampa.

01:28:50:05 – 01:28:58:19
Cory
I went down to Tampa, and I was like, you know, we could have a short term rental here. Like, I can come down and visit it when I want. So I took the proceeds from that and put it into a property in Tampa, Florida.

01:28:58:19 – 01:28:59:01
Rod
What kind of.

01:28:59:01 – 01:29:08:02
Cory
Property? It’s a single family, three bed, two bath. But I got I looked at this backyard and I thought, man, this is an experience for somebody like, maybe people would love to to hang out here. So I connected while.

01:29:08:02 – 01:29:11:22
Rod
Coming from Jersey in the concrete jungle. I mean, yeah, I got you. I wouldn’t.

01:29:11:22 – 01:29:13:25
Cory
Want to. I love coming down here every yard.

01:29:13:25 – 01:29:15:18
Rod
Exactly. Yeah. Palm trees.

01:29:15:18 – 01:29:18:05
Cory
We talked about this earlier today. Like, man, these palm trees. Just something.

01:29:18:05 – 01:29:19:03
Rod
That it makes us.

01:29:19:03 – 01:29:21:22
Cory
Feel like, you know, like, every day summer I.

01:29:21:22 – 01:29:24:07
Rod
Come on vacation. Exactly. So I bought.

01:29:24:07 – 01:29:31:24
Cory
This property, I found a property management company, you know, and there’s challenges with that as well, but made sure it’s a real experience for people. And so what.

01:29:31:24 – 01:29:48:28
Rod
Did you do to make it an experience? So we’re talking to Airbnb now, guys. And I know that Airbnb is taking a hit. It is how I know that is because my brother has some cabins up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. He had to sell a couple because they were just weren’t leasing. So. So talk about how you made it an experience and how it’s going for you on that.

01:29:48:28 – 01:30:10:26
Cory
Yeah. So it depends on the saturation of the market. Right. But I would say that you used to in 2020 and 2021, be able to take iPhone or flip phone pics of your grandmother’s second house and throw it up on Airbnb and have a 3% interest rate. And you were making so much money. Now what you’re saying it’s taking a hit is if you’re not serious about it, of course, it’s like the competition rises, the cream rises at the top.

01:30:10:26 – 01:30:38:06
Cory
So what? This backyard was already pretty much set up, but I spent $50,000 to furnish the place, to repaint it, to make it really nice to put the lawn chairs out there to make it like picturesque Instagrammable, if you will. And now people come and they they’re like this backyards. Amazing. So I think the difference is, is the is not just is is making it at the actual experience for somebody and having the management be a five star hotel because you’re the front desk of a hotel.

01:30:38:06 – 01:30:50:29
Cory
You know, if you think about this at a short at a long term rental, if you have a maintenance problem, you can wait three days to get somebody in there. But at a short term rental, they have towels at the front desk of a hotel. So you got to bring the experience and you have to bring the service.

01:30:51:02 – 01:31:05:16
Cory
And that’s where I think people fall off, is that they don’t have a team or system in place that really knows how to, like, create a hotel experience. And that’s, to me the difference. And also it has to be a place that just people love to go see and take pictures of, and that that was a difference for us.

01:31:05:16 – 01:31:06:02
Rod
Interesting.

01:31:06:05 – 01:31:10:17
Cory
We don’t have a ton of Airbnbs, but we love that that asset classes like, you know.

01:31:10:20 – 01:31:31:18
Rod
I’ve got students that are doing mid term rentals very successful at. Yeah. You know, we’re they’ll get a traveling nurse in for three months, six months, whatever. And killing it. So, you know, that’s another strategy in that, in that vein. So so you did some Airbnb, you’ve done some small multifamily. Are you in any other asset classes?

01:31:31:18 – 01:31:49:05
Cory
No. That’s it. And you mentioned small multifamily, right. Let you jump in here too. But like the that ten unit that we recently bought, that mid term rental was the exact strategy. It’s in Vermont. It’s in like a B plus a minus area. We met this operator that we essentially dated for two years through our podcast. And he said guys there’s this property here.

01:31:49:05 – 01:32:02:15
Cory
I want you to help us underwrite it. But what the, the, the process that we’re going to go through is, hey, a two bed, one bath in this area to rent for would rent for $2,100. But we’re 15 minutes from Dartmouth Health. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go direct to the health care system.

01:32:02:21 – 01:32:17:03
Cory
And they’re stipends for two bed, one bath or $3,000. So we’re going to put six of the ten units are going to be midterm rentals. We’re going to manage it a little bit differently. We’re going to furnish the property. And then they’re going to be able to come there and rent for 16 weeks or nine weeks or whatever.

01:32:17:06 – 01:32:33:18
Cory
And you’re, you’re going to get a 50% increase in the rents. And that was that mid term rental. If you’re getting into real estate now in 2025, there’s a lot of people out there teaching specifically this. But mid term rentals I think are huge because there’s no regulations around the 30 day stay. And that’s huge where regulations in Dallas.

01:32:33:18 – 01:33:01:15
Rod
Over a 30 day stay. Yes. Under 30 days is where the regs where they hotel. Lobby gets involved and screws up. Exactly. We have that here in Sarasota. So okay. That’s that’s awesome. So you know, talk about, when you first got going here, particularly into a larger deal besides a house. Talk about, the implications of the first deal.

01:33:01:21 – 01:33:18:15
Rod
Talk about, you know, because I see it with my students all the time. You know, that first deal it takes the longest. It’s the most stressful. It’s the scariest. And I’m kicking them in the ass. You go do it. Just go do it. Five, three, four, five, six. Seven months later they get one. And then a month after that, they’ve got three.

01:33:18:21 – 01:33:22:05
Rod
I’m like, what the hell just happened? So speak. What’s your experience?

01:33:22:08 – 01:33:42:22
Cory
Yeah, I would say we took I took two years to get my first deal because I was in analysis paralysis. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to look at. But then the difference between that two years of the first deal and the next nine months or ten months to the second deal to me, I once you get the first deal, you can learn the playbook and then you’re able to say, hey, I took all these things.

01:33:42:25 – 01:33:57:11
Cory
What did I like? What do I not like? How did I mess up? I take the bad out, I bring the good in and I’m able to repeat it. And I think once we had the first deal, that House act, the three bed, two bath for me, I was able to at first time ever like be financially responsible and save some money.

01:33:57:11 – 01:34:12:17
Cory
And then the second deal I had a little cash flow coming in so it all compound in that it’s like getting to $1 million in net worth is like takes. It could take you 5 to 10 years, but then the 2 million, it might take you 2 or 3. It’s like that in the real estate game is once you get your first, you understand the fundamentals of it.

01:34:12:17 – 01:34:27:20
Ryan
The secret sauce to us was getting around people that have already done what we were looking to do at a high level. And you mentioned students mentorship, all this thing, all these things. I think in in the beginning, people are too afraid. They’re not only afraid to invest in real estate because they’re putting their financial backing into a deal, hoping it gives them a return.

01:34:27:20 – 01:34:51:07
Ryan
And if they lose it all, then they feel like, well, then I can’t. I’m in ruin. For us, it was shifting the mindset to, hey, once we did this successfully, we had the confidence that we could take down deals and we could try new things, right? We had the backing ourselves, but to scale up, we realized the only way we were able to get deal two or 3 or 4 was getting around a mentor that exposed us to his network and said, like, okay, you need a property manager, a handyman, XYZ.

01:34:51:13 – 01:35:14:20
Ryan
We have this in the local market in Jersey. We built a relationship with that team and it kind of spiderweb from there. But what we realized in order to scale from 8 to 80, it was getting around people that have, like I said, have done this at a very high clip. And once you get in the rooms with them, you’re exposed to how they analyze deals, how they build out their team, how they scale, and then just you naturally get pulled up to that level and you start studying other things because you know, the accountability is going to be there.

01:35:14:20 – 01:35:23:25
Ryan
You want to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk when you’re in those rooms. So when the lights are closing, the doors are shut. We were going and studying and we were making sure that we were kind of like fine tuned.

01:35:23:29 – 01:35:57:05
Rod
That’s good. Yeah. I mean, you know, rising tide lifts all ships and, like, it’s like we said, you want to be around people that think what you think is hard is easy. So, yeah. No, I, I totally get it. And and it’s not just to get access to the network. You get little nuances that you’re just not going to get, you know, unless you’ve unless you’ve experienced it, you know, little, little tweaks that, that only someone that’s gone through it can share with you, that can make a big difference in how you strategize what you do, how you approach something, how you look at something.

01:35:57:08 – 01:36:12:24
Rod
So yeah, I totally get it. So you guys are a team. What are each of your superpowers and how do you align to work together? Like, you know, Corey, what do you do? And, Ryan, what do you do in your partnership?

01:36:12:25 – 01:36:17:29
Cory
Yeah. So I’m full time in the real estate in Rye, still managing his W-2 job. So you know what that.

01:36:17:29 – 01:36:40:02
Rod
Does for you in sales, right? I am okay. Yeah. Fantastic. I mean, that’s that’s by the way, guys, those are you listening? If you are getting into this business can do any business sales training is critical, okay? You’ve got to be able to influence people and no matter what you get into. So if that’s what you do now, that’s a great framework for for the multifamily investing, real estate investing of any kind because you have to influence.

01:36:40:02 – 01:36:40:16
Rod
So sorry to.

01:36:40:16 – 01:36:56:08
Cory
Interrupt. Yeah. No I to your point right on sales like to us it was like okay, how can we we’re trading our time for dollars when you’re working a job, but how can we make the most out of those dollars? And how can we be responsible for that and not be just going a punching a clock and making the same salary?

01:36:56:08 – 01:37:16:22
Cory
So we thought by being in sales that we were able to not only influence more people, but also like really put our time in and get what’s worth out of it. So I started to be like, hey, I’m more of the front facing, visionary of our company, if you will. And I adopted, like the integrator mentality, where he’s really good with systems and he’s really good at putting processes.

01:37:16:22 – 01:37:18:19
Rod
You guys implemented us.

01:37:18:22 – 01:37:21:25
Cory
I’ve, I’m familiar with I’m familiar with it, but we don’t have we have.

01:37:21:28 – 01:37:36:28
Rod
As you said, use the term integrator. And that’s from you know, that’s that’s one of the terms or so guys, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s a book called traction by a guy named Gino Wickman. And it talks about the entrepreneur’s operating system, which is event. We use it all my businesses, it’s extraordinary. I highly recommend you guys implement it.

01:37:37:04 – 01:37:52:29
Rod
Even in a small company. It’s it’s a game changer because you basically come up with 90 day goals. And so we visit, you know the team gets together every 90 days. We we redo our goals. And rather than an organizational chart you have an accountability chart. And and it just an extraordinary way to do business. Do you think.

01:37:52:29 – 01:38:00:13
Cory
It works in us in a business with, you know, like we have a podcast producer, we have part time employees, like we’re not big yet. Do you think it works in absolute like that?

01:38:00:17 – 01:38:20:10
Rod
Even if you just implement those two things? I just said, you know, the 90 day goals because and only one person is responsible for each goal. They have two people responsible. Nobody’s responsible. So one person is accountable for each goal. You know, they call them rocks in but their goals and and then if you have, you know, it’s the accountability piece that’s critical.

01:38:20:10 – 01:38:36:03
Rod
And the other some of the other things that, you know, coming up with your core values and your mission and where you want to be in in one year, three year, five year, you know, all that stuff’s incredibly valuable because, you know, you manifest that you’re pulls you into that that vision of the future and they call it a vision traction organizer.

01:38:36:03 – 01:38:38:11
Rod
But that’s really what it is. It pulls you into that future.

01:38:38:11 – 01:38:54:18
Cory
So yeah, I’ve noticed that even just writing goals down so we’re not fully implemented with the US, but we have a whiteboard, right? And we didn’t even notice this rod. But like we at the beginning of every year or really the end of the previous year, November, December, we write down all of our goals and, it’s sitting on a whiteboard and it’s just sitting in front of me.

01:38:54:18 – 01:38:56:19
Cory
And I don’t like it’s not like I’m actively checking things.

01:38:56:19 – 01:38:57:23
Rod
Off in your subconscious.

01:38:57:23 – 01:39:19:00
Cory
But it is. And, the other day I looked at it and I was thinking about 20, 24 and I was like, wow, 2024 goals. I’m looking at all of them and they’re all done. I didn’t even check them off because I didn’t look at the board, but they were all done. And having that vision, if you will, and setting smart goals, which is something that we we’ve talked about, but like just having it there, like you mentioned in your subconscious, it really does work.

01:39:19:00 – 01:39:19:11
Cory
Putting it on.

01:39:19:11 – 01:39:23:27
Rod
Paper. It’s it, it’s it. I, I want to interject something. We’ll go ahead. You first.

01:39:23:27 – 01:39:36:16
Ryan
I just have one thing to piggyback off that we talk about. He mentioned Smart goals but also vision casting which is essentially like mapping out your three, five, ten year plan and visualizing where you want to be, but then also writing a statement as if you’re already there.

01:39:36:17 – 01:39:42:00
Rod
You already got it. You’re thank you, thank you for blah blah blah blah that you already have it. You just thanking God or whatever.

01:39:42:00 – 01:39:58:20
Ryan
Yeah, yes. And it you basically put like what car you’re driving, what home you’re in, what area you’re living in, who’s around you, what you’re doing for work and how you’re spending your time. I just want to touch on this core. And I did this about three years ago, wrote everything down on paper, and he mapped out his his essentially his vision, not vision board, but like vision statement, if you will.

01:39:58:25 – 01:40:13:26
Ryan
And he’s living every single thing that’s on that board. And what we put down, he basically wanted to escape the W-2. He wanted to work as a digital nomad from one of his properties and be able to do what he wants, when he wants, and there’s so many other things to it. But to a tee, he’s living out every single thing that was on there.

01:40:13:26 – 01:40:36:28
Ryan
And I just sometimes when we’re having a rough month or something like that, you know, this roller coaster of entrepreneurship, I remind him of that. I’m like, dude, I’ve had the first, a first hand seat of watching you do and live the life that you said you wanted to do. That’s cool. From a partnership and a brotherhood perspective, just to remind each other it’s not only about the wins and the losses, but it’s like keeping each other grounded to, hey, like, we’re enjoying this journey, but you’re fulfilling what you said you wanted to do.

01:40:36:29 – 01:40:52:16
Rod
And keeping keeping each other focused on outcomes rather than, you know, belaboring, a setback of some sort. You know, it it’s it’s it’s it’s natural human tendency to focus on what we don’t want and what’s happened to us. And, so.

01:40:52:16 – 01:41:08:04
Cory
No, that’s right. It’s a never ending game, though, right? Because we we shook your hand today and we’ve, we’ve interviewed on our podcast and I’m thinking, man, like, look at the level that Rod’s at. Now you have a couple more gray hairs. You’ve been around doing it longer but like you but like then we get into rooms with bigger people and and then like you said, they’re problems are problems of yesteryear.

01:41:08:04 – 01:41:15:17
Cory
But it’s it’s a never ending game and staying grounded and staying in the moment and knowing that you’re doing the right things is a challenge for, I think, any.

01:41:15:17 – 01:41:32:05
Rod
Entrepreneur, staying focused on your outcomes rather than the pain. You know, when because you’re going to you’re going to hit speed bumps. And when you do when you run into a wall, if you if you put that outcome in your mind’s eye and you change your approach, that’s the success formula. When it happens again, you put that outcome in your mind’s eye.

01:41:32:05 – 01:41:45:21
Rod
You change your approach and rinse and repeat that. It’s never a straight line. And, you know, I wanted to I had a I had a FaceTime call with my ex last night. She’s my best friend. And I’m laying in bed and I’m looking up on my ceiling, and I saw the stuff that I had on my ceiling.

01:41:45:28 – 01:42:01:25
Rod
It says $1 million a month. Used to say a hundred grand a month. I’ve eclipse that by by a lot, but it says a million. But then I had a list of my goals there, and I had to put my glasses on to see it. And she was looking at it and I, I, you know, I got a place in Miami, I started buying senior housing.

01:42:01:25 – 01:42:09:04
Rod
I’m going to Pittsburgh tonight to, to do due diligence on our first senior housing thing, and that this shit’s on the list. I mean, this is how it works, guys. And is it.

01:42:09:04 – 01:42:11:03
Cory
Literally written on the wall and you’re seeing.

01:42:11:04 – 01:42:14:04
Rod
It. It’s on a piece of paper that’s that’s taped to the wall up there.

01:42:14:09 – 01:42:15:00
Cory
And that’s.

01:42:15:03 – 01:42:27:17
Rod
In my bedroom. She used to hate it when she when she was with me, she’d, you know, I’d have that crap up there. But this is how you manifest. I’ve got I’ve got a planner. It’s a shame I don’t have it here. I can show you. It’s in the other building, you know, that’s got pictures of the things that I wanted in the back.

01:42:27:17 – 01:42:38:27
Rod
And I got all of them except one. There’s a picture of a guy with a six pack, and I put my head on it. It’s under there, but it’s, well, it’s well padded above it, but, Yeah, but that’s about the only thing I did.

01:42:38:28 – 01:42:52:25
Cory
Well, we’ve done actually, it’s funny you say that is that it’s not on my ceiling. That’s a good idea, because you literally like the first thing you see in the morning. But on the, for people that are listening, one thing that you can do is put it on the background of your phone, because how much time do we spend on those damn things in our pockets?

01:42:52:25 – 01:43:07:21
Cory
Like put it the list on the background of your phone or a vision board on the background of your phone? Yeah, I actually don’t have that right now. I have a beautiful picture of me and my fiancé on the back end of our phone, but I used to have that, and I know you do too. And I think it’s like it’s that is something it’s like subconscious.

01:43:07:21 – 01:43:08:13
Cory
You look at it every day.

01:43:08:13 – 01:43:25:06
Rod
So I’ve got a recliner over, I’ve got my office over in the other building and I’ve got 4 or 5 vision boards right there next to my recliner, you know, and I, and I manifest it. I do gratitude every morning, you know, thank you, God, for for the people that I love in my life and my students and my foundation and so on, so forth.

01:43:25:06 – 01:43:32:05
Rod
And then I look at those vision boards and I do gratitude for those things on there, as if I already have them. And that’s how it works.

01:43:32:05 – 01:43:50:20
Ryan
It absolutely works. There’s there’s one thing that I’ve been trying we’ve as we mentioned, we interviewed a bunch of other people and it’s you pull little nuances from them and what they’ve done to manifest things. And I went and bought the Lamborghini fab just to have it and hold it. I don’t quite have the car yet, but then yesterday we came down staying at Horace Place, ahead of this interview, and I was I’m gonna go for a quick run.

01:43:50:20 – 01:44:03:03
Ryan
And it wasn’t just to go work out and clear my head, but I knew two blocks over there are these waterfront properties, and they’re the palm trees. But I knew they’d have all the cars and all the homes that I eventually want to have. So I just ran down that back and forth just to soak it all in.

01:44:03:03 – 01:44:17:12
Ryan
And I’m like, I need to be around this more often. And I think that’s why when he and I were talking about building on our lifestyle, he’s like, I need a place in Tampa. I went down there. I need to be able to surround myself with what I want to be in the next level, because in the concrete jungle, you’re looking back and forth.

01:44:17:12 – 01:44:31:22
Ryan
You’ve seen people drive to their nine to fives every day, and I’m like, I’m not motivated here. Like, I have to put pictures up. I have to put all these things around me in my office to get more of it. But to really soak it in, enjoy the sun, have the palm trees and the car that you want, the house you want right next to you and be around.

01:44:31:23 – 01:44:46:02
Rod
Touch it. You got to feel it. You got to be around it. I remember like you should come. You should come to my condo in Miami is there’s there’s got to be an invite. It’s got to be ten Lambos, ten Ferraris, ten rolls is ten Bentleys. I’m not kidding. That’s just on the the three floors. I go to the park, to my parking spot.

01:44:46:02 – 01:45:07:06
Rod
I mean, it’s insane, but I remember going to the yacht show in Miami, and and I and I, you know, when the guys weren’t around, I’d lay on the bed in there, I’d sit in the captain’s chair, and I would just just take it in. Just like you just said. You got to live it. In fact, when I, when I was 16, I was dating a girl whose dad was in real estate and he had two corvettes.

01:45:07:06 – 01:45:21:13
Rod
He had two Lincoln Continentals, and he let me drive his Corvette because I was dating her. He let me take her out in it. And I got a picture of a Corvette. This is that’s before the internet was out of a magazine. And I put it on the visor of my bone. Ugly shit Ford Granada that I was driving.

01:45:21:15 – 01:45:34:11
Rod
And within a year or two I had that Corvette. And I’ll give you a couple more examples. Then this is when the TV show Magnum Pi was out there and he drove a red Ferrari, and I thought that was the coolest frickin thing I’d ever seen in my life. So I got a picture of that actual Ferrari put on the visor.

01:45:34:11 – 01:45:52:18
Rod
My Corvette within a year or two out of my Maserati look just like it. And the last best example would be the Lambo. I, you know, I used to visualize having one of those and, you know, Mike Tyson bought him and his two week wife, matching white ones back in the day. Koontz shows you this before you guys were born, but anyway.

01:45:52:18 – 01:46:11:17
Rod
But but I had the pictures of those, and and, and my son actually had a model to have it here. Yeah, there it is. Had a model. I had this model of a Lamborghini. He’s. I’ve got about 30 of these models in the storage here behind you guys here in our attic of models, cars that he had.

01:46:11:22 – 01:46:19:19
Rod
This is the exact same color and style Lambo that I bought that I wrecked. But, But anyway, you know, sell. This stuff works, guys.

01:46:19:19 – 01:46:21:20
Cory
That’s what you’re. That’s what you’re how that works, right?

01:46:21:21 – 01:46:25:22
Ryan
It’s exactly what I’m looking at. The coin. I think that was in Wolf of Wall Street. The white one I remember.

01:46:25:22 – 01:46:35:01
Rod
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah. That was there too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My Maserati was actually in, Scarface. Very cool. Yeah, yeah, I’ll show you a picture afterward I love it.

01:46:35:01 – 01:46:38:16
Ryan
It’s the power of dangling the carrot, though, right? Like you need that that thing to do.

01:46:38:17 – 01:46:57:05
Rod
You got to visualize it. You got to imagine that you have it. That’s the way God works. Yeah. So there’s a guy on TikTok named Neville Goddard. And, guys, if you’re listening, you should check him out because, you know, he basically has one prevailing message, which is live and feel as if you already have what you want and you get it and that’s it.

01:46:57:05 – 01:47:12:21
Rod
But he really does a great job articulating in Neville Goddard. But, anyway, so all right. Well let’s talk about mindset for a minute guys, because I know you guys love talking about it as well on your podcast. So what are your thoughts on mindset?

01:47:12:24 – 01:47:31:04
Ryan
Yeah, I think the biggest battle in life lies between your ears. And you can make excuses or you can make things happen. And so getting into mindset for us, I think originally you kind of think when you get into the game of really the next level of life is rah rah, and it’s hard in the beginning to wrap your head or wrap your mind around mindset.

01:47:31:04 – 01:47:46:04
Ryan
You’re like, listen, I’ll figure that out. You know, when I’m when I’m in the game. But for us going back, every single piece of success we’ve ever had came from mindset once again, the power of manifestation that you said getting around the right people and being around the minds that are doing the things you want to do, those have elevated us to that level.

01:47:46:04 – 01:48:05:02
Ryan
So we dial in on this a lot. We do. We mentioned the power of manifestation, putting these little things around us on a daily basis to remind us of what we want to be and what we want to do. But, I read this book and I really like it, and it’s it’s called The Tribe of Millionaires. And it really wrapped my brain around the idea of, like, once you build out your tribe or the people around you.

01:48:05:02 – 01:48:12:15
Ryan
So, so often we were focused on how to get there and not who can help us get there. And we kind of shifted from how to who, like.

01:48:12:16 – 01:48:27:26
Rod
Who not has a book there. You got a great book. Yeah. Okay. Love it. The trap of millionaires. Thanks for that one. I have not I don’t have the tribe or the tribe. Oh, I know that one. Okay. I thought you said trap. Okay. Tribe of millionaires. That’s a great book. Okay. Yeah. You know, people do think it’s all woowoo and rah rah.

01:48:27:27 – 01:48:46:23
Rod
And I get shit about that all the time because I, you know, I spent 20 years with Tony Robbins. I was on his team for eight years, and I incorporate a ton of the stuff that I learned. And he’s brought he’s the best in the world at it. And I and and, you know, like, I’ll do a goal setting workshop at one of my boot camps, and occasionally I’ll see a guy that’s just kind of sitting there fucking around thinking it’s a waste of time.

01:48:46:23 – 01:49:00:27
Rod
And I’m like, you’re a dumb ass, because this is the secret. This is 80 to 90% of it. And I tell people, I mean, you know, you think the real estate knowledge is the secret? No, it’s to actually go out there and fricking do it. And and to do that, you got gotta you got to want it. You got a burning desire.

01:49:01:01 – 01:49:06:25
Rod
That’s how you push through the fear, the limiting beliefs or the, you know, you get uncomfortable to actually go do it right. 100.

01:49:06:25 – 01:49:25:10
Ryan
Percent. I think I’ll let you jump in there. But there’s there’s things that people go through in life, whether they’re good or bad. But there’s, it’s hard for me to explain exactly what is, but there’s that chip on someone’s shoulder or that intrinsic burning desire or fire that drives them. And I think people stray away from that sometimes, and they’re embarrassed by and they’re like, no one thinks like me or or I’m different.

01:49:25:10 – 01:49:41:02
Ryan
Or I was raised in this family. We didn’t have money growing up. So real estate is not for me. Well, it’s not for me. Right? Or, I have been born with, less in my toolbox than someone else, and they run away from that. But when you can kind of formulate that and turn that into a motivating power, that’s something that’ll last with you forever.

01:49:41:02 – 01:49:58:03
Ryan
We talk a lot about are wise and living for someone else outside of ourselves, or leaning into that thing that might seem like a downfall. And that’s once again, mindset where if you don’t believe in something like that and you’re just like, it’s not for me, blah, blah, blah, those people are the rich of the rich. You can change your life by meeting literally one person.

01:49:58:06 – 01:50:15:17
Rod
I literally get hate from the people you just described every single day, several times a day. Sometimes I get sucked into and I try to kick them in the nuts and come on, dude, you know, they’re they’re feeling sorry for themselves. No one should own 800 houses. I’m like, okay, like you’re the reason I can’t buy a house.

01:50:15:17 – 01:50:37:14
Rod
Yeah. Really? Okay. I mean, I get so much hate like that. And it’s so sad, candidly, because they’re locking themselves into their own pity party, you know, and and so it really is sad. And so what you just said to turn that around and use that to motivate your ass to go do something because anybody can create wealth, they just got to go do it.

01:50:37:14 – 01:50:52:08
Ryan
Once you see that, it’s possible for yourself. I think that’s why we go back to the first deal for us, because, you know, you’re reading the books, you’re listening to podcasts, you’re you’re watching all the seminars and all these things. And until you actually do it, you make the offer, you you analyze the deal, you find something that looks good on paper.

01:50:52:11 – 01:51:09:04
Ryan
You make the offer. That offer gets accepted once it’s accepted, like it’s game time, you have to go. And so when we went through the motions in our real life and took the training wheels off, that gave us the confidence to say, this guy did it, how come? Why can’t I do it? And so you see these people, I it goes back to one of our inception stories here.

01:51:09:04 – 01:51:23:11
Ryan
We haven’t talked about it yet, but what really motivated us to get into real estate, we would come back from our 9 to 5 score. And I lived together at the time. And we would always talk about like we see all the amazing cars driving by. But what really changed our mindset was this game of wealth. We had this gentleman, he was probably his mid 30s.

01:51:23:11 – 01:51:40:02
Ryan
We were in our 20s at the time, kind of a goofy guy coming in. He collected our rent check. I’m like, this guy owns the property. We’re paying this guy. He’s not smarter than us. Like, what did he do? So then we decided, hey, dude, let’s study the game. We know that 90% of millionaires become wealthy through or have some sort of real estate in their portfolio.

01:51:40:02 – 01:51:44:23
Rod
90% of all millionaires on the planet either made their money in real estate or invested in real estate.

01:51:44:24 – 01:52:01:05
Ryan
There you go. So we’re like, let’s not recreate the wheel. Let’s study the game, then pick a strategy and just try it. There came the house, hack the duplex, and then we scaled up to the multi from there. But it was going through and seeing if one person can do this why can’t I do this? It’s possible. And I think that’s like going to a meeting your heroes.

01:52:01:05 – 01:52:14:25
Ryan
Right. They said never meet your heroes because when you meet them they’re just a human being. We call you. And I have, originally when I first started my journey right out of school, I worked for, ESPN. I did the sports, and I, you know, LeBron, all these guys are walking by me, and I realize they’re just.

01:52:14:25 – 01:52:31:04
Ryan
They bleed the same blood as us. Like, I’m just walking by someone in a nice suit. And once you have conversations with them, it just exposes you to the world. Say he just put time, energy and effort into doing something over and over and over. Granted, you could make his six eight jacket all these things, but it takes there’s other guys out there that just didn’t put in.

01:52:31:04 – 01:52:46:23
Rod
The time samples that that that Elon Musk hasn’t got. It isn’t jacked or anything like that, you know, or maybe he’s a bad example as well. But there are lots of business examples as well. Guys, that ain’t got nothing on you. And I’m saying I’m speaking to you guys listening. They’ve got nothing on you. They just went out and fucking did it.

01:52:46:26 – 01:53:01:21
Rod
That’s it. And so, you know, my catchphrase is massive freaking action. My most successful students aren’t the smartest. They’re they’re not the ones that live in the biggest cities. They’re not the ones that started with the most money. They’re the ones who just went and did it. That’s it. That’s the secret. And they push through the fear.

01:53:01:26 – 01:53:23:11
Rod
Which is why, you know, again, I always start with goal setting because you got to have enough juice to to push through that fear. Or maybe you got limiting beliefs like, you know, I got picked on in school, I felt like I wasn’t good enough and that that those, you know, that pushed me to to prove that I was good enough or, or there’s a lot of people that are just comfortable and and you know, that comfort zone is a nice warm place and nothing freaking grows there.

01:53:23:11 – 01:53:41:27
Ryan
I have one more thing that I want to say, and it’s it’s another piece to this mindset game. But you the world is not that competitive. And it is in a way, until you get to a certain point. And what I mean by that is people will start something and do it for a year or two max, and then they give up, they get lazy, adversity hits and they stop.

01:53:41:27 – 01:53:45:27
Ryan
If you can commit to doing something for five, ten, 20 years, you everyone.

01:53:45:27 – 01:54:00:07
Rod
Else will fall off. Success. Inevitably you commit to doing something even for five years. Success is inevitable. It’s it’s done. It’s gone. It’s it’s done. But you got to commit to it. And I’m not saying dabble in it. I mean, see, frickin do it. Success is is a foregone conclusion.

01:54:00:13 – 01:54:16:16
Cory
And rod, you mentioned, about getting around people that are doing things that you want to do, right. This this sparked a thought for me here. Like, what’s the best way? Let’s say you don’t think you can provide any value or you don’t know what value you can provide. One of the things that I did in the beginning, very beginning, this is a little bit of a different field.

01:54:16:16 – 01:54:38:28
Cory
But I went and I offered to coach for free, not coach basketball. This is like so I have a I have a passion to coach basketball. And I coached high school basketball for free because I wanted to get around people that were really good at coaching. It just so happens that the coach that I was coaching with, the head coach, owned a multi-million dollar company, and then I learned from him the ways that he treated people, ran business.

01:54:38:28 – 01:54:42:11
Cory
So if you’re out there and you’re thinking like, what value do I have to offer? Go work for free.

01:54:42:14 – 01:54:47:27
Rod
That’s it. Go. That’s a great suggestion. I mean, I get I get asked all the time, can I come work with you, can I.

01:54:47:27 – 01:54:49:28
Cory
Mentor, you know, and they have to be the right time. Yeah.

01:54:49:28 – 01:55:09:07
Rod
Yeah. Well I mean I unfortunately most the time I don’t have any bandwidth to help somebody, but but on that kind of a level, but, you know, that that’s that to be said, though, my students all have my cell phone number and can get me any time, and they do. But, you know, it’s it’s you just gotta again, it starts with wanting it.

01:55:09:07 – 01:55:28:15
Rod
It starts with creating what Napoleon Hill in his book think can grow rich, cause a burning desire. You got to want it. And that’s how you push through. And make all these things happen. And you know, and most people, I’m got nothing on you except they build their competence. It starts with competence. Okay. Now you can do that through you know, if it’s multifamily, get your ass to one of my boot camps.

01:55:28:15 – 01:55:45:22
Rod
But but whatever it is, learn what it is as best you can. YouTube, University, whatever. Go, go. You know, learn what it is you want to, your vehicle that you’re going to use to capitalize on what’s happening, and then that competency coach to confidence and get around people that are doing it. That’s the biggest thing. You mentioned confidence.

01:55:45:22 – 01:55:58:04
Cory
This is a big thing for me. I have a tattooed on my leg. It says keep your promises. And I learned this from I don’t know ed my but I learned it from Ed my learned. That’s one of his famous quotes where it says if you keep the promises that you make to yourself, that you, you learn to self trust.

01:55:58:04 – 01:56:12:06
Cory
And once you learn to self trust, you’re not so concerned about the opinions of other people because you know you trust yourself. So if you can get up and go to the gym, if you can get up and make those phone calls that you said you were going to do, if you do all the things that you say you’re going to do, then you’re able to not really care about what other people think of you.

01:56:12:06 – 01:56:14:01
Cory
And that’s what confidence comes from for us.

01:56:14:01 – 01:56:33:13
Rod
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. I, I used to be horribly afraid of rejection. And, you know, I got picked on in school, got my ass kicked regularly, and didn’t know how to fight back yet. And then I had this girl embarrass me in the on the playground and that I had a crush on. She embarrassed me in front of a bunch of kids, and I came up with this belief system that I wasn’t good enough, and I wouldn’t.

01:56:33:13 – 01:56:50:01
Rod
I’d be afraid to raise my hand in front of ten kids in a classroom when I speak in front of a thousand, thousands at a time and my frickin flip flops. But you know, when you realize that people really don’t care that much about you, they care about themselves. And so many people are afraid of what other people think.

01:56:50:03 – 01:57:00:23
Rod
And and it was really hard for me to come to that realization that, you know, become free from the opinion of others. And, and success comes much faster and easier. And you agree with that 100%.

01:57:00:23 – 01:57:01:17
Cory
That’s hard to do, though.

01:57:01:17 – 01:57:03:02
Rod
Yeah. It’s it’s hard to do. It takes time.

01:57:03:02 – 01:57:18:08
Cory
It does takes time. And I think it comes with just taking massive action, like you said. Like if you’re starting out, one thing that I would have said to myself, like when I was way younger or 18 year old self is just try a bunch of shit, just try as much stuff as you can because you’re you’re never going to know if you’re good at something if you don’t give it a shot.

01:57:18:08 – 01:57:29:19
Rod
And then if you like it. Because when you love what you do, work is freaking play. I mean, I love this shit. I mean, this is I do this when I’m sick, you know? So, you know, the only way you’re going to figure out what you love is to try different things. I love that you said that.

01:57:29:19 – 01:57:39:05
Cory
Yeah. Just try and try it and try again and try something else. And then you’ll you’ll meet opportunities at different forks in the road that will push you in different directions. And eventually, eventually, you’ll find your thing.

01:57:39:05 – 01:57:57:20
Rod
And even if, you know, you’d think that, you know, hey, that maybe I can’t make as much money there. If you love it, you’ll make money at it because you’ll be good at it, you know? And I think probably one of the biggest pieces of that is to have curiosity. Curiosity, I think, is one of the best qualities a person can have and the best one you can teach your kids when you do have kids.

01:57:57:20 – 01:58:15:05
Ryan
Seriously advocate. And that’s I mean, she’s only two, but it’s it’s instilling these things young. And I think one of the things for us, like Corey and I are naturally curious people, and that’s why we’ve had so much success with our podcast. Every time we have on an all star guests, someone like you, I want to know how you got to your level of success, what steps you took.

01:58:15:05 – 01:58:20:10
Ryan
And then I build those nuances right. And I take a little piece of your puzzle and implement it into my life.

01:58:20:10 – 01:58:42:07
Rod
That’s the secret right there. That’s the secret. You take these little nuggets from people and they have some, sometimes some amazing nuggets, and you implement them into your life. And at some point, you’ve got all of these things that you’ve implemented. Again, success is inevitable. I want to say something to you with your two year old. Have you seen those videos where a parent has a child standing in front of a mirror and say, you’re amazing, you’re great, you are loved.

01:58:42:07 – 01:58:45:24
Rod
You’re beautiful. I would encourage you. We do it. You do. They actually do it. Fantastic.

01:58:45:24 – 01:58:52:01
Ryan
We have this standing mirror in our bedroom. Every morning. We get dressed, we go, go, go. Take a look at yourself. She goes, I’m so pretty and let’s it.

01:58:52:01 – 01:58:56:16
Rod
And we it’s it that builds the confidence and competence. Is the frickin secret sauce.

01:58:56:22 – 01:59:10:16
Ryan
100%? Yeah. It’s it’s funny how you can just watch the minds mold so young as a kid, but she’s so charismatic. It’s our personality, too. But we reinforce and we let her be her unique self and all that, and it’ll. I know it’ll carry on. There’s a new journey every single day.

01:59:10:16 – 01:59:30:19
Rod
And I’m not afraid to fail either. You know, I, I met Sarah Blakely, the billionaire owner of Spanx, and, her and Jesse. It’s Loretta at a conference, and she told me that her dad used to ask her literally on a weekly. Her brother on a weekly basis. What have you failed at this week? What an incredible question to ask your kids so they don’t fear failure, right?

01:59:30:19 – 01:59:36:00
Ryan
I want to talk about that too. And failure, I think, is one of the big things that holds people back. And it’s it’s.

01:59:36:04 – 01:59:38:06
Rod
The fear of failure. Fear of failure. Yeah. Fear.

01:59:38:06 – 01:59:55:17
Ryan
Fear, that’s what it is. And so a lot of times people can find themselves to a box. Right? And they the system and you basically go to school and you’re trained to be an employee. Right. And then if you ever lose your job, it’s like you’re a failure. And so a lot of people project money failures and fear of things that they don’t believe they can do onto you.

01:59:55:17 – 02:00:15:11
Ryan
And that’s why the influence of the people around you, if you’re going to, let’s just say, a 9 to 5 job every day, like the majority of those people, unless that’s the CEO of the company that’s running the ship or the founder. Most of those people are. They want to stay in their lane. They want to make the money, go home to do the things that they want to do, but they’ll never try something else because the people around them were like, hey, you shouldn’t do that.

02:00:15:11 – 02:00:25:16
Ryan
You got to play it safe. We need to we need to retire at 67. And I think it’s so hard for people to break free from the cycle because you’re you’re around those people in your condition to fear failure and not.

02:00:25:19 – 02:00:40:04
Rod
Just talk about how you break free from that. So how you break free from that is you. You get around people that want more out of life. Okay? Because most people default to a peer group they work with or they went to school with, and those people have their own limiting beliefs, their own fears, their own box of the world.

02:00:40:04 – 02:01:06:12
Rod
Or maybe they don’t want to lose you. Maybe they don’t want to feel like a failure if you succeed and they will hold you up. And sometimes it’s family. Love your family, but choose your frickin peers proactively. So that’s one piece. And and you know, and don’t fear freaking failure. You know, pick your vehicle. There’s incredible opportunity come a good God we haven’t talked about I my God, you can you can create incredible things with I right now my whole team is is working hard on AI stuff.

02:01:06:12 – 02:01:26:19
Rod
My daughter works for me not killing it. And and and so, you know, don’t fear failure, fear, regret, fear being in the same freaking place you are right now, a year or two from now, that’s what you want to fear. You know, I call my failure seminars, right? That was a $50 million seminar on 089, but I’ve built 29 businesses so far in my career, several worth tens of millions of dollars.

02:01:26:19 – 02:01:46:25
Rod
Most were spectacular flaming frickin seminars. But we fail our way to success. And so, you know, again, fear, regret, don’t fear failure. And the other thing is, when you get into a business, whatever it is, recognize that it’s your vehicle. It’s not you. So if you if that vehicle fails, you’re not a failure. Yeah, maybe that didn’t work.

02:01:46:25 – 02:02:01:16
Rod
But you you get your ass back up and you move on to the next thing. Now if that becomes your identity, then you then you look at yourself like you’re a failure. Which is why a lot of people, you know, people jump off of buildings when they lose everything sometimes. But you got to remember that that’s your vehicle, that’s it.

02:02:01:16 – 02:02:03:11
Rod
And that’s how you got to look at it 100%.

02:02:03:11 – 02:02:08:26
Ryan
You mentioned the 29 business. I do have a question for you on this. One is like, okay, some more successes, some more failures. At well.

02:02:08:26 – 02:02:10:17
Rod
Most were failures, believe it or not.

02:02:10:17 – 02:02:22:03
Ryan
At what point did you decide to not give up but pivot from those companies to say, hey, this isn’t going to work for me because some people will go years and years and years and years and just keep pounding the pavement on the same business. At some point, you have to shift to save time.

02:02:22:04 – 02:02:41:23
Rod
You got to cut your losses and you know, I I’m an entrepreneur. And there were there are. Tony Robbins talks about three different archetypes as an entrepreneur archetype. There’s the manager leader archetype. And then there’s the artist. Now, like a great example would be in Silicon Valley. The artist would be the programmer that came up with this cool new app like Uber or Airbnb or whatever.

02:02:41:26 – 02:02:59:04
Rod
And then then the venture capitalists would bring in the sea level team. The venture capitalists would be entrepreneurs that helped bring it to market, but they bring in a sea level team of manager leaders to run it. Okay, I’m the entrepreneur archetype. I want to get in and then get out. Okay. So it’s very easy for me to cut my losses.

02:02:59:04 – 02:03:16:05
Rod
Say, fuck it, I’m done with this is not working for me. But, but a lot of people do. They drag on way too long and sometimes. In fact, I just had a call. Oh, God. I just had a call with somebody, like yesterday or the day before, and I told them, you may just want to cut your losses on this and move on.

02:03:16:07 – 02:03:30:26
Rod
Because he was belaboring his situation and. Oh, no, it was a guide. That’s right. It was a guy that was trying to sell some houses. Right now is one of my warriors. And, and he can’t sell them. And I said, dude, you just need to drop the prices down and get out of them. Get out of them now because he’s feeding them.

02:03:30:29 – 02:03:47:22
Rod
And you know, and that really resonated with me because that’s kind of what happened to me in oh eight, nine. But, but anyway, yeah, great point on that. Well, let’s talk about let’s talk about war stories, okay. Because everybody thinks success is easy. And there’s, you know, and I love this. When I had my boot camps, I’ve panelists I’d like several panels a day.

02:03:47:22 – 02:03:56:02
Rod
And there’s billions represented by the panels. They’re all my students. And that’s one of the questions I ask each panel. You know, talk about a time you got your ass kicked. Talk about a seminar.

02:03:56:05 – 02:04:11:28
Cory
So this is a, this is a fun story here so that when people get into real estate, they think, what’s the worst possible thing that can happen? And we thought going into it, okay, the worst possible thing that can happen is our property. There’s a fire and it burns down. And, our fourth property. Third or fourth property, I remember which one.

02:04:12:03 – 02:04:28:23
Cory
It was a duplex in South Jersey. And I remember getting a call at 11 p.m.. I was actually, like, going to sleep, and I didn’t answer the call, but I remember getting this call thinking our tenants have a property manager. Why would they be calling? I just I wouldn’t expect to call. We listen to the voicemail in the morning and she’s saying there’s a fire.

02:04:28:23 – 02:04:44:13
Cory
And, so my first thought is did everyone get out safe? And they did. Everyone got out safe. But it turns out that the neighbors were like, had, space heaters on in the garage. So it wasn’t even our property that caught fire at that. Their property caught fire. It like, blew it blew over to our property. And it was a complete and total loss.

02:04:44:13 – 02:05:04:26
Cory
And, Ryan, I were thinking like, oh my God, what do we do? Like, this is the this is the worst possible thing that can happen. Like, what mistake could we have made? How could we have prevented this? Turns out sometimes you just can’t prevent it. So we had a property burned down. And here’s the value of having somebody in your corner is that we were able to go and talk to people that have had this experience before.

02:05:04:26 – 02:05:08:17
Cory
This is what you do. This is what you document. This is who you talk to you. You get a public adjuster.

02:05:08:17 – 02:05:09:00
Rod
You do.

02:05:09:00 – 02:05:25:16
Cory
Exactly. And I met the the public adjuster there. I was like, what do you think? And I went through it with extreme intention to know that, hey, if I make some mistakes here, it could cost us. So I went there and it turns out it was a total loss. And we got an insurance, like, insurance covered it. And that’s why you have to have the proper insurance person in your back pocket.

02:05:25:16 – 02:05:37:20
Cory
But we had people that are telling us what to do, how to do it. And it turned out that one of our biggest mistakes ended up being something that allowed us to move into something different, a different property. But it was I mean, that that’s true.

02:05:37:23 – 02:05:41:01
Rod
I you typically make money when you have a fire. I don’t know if you guys made a lot of money.

02:05:41:01 – 02:05:44:20
Cory
We did make a little money because the property, we got a payout. You know, you have to pay capital.

02:05:44:20 – 02:05:59:03
Rod
But it’s more than it cost you to fix it. Exactly. I had a fire in, 20 units burned down in my Tennessee Nashville property. And thank God nobody died. Yeah, and it was very scary because there was a kid in one of the units as the fire was moving down the building. There’s a kid in one of the units.

02:05:59:03 – 02:06:03:23
Rod
His mom said, don’t come out. And they were knocking on the door getting people out. Thank God the kid walked out.

02:06:03:25 – 02:06:04:16
Cory
And no one got hurt.

02:06:04:16 – 02:06:20:17
Rod
No, no, no. A woman jumped out of a third floor window and hurt her knees. And, she tried to sue us, but we didn’t cause the fire, so we’re liable. But, but I tell you, I’d tell you a funny story because I used to make a lot of money. If a place burned down, if I had a fire back in the day when I had eight, you know, I’d, 500 houses in Denver.

02:06:20:23 – 02:06:43:07
Rod
I had several fires, all tenant cost. But my my ex, my ex-wife. Not not Tiffy, the one, the one prior to Tiffy would hear me on the phone, say, oh, my God. Oh, did anybody get hurt? Oh, thank God, nobody’s hurt. And then she’d hear me get off the phone. I’d be like, yeah, baby, because I knew I was going to make money because we we’d fix the place up, you know, I had contractors and stuff.

02:06:43:07 – 02:07:05:22
Rod
We’d fix it up. I made money every single time it happened. And thank God I’d never knock on wood. Never had anybody get hurt. Thank God. But, yeah, we had a tornado in, 100 and, 101 unit asset we have in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio. Literally three months or four months. I’m don’t quote me on this, but a few months after we bought it, tornado hit it and frickin destroyed it.

02:07:05:22 – 02:07:10:13
Rod
All 101 families had to move. And, you know, we did really well on that one, too.

02:07:10:14 – 02:07:12:14
Cory
Well, I think it’s important to note, like, to make sure that.

02:07:12:15 – 02:07:14:14
Rod
It’s got a good insurance bottom line. That’s good to.

02:07:14:14 – 02:07:20:20
Cory
Have good insurance. And you got to keep up with everything in your property. If you’re a landlord, you have to be a good landlord because you don’t want anyone to point to something you don’t want.

02:07:20:20 – 02:07:21:05
Rod
Be liable.

02:07:21:13 – 02:07:22:04
Cory
Yeah, exactly.

02:07:22:04 – 02:07:43:03
Rod
And make sure your fire stuff is up to speed. Your, your your fire extinguishers are the right dates. Yep. And you know, most municipalities will do fire inspections annually to make sure that stuff’s right. But, you know, good property management company will check your smoke detectors that check your fire extinguishers or they’ll, you know, just, make sure that trip hazards are taken care of.

02:07:43:06 – 02:08:00:10
Cory
Yeah. Our our tenant was section eight, so we would have inspections every year to make sure it was up to the standard that section eight right allowed. So everything was actually it’s funny you you mentioned the seminars we had replaced the floors in that property for $9,000 one month before the fire. So, you know, we lost out on that.

02:08:00:10 – 02:08:05:05
Cory
We ended up making more money. But it’s like you just have to expect that the hits are going to come in this game. You just have to.

02:08:05:06 – 02:08:38:18
Rod
The good thing about our business guys and you know, this is the check fixes damn near anything. That’s the good thing. You know, in some businesses you don’t have that, a luxury. You know, in our business, pretty much a check will fix most things. And, you know, when you have that mindset, it it makes it less scary and, you know, painful when you think about things, but but you got to have enough money to write the checks, and, and, you know, that’s why you don’t dabble in this business, and you raise enough money to make sure you’re going to cover any eventualities when you buy an asset, you know.

02:08:38:18 – 02:09:01:16
Rod
Yeah. So, you know, like we’re buying the senior housing facility in, Pittsburgh and, you know, and we’re we’ve got a significant cushion because, you know, and we’re so we’re raising enough money that things could go really bad and we’ll still be fine. Things aren’t going to go bad. We’ve got an incredible operator. But yeah, so you guys are obviously in the mindset and psychology.

02:09:01:18 – 02:09:04:08
Rod
What are your why’s?

02:09:04:10 – 02:09:25:00
Cory
This is a good one. So I grew up, middle class. I didn’t want for anything. And like, when I was young, so I, I take actually solace in that. And I think, like, hey, man, there’s people that want it bad more than you. Even so, like, you have to prove it to yourself that, like, even though you came from a great living, like, I grew up in a great household, my parents were loving.

02:09:25:00 – 02:09:49:00
Cory
So like, I want to use that as fuel, as like, but I still had this thing in the back of my head that wanted more. And I remember thinking to myself when I was young, man, my dad worked his entire life as an entrepreneur. He didn’t have the exit that he wanted, but he was successful in his own right, and he gave me everything that I could ever ask for my wife to give it back to him, because he’s 67 right now and he didn’t have the exit in the walk away from his business that he thought.

02:09:49:02 – 02:10:05:19
Cory
And he still has the work and he makes a good living. You shouldn’t feel bad for my father, but he didn’t have he he put in 45 years of the same business and didn’t get out the way that he wanted to. So my goal is to make sure that he can ride off into the sunset, and give him just a little bit more than he gave me.

02:10:05:19 – 02:10:21:14
Cory
And I think I don’t have children yet, so I imagine I would feel that way about my kids, but my wife is to just make sure that he feels like, hey, even if I didn’t have an exit, I raise children that love me so much that they would do anything for me. And the what to me is like, how could he be more proud?

02:10:21:14 – 02:10:31:27
Rod
That’s an incredible y brother. That’s incredible. I, you know, I bought my parents a house down here in Punta Gorda, bought them a car, took them on cruises. And there’s no greater feeling than doing stuff like that for your parents. I’m just going to tell you.

02:10:31:27 – 02:10:32:12
Cory
I’m ready for.

02:10:32:12 – 02:10:34:07
Rod
It. Yeah? Yeah. How about you?

02:10:34:09 – 02:10:39:11
Ryan
That also motivates me, too. I mean, our our partnership too. I think my wife has changed a lot over time. Well, you.

02:10:39:11 – 02:10:40:13
Rod
Got a baby girl now too.

02:10:40:14 – 02:10:43:28
Ryan
I do, and so that’s the easy Chico to answer. And I can say, oh, you know everything.

02:10:43:28 – 02:10:45:06
Rod
Well, that’s an important one, brother.

02:10:45:10 – 02:11:07:13
Ryan
It’s amazing. It changes your life wholeheartedly. But I will also say there’s a piece to living for someone else. And I think a lot of people talk about that and like wanting to provide for others. And I very similar to cause like, I just, I have two brothers and I, we were it’s interesting when I have conversation with entrepreneurs, I find that most of them, it’s really interesting, are the first born and they have siblings and you become a leader early on and people to look up to you.

02:11:07:13 – 02:11:22:09
Ryan
And so I’ve always found myself like, I’m a year ahead of all my best friends. And then, my two younger brothers and like, there’s a lot of younger people and I’ve always had a kind of pave the way. And I only recently realized this when I kind of, like, reminisced and went through and and kind of like took a look at my life and why I do things the way I do.

02:11:22:09 – 02:11:40:11
Ryan
Because I’ve been asked this question a lot of times. And so a lot of it is living for those people. I want them to see the person that they believe in and the person that does things contrary to popular belief and was the one who broke the mold and saw other people living bigger lives and decided to take the take the initiative, the plunge and try to do it himself so I can motivate them in certain ways.

02:11:40:16 – 02:12:00:14
Ryan
But then also there’s other things, like I was born with a certain toolbox, not only like on the personality side, there’s a lot of people that aren’t extroverted, that don’t put themselves out there, and then they’re afraid to go talk and ask questions to people. So I feel like I’m doing myself a disservice by not leaning into that and trying to serve and provide value to the most amount of people that I possibly can with that voice that I’ve been given.

02:12:00:21 – 02:12:14:00
Ryan
And then another side is like, I want to fulfill my purpose. Like I see all these people living big lives. And it’s not always about the money. It’s about spending time with family, having the freedom to do what you want, when you want. But leaving my mark on this world, not so much so that I need everyone to remember who I am.

02:12:14:00 – 02:12:26:04
Ryan
I don’t need to be this legend, but I want people to remember like I was the guy that gave back, that lived out his purpose and brought up all the other people in his community with him to the level that he was able to reach out.

02:12:26:07 – 02:12:46:19
Rod
Moves to those who serve. Bottom line, bottom line. And, you know, both of you had decent upbringings and you could have been complacent. A lot of people become complacent and comfortable, and it’s they’re not motivated. So you guys found wise outside of yourselves, which is really the secret. And, beautiful. Well, listen, I really appreciate you guys coming down here.

02:12:46:19 – 02:13:00:00
Rod
It’s been a lot of fun. You’ve added a tremendous amount of value, and, Yeah, yeah. Look, I’m excited to see where you are in in another year or two. I’m sure it will be extraordinary. Thank you for listening to the lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing podcast. If.