Join us in this insightful conversation with Sam Kwak, where we tackle real estate investing tips, personal development advice, and financial strategies. So if you're a beginner or looking to expand your portfolio, tune in and seize the opportunity to acquire valuable knowledge and insights that will empower you to make well-informed decisions.
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
About Sam Kwak
Sam is a real estate entrepreneur, investor, YouTuber, author, and founder of the Accelerated Banking Concept. Since 2016, Sam and his brother, Daniel, have been teaching concepts, strategies, and tactics related to real estate investing and finance. In his real estate career, Sam was involved in over $5 million of real estate investments and transactions. With the Accelerated Banking Concept, he's helped over 1800 homeowners find a path to financial freedom and peace. Sam has also launched multiple 6 and 7-figure companies related to real estate.
Today, he's passionate about helping every American family unlock the secrets to financial freedom and peace. Most importantly, he's a husband, a father, and a Christ follower.
Connect with Sam
Connect with Us
To learn more about growing your wealth through multifamily investment opportunities, visit Monument Real Estate Capital and schedule a call!
Follow our social media pages!
Facebook: Monument Real Estate Capital
LinkedIn: Monument Real Estate Capital
Join us in this insightful conversation with Sam Kwak, where we tackle real estate investing tips, personal development advice, and financial strategies. So if you're a beginner or looking to expand your portfolio, tune in and seize the opportunity to acquire valuable knowledge and insights that will empower you to make well-informed decisions.
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
About Sam Kwak
Sam is a real estate entrepreneur, investor, YouTuber, author, and founder of the Accelerated Banking Concept. Since 2016, Sam and his brother, Daniel, have been teaching concepts, strategies, and tactics related to real estate investing and finance. In his real estate career, Sam was involved in over $5 million of real estate investments and transactions. With the Accelerated Banking Concept, he's helped over 1800 homeowners find a path to financial freedom and peace. Sam has also launched multiple 6 and 7-figure companies related to real estate.
Today, he's passionate about helping every American family unlock the secrets to financial freedom and peace. Most importantly, he's a husband, a father, and a Christ follower.
Connect with Sam
Connect with Us
To learn more about growing your wealth through multifamily investment opportunities, visit Monument Real Estate Capital and schedule a call!
Follow our social media pages!
Facebook: Monument Real Estate Capital
LinkedIn: Monument Real Estate Capital
[00:00:00] Sam Kwak
98% of people in the world are not part of the 2% club. They're not gonna make it. The good news is you have everything to do with whether you want to get to that 2% or not. Like you are a hundred percent of the responsibility. Sure, there's a little bit of luck play in that, but you have 1% of control whether you make it or not.
[00:00:17] Podcast Intro
You are working professional but struggling to balance the workload of your career, family obligations, and preparing for your financial future. If so, this podcast is for you. You've spent years learning your craft, and now it's time to focus on your financial future. This podcast will teach you what you need to retire wealthy and happy. Let's dive in.
[00:00:40] Ben Waller
Would you like to learn how to pay off your mortgage in just a few short years? In this episode, we get to learn from Sam Kwak, a two-time author, real estate investor and mentor. Let's jump in so you can learn the secrets that he has to share. Welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. We created this podcast to provide financial tips and tricks to help you build up your passive income and also provide methods that you can use to protect your wealth so that you can plan a better future for yourself and your family. We're grateful to have this podcast sponsored by Monument Real Estate Capital Monument Real Estate Capital, helping you retire 10 years early through real estate investments.
[00:01:21] Earl Cline
On today's episode, we're excited to have Sam KK with us. Sam is a real estate investor. He is an entrepreneur. He does some coaching. He's also written a book or two. He currently lives in Illinois with his wife and daughter, and he is also working on getting his pilot's license. What a fun thing to do. So today we're gonna talk a little bit with Sam about how you can get started in real estate investing, how you can break free from your mortgage. He has some unique tips to learn to pay off your mortgage. And to use infinite banking to grow your wealth. I'm excited to hear about this one. I honestly don't know very much about infinite banking. So with that, Sam, thanks for, uh, being on the show today. We really appreciate you scheduling some time to be here. And we're gonna start by just letting you share a little bit about your background. Tell us how you got started working in real estate and working with your brother to, what is it, the Qua Brothers real estate? Is that what the company that you're running?
[00:02:11] Sam Kwak
Yeah. And Carl and Bennett. Appreciate you having me on and you know, love to share your story. And what I would like to do, hopefully is anyone listening to this will walk away some value and some aha moments and at least one actionable items, right, for them to go and improve whatever aspect of their financial future. So just like what Earl and Ben, just how they kicked off the intro, and that was a good intro by the way, factually accurate. I'm glad. You didn't pick one of the other Sam quacks out there and read his bio.
[00:02:37] Earl Cline
Who were probably X-rated or something, right?
[00:02:39] Sam Kwak
There's a tennis player that's also named Sam Quo, an attorney actually here in Chicago that's also named Sam Quo, so I get confused as one of the Sam KK clone armies out there. But anyhow, my humble story begins back in. Well, as you can see, uh, I wasn't born here. I'm actually an immigrant from a small little country known as South Korea, right? Go squid games. And funny enough, I've never seen that show. I've seen references, but come as an immigrant back in 1999, and I was only seven years old, young kid came to country not knowing the culture, the way of life, the language. The only people I knew obviously were my two parents and my brother. So when I got here, everything was a shock. And fast forward, not having the cultural context as well as living in this country, being born here, and not having parents that maybe had the. Kinda the background knowledge on everything, on how finances work.
[00:03:31]
Obviously I had some disadvantages, right? In terms of, one example is I, I didn't even know the word entrepreneurship until I was 19. Someone told me, he was like, oh, you're such an entrepreneur. I'm like, what is that? Right? Like, what does that mean? And I, when I saw the word, I'm like, how do you pronounce that? Entre entree, pr, what? I didn't know until like 19, right? And. It wasn't also until when I was, I think, 20, 21 years old, I read the book, rich, that Poor Dad, right? I mean, every single real estate guy, it's like the book of Genesis for all real estate investing. If you haven't read it, you're missing out. But I read that book and that ultimately kind of sparked. A series a binge really on, uh, self-help books. Right. I didn't really enjoy reading up to that point cuz high school and middle school, they make you ra read, you know, huckleberry and Finn and stuff that as teenage boys, like whatever. Right. But it wasn't until I was 20 when I thoroughly actually picked up reading as I, I love this.
[00:04:22]
I'm actually learning how to make money instead of reading some fictional. James and Giant Peach or whatever started reading, and that's when I started getting intrigued with this idea of investing in real estate. That's kind of where the journey began. So that was 20 13, 20 14 is when we officially say, Hey, let's start. Let's go and actually make a leap of faith. But really before that, Daniel and I are just normal college kids. We're attending this small Christian college out here in Midwest and just making our way through life, hoping that we could graduate, get good grades, get a good job, and work for 40 years. And maybe retirement even wasn't even on the radar, right? You're just at that age, 22, 21 years old, your goal was let's make it through life as fun and excitement as possible. Get all the chicks right? Get invited to parties. That's all you're thinking about. That's honestly who I was, right? Until the rich, that poor that book and subsequently the sleeping giant of a passion woke up.
[00:05:13]
But honestly, at the same time, I was conflicted because you have your school professors, your peers, your parents going, oh, no, no, no. You gotta finish school. You gotta get a good job. You gotta stay on track. Do the normal thing and obviously over here was the pathway to real estate, investing, entrepreneurship, doing it something different. So I took a lot of leap of faith. I was conflicted cuz I knew we would get criticized, people would make fun of us. We would be coming out of the social norm, right? What the 98% of the people were doing. Obviously took the faith leap of faith, started getting into real estate investing in 2014 in our dorm room, right? And that's kinda all where the story begins.
[00:05:46] Earl Cline
Yeah, interesting. Sam, I coached for Robert Kiyosaki back in 2003, four, something like that, right after the success of his Rich dad, poor dad at the time, he was pumping out maybe two or three books a year and he never really wrote them. He, he always had, they were kind of ghost written for him, but he contributed to a lot to them, but they always had somebody else to helped him write them. I don't know about Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
[00:06:09] Sam Kwak
Yeah. He's a smart man for doing that. That's good.
[00:06:12] Earl Cline
Yeah. Interesting. In my coaching, I learned. I don't think there's a single person that could pick up Rich Dad, poor Dad today and figure out how to invest in a piece of property. Mm-hmm. Because it is not real estate oriented training, but I very rarely do we interview anybody who doesn't credit their desire to go on and improve their life. To picking up the copy of Rich Dad, poor Dad at some point. It's incredible motivation. I think you gotta get your actual real estate skills from reading something else besides, uh, Kiyosaki's books.
[00:06:47] Sam Kwak
How's that? I like to say the entry for a lot of people, right? It, it's, it's what sold you the idea of real estate investing and, and it's possibilities. And then from there, obviously I had many mentors and coaches and, and books, so I guess. To kind of pick back up from that story, 2014, the, the first thing immediately we did was reading the books, right? We started reading all the books that we found on online, joined online forums, YouTube videos, free seminars, disguised as obviously sales pitches, right? You go and it's like you're here to learn how to invest in real estate, and all you saw was just testimonials, over testimonials. And then obviously at the end I'll go, all right, go to the back of the room.
[00:07:22] Earl Cline
That was me at the back of the room back then. By the way.
[00:07:24] Sam Kwak
And nothing wrong with that, right? I'm in that industry as well and I totally get it. So done that and did all the surface level learning and obviously, I remember one day we were so like pumped up. We were so brave. I don't know, like we were on some kind of, I'm sure we were on some kind of drugs. I don't know. Not really, but like we were so brave. We scoured through Zillow and found a property for sale it for sale by owner. Actually, it wasn't, this is a different property, but we found a property. I was listed mean. I was 21 at the time. Made an appointment with the listing agent showing up at the house. And walk around and the real estate agent, the whole entire time. She was like in her forties, fifties, I think, and she was looking at me all skeptical, and I'm 21.
[00:08:03]
I looked like I, I just came out of the womb or whatever, and I'm walking around looking at the property and she asked him questions like, okay, so what are you looking for? Right? You know, do you have a family? Are you married? And I'm like, no, no. And I told her I'm a real estate investor. In fact, it's so funny. I said, this young kid don't know anything. I'm like, no, in fact, I'm gonna buy this. I'm gonna put this on contract and I'm gonna sign it and I'm gonna wholesale it for a fee. And the moment I set that, a Ken in my mouth, she's like, you need to get out. You're wasting my time. What are you doing here? And I, she literally kicked me out. I walked away feeling really embarrassed. I'm like, what the heck did I just do? Like, I didn't cuss her out, did I? Like what happened? And obviously little do I know that's not what you do. Or most of the times real estate agents don't really understand what happens. But that was one of the things that we had to do and we've been like literally grinding it out, trying to figure out how to make this work.
[00:08:47]
In fact, we, we were at a point where we couldn't pay our rent. So I was driving for Uber for like short period of time just to get rent paid and stuff. So the pivotal moment was, I remember going to one particular meetup or this gathering of roast investors in the area and they had a bunch of people in the room that actually were. It's doing really well. I mean, a couple hundred units, couple hundred doors, guys making millions of dollars a year, flipping houses. I mean, they're building an empire literally in our backyard. And I took a couple of the guys out to lunch and asked them, Hey, how are you doing? What you doing? Can I learn from you? Can I get mentoring from you? And obviously a few of them had coaching programs, mentoring programs, so we liked one of them and we did end up paying, the mentoring fee got started. We literally showed up to the mentor's office, I think at least once or twice a week, just shadowing, learning, listening to the conversations when it comes to raising money or negotiating for the deal, watching how the paperwork is done.
[00:09:37]
So literally seeing all those steps and seeing what works, what doesn't. I think that's what really kind of helped, cuz knowledge is free, right? You can get knowledge is anywhere. Read a book. You know a lot of these experts and mentors, they literally give you their tactics and strategies free. The part that most people don't know how to do is how to associate those strategies and tactics to what they already know. Cuz if you study the art and the science of learning, You don't learn new things by just being exposed to it. You have to be able to take something that you already know and start building a nerve association to them to pick things up like this. Right? So I use that word a lot. It's kind of like I'm associating something new to something that like you already know and I'm trying to bridge those two gaps so that you go, oh, okay, got it. Right. So I use that a lot and uh, mentor, right. Role helped me under do that really well. Right. One of the things that I've learned in negotiation, the mentor did a good job, is like, it's kind of like going out a date with a girl. I'm like, oh, okay. Got it. You don't ask the girl. To get married on the first date.
[00:10:29]
Right. And he's like, it's the same thing with negotiation is you kinda have to like work it and to dance, you have to figure it out. I'm like, okay, got it. And then that helped me learn how to negotiate. So started in 2014 and it wasn't until 2017, like three years of learning, grinding it out, right, doing all these things until 2017. April is when we closed our first real estate deal. And that was our fourth single family portfolio. Bought it on, on Ani, saying 10% down. Raised the money, learned that through the mentor, and the best analogy that he used, it's like Shark Tank. We go to these rich people, ask them for money in exchange for percentage of or deal. I'm like, oh, okay. Got it. So all these things, right, I learned, picked it up. So that was our first deal, and that's kind of the story. Two months after we do our first flip, and by the end of that year, 2017, we picked up 75 rental doors. Just doing rinse and repeat, right? Gonna, the seller structuring, owner financing, raising capital, boom.
[00:11:17]
And then we got braver each time. And the biggest deal with that that year was a 36 year apartment building. That changed my perspective forever. So that year, now I use the analogy, it's kinda like growing a bamboo tree, right? You know how a bamboo tree is grown the first three years of a bamboo tree's life, it grows like, Two inches, right? It doesn't really grow much, but you're still watering it, taking care of it, fertilizing it, doing all the things, but it's on the third year where it shoots up, right? It grows dozens of feet. It's incredible. So I feel like most businesses are grown that way, right? The first two, three years, you're really not seeing much traction until the third year. You're like, boom, something happens. And then just. Takes off from there. So that's pretty much the success on the real estate investing side, and that's the Journey 2017, man, it was five years ago. I can't believe that time goes by so quick. So that's the origin story.
[00:12:03] Ben Waller
Sam, are you saying that it took, and I'm not judging him, are you saying it took three years from the time you started till you got your first deal? Yeah. The reason I'm asking this specifically is because I want our listeners to recognize that. Anybody can do real estate investing, but it's not like you can just jump in tomorrow and make millions of dollars. There's a lot of learning. You're either gonna learn it one way or you're gonna learn it the painful, expensive way by making some, uh, bad choices. So one way or the other, you're gonna learn it. It just takes a while. So thank you for being that honest with us. And I wanna kind of segue into. You're the author of a couple books, which we're gonna talk about today. The first one, I believe, is called Zero to 75 Units in one Year. Right. That's one of your books, and I'm assuming that's based on the story you were just talking about, right? I. You wanna talk more about that, that book and tell us anything about that one?
[00:12:51] Sam Kwak
Yeah, honestly, so that book we share, we don't hold bar, we share all the tactics and strategies that we've used in that process of 0 75 unit. We take each of the deals that we've done and turn it into case study and break it apart, Hey, this is what we did, this is why we did this, and here's what went wrong. And there are embarrassing parts of that story where got into a bad deal and I had to sell it and it gets messy and dirty. It's not unicorns and roses all the way through and I'm sure. You guys have some stories like that. Those are just battle scars that you earn as tuition you pay, right? That's what I like to say as part of being successful. It's all the tactics and strategies. Again, like we give this away, just knowing that some of you guys will get it, some of you won't, but that's okay. It's just all part of process of learning, and then we're actually working on another book literally called Your First Deal Playbook. So we recognize that, okay, there's a ton of knowledge, ton of information out there on in the world of internet.
[00:13:39]
We're no short supply of that. The one thing that we recognize is that it's the wisdom to app apply these knowledge. I feel like that's lacking. And a lot of that just comes from mentorship and, and having relationships with people who are already doing it. So we're working on that book next. The other book we wrote along the way, and this is kind of switching gears, is a book called Break Free from Your Mortgage. And this is something I discovered along the way.
[00:14:00] Ben Waller
Yeah, we, we wanna hear about it so, We're gonna do that as a whole subject. Okay. Let's do it. All right. So with your first year of buying property stores, you were talking about buying a portfolio. You talked about flipping. You talked about buying an apartment complex, and that was five years ago. Are you willing to share with us what you're currently focusing on with your real estate portfolio?
[00:14:16] Sam Kwak
Yep. So we're now kind of shift there and pivoted. So along the way in, back in 2020, literally in the middle of the covid. I am not shy about admitting my defeat and failure. It's just because, again, it's all tuitions, man. You just pale along the way, right. So 2020, we launched a private equity company. We shell that a lot of money for this and we're like, let's go tackle big stuff, right? Like let's take over the world. And we launched a private equity company and we started with a group of people. So, That we knew and built relationships around with, had some phenomenal people in this group and started private equity, started raising money, and without getting into the weeds of it, I think the biggest pitfall that we faced was we didn't have traction.
[00:14:54]
We didn't have, I think we were too heavy to lift off. If I'm giving you like a, an airplane analogy here. We were in this like Cessna smaller airplane and we were trying to fit like six people in there and trying to take off at the same time and like it was not happening. And the reason why I, I think the bottom line is we ended up shutting it down about a year ago. The reason why we didn't take off is I don't think we had a very clear process of what we wanted to do. We like, it's kind of like trying to explain what you do to a 90-year-old grandma. That's my LIMUS test is if you have a successful business, if you can explain what you do to your 90-year-old grandma. Right. So if I go to my 90-year-old grandma and go, Hey grandma, this is what I do. I raise money from institutional partners and do this, right? We have a satellite core fund and then, you know, obviously your 90-year-old grandma's like, oh, that's really nice honey, that's really nice, right? But if, if you can explain it to a 90-year-old grandma and make it so easy to understand, you might have a winning formula, right?
[00:15:44]
Confused mind that can't make decisions. So I think we had a very confusing formula even to our investors that we were trying to raise money from. And at the same time, we didn't have a clear identity as far as what are we doing? What's our asset class like, what are we trying to do? What's our niche core competency, what's our unique ability as, and Dan Sullivan will call it. I think we lacked that vision. Yeah. We were just burning money at that point. And so all of us partners were like, yeah, this isn't working out, so let's shut it down. And again, I wouldn't say it was a waste of time, waste of money. Great people is just, we didn't have a match in, in traction in terms of our vision and where we want to go. So just this year, in fact, right around Christmas, we are relaunching our syndication. So we're going smaller, going back down a level. So we're looking at 50 plus unit apartment buildings right now. Also self storage units raising money. And that's ultimately what we're good at. So we're going back to the simplicity.
[00:16:31]
So lesson there is, and I wouldn't say failure, but it's a lesson. Intuition there is. Keep things simple, right? Don't get crazy, you know, overcomplicated, it is good. Maybe couple hundred billions in asset under management. But I think just getting off the ground, we were, we were aiming for something that doesn't exist yet, and I think that's why we folded last year. So again, just stuff that you learn. Don't let the previous successes. Make you rest in your laurels and start overshooting your core competencies. So what we're working on right now is 50 plus unit apartment complexes. We have a team that's smaller, thank God, that is doing acquisitions and raising capital and all that. So yeah, that's where we're at today.
[00:17:07] Ben Waller
Sam, I really appreciate your transparency with your past experiences, and I think one of the things I wanna pull out for our listeners is that whether you're talking about real estate or business, if you're serious about starting something, being focused and having a. A specific plan about what you're doing is extremely important in your ability to be successful. Because I have a lot of people come to me and say, Hey, I wanna be a real estate investor. And I say, great. Well, what of the 1000 options do you wanna do in real estate? And they're like, I have no idea. I just wanna be a real estate investor. And when you can really start drilling down into what their skills are, what they're interested in, There's a lot of ways you can make money in real estate and in business in general. And when you focus on what you're good at and what you wanna be doing as far as either real estate invest in your business goes, you have a much greater chance of being successful. So thank you for sharing that with us.
[00:17:55] Sam Kwak
Yeah, totally. That's one thing I, I get bugged about in our industry. Again, this is no criticism to any specific individual or or group, but I mean, if you flunk big, right, let people know that you flunk and you learn from it. It's scary because again, part of what we do, and now you can relate. To Ben and Earl is, you know, when we raise capital, you're literally being entrusted with other people's money. And when you have to admit defeat or a tactical retreat, I like to call, it's hard because you got all this inner voice going, oh, what if they hate me? What if they sue me? What if they do this? You know? Right. I think at that point, you know how you show up. In taking responsibility and ownership, that point matters more, right? Than trying to cover things up or making it look better or good artificially. So again, yeah, if you're gonna flunk, flunk big, take ownership. You know, like what Jocko willing says, extreme ownership, right? Hey, I, I flunk big. This is my fault. I should have taken ownership on this area. I'm not afraid to do it because those who claim ownership of their failures can claim ownership of the victory even more. So that's the fear I live by. Well, especially in today's world, right?
[00:18:54] Ben Waller
Like it's almost impossible to hide anything. So if you've got experience in your past that didn't go well and you don't tell people about it, it's probably gonna come out at some point and then you'll just look like an idiot. Let's use a quick pilot analogy here, right? Like, If I was gonna get in a plane, I would much rather get in a plane with a pilot who's like, I've been flying for 10 years and I had this really terrible experience where I almost crashed, but I didn't cuz I knew how to save it. As opposed to somebody who's like, well, I've been flying for three days and if you want to come with me, we might make it there.
[00:19:25] Earl Cline
So we appreciate your experience there. So Sam, you do a little bit of mentoring yourself. I think the company's called First Deal Mentor, is that right? Tell us a little bit about how you help people do their first real estate deal. Just talk a little bit about your mentoring company and, and what the focus of that is.
[00:19:37] Sam Kwak
Yeah, so our mentoring company, coaching company came about as a response, as a challenge to the industry where I think there's a lot of great experts out there, a lot of good gurus. They have phenomenal invest. Amount of knowledge that they're sharing at the same time that comes with the cost of overwhelm for a lot of beginners. And at the same time, there's a lot of good general knowledge out there like, Hey, here's what wholesaling is. This is what owner financing is. This is the first strategy subject to like all these different things that are great. You're learning about tools. But I think what is lacking is actual sequential, step-by-step on, Hey, here's what you need to do to get to your first ever real estate deal. I truly believe. When you get to your first real estate deal, one or two things happen. Number one is there's obviously major conference boosts and a perspective shift in what's possible. The second thing is who you are changes, right? It's you learn to become more patient, you learn to become more persistent.
[00:20:29]
You learn to become stronger in the face of adversity and just challenges overall. So, so just kind of break it down. Like the first year mentor program, we don't promise that you're gonna make billions of dollars out of the gate. We don't promise that you're gonna have a portfolio. Built by the end of the program. It's really simple. It's like, Hey, let's get you just your finish line of a real estate deal, right? And preferably profitably. So we do that with a very simple framework. We call it the four strategy. Which is an acronym for Find A Deal, right? Creatively, preferably off market Owner finance it. And we have a very systematic approach of getting to a yes with the seller raise the capital. And we teach a variety of way of doing that through self-directed rep buying plans and private partners and all that. And then you cash flow it, meaning you hire a property management company or. Have a partner that manages the properties and then expand the empire, start learning how to build teams and grow that way.
[00:21:17]
So we teach it in that very simple framework, and really the goal is, hey, let's get you to a finish line. Let's get you to do a deal. We wanna celebrate you for doing that. So we just get really focused, put the blinders on, don't worry about doing anything else. Just do this and let's get you to a deal and then we can start experimenting afterwards. So that's what the program's all about. I don't wanna make this sound like a sales pitch, but that's the problem that we're trying to solve with our program is, There's a lot of people with a lot of head knowledge, but they lack the application, so we're gonna solve that problem of giving them the wisdom, the application, the voice of certainty, so that they can ultimately get to the finish line of closing their first real estate deal. That's the goal there.
[00:21:52] Earl Cline
You talked earlier about when you got started, you attended a number of. The guru that comes in, they spend, uh, two weeks advertising on the radio. You meet with somebody for two hours, right? That goes to a, Hey, we're gonna sell you a three day package. That was 80% sales pitch and all that. Kinda tell me a little bit about, I'm assuming you've been to a bunch of them. What was that like? And how has it helped you today to be a better coach or mentor?
[00:22:18] Sam Kwak
Yeah. Again, nothing wrong with that business. I have no quirks about the people. In fact, our c o our integrator for our coaching company, he comes from that world, right? He, he's spent 18 years selling coaching programs from stage, traveling everywhere and doing all that. Again, nothing wrong with that. Obviously, COVID has brought a very interesting twist to everything, right? Everything's gone virtual online, and I guess from what angle would you like to know my thoughts or you're sitting in a big room, right?
[00:22:44] Earl Cline
I've been there. I told you. I've been sometimes the guy at the back of the room, most of the time I was the guy that was on the phone after you bought the package. I was the one that had to deliver what they had sold from the front of the room. But there was many, many times that they made me wear my cowboy hat and they said, go ask the guy in the back with the big black cowboy hat, because he can help you answer that question. But it's an interesting industry. It's changed a lot because of covid. I actually haven't been on the road for two and a half years or something like that. I'm honestly too busy now to do it. Anyway, they asked me to do a buy and hold summit. But it's from my computer and there's nothing harder for me than having to sit for two days and trying to entertain people. Or my computer where if you're up in front of them. But I'm just curious about, uh, what do you do differently? You're used to getting it people in a room and that type of thing. Is that how you get people into your program or is it just word of mouth?
[00:23:38] Sam Kwak
We run strictly off of everything's virtual, although we do have in-person fulfillment events, so we have retreats for our students once a year, actually twice a year. And then I'll explain some of the other things we do, but a hundred percent what we do in terms of finding our students is virtual. Uh, we used to do a little bit of in-person stuff pre covid, but obviously, you know, Earl the business. Very expensive to run an event, right? Especially if you do stuff on a hotel, right? You gotta get the hotel coordinated, people flying in and out and. It's expensive. So we run everything online. Advertisements. We do have an affiliate JV programs that, that come along our way. And we have them go through our, our process of enrollment. They, uh, attend a series of free coaching, uh, training webinar, as well as we actually have, uh, live workshops we do once a month, uh, just kind of as a demo of what we teach and what we do.
[00:24:26]
And a lot of times those workshops, we actually have our students teach 'em. Our students will get to a point where they hit their first real estate deal. They have this. Fresh ways of confidence. And we actually invite our students to become speakers of our own events, and they're sharing their story and how they were able to succeed and get their first real estate deal. But as far as in-person stuff that we do something called a decade in day. I borrowed this term from, uh, Russell Brunson, which, uh, I get the, uh, privilege to be part of his inner circle. But decade and day is basically we invite our students once every quarter to our office here, and we take 10, 12 of them at a time, and we just break down their business and help them come up with a plan, a blueprint by the end of the day.
[00:25:01]
We also do a property tour. So we actually take them on our vehicles and then we go to some of the properties we've closed and done and show them around. So like actually seeing, like helping them see the tangible result of what's possible, you know, obviously does something to their belief of giving them more confidence and uncertainty. So yeah, we have an element of in-person stuff that we do, but most of the stuff that we provide is virtual through Zoom and weekly Zoom calls and all that. So, Yeah, that's pretty much our mentorship is Bill.
[00:25:27] Earl Cline
Interesting. I worked for Kiyosaki and Carleton Sheets. The same company that I mentored for did, did both of them at the same time. The tuition at the time, it was probably a lot for people at the time, but it was pretty nominal by today's standards. I sometimes, I don't think I can take my wife out to dinner for what people were paying for it back then and then progressed up to the point where we had people who were paying 50,000 to attend a bus tour. Right. To get to a commercial training that they were sold a, uh, mentoring package for another 25,000. I mean, it's big time money. I'm really excited to say. That the people, I don't know what the difference was. Maybe I was a better coach, but towards the end I probably had maybe an 80% success ratio in the commercial where we actually were able to get somebody a deal.
[00:26:12]
When I started, man, I remember going home at night. I feel so bad for these people because they spent this money and I just, and I got 20% success rate or something like that. It's definitely an interesting industry. I don't think it's because they spent more money, that they got more, uh, that they were more able to succeed. But tell me what you think, I mean, you've worked with mentors yourself. You've run a, a mentoring program. What do you think is the difference in whether people are able to succeed with the program or whether they falter with.
[00:26:41] Sam Kwak
Great question. Yeah. So the attributes I see of people who succeed and who don't. I tell these to my students all the time. I told 'em, Hey, the bad news is. 98% of people in the world are not part of the 2% club. They're not gonna make it. The good news is, You have everything to do with whether you that 2% or not, like you have a hundred percent of the responsibility. Sure, there's a little bit of luck play in that. Yes. But you have 1% of control whether you make it or not. And, and a lot of times it has to do with, I think it's just a mindset, and this is probably the hardest thing to crack, is the mindset of people thinking this is a lottery ticket. Right. They come in, go, something's gonna happen to me versus. Me happening, right?
[00:27:21]
So I can tell someone who's gonna succeed, where they put in the work, they're showing up every coaching call they go, and when we do our accountability calls on Wednesdays, they show up having done their thing and share momentum. So I think the biggest people who win is learning how to create momentum just by taking action. I think there's a saying, action. Begets more action, right? So they take action and then creates momentum. And then next week they do deliberate thing. And we do a lot to try to celebrate the wins, even though it's not, Hey you, you just closed on a deal, but hey, if you want a call 10 sellers, hey, we want to celebrate you.
[00:27:52]
And that ultimately creates momentum. So if someone is of the mindset that, Hey, I have control, I can make the decisions, it's up to me. Those individuals, we can help. I know we can. Teach 'em tactic strategies, mold 'em a little bit, and they're willing to work. The hardest people we, we ever work with is, why isn't of this happening to me? Like, where's my luck? They'll start blaming people like, oh, it's the coach's fault, or it's my mom's fault for giving me bad d n a. It's like, oh, it's my wife's fault because, you know, she wouldn't let me work. Right. Whatever. So if they can take extreme ownership, we can help them even if it takes three years like me. Right. We, we can help them.
[00:28:23] Earl Cline
So the interesting thing, and I participated in R clubs, I participated in coaching, we now do podcasts and we interview. A number of people that similar stories to you. I'm assuming that you're a little bit younger than I am. You still have most of your hair and it's all dark, right?
[00:28:38] Sam Kwak
So you never know. All Asians age differently. It could be 60 years old,
[00:28:41] Earl Cline
But the amazing thing to me is seeing the success of younger people. There's one in our local R club, three or four years ago, showed up at some stuff I was speaking at, learned a little bit about syndication. Has taken off with it today, probably, I think he's been doing it three and a half, four years or something like that. Probably owns, what do you think, Ben? Six, 700 units, something like that. I see younger kids all the time that have come on started and they're able to succeed. And we have some people that we've interviewed that started in 15, 20 years, you know, probably 15 years ago. And have multi-billion dollar portfolios just from.
[00:29:19]
Taking, just do exactly what you said, right? They take responsibility for it. They just say, we're gonna do a little bit better tomorrow than we did today. And it's amazing once you get past that first year or two and you have a little bit of success. That it can grow exponentially. And to me it's just a credit to the younger people that have the vision to be able to do that. Maybe it's a great country that we live in that allows people the opportunity to do that. So congratulations to you and for being young and being able to at least be crack the beginnings of the code.
[00:29:52] Sam Kwak
I appreciate your kind words. And I, and I think you're right, the country we live in, I talk to people the time from France, England, and some of the European countries and it's really interesting where that's kind of almost frown upon where like, oh, you're an entrepreneur, you're weird. Right? It's almost frown upon to be different and and you and driven in those types of places, which drives me crazy. But yeah, hopefully we will endure that spirit of entrepreneurship and ingenuity and innovation here in the United States. I can't say the same for other parts, but other parts of the country.
[00:30:21] Ben Waller
But yeah. Hey, Sam, we're loving this conversation in respect of your time. We've got some other stuff we wanna talk about. So is it okay if we switch topics? Yeah. So just a quick reminder to our listeners. On today's episode, we're talking about how you can get started in real estate investing, how to break free from your mortgage, and how to use infinite banking to grow your wealth. So Sam, I wanna talk about your second book, which is called Break Free from Your Mortgage. And I'm really interested in what you have to say about this because it's a slightly different mindset than I normally bring to the table. So tell us why should someone focus on paying down or paying off their mortgage?
[00:30:55] Sam Kwak
Yeah, so it's funny, like I said, all the real estate investing entrepreneurship stuff and this. Top. It kind of feels like the antithesis of that, right? Feels opposite, but I actually, I can hold the two. What appears to be a contrary in the same mind. My argument for this is that when it comes to paying off your mortgage faster, and I know immediately some people are like, oh, that sounds like a foolish idea. Why would you ever pay off your mortgage? Right? Obviously the argument I hear all the time is, Sam, why not? Take the money, you would, you know, pay off your mortgage and put it in the markets instead. Or why not focus on investing more or let inflation erode away the interest cost over time in, in the span of 30 years.
[00:31:28]
I get this all the time, you know, I have conversations with financial advisors about this. My answer is pretty simple. I, I have a different answer for investment properties with investment property. If you have a performing debt, great. Keep it. Whatever. Right. If you take on 20 million debt, that gives you 20, 30% return on cash and cash rate, that's awesome. That's rocket, right? So I'm, I'm not necessarily like Dave Ramsey, where like you have to buy everything on cash. You cannot put a single dollar in your credit card. I don't necessarily believe in that, but the argument I make for, if you're a home owner, you have your own primary residence, I mean the camp of you need to pay off your primary residence as soon as possible.
[00:32:01]
One main reason is, A couple things that are shifting, and I think we're kind of, it's almost like thinking arrears. So over the last 30 years, a lot has shifted in these socioeconomic changes and, and different behaviors. So if you look at a 30 year mortgage, really any 30 year mortgage, let's say at a 5% fixed rate, interest rate, right, you're likely going to pay close to about 90 to a hundred percent in what's called tip. Total interest percentage, right? So if you have a hundred thousand dollars principle pay, uh, balance mortgage, 5% fixed rate, you're gonna pay anywhere close to 90 to a hundred thousand dollars of interest in the span of, of 30 years. It's math, it's not my opinion, right? Majority of that. 90 to a hundred thousand dollars of interest you'll pay actually happens in the front end of the mortgage.
[00:32:44]
Meaning in the first five to 10 years, vast majority of your monthly payment is actually going, going towards, uh, interest. Um, check. If you don't believe me, check your mortgage amortization schedule. You'll see it. Now, the problem with that is there's two things there I can rebut. The one thing is that according to the US Census Bureau data, this is 2010, I'm still waiting for the new data. The US Census Bureau data says that the average US adult in the United States, Moves 11.2 times or 11.7 times in your lifetime. So if you extrapolate that, you know, you live to be about 80 years old, you're moving every six to seven years. So assuming you're 30 years old, you bought a home fixed rate mortgage, right? It's likely that you're going to move in the next six to seven years based straight on data. And, and that might be because you live in California, so you decided to go to Texas, you have a new job and you have to relocate to other parts of the town. Or you needed five kids, so you need to buy a new home to support your kids.
[00:33:36]
Or you're on the other end where you're 50 years old, you're empty nesters and you have to now downsize. People are more mobile than ever before. Da day and age, where you settle down for 30, 40 years, work for the, for the company, they take care of you. The pension plan n no, that's not normal anymore. I mean, it's, that's kind of long gone. So with the 30 year mortgage set up and, and the likelihood and the data backs this where you're likely to move every five to six, six years, what's happening is that each time you move and you, you relocate. You end up selling your home, closing out a mortgage, and then when you go and buy a new home, you're getting a whole new brand, whole brand new 30 year mortgage, where vast majority, once again is going back towards interest.
[00:34:15]
So you're in this perpetual cycle where every five to seven years, you're resetting your 30 year mortgage clock, having to pay interest over and over again and in perpetuity, which means you're gonna be 80 years old and you still have 20 years left to go on your mortgage. Those are actually our typical clients, is 67 year old clients that have 25 years left to go. And by the time they're gonna be done with the mortgage, I mean, truth be told, their mortgage will probably outlast them. And it's a sad thing to say, but it's true. And a lot of times my clients that are 40 and 50, they don't wanna be at 62, 65, still have 20 years left to go in their mortgage. And it's eroding away their cash flow. So I would make the argument specifically for that case scenario, for investment property, you know, it's not the case, right? Like when your tenant moves out, it's not like your mortgage had to reset, right? You keep your mortgage, you hold onto it. As long as you hold onto that property, you know, you, you're riding on the amortization cycle.
[00:35:06]
The other part of the inflation argument is, That's an argument for bond purchases and bond investments where the interest yield is linear, right? You get in same amount of interest every year. So yeah, inflation will hurt and value bond, whereas amortization with mortgage is front loaded, so inflation really doesn't help you there. Uh, the long run cuz most of the interest you've already paid up in five to 10 years. So yeah, I love like, Taking these arguments and just like hammering them down. All in all, we discovered a strategy that will allow homeowners to escape that perpetual cycle, pay it all off in as early as five to seven years. But they can still use our real estate investing framework for the, for strategy to then, as they're paying off their mortgage, but they can use other people's money, right? OPM to buy apartment buildings, real estate, you know, scale and grow. So we teach both ends, right? Defense and the offense. Defense being, hey, let's like not have you pay. The interest over and over again for the rest of your life. And offense being, let's create some cashflow for you so that you can either get rid of your job or work less, whatever you wanna do. That's ultimately our game plan. So that's the other side of what we do, is helping homeowners individuals pay off their mortgage faster.
[00:36:13] Ben Waller
So, Sam, I wrote this question down before our episode today, and since you brought up Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I'm gonna ask it anyways. Do you believe that a house that you live in is an asset or a liability?
[00:36:25] Sam Kwak
Oh, a hundred percent's a liability. I'll tell you why, because last week I spent like two grand on landscaping and I'm like, why am I doing this right? Like, this is dumb, like to make my dirt better, like, come on. But yeah, it's, it's a hundred percent could be an asset where there's a couple things you could do, like, you know, home office or renting it out or do Airbnb or a new, uh, it's, I don't think it's new, but it's a tax provision where you can rent. Your house to your business and, you know, claim it all as expense and write it all off. Right? So there's things you can deal like that. But for a general definition, no, I, it's, I, I believe it's a liability. I agree with you.
[00:36:57] Ben Waller
Sam, just to kind of summarize what you're talking about with paying off mortgages, you, you're talking about a great point to our listeners and just the public in general, that those banks are set up to. They know you're gonna move, right? So we're talking about good financial principles here, and if you're stuck in that loop, using strategies to pay off your mortgage earlier can make a lot of sense so that you're not throwing money away to interest. You could also consider, and I think you're talking about this as well, buying investments, either rental property or other type of investments to help. Paid down that mortgage and ultimately get it so that you're living passively and you don't have to worry about those expenses. So great points there, Sam. In honor of time, we're gonna switch topics again cuz Earl wants to ask you about something else. So thank you for answering those questions.
[00:37:42] Earl Cline
I actually have paid off everything. That I own, except for my house. I have a huge line of credit on my house that I use. And so I, uh, but it, but it's interesting. Years ago when I was coaching for Kiyosaki, we used to have to coach people through playing the cashflow game. Have you ever played the Cashflow game?
[00:38:00] Sam Kwak
Even today like we use that on our retreats. And what we do is we don't play the cashflow like the way it's meant to play. We, we play cashflow extreme. So we actually assign people to play a banker, to play an attorney, to play a seller. And then we actually have our students negotiate, like really like negotiate and like work with attorney to set up your llc, your operating agreement, right? Do all the things like in real life you'll do so that we're like simulating, almost like playing matrix, right? You're living in the matrix world to learn how to invest in real estate and you come out and then you're like, oh, like I can do this in real life. So we use cashflow all the time as a tool. Sometimes we'll start like. 7:00 PM and we go to like 3:00 AM in the morning. It's like, it's nuts, man.
[00:38:40] Earl Cline
My young kids used to come over, you know, Christmas, new Year's, Hey dad, let's play cashflow. We wanna play, and I could kick their butt over and over and go over again. But the secret I learned early on was that I was always the janitor. Right, because he had no expenses to do a couple of deals, and all of a sudden you're out of the rat race. And I can literally remember telling some of my first time cashflow students when I was coaching that Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you have, live on a Volkswagen bus on the beach, right? Because you have no expenses, and you'll be out of the rat race in like three weeks or something like that. No. If you're heard, you do. So I'm gonna turn it back to Ben and let's get to the, uh, final four.
[00:39:17] Ben Waller
So Sam, we're gonna do the final four. These are four questions we ask to everybody that comes on our show, the first question we wanna ask you is, what is your favorite business book?
[00:39:24] Sam Kwak
The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. That's a really good read. Thanks for sharing that.
[00:39:29] Ben Waller
The second question we wanna ask you is what brings you happiness?
[00:39:33] Sam Kwak
Dr. Ben Hardy wrote a book called The Gap and The Gain, so just thinking about the gains the last 10 years of my entrepreneurship journey. Yeah, brings me a lot of joy.
[00:39:42] Ben Waller
Thank you for sharing that. You've got a few years before you look like Earl. Tell us what your future retirement looks like.
[00:39:47] Sam Kwak
I don't know if I'm not gonna do the traditional retirement thing. I'll probably do like micro, it's gonna be more of a sabbatical, right? I'll probably take like three weeks off. Just reflect, um, travel and then come back. With a different vision or new or different vision and then start something new that's probably more likely than being done at 65, right? Because I'll probably end up dying like a month later without a vision or without any, uh, definitiveness, right? Life of definitiveness probably won't lose that.
[00:40:15] Earl Cline
So yeah, that's one of the reasons by the way, you have to learn to enjoy life while you're here, right? It's one thing to put all your money away and say for some future event, but I think you have to spend a little bit of it every once in a while on something frivolous that you enjoy.
[00:40:31] Ben Waller
The last question for you is, what do you think is the best way to give back?
[00:40:34] Sam Kwak
The best way to give back? I know the cliche answer is like, oh, you gotta donate your money and all that. Actually there's, uh, I, I'm, I'm now of the camp that sometimes that can hurt people, right? Um, giving money away could actually hurt people. I actually got the privilege to meet some leaders from some of these African countries and they're like, Hey, stop sending us money now. Actually teach us stuff, right? So I think the best way to actually help people is to equip them to be leaders, right? Teach them skills, teach them wisdom, teach 'em application, basically. Teach 'em how to fish. I think it ultimately comes back down to that. So I think great leaders, Create leaders, right? So, you know, if I can do that, you know, if I can live by that mission. I think that's how I'll define how to give back.
[00:41:12] Ben Waller
And you guys are doing good things with that, with your first deal mentor program, so that's awesome. Sam, where can our listeners find you online?
[00:41:17] Sam Kwak
Yeah, so we're big on, I check Facebook everyday messages, right? You can send me a message on LinkedIn as well. You know, obviously Sam qu my name. And then we're also on YouTube, which I like to say with YouTube you're either gonna like what we do there or you're gonna hate what we do there. So watch it and you'll go, okay, got it. And you'll understand what, what I'm trying to say there. So yeah, that means you got a good niche. Oh yeah, that's it.
[00:41:38] Earl Cline
Very cool. Hey, this is Sam. Thanks you so much for. It's taken a few minutes. We really, really appreciate your time. It's been really enjoyable spending a little bit of time with you. I am very, very impressed that you've been able to find the code, so to speak, that, uh, well on your way to, uh, financial freedom and, and it, it just shows that you don't have to be born in this country. You don't have to be born wealthy. I know it's, uh, it's not looked at as very favorable today, but you can pull yourself up by your own darn bootstraps if, as far as, and your living, uh, proof of that too. So on today's episode, we talked a little bit about, uh, your real estate investing. We talked a little bit about your coaching program. We really appreciate, uh, your sharing for that. And then a little bit about how to break free from your mortgage. And so thank you again for, uh, sharing some time with us. We really appreciate your time. To everyone out there, thanks for joining us on the, uh, Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Sam.
[00:42:34] Podcast Outro
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