Get ready for an insightful episode with Shaun Magner as he unfolds his entrance into the world of hard money lending. Explore the dynamic opportunities inherent in this business model and learn about the unexpected parallels it shares with the transformative nature of coaching. Tune in for another venture that might fund your retirement!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
About Shaun Magner
Shaun is the principal of Monument City Group, a collective of real estate investment companies based in Baltimore, MD. After becoming an accidental landlord in 2013, he found a passion for the industry. He has been a featured guest on numerous podcasts, a keynote speaker at countless industry conferences, and spent years as a coach and speaker for the nation’s top real estate investment education company.
Connect with Shaun Magner
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
Get ready for an insightful episode with Shaun Magner as he unfolds his entrance into the world of hard money lending. Explore the dynamic opportunities inherent in this business model and learn about the unexpected parallels it shares with the transformative nature of coaching. Tune in for another venture that might fund your retirement!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
About Shaun Magner
Shaun is the principal of Monument City Group, a collective of real estate investment companies based in Baltimore, MD. After becoming an accidental landlord in 2013, he found a passion for the industry. He has been a featured guest on numerous podcasts, a keynote speaker at countless industry conferences, and spent years as a coach and speaker for the nation’s top real estate investment education company.
Connect with Shaun Magner
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] Shaun Magner
Does anybody in our space like to trade time for money? The answer is going to be a hard no. We don't like trading time for money. However, in that instance, when I can sit with somebody and trade time over a zoom call or a small group over zoom call, and just give some actionable items and watch them move the boulder up the hill each week, I'm okay with trading some of my time for that.
[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] Roger Jacobsen
Hello and welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. I'm Roger Jacobson and I've got Anthony Esparza with me. Today, we're going to be interviewing Shaun Magner. How are you doing today, Shaun?
[00:00:49] Shaun Magner
Good, buddy. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you having me on today, Roger.
[00:00:53] Roger Jacobsen
I really appreciate you. We're excited to hear your story. You've got a interesting story that kind of parallels some of my construction experience and stuff like that. And now you're a hard money lender and a coach in the Maryland, Washington, DC area. Why don't you give us a little introduction?
[00:01:07] Shaun Magner
For sure. Thank you for the opportunity. So as you said, my name is Shaun Magner. I'm based out of the Baltimore, Maryland metro to kind of sum up my business. What it looks like is I run a boutique, a collective of real estate investment businesses based in Baltimore. We have a sizable rental property portfolio consisting of long-term and short-term rentals. I also have a fix and flip business. We're not currently actively running too heavily. But the predominant focus of my time is on my hard money lending business and a coaching mastermind that we've recently launched really, other than that, just an intro, just living locally here in the Baltimore, Maryland Metro down near Annapolis, Maryland with my wife and my son, I won't get too far into the, my backstory just yet. I'll wait for your questions until I get to do that. But that's kind of the canned bio intro, if you will.
[00:01:50] Anthony Esparza
Awesome, Shaun. It's great to have you on here. This is my first time meeting you. So. Looking forward to getting to know you, if you wouldn't mind, maybe to jump in and give us your story. Did you start flipping houses first and kind of how did you get to where you are now?
[00:02:05] Shaun Magner
Sure. Sure. Happy to do it, man. I love this conversation. I, and also Anthony, good to meet you as well, buddy. So kind of my story goes way back a bit. I will give you, I won't go too granular, but shortly after high school, I had no direction. Wasn't sure where I was going. Didn't have plans for college. I kind of came from a broken home and my dad didn't have the kind of capacities to steer me in the direction of college. So. When I got out of high school, all of a sudden, my friends were heading off to school and I don't know what the hell I was going to do. And so like a lot of people, I heard there was money in the trades. And so I started pushing rooms around job sites and swinging hammers, learned that I had a great interest in the trades. And my family has a background in there as well. So I decided to get a formal education from a trade school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. And after that, I graduated with an associates of applied science and majoring in carpentry. That's the extent of my formal education. People often don't believe that that's a real thing.
[00:02:51]
In fact, it is. Today, I actually sponsored and out scholarship back at the school, putting students through the program, but I've got a lot of love for the trades, but anyhow, so I got out of the trade school pushed, uh, swung hammers for a few years with some different remodeling and new home construction builders, remodeling contractors in the central Pennsylvania area. I got to know one of their building material sales people that would come to our job sites and guy that worked for hello windows and doors. It's a brand. A lot of you are probably familiar with and got to know him. He took a promotion at his job and said, hey, you should consider interviewing for this and to kind of leave the field. Right? I've been swinging hammers. I really enjoyed it. But I remember there was a time I sat down on a job site. It's a smoking hot day. I sat down on a job site for lunch with a couple of my coworkers and one of them was this old guy named Ray. Ray was probably in his mid-seventies at the time and this old man was wearing knee pads if we were hanging siding it didn't matter he had knee pads on he ached when he sat down he ached when he stood up and I remember just looking at him and thinking man that can't be my story right that can't be me I can't be 70 years old sitting on this job site so I decided to take a chance on myself when my friend from the building material space kind of approached me and so I interviewed I got the job.
[00:03:59]
I work for about seven years for windows and doors and my time there was in retail sales. So I'd go into people's homes to sell them window and door replacement packages, but that big company, they poured into their salespeople. So they really brought in like high heavy hitters from the outside to train their sales force. And I use that sales training, a lot of that stuff to this day still in fact. Um, I, I did really well there and I ended up kind of bouncing to a couple of different companies when sales leadership and middle management and leadership roles came available over the years. And by doing all of that, leaving the field to the first sales and sales management, it allowed for both some financial and time freedom, a little more flexibility than I had before. And that allowed me to entertain things outside of my job. And real estate investing was always something I had an interest in. This is going back a few years when the flip this house or flip these houses or whatever, the HDTV shows were pretty big. And of course I had a real interest in that. I didn't know how to connect the dots though.
[00:04:57]
And so I responded to a commercial on the radio for a coaching mastermind for real estate investing. And so I responded to it. I joined this mastermind. And I got cracking and that was in 2015 is when I joined that coaching mastermind. And kind of the rest is history. I started flipping houses, started doing some wholesaling and flipping houses. Eventually got me to where I am here today with the coaching and hard money business. So I know I've probably skipped over quite a few things in there, but any questions on that? It looks like you both have a couple of thoughts.
[00:05:28] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, we talked about that a little bit and definitely was a good coaching program in the end for you What did you start with did you do a flip first?
[00:05:37] Shaun Magner
Good question. Yeah, I did. So I joined wanting to flip houses. I also came with some money from my retirement accounts that I in a way liquidated. So I didn't have to start by the grind of wholesaling. Right? So I started by wanting to flip and I did. I started flip, but I put my first flip under contract in November of 2016. And in January of 16, I met a new mentor who introduced me to the BRRRR strategy, right? Buy, renovate, rent, refinance and repeat. I'd never heard of that. I thought I was going to flip a whole bunch of houses, have enough money for a down payment, get some bank funding for the balance and go buy rentals that way. I'd never even heard of burr. And so when he introduced me to that concept, I just went hard. So fast forward to June of 16 and I sold that flip for 21, 315. I'll never forget it. But more importantly, I had five rentals under renovation at the time. So, and then you fast forward to October. So in the first year, I had now had 18 rental units under contract and under management that I owned and was kind of off to the races. So yes, I did start with flipping, but quickly got away from flipping and got right into rental acquisition. And to this day, I've done far more rental acquisitions and deals than I, uh, than I have flips.
[00:06:49] Roger Jacobsen
That's really cool. Just a technical question, but when you left that was your retirement funds that you use, correct?
[00:06:56] Shaun Magner
It is. That's correct. It was.
[00:06:56] Roger Jacobsen
And did you take a loan out from your 401k or did you convert it to a self-directed or how did you do that?
[00:07:03] Shaun Magner
The latter I converted all my retirement accounts. I had some 401k money than older companies and previous companies. I rolled them into a Roth IRA with the custodian that offers self-directed products. And so everything got converted into self-directed Roth IRAs.
[00:07:18] Roger Jacobsen
That's really cool. That's something we're trying to teach people. And you did it long time before our podcast. So, bravo!
[00:07:25] Shaun Magner
Learning about self-directed IRAs and of course, for those that don't know, I mean, not every custodian offers self-directed products depends on the, you need to work with the right custodians, but I had a great stockbroker that I was working with. I wasn't buying individual stocks. I had some of my own personal money, put it into 401ks with my companies and up to the match. And then anything excess, I was paying a broker for just to build out a mutual fund portfolio for myself and I was young, so I was aggressive, but I didn't know what I was doing right. I had no idea what stocks I even own. I didn't fully understand it, but I understood building. I understood a tangible asset, a hard asset and how to operate. One of those made simple sense to me. It's kind of common sense. So. I kind of went all in and took the control back. And to this day, I mean, I married, my wife has a stock portfolio, but otherwise it weren't for that. I don't own a single stock. Everything I'm in is real estate and cash and we can get into that then. But yeah, I decided to roll into a self-directed so that I could have some kind of checkbook control.
[00:08:19] Roger Jacobsen
Very cool. And now you're how many doors of short and long term?
[00:08:24] Shaun Magner
We're nearing 50. We're in the forties. That's awesome.
[00:08:27] Anthony Esparza
So Shaun, you mentioned you started in 2015 is when you did your first wholesale bill Shortly after that you got into short term rental, was it a slow process to get your first, second, third rental? And then it kind of just started adding up when you found the strategy and formula, or did you have to take some losses and take some hits here and there till you finally perfected it?
[00:08:52] Shaun Magner
Good question. A couple of things there. So my first deal wasn't a wholesale, it was a flip. And then it was long-term rental acquisition. I only got into short term like last couple of years, but great question though. I like it. So. Have I taken losses? Yes, but right out of the gates, I didn't. The reason for that is I found myself a solid mentor, somebody that helped me cut the line.
[00:09:08]
They were my cheat code and anybody listening, I highly advise a mentor. I've got a friend who's kind of skeptical about mentors. What's in it for them? Like, buddy, it's not about income. It's about impact. So first of all, I did join that coaching mentorship. So I had some education in the real estate investing space. But then I met a local person who owned a lot more doors than I do and introduced me to some concepts and kind of put his arm around me and kept me safe. Right. So didn't take losses right out of the gate. So what I did is I met with this local mentor on about 120 doors and he kind of introduced me to the bird concept, like I said, and he and I spent a lot of time together. We were inseparable for a couple of years and he introduced me to some of his team members, right? Some of his resources. So I'd go looking at houses with some of them and some are agents, some are contractors. And listening to them explain things and answer my questions helped me to avoid taking those losses and on the rental space initially, at least this is back 2015 2016.
[00:09:59]
I was buying doors in baltimore city for 30 to 50 grand dropping 30 to 50 grand into them being worth 150, 000. And they cashflow five, 600 a month. And so it was kind of difficult to take a loss in that type of a strategy, right? Because I just wasn't super aggressive. I said, I bought 18 doors my first year, but 10 of those were from a seller financed rental property portfolio that I acquired from a guy. So I didn't take losses right out of the gate. No, I've definitely taken losses more. So on the flip side than anything, but on the rentals, I mean, as long as you hold onto them, it's harder to lose, right? But so that's really how I avoided some of those lessons early on was I attached myself to some great mentors that kind of kept me safe. And super cool. It's like, Roger, he's my mentor right there. So definitely know what you're talking about. On your first couple of flips, you did, did you do the work you mentioned you were into the trades or did you just sub it out? I subbed it all out. I definitely subbed it all out. By that point, my calloused hands had gotten soft again, right?
[00:10:55]
Cause I was in sales for so many years. So I wasn't swinging hammers and getting in my own way. Plus, and I coach people in doing this, even in my men, my Matt, my hard money business, when I talked to Barber clients. To self manage a project is one thing to swing hammers on your own project to man, you're just getting in your own way. You're going to delay your goals for sure. I understand that if you buy a lean deal and you've got some time, it makes sense to do on the surface, but if you dig into it, it never makes sense to do. It never makes sense to be on your own job site, pushing rooms and swinging hammers unless you're bored and you want to stop by, right? But in my experience, it just never makes sense to do these yourself. So I subbed everything out. I hired general contractors. I've done a couple where I acted as a general and I hired each individual sub. And even then I got in my own way because those subs didn't prioritize me. I wasn't feeding them regularly.
[00:11:44]
I was feeding them on that one deal. And so, They didn't have any loyalty to me. And so hiring a general contractor has just been the ticket for me. Plus they get things done so much quicker. They know the way around if there's local burn, you know, permit issues and local municipalities, they know them very well, better than I do. So no, I didn't do any of the construction or not once actually.
[00:12:04] Roger Jacobsen
So now in your hard money business, how big is that? How many loans do you have out at the same time?
[00:12:09] Shaun Magner
We're boutique in size. We keep anywhere from about 20 to 30 loans outstanding at any given time. We'll probably do about 50 loans a year, somewhere in that range.
[00:12:17] Roger Jacobsen
That's cool. How do you run those as far as protecting yourself, making sure it's a good deal and making sure that they're performing?
[00:12:23] Shaun Magner
Great question. Uh, to answer the latter, to make sure that we're performing that I stay on top of, we don't defer interest payments to pay off. We collect payments along the way. I do all of our draw inspections personally, still, that'll probably eventually evolve into something different, but I do all of our draw inspections so we can make sure the project is moving along. But on the front side, I'm pretty conservative in our underwriting, basically all of Maryland, predominantly in Central Maryland, which is where Baltimore, Annapolis, D.C. is, and then Southern Pennsylvania where I have some ties. And so I say that specifically because it helps me keep things safe, right? I know this market very well. All of my own resources are here. All of my own personal experience has been here. And so for that, those reasons I can keep us all safe. But when it comes to conservative underwriting, I mean, if you underwrite a deal, a deals, a deals, a deal, you can underwrite a deal anywhere.
[00:13:11]
If you use some of the standard rules of thumb, distance, size, square footage, bed, bath count. If you keep things similar, it's pretty easy to run comparables. But in a place like Baltimore, every location has its nuances. Baltimore is widely known for being block by block, right? So a comp from a half a mile away doesn't cut it, right? And so you've got to know those things. I'm sure the same is the case in your own home markets, at least in the metro versus out in the suburbs or more rural areas. So how do I keep things safe? If you know anything about borrowing hard money, the most important number to a hard money lender is ARV. Right? Because that's what our loan amount is based on. It's not a matter of this borrower X qualifies for a million dollar loan because their credentials say so. It's all about the collateral. We're asset based collateral based lenders. And so it always comes down to ARV. Our loan amount is a relative percentage of ARV.
[00:13:59]
So, and you've probably heard these before, but 65 percent loan to value 65 LTV. What does that mean? That means if a borrower says, Shaun, I have a house, that's going to be worth 200, 000 when it's all said and done, when we renovate it, ARV is 200 K. I know right away, the max loan I'm going to give is about one 35, right? Because that's 65 percent of 200, 000. Why is that the case? That 35 percent spread is what keeps us safe. It's what keeps my capital safe. My investors capital safe. My borrower safe. And so when I underwrite to kind of speak directly to your question, Roger, that's how I keep us safe. When I underwrite these things to 65 LTV on the front side. So when I fund I'm funding around 65 owned value, I track also the backside payoff. So if it's a flip, I attract the sell price. If it's a rental, I track the appraisal value and I compare that to where I underwrote it initially. And we're always trending behind that. Our actual LTV is closer to 60, 58 to 60 percent LTV, which means that we're very, very safe. I track that very specifically because I don't change my underwriting guidelines. So if I start to see that 60 creep up to 62, 64, 65. I know the market's changing. That's a metric that helps me keep my finger on the pulse because I don't change my guidelines. I don't change how I underwrite a deal. So that's how I keep things safe.
[00:15:13] Roger Jacobsen
Nice. Very cool. And to explain that to our listeners, if you were to have to foreclose, it's basically like buying a deal at 65%. So if you had to buy a house at a hundred percent, very risky, if you can take it back 65%, it's at a discount. Very safe. I love the strategy.
[00:15:30] Shaun Magner
Yeah. And the other thing is, if I have to take back a house, there's legal fees involved. Granted, I mean, somebody's gotta pay for that. That's where that cushion comes in. Mm-Hmm. by if the, if it's close to the finish line and I need to send my own resources in to get it finished or to contact an a, somebody to sell it, whether it's an auction company or an agency. There's a cushion there. There's a spread there. That's going to keep me from from taking a loss hopefully on having to kind of do a take back or a workout of some sort.
[00:00:00] Anthony Esparza
And have you ever had a foreclosure or a deal that falls apart and you do need to take it back or have you all because of your conservative?
[00:16:06] Shaun Magner
No, I haven't had to take one back. I've had a couple that have gone long and borrowers stopped paying. They've gone, we're a six-month loan and I can get into the granulars of what our loan products looks like, if you'd like, but we are a six month loan and I've had a couple of borrowers go beyond a year. One of them stopped paying halfway through that one.
[00:16:21]
I thought was going to potentially, I was going to have to do something forbearance, deed in lieu of foreclosure. Something didn't have to, but dodged a bullet with that one. But no, I've not had to yet. Awesome. And what was the tick that made you get into hard money lending? Was it, you know, just doing your own flips and that kind of sparked the interest? That's a good question. So, I find that most hard money lenders come from one of two backgrounds, at least locally in my market. They either come from a mortgage banking background or success in the remodeling, the flipping space. I come from that ladder, but what happened with me is back in 2020, 2021, I went through and refinanced a lot of my portfolio, probably half of the portfolio I refinanced. And if you know where interest rates were back then, they were very favorable. I was able to cash out a few hundred thousand dollars instead of just self funding some of my deals or starting a new business. Well, I did start a new business, but instead of like getting out of what I had been doing or switching things up or doing it differently, I decided.
[00:17:13]
I have a picture of a whiteboard. It was pretty cool. I've got a whole list of everybody I sat down with and talk to and all the strategies that we talked about. I wanted to be a good steward of that money, right? I was getting married. We were expecting a kid. I had different considerations to make as I was going to come into that cash. And so I sat down with a lot of people in the two people that seemed to resonate the most with me as far as personality-wise, that I was friendliest with, uh, that were tight with me. I was very close to. They were both said most of their money's in hard money. So I started exploring that model, learning more about it. Of course, I'd used hard money from a borrower side, but I hadn't really gone deep on the operational side of a hard money business. And when I did, I quickly learned that I really liked that model. I liked the model a lot. Also, something I skipped over is pre-COVID I was traveling around the country, speaking for and coaching for at the time, the nation's largest real estate investment education company.
[00:18:03]
And I'd had the opportunity to speak on stages and I'd say something to the crowd and I'd see someone in the front rows eyes light up. I don't know what it was that I said, but I just connected a dot for them, right? They found the nugget they came there looking for, and I don't know what it was specifically, but I loved that that was powerful. I knew I was making an impact. Well, hard money allowed me to do that again, too. I can now sit across the table from a borrower, have a conversation with them, and keep them safe, connect some dots, provide a resource other than just money, leverage some of my experience and my resume to help them. And so it was really helpful in that way, too. So not only did I like the model from a dollars and cents standpoint, but I also really liked the kind of impact that I could have outside of just making money. So. That's how I got into hard money. I just like the model. I really do. I like the model a lot. I like raising capital. I like deploying capital responsibly.
[00:18:50]
And I also like that it's quite a bit more passive from a day-to-day operational standpoint than flipping houses. Really cool. I think it seems like a good fit, especially with your background and experiences with your real estate investing. So that'd be really cool to get into one day. Personally, you think I would like to do something like that. I enjoy it. I enjoy it a lot. I really do. A lot of reasons, but it's just a great model. It's a great business.
[00:19:12] Roger Jacobsen
So in May, we met at Bridger Pennington's Fund Launch Live. Have you started a fund? Do you plan on starting a fund?
[00:19:22] Shaun Magner
I have not. Um, I went down there with a good buddy of mine because he and I were considering starting a fund. He got into the multifamily syndication space. I stayed residential, but what got me interested in attending that specific event was private equity. I have a great interest in buying businesses. I haven't done it yet, but I plan to, and I thought starting a private equity fund would be of an interest to me and learning more about that. So when I went down there, that's kind of what I had in mind. I haven't started a fund yet. I know some folks in my space with hard money started debt funds. We haven't, we just have capital investors that we co-invest with, co-lend with, but no, I've not started a fund, but I plan to down the line, likely when I move. Over into the private equity space, but that's a few years away. Yeah. Private equity has got me really interested. I don't know if you guys know much about buying businesses, but that's something that's got a real interest to me for sure. I mean, a lot of reasons there as well, but I mean, I'm not there yet. I'm still in the residential real estate space, building out my business and systematizing it and automating it, but. I don't think I'll leave it anytime soon. I really enjoy what I'm doing, but I just like building things, right? I like building these businesses. And so to step into an existing business, that's ready to grow, failing business that needs realigned or just growing a business from scratch. I just really enjoy it. It's a lot of fun.
[00:20:31] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah. I love the model that it's taking a business and fixing its problems. And one of the things that we get held back on residential is whatever you do, it's just going to be based on selling it with a comp that will hold it down. When you take a business, you can actually capitalize on the net operating income and that, you know, the sky's the limit. The syndication model is a cookie-cutter version of that where you can take a business that's 50 unit multifamily, and you know, pretty much with a grain of salt that you're going to sell it for an exact amount. You can say this is what it will sell for. This is what the market rents are. This is what we can decrease expenses to. And this is what we can increase net operating income into. And it's very cut and dry, very easy to figure out. But with the business, you can really capitalize on a lot more people and spaces and sales.
[00:21:26] Shaun Magner
You know, what I found interesting about the business, I was approached by a young guy who I responded to something online and one of their sales guys, I guess it was called me up. We had a really good conversation and this guy bought into businesses by adding value, not dollars. And I thought, well, how tell me more. So this guy, this is pretty incredible. When I talked to him, he was down in Costa Rica. I think it was 22 or maybe 23. His goal that year was to spend a month in different countries like, all right, that sounds pretty cool. He was a young guy, so he'd get away with that. And he's good at building sales funnels, online sales funnels. He was pretty proficient at it. And he approached the kind of battle test and proof of concept to gain some proof of concept. He approached a few local real estate teams in his market. He was out of the Philadelphia area and he approached a few of these teams and said, Hey, if I can double.
[00:22:10]
Your lead flow or double your revenue dollars in X period of time. Will you pay me X dollars? Just a flat fee, just for kind of a consulting type of a thing. And he did that a couple of times successfully. So then he approached the general contractor when he was ready to go, when he was ready to actually put this into this proof and concept into action, he said, Hey, Mr. General contractor, you've got a few trucks on the road. You're doing very well. If I can increase your revenue by X. Would you give me a 30 percent equity position in the business? I used to like, I think it was going to double the business. You give me, if I can increase or even 50%, I can increase your business by 50 to a hundred percent. Will you give me a 30 percent equity position in the company? He said, sure. Over a period of time, I think it was 90 days or six months, something like that. And a few months in the guy called him up and said, Hey, let's sign you on, man. You're crushing. You're keeping our sales guys busy. They put sales funnels into place and he works with those sales guys to convert. These leads into sales he just beefed up their marketing and beefed up their sales closing rates and ratios and he was telling me that he takes a seventeen to twenty one thousand dollar monthly on average monthly ownership distribution from that business. Okay man that's exciting so good for him and then you had like you said about you can rinse and repeat that that's one company he approached.
[00:23:23]
Now, I don't know if this part was true, but he says he spends about four to six hours a week improving and tweaking their funnels and working with their salespeople to keep that going. But when he was brought on, he was brought on as like, you know, sales manager or whatever his title was. But man, that was pretty cool. So you can certainly buy into these things or you can add value to kind of come into these businesses. So there's a lot of different ways to do it in private equity. Please don't be confused. I'm not an expert in the space yet. It's just one that I have really a great interest in soon to be an expert. Hopefully, likely. Yeah, I get tunnel vision, so I will go deep on this when the time is right.
[00:23:55] Anthony Esparza
Nice. Talk about coaching.
[00:23:58] Shaun Magner
Sure, so the coaching started kind of like I said earlier when I was traveling on the country speaking for and coaching for. This big company, I was able to make an impact. It wasn't about the money necessarily. It was about making that impact and helping people connect dots. And that kind of went away when the pandemic kit and you weren't allowed to fill rooms with people and talk, right? So that went away. It kind of came back in the hard money space. But then I had countless conversations over the last two years with people asking if I offered any coaching.
[00:24:25]
And I have people come here. I've got a big whiteboard on the wall to my right. And I actually just got a text over the weekend from a good buddy of mine. He runs a successful business. And he asked me if we could get together and whiteboard, cause it's kind of my thing, right? Can I come over to Shaun's place and do some whiteboarding? Because I like to kind of reverse engineer and deconstruct people's problems and help them connect the dots. Backwards right and so the coaching came to be because I wanted to kind of get back to making that impact. I have some good revenue-producing cash flow-producing businesses so it's not just about the income of course I charge for coaching because I need the students to have motivation and skin in the game and reason to show up and take action but really was just about, I wanted to get back to it. I really enjoyed making an impact and also I read a book last year and I know Roger, you're going to ask this question. I'll save this to the end, but one of the books that I read had this concept about always measure backwards A and B and connecting dots backwards.
[00:25:14]
How you can't do it forward. You can only connect the backwards. And so that hit me. What allowed me to have any level of success in this space was I aligned myself with people that have gone before me and I've listened to them and I've been coachable and I've taken action based on what they've taught me. Wouldn't it be nice to turn around and reach back and pull somebody up the ladder with me? And so that's really where it came from. It's just about making an impact and helping others really, but honestly, that's the real reason I got back into coaching.
[00:25:40] Anthony Esparza
Nice. That's a feel-good position to be in. I think that's really cool.
[00:25:43] Shaun Magner
Yeah, it really is. I mean, does anybody in our space like to trade time for money? The answer is going to be a hard, no, look where Roger is right now, right? Like you guys see a cabana above his head. We don't like trading time for money. However, in that instance, when I can sit with somebody. And trade time over a zoom call or small group over zoom call and just give some actionable items and watch them move the boulder up the hill each week. I'm okay with trading some of my time for that, right? Because it's a good use of my time.
[00:26:07] Roger Jacobsen
The magnification is really incredible. Like if I talk to one person, they may or may not take it. They may or may not use it. It may help them a lot. But if I speak on stage or a podcast or the large zoom call or whatever, I can take my words and rather than saying one word that does one thing, it can be one word that helps a hundred people or 1, 500 people are really getting close to a hundred thousand downloads right now. And it's like, wow, I'm helping people that are in like Asia, Africa, all over the United States. That's like, if I can help that many people. Why would I get down to the nitty gritty and just give away one piece of advice and then pocket it into a can and never expose it to the rest of the world.
[00:26:57] Shaun Magner
I agree with you. I mean, I've had so many one off conversations. But I've left the lunch meeting thinking, wow, if I could have bottled that up and stuck it on a podcast for a greater audience, more than just the guy that bought me the burger would have gained some value, right? So yeah, you're right. I mean, there is something to be said about that and that's a good way to look at it. I mean, the coaching is very much that it allows me to help more than just one at any given time. And a lot of these things that we do are recorded so people can refer back to them so that what I say today may not impact them as much as it might in six or 12 months when their business and themselves are in a different place. So you can refer back to that and think, Oh my gosh, that's what he meant. Right? Like that stuff is powerful.
[00:27:36] Anthony Esparza
Coaching's huge. I like to think Roger's my coach, but I hardly pay him anything.
[00:27:43] Shaun Magner
Coaches just help you cut the line, man. I call us cheat codes. We help you cut the line. Right? Learn from our mistakes. I've certainly made some of them and I've done some things to avoid them. And I'd love to be able to help others to do the same. Absolutely. Trading time for money is something to get back to. And I know the podcasts focus on retiring wealthy in that trading time for money is an important thing in all of our entrepreneurial space. We don't like to do it. I ran a wholesaling business for a time and we still have some outbound marketing going on, but that was the house hustle. I don't know if a lot of your audience is real estate specific or not. And if they are, if they're residentially real estate specific or not, but The quicker you can get away from wholesaling and start doing some flipping and move from flipping to buying rentals with each one of those plateau jumps in my opinion comes a greater level of time freedom and that time freedom allows you to turn around and have a greater impact on whatever it is you want to do, whether it's at home or with your family or building a coaching business or a new business that allows you to give value some other way. So I think something to harp on there and I'm just bringing this up because it's something to talk about is trading time for money. And Focusing on getting away from that sooner than later, you know, there's something that I see a lot of young entrepreneurs do is shooting with a shotgun. There's a couple of analogies I would like to use.
[00:28:52]
So shoot with a shotgun. If I were to go on an elephant hunt or a gorilla hunt, which I never advocate for, you should never kill either of those animals. But if you go on and on a hunt for one of those big animals. You're probably not going to bring a shotgun. You're probably going to bring a rifle. Well, why is that? Because you're going to take down bigger gain. You need to have more localized focused energy, right? If I want to break through that wall behind me and I walk up to and start pushing, nothing's going to happen. If I start swinging my fist, I might get through. If I walk up there with a hammer or a chisel, it's drywall. I'm going to be through that in no time, right? Because I have concentrated focused energy. And so I understand in the beginning, a lot of new investors and a lot of new entrepreneurs, they have to shoot with the shotgun. They're doing everything. They're wearing all the hats. But the sooner you can get away from that, wearing all the hats, the better, the bigger impact you can have, the bigger deals you can take down.
[00:29:37]
You asked me earlier, Anthony, about was I on the job sites doing the work? And the answer was no. And I advocate for that tremendously. I understand in the beginning why some might think they need to or why they actually might need to in some cases. But the sooner you can get away from that and hire a general contractor, you free your time up to go do the other thing that you're best at. The better. So I say it all the time. The sooner you can sit down the shotgun and pick up the rifle, the better. So anyway, that was just a thought that I had that I thought I'd share.
[00:30:04] Anthony Esparza
I like that one a lot. I think I've had some personal moments in my life where I realized, yeah, you don't really need to go work 40 hours a week to make money. And I think that's where my kind of entrepreneur side kind of started. Still trying to not give too much time and make some money, but I'm still in the shotgun phase. I'd like to think.
[00:30:24] Shaun Magner
But just be focused on getting out of it and you will. Yeah. So super cool. I like those analogies really good. I used to use one when I was with my coaching students. I used to use this bridge as financial freedom Island analogy, which I think is a cool one. I'm talking about these silly analogies. Why not? So financial freedom Island is where we're all trying to get to, right? When I was with these coaching students, we're all trying to build a bridge over to Financial Freedom Island. And you start building your bridge and your bridge looks like a fix-and-flip business. You look off in the distance and you see Roger over there building this multifamily businesses, multifamily bridge. You think, wow, he's having some success doing that. Maybe I should do that instead. So you go over there and start building a new bridge. It looks like multifamily. You look off in the distance. You see Anthony building this rental property portfolio, single family rental property portfolio and think, wow, he's having success doing that. Maybe I should do that or a wholesaling bridge. All of a sudden you look back in a year or 2 or 3 has passed. And you've got a few bridges that are partially built that don't lead to anywhere, right? That's not where we want to be. Do one thing, go a mile deep on one thing, and then you can diversify. I don't know if you guys know Alex Ramosi, if you follow Alex Ramosi, I'm sure you both do. He has a great video and he shares this.
[00:31:26]
And it's an analogy that I use a lot too. So when I saw this video, I thought, man, that's exactly right. You get rich doing one thing and then you diversify your money and multiple things. But if you want to go an inch deep on a hundred things. Hey, you're not gonna have any personal fulfillment and be you're not gonna have the riches you'd like to have you go deep on one a mile deep on one will produce greater results than an inch deep on a hundred there's just no way around it and so I get it in the beginning and I also understand that depending on who's listening I mean I understand how the heck you get out of the rat race the 40 hour a week rat race trading your time for money but that's where mentorship comes from that's where reading books comes from a lot of my mentors are in these books behind me and in the library in the other room I mean you A lot of my mentors, I've never met. A lot of them are dead. In fact, right. You can learn from these folks and they help you connect those dots to get out off the hamster wheel.
[00:32:12] Anthony Esparza
I like that. It's a good analogy. All right. We're in the final four. First question. What is your favorite book?
[00:32:19] Shaun Magner
Ooh, I mean, I guess I have to go with Old Faithful on the, on the shelf behind me. As far as my favorite book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, famous book. That book has changed a lot of people's lives. It produced for me. It generated the biggest. Paradigm shift that I've ever experienced in looking at life and business and finances teaches the differences between assets and liabilities and being in a self employed person versus a business owner and an investor and all of that. That book was a big one for me. I've gifted that book more than any book. So I'd probably say that book is my favorite. I've got a few favorites. I'll go with that one for now.
[00:32:53] Anthony Esparza
Nice, I like that book. Also kind of like you said, a big paradigm shift for you. The way I looked at money after I read that book was like night and day.
[00:33:01] Shaun Magner
I came from a broken home. My dad was, he was working at Kellogg's, the cereal maker, just trading time for money in a factory floor where he would literally have a time clock and he had to punch in and punch out. And I wasn't taught lessons like Robert's Rich Dad. I was taught lessons like Robert's Poor Dad. I love my father more than any person alive. I respect him more than any person alive. But in the context of that book, my own biological dad is my poor dad. And so when I read that, I thought, wow, okay, I really need the power of mentorship really started sinking in back then that book is just very powerful. Anybody that hasn't read it, it's not real estate specific, but that book was a paradigm shift in a big way for me.
[00:33:45] Anthony Esparza
A must-read for sure. Question number two, what brings you happiness?
[00:33:39] Shaun Magner
The great question, you know, the progress brings me happiness and my family brings me happiness. You know, I'm at a juncture in my life now. I have a toddler at home. I'm married with a son at home. And so different things bring me happiness today. Right? My child, my family that tremendously. So. I feel that the control from my work, building something brings me happiness, watching progress being made and something that I'm building and watching the vision come to life brings me happiness, but also raising my family. I know it's kind of a cliche thing to say, but I don't know if you guys are fathers, but when that little kid looks up at me and says something that just makes me melt, man, brings me to my knees. Nothing can compare to it. Absolutely. Nothing can compare to it. Spending time with my own father. That brings me a tremendous amount of happiness. He's been my ride or die. He's never left my side. Like I said, I came from a broken home. So he's been the one consistent in my life forever. So he brings me a tremendous amount of happiness. And the time freedom and financial freedom that my businesses have provided allows us to go to a weekly diner every week together and spend some of those quality time together. So that's the type of stuff that brings me happiness. Yeah, I think that's probably the best way to answer that one.
[00:34:39] Anthony Esparza
Love that answer. I know Roger's a father. I am soon to be. I guess I'm a father to my dog. I just got a puppy. That's a lot of work. I've been there too. Yeah, it's definitely a lot of work, but that brings us to our third question. I know you probably already touched on this earlier in the podcast, but question number three is what is your favorite way to give back?
[00:35:00] Shaun Magner
That's a good one. My favorite way to give back is certainly by reaching back and helping others connect the dots specifically. And I think what you're referring to is I started a scholarship in my family name at my alma mater trade school in the town that I grew up in or the area that I grew up in Pennsylvania. I feel strongly about the building trades. I do. And so for me to be able to start a scholarship at a place that I graduated from when I was in a place at the time that. I thought I'd be shooting with a shotgun forever. And now I can come back and start a scholarship there. It's just really gives me a lot of fulfillment and also helping newer entrepreneurs just connect dots, whether that's in a paid coaching program, speaking at my alma mater, where I have that scholarship or even teaching my son, some things he's too young right now to take on a business lessons, but that'll be one to come. But really, I guess the answer is just reaching back. You know, I read a book that called The Gap In The Gain. I don't know if anybody has heard of that book, but The Gap In The Gain Roger, you're smiling. Sounds like, you know, the book.
[00:35:52] Roger Jacobsen
We talked about it before, so I do have some inside information.
[00:35:54] Shaun Magner
So The Gap and the Gain, that was the second book that I was going to mention earlier, Rich Dad Poor Dad versus The Gap and the Gain. Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, they wrote a trilogy of three books and great ones. But this Gap and the Gain, I think hit me at the right time. And I read it last year. By the time I was done with the introduction to the book, I had already ranked it up there next to Rich Dad Poor Dad as far as paradigm shifts. Again, I think it's because of where I am in my life when I read it. But a few things that hit me was this. AMB always measure backwards the subtitle of the book is something like successful people's guide to happiness and something or other the gap is where we tend to be stuck where we're looking at where we are versus the horizon where we'd rather be which we know is a horizon it's ever moving by the time you get there it's gonna have already moved on to something different and so you get stuck there wanting more constantly and that keeps us unhappy if you can use this tool always measure backwards to step out of the gap and into the game when you look backwards and you look at the progress made from the starting point where you are today.
[00:36:46]
You can get some happiness from that. You can gain some fulfillment from that and get it out of that gap mindset. That book also talks about connecting dots backwards. You cannot connect dots forward. You've never done it, but you can reach backwards and connect dots. And so that hit me at the right time, probably, but that concept, always measure backwards and connecting dots for others has really resonated with me. So that's how I give back to help others connect the dots that they can't see yet.
[00:37:10] Anthony Esparza
I love that. What was that book called again? The Gap and the Gain. The Gap and the Gain. Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. Nice. Great book. Awesome. And question number four, what does your future retirement look like and do you have a future retirement?
[00:37:27] Shaun Magner
I like the second part of that question i thought about that question coming into today guys and I gotta say there was a time that I thought I would likely retire at 60 and travel I think when I retire I'll be pushed out I'll be forced out I think that I love what I do so much and I like building and growing and also if you know much about. What brings just human happiness it's not in the achievements in the progress towards the achievement right as a ton of studies that show these olympians on podiums falling into deep depressions afterwards because they were happiest leading up to making progress toward the goal and then when they got there they had nothing left to go for right to fight for so. Retirement for me is kind of a fluid thing. I think I have ideas of what I'd like for it to be, but that really depends on what happens between now and then. So what does that mean? I'd like a few homes and locations that my wife and I would like to travel to. I'd like to spend my time bouncing between those places, but I'm kind of a homebody. So I'd kind of like to be home. My closest mentor now is 73 years old and still working five days a week and he loves it. And I think we're wired very similarly, so I don't know that I'll ever quit working, but there will come a time that I could choose to. I mean, I guess I could give a more hand answer of move my properties that are in LLCs into trusts, and I'll just take dividends from trusts and have whole-life policies that feed me dividend.
[00:38:38]
Like as far as retiring and kind of kicking my heels up and not working, I don't see it happening, at least not right now. There was a time though, that I said, you know what, I'm going to sell all my properties. I'm going to dump that money into an ETF, some sort of Vanguard 500 stock portfolio, just follow the S and P take my dividends, pay my bills and live a free life. But I don't know that that will ever happen. You had a lot of fulfillment from my work. And so at this point, I'm 40 years old. I think I'm still too young to look at retirement. And so what do I think retirement is going to look like, man, it's going to be fluid. I don't know yet, but I like to think that I'll just be spending a few days a week, checking in on my businesses and checking in with my team and spending the rest of the time. Having location freedom so that my wife and I can do and see the things that we want to.
[00:39:20] Anthony Esparza
Awesome answer a very puzzling question. And it seems like on this show, we get a kind of a similar answer from other different entrepreneurs. We have, that's just it. If you're interviewing entrepreneurs, man, we're not idle hands. We tend to want to be doing. So it just makes sense that you get a similar answer to that question. I guess. And it's funny, I mean, all these episodes we've done, I used to think like, man, I want to make a ton of money and then I'll be able to retire early. And then everybody has such a similar answer. I'm like, well, I guess I'm not retiring anymore. So I just got to find what I, you know, got to get in my groove and Guess that's what I'll do.
[00:39:55] Shaun Magner
It might happen. Things change, right? Your circumstances will change, but when you get in your groove, you're not going to want to get out of it. I mean, you just get a lot of fulfillment from the growth. Roger, I'm sure you feel that same way. I'm sure you get a lot of fulfillment from what you do from nine to five. You might have plans to retire at some point, but it might be a difficult thing. How about it? How about for you, Roger?
[00:40:13] Roger Jacobsen
I think that once you have the location freedom and I'm sitting here looking at the ocean from you don't really like Feel the need for retirement because you can do what you want and love it. And if you can automate it and control things from wherever you are, you don't need to, there's no, like my retirement would be to shut down a few of the techs that have blown through all we've been sitting here on this podcast recording. Yeah. Some of them were like, I don't know if I really want to deal with that particular thing today. I'm on island time and I'm like about to go out I'm gonna fly my drone above the islands I'm gonna kick my feet into the water. I'm gonna walk on the beach. I'm gonna go snorkel I'm gonna go wake my buddy up and say hey Let's get this day done because he's got a list of things to do on his project here and then let's go look at a cave or let's go Set up a scuba and it's a beautiful thing.
[00:41:14] Shaun Magner
So yeah, well, the thing I mentioned something earlier that how I interviewed all those people and had all those conversations when I cashed out a few hundred grand and decided that what I wanted to do was hard money. The 2 people that I was most similar to are both hard money lenders, and they both are in there. One's definitely 73. The other is in his late 60s, early 70s. They're regularly working. They always work, but right now they're truly travel abroad. They go on safaris for a month. The rent a villa in Italy for a month. They have a small team back home that's running day to day and if they need to check in they will the other guy that i mentioned he goes down to florida and spends three months in florida and then he's traveling to his like mountain home in west virginia regularly so these guys to your point roger they both have location freedom if they choose it and they don't have any need to quit and one guy the older guy that's 73 what he says often is.
[00:42:01]
He is biggest concern is relevancy. He wants to be relevant and it's a big thing for him. And so that's why he's just worked so hard still. And so they have the abilities. They have the financial freedom to have time freedom or the financial freedom to have the location freedom and they still choose to work really hard. Not really hard. Not like. Swinging hammers for 40 hours a week hard, but they just enjoy it so much. So yeah, I think you're right. Once you get that location, freedom thing down and you can do whatever you want from whenever you want, whenever you want, and you can still work, I feel like that's the best of both worlds. Absolutely. And I'm looking forward to my future location, freedom. Well, don't wish him time, man, because I think a lot of the joy that you'll have between now and then is in the grind and in the growth and in the progress. So don't wish away time, just enjoy it. Just enjoy the ride.
[00:42:46] Anthony Esparza
I love it. So we got through the final four, Shaun Magner. Thanks for being an awesome guest on the show. I've had an honor really getting to know you and hope we can get you back for another one sometime down the road.
[00:42:57] Shaun Magner
That'd be awesome guys. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate your having me on today and I'd love the opportunity to come back and connect again. Absolutely. Thanks so much. Alrighty guys.
[00:43:05] Roger Jacobsen
That's it for today's show, everybody. Thanks for joining us on the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. We'll see you next time.
[00:43:11] Podcast Outro
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