If You Can’t Delegate, You Can’t Scale

If your business can't survive a single Tuesday without you holding its hand, you don't own a business—you own a demanding, high-stress job.

For the longest time, my wife Pili and I were caught in the relentless active grind. We went from running high-intensity New York City nightlife bars to managing 300 active construction projects a year. We were moving fast, but we had zero control over our time. It wasn't until we stepped away from single-family houses and dove into multifamily real estate syndication that the real shift happened.

In this episode, I pull back the curtain on what it truly takes to transition from being a task-giver to a true visionary leader. I break down how we scaled our portfolio to over $200 million by learning to get out of our own way, building a "lighthouse" for our team, and replacing micromanagement with absolute empowerment.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• The Active Grind Trap: Why working harder in your business keeps you from building true, scalable leverage.
• Dictator vs. Leader: How demanding approval on every task defeats the purpose of hiring a world-class team.
• The Lighthouse Strategy: How to align your virtual and in-person teams around one single, unshakeable vision.
• The Law of Averages: Why getting 10 things done at 85% efficiency beats getting one single thing done at 100%.

Stop playing small and dictating every move. It’s time to empower your team, take your back against the wall, and scale.

Disclaimer : This episode was originally recorded on the Aww Shift Podcast with Anthony Trucks and is shared here on the Live100 Podcast to bring these powerful leadership and business growth lessons to our audience.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you're going to be a task giver at every point, it's not going to help you and help you forward. So at every point, you okay, you hire 10 people, but every single step they do, they need your approval. Because in our daily life, we get so stuck in a routine that we think if that Friday paycheck doesn't come, that everything's going to happen, right? The world's going to fall over everybody. We help them in power, teach them the steps we've done. And the most important thing with mentorship is like, yes, here's the tried and true process that works, but also here is what we haven't done, that what we've done that has not worked.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

So without further ado, I'm gonna bring to the show someone that I'm I'm sure is gonna bring value to your life, not just from a mindset perspective or a business perspective, but also a life perspective. Today's gets a little bit different in the sense of I interview a lot of people that I don't typically meet prior to our interview, right? I usually have a little thing, I'd have a little conversation, we meet them real time, but I've had two opportunities to have a we'll call it short brief conversation with this person. And what I like about this human is they're like me in in uh in some ways that I hold dear to my heart. Mostly family's a big priority, uh, success a big priority, but also like carving out time to make sure that what I say is important is actually important. Uh, and I was first uh kind of introduced to this human being by being booked to speak on his stage. And so uh it was a cool thing. I had to go to this event, had no idea who he was, and I got a chance to meet his wife and had a great conversation. And it was interesting how we had very common interests, and she's like, Yeah, sounds less like my husband. Uh and then we actually briefly met in passing on the way to a gym. Uh, I think it was like in some, I want to say Florida, I'm not sure exactly where it was at. And so, anyways, I kind of got to know what he's doing and paid attention. Then in the background, we had some connections on Instagram and now we're here chatting. But this person is an individual who's gone through the journey that I think all of us see from the outside, but don't really get to feel uh in a sense of going through like the reps, we'll call it, of getting great. He is now an individual who is uh in a very high level in the realm of multifamily properties and how to not just do it for himself, but teaching other people how to do it. Uh and him and his wife have have gone on the journey together, which is cool. Uh, and so without further ado, I'm gonna bring to the show someone that I'm I'm I'm sure is gonna bring value to your life, not just from a mindset perspective or a business perspective, but also a life perspective. So, welcome to the show, Jason Yarousty. How you doing, man?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Anthony. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah, man. I'm excited for to be here too. Uh because it's the thing, I think as we get older in life, I find that there are cool people out in the world, but I don't have a lot of time for a bunch of new friends, you know. So it's like this sometimes like the best kind of part of our world because you and I both know wife, kids, I don't have time to hop on the phone every other day and like, how's Jay going? Like, but I do love that there are great humans like yourself in the world. And so these little moments, man, they're beautiful for me. Uh but I do have a question that I always start the podcast with, and you can take wherever you want to take it, uh, and we'll see how it unfolds. So here's a question. I'm walking around town. I sit down next to you, uh, it's a Tennessee, I believe, and uh, and you turn and for some reason start talking to me. I don't know you yet. Why should I listen to you?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

You know, that's a good question, right? And maybe you shouldn't. And I I think lots of times in life is that you you have to understand what what's the best value you can get that you can really go out there to serve others and ultimately where we're at today, and when I think about myself in the space I'm at today, like if I would go talk to myself 10 years prior, right? You you get that question a lot, like what would you do? What would you say to that person who was like the younger self? And ultimately, like I wouldn't have listened at that time, right? Because it wouldn't have served me. And so maybe on that part I could have heard something. And there's always value in hearing others, right? Because whether you agree or you disagree, it might make your stronger, really your argument stronger to help you understand why you really just don't disagree with that person. But if we sat down together and talked, honestly, from us, we've come to a place where we built a lot of where we are today based on where we didn't want to be, right? We're either running to what we want or running away from what we don't want to be, right? And it wasn't a point that we didn't enjoy where we were. We were in a life where uh Peely and I met, Peely and my wife, who you had mentioned, we met working in bars, right? We were at working at bars, working very late nights, you know, two, three, five, six, seven a.m., finishing our shifts. And we just knew that that was a pace that never stops. And we had friends that were, you know, getting age, getting to where even the age I am today, that were out there doing it. And there wasn't a cutoff, there wasn't a stop. And if you want to do that life, you know, all power to you. It's fun, you get to meet a lot of people, but we knew that we had different energies, different ambitions, different places we wanted to be in life, and it wasn't including that mission. And honestly, we we we did go that route for a while. I'd open some bars, opened some restaurants, opened, sold a brewery, another restaurant, right? We had done that pace. But when Peewee and I, after working together, honestly, 10 years, we actually, it took us that long for, well, I'll say it took her that long to agree to to look at me and be a you know, and and start having a relationship with me, right? So sometimes it takes a moment. But on that front, when we did, we realized that we wanted to take a different direction of our life and we wanted to start a family. And having small kids and being able to use that space, the bar world, or when we went into construction world, all these things were not gonna fit the lifestyle we wanted. It was not gonna give us the energy, the ability, the availability to control our day and control our time. We were in a service business that we had to do to produce, right? There was no way that we could empower ourselves to really get back our time. Like if I want to take off Tuesday to go with my kids to do something, that wasn't gonna be an option, nor would I be in the mind space if I'm just coming home from work at 7 or 8 a.m. Really? And so our energy in times of what we've learned that we've passed on is that there is no perfect path to where you want to go. It's the path you take and the lessons you learn to carry you to the next step that you want to take. And you can either keep doing that same day over and over and be happy where you are or be regretful for what you haven't done, or find ways each day to take a new direction to put your energy to serve where you want to be. And it's not going to be easy, and that's why most spend their day going through the motions and then not really enjoying it until they change that motion. And there's a select few who go out there and say, enough's enough. I don't care what other people say, I don't care what other people think. I have to do this for me because I know the steps I do today will not only help me, but will help the others around you.

unknown 6:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Right?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

That's the message there.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, I like that. That's honestly the same way I think, man. It's a matter of uh things. They say something has to change for things to change, right? Do the same thing over and over again, complaining at one, but nothing actually adjusts. And and I I take myself back to the moment. So you're talking about you and Peely in the bar. And if I if I recall from our conversation um with her, she was like, at one point she was your boss. Is that correct? And then like she left. She made sure that one.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, so funny enough, uh, my my first iteration of work in it was a it was a very popular, crazy um uh nightlife bar that was an outside bar in New York City. So it was only open about five, six months a year and ended up becoming the biggest outdoor bar in New York City. It was a very well-known bar, like it still is today. Um, I came back from working. Um, I actually met a friend in Europe when I was working over there. Um came back and he was doing some construction work, getting the bar ready because the bar basically never almost couldn't make it through the winter because that's how bad of condition it was for the summer. And he said, Hey, listen, if you're working for a construction job, why don't you come on over? And lo and behold, I meet him, head over to uh the bar, and Peely is running the bar, you know, little 23-year-old Peely is running the bar, and she uh gives me a job doing construction, right? That was the start of our journey. And then she went off to do uh, she she was uh went to California for a while, then back to uh Hawaii where she's from, where she uh was born and raised, then came back to New York. And at that time, somehow throughout the rains, I think it was almost like battle of attrition, right? Everybody leaves and it's like, well, who's left? We'll make him the boss. I I end up becoming the boss of the place. And uh lots transitioned and it it grew, right? It was a small bar, very popular thing. But in my time, it was it was great. The owners were, you know, the owners were in that part where you learn a lot of lessons from people and you don't know those lessons until you go forward. And sometimes you you can't stop at that first no, right? You can't stop, and you also sometimes have to do and then ask for forgiveness later. Yeah. Because it's when we're doing wait for a response, especially in a city like New York where it could take months and months. Well, we were able to take that bar and 25x the revenue on that bar. And it was an incredible journey for what we were able to grow that bar into. But the lesson learned with the owner was like he had he hadn't, he was like, I have no clue what I'm doing. I'm just gonna keep trying the things and keep putting people in position, and I'll throw 20 people at one project because someone's gonna get it done, right? And it was the energy of that that figured out, and I was able to help dial in and take back and really create some efficiencies, right? Which helped the course on payroll and some other points and really the revenue. But it was just that energy to have someone that gave you uh really the power to have open ideas. And I learned a lot as I helped really with that, with where I carried on to today, is that I really I enjoy when people come up and say we should try this, and because I'm always open for it. But the thing I'll take back is I'm not gonna try it. If you want to try it, I'm welcome to welcome the experience and what works will go through it. But this is something that you have to take ownership of it. And then that's the step to get to see if it's something we can implement in the business today.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Where'd you get that though? Because that's not like a regular human thought process, right? I I operate the same way. Like I'm gonna try to find a way to get it done. But I'm also aware of what my strengths are, right? So if in my own company or certain things, I'm like, hey, we should do this, but I'm not gonna do this. Right. So, so where did that kind of muscle develop? Was it prior to this construction gig? Was it a childhood thing? Like, where did that come into play?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Well, the construction, so lo and behold, when we did exit the bar, the thing that was the impetus for this is that Hurricane Sandy happened, you know, decimated the East Coast, a lot of things or a lot of damage happened. My dad has a business where he lips and moves buildings. That's what he does. So his business going from 12 to 13 projects a year grew to, we he had like a thousand phone calls the next day, right? And it was just like carry on from there. So my brother and myself and Peele, who we were now, you know, uh uh together, we went out and helped dad, right? And that was that point, and it was this serving notion that we were just stepping from one service to the other. And it was great to help dad, but I knew it wasn't the direction we wanted. But we're you know we're stubborn Italians. My dad's a you know, full blood Italian here, and stubborn Italians always think even if it's you know knocking a hole on the wall or or or uh you know screwing a screw, we always have to do it because no one else is gonna do it perfect, no one else is gonna do it right, no matter what task. And we still face and and conflict in that notion today. And my point here is that I just realize that we're wasting really not only our own time, but somebody else's people's time, because there's people who that's that's the best role for them, and that's where the fit, and that's where they can go and be empowered to be their best person themselves. Yeah. And if we're taking away that because we're doing something, not only are we taken away from them, but even if we do do it perfect, right? Let's say we do it better than everybody else. Well, we're all now we're only getting one of 10 things done out of the 10 things we need to do, right? So what would be better? Get 10 things done at 85%, or get one thing done at 100 and nine at zero, right? And so they had the averages, the law averages says go with getting it done because it doesn't always need to be perfect. It needs to be done to help you push forward.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

I agree. It's kind of like uh I tell people, it's like if I have five water drugs I'm filling up and I got one singular hose, it's gonna take forever. I got to go across all five. But if I get my one hose and I even have less going into, you know, we'll call it pressure, the rest of that, they're eventually gonna get filled up faster than I can with all that, you know, water going in one area. And I I like that mentality because that's the one that lets you pull back a little bit. But how do you know to delegate? Because a lot of people have, you know, businesses are starting or they're in some positions and like there's this emotional connection. Do I do it all? And then like when they delegate, sometimes they just, hey, go take care of this and let somebody figure it out on their own. What do you think is the best way to set someone up for success when you're delegating, like you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Well, it's two parts. One, you want to know if you actually want to do that, right? Because if you're gonna delegate and you're gonna be on a part and you and then you're gonna dictate every move of them, well, you might as well not even delegate because then you're basically dictating, being the dictator and just controlling every motion and you're not gonna empower them to do. If you're going to be a task giver at every point, it's not gonna help you and help you forward. So every point you okay, you hire 10 people, but every single step they do, they need your approval and need the next step for you. Well, then you're you're defeating the mission. The point of delegation is to have roles and responsibilities. And trust me, we we were not good at this. And it took us really a minute to set up the role roles and responsibility. And what we found is that we hire people that fit well with us. And for them, we empower them to help us build what the role needs to be. Help us with the roles and responsibility for what this role, what this role should be, and then we can fine-tune it from there. Instead of me dictating at every move, you should do this X, Y, Z. Now, when do you need to do this? It's either there there's not the best time, but there's the time when it's ahead of the growth, or where you're so busy back against the wall that you have no choice to. Now, both put you in a position that that you you will be somewhere. Either you're gonna be light because their revenue maybe not keep up to bring that person on, or you're gonna be so back in the wall that you're gonna feel so pressured, right? But it is a point that you will find when you bring people onto the team, you will do more, right? If you will do more, if you can can control the narrative of what the vision and the mission is. If everyone around you is coming on board, but everyone's really steering in a different direction, then again, you're gonna take yourself away from the goal. But if everybody's clearing the goal, the mission, the vision, the outlying factors of where you want to be, that group, whether they're all in the same room or you know, virtual or whatever the point is gonna keep pushing forward. Yeah. Right. And you have to be that person, that the lighthouse who's constantly where noting and really positioning where that energy has to come back to. You keep everyone in the same lane.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yeah. There's a guy I interviewed years, maybe last year, I want to say a couple years ago, maybe. Um, and I think his book's called CEOs Only Have One Job. And essentially it's all based around your job is the visionary, man. Like you have the vision, and then you do what you do best and you hire the rest, right? So you find people that can do that job better than you can eventually, which is really the goal. Like there's certain things I'm like, I could do this, but like my team's way better, right? But letting that go, having the vision, like you're saying, here is the I like the lighthouse. We're going here, everybody. Here's what it looks like. You're you're disappearing. Hey, make a left turn, you know, then that gets everybody back to the same direction. So I love these, these are lessons that anybody can apply anywhere. And I know these happen through hardship typically. Like these are ones where I'm sure you busted some things where you figured it all out, right? And at one point you and Pee Lee passed on, we'll go to the next stage of the career to go into multifamily. But I usually look at like what's the off shift moment within that? What was the one where you go, like, this is off-shift good or off-shift bad? That kind of was a catalyst to this next stage of your life you're in now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

And it was the culmination of doing a lot of active and a lot of activity. So here we are running the construction business, the business going from doing a 12 to 13 jobs a year to 250, 300, all right. And again, we had uh, you know, our first baby was born, uh, Peely was pregnant with our second one. And our goal to get back to control our day, control our time, control our outcome with where we can take our life, our legacy, and our family, right? If we are so busy in our day-to-day that we don't have a moment to breathe, not for ourselves or even for our kids, well, we're going completely away from that. And we could see that veer off. And so we knew that we wanted to get into real estate, right? However, we didn't know what that meant and what that provided. So we did what we thought was right. We started flipping houses, started wholesaling, doing some Airbnbs, and that was good, right? We're doing good with that, fine, okay, great. However, we were just stacking the the activity of the construction with more activity of running all these construction projects because here we are in the middle of that. So now we went from, okay, we have no time to less time, right? And it came to a point where Peely went to a meeting, um, a real estate meeting, where she met someone who was buying out-of-state rentals. And that was that moment in time where something went off and we said, Well, that seems interesting, right? You can basically buy this rental out of state, empower teams to get through. Well, that seems like that missing piece. So we did that. We started buying some rentals, some duplexes, some triplexes, and lo and behold, the process starts working. And it's, it's, it's eliminating me from putting myself in the mist, right? So being that stubborn Italian who's getting in the middle of everything and having to be having to be involved, right? Because I can't. It's a thousand miles away, right? So I have to get others to be able to do what's going to be best, because it's their roles anyway, to go there to, of course, help us find the properties, close on the properties, renovate the properties, get them leased out, right? Collect the rent, all the things that can happen. But what came to note is like this is fantastic, but it's not scalable. I can't have 100, 200 houses all running around town. It would just be madness. Yeah. And I listened to a podcast or I read a book about someone buying large apartment buildings. So I went back to Peely and I was like, you know, this is this is great, but what if we just did this with a 50 units or 100 units? Like, like, why not? And she was like, whoa, whoa, right, because there was that moment of just fear because sometimes bigger is scarier, right? Or the thought of bigger is scarier. But we broke it down where if you have apartment buildings and you have the ability to have 100, 200 tenants in there, it's actually a safer investment. And that's why you find you find so many big players, so many other people that can go in there and they go to maximize the efficiency, just like a big building. And you now have 100, 200 tenants who can pay down your rent. So the bank sees it as a safer option because it's not just me. It's if I have a single family house and it's rent or it's not rented. Well, if it's not rented, I'm it's on me. So can I carry it, right? Can I carry all these rentals? Right. And so you get the cash flow, you can have depreciation, tax advantages, you have appreciation that can happen with the market or what you can do to improve these properties. And it was just the improvement of the property. But we didn't know, well, how do I do this? Do I just try and buy these big things myself? Well, there's a process we do called syndication, and it's where we pool capital uh along with ourselves uh from investors where we can all buy these large, larger properties so we can all benefit from the economies of scale. Yeah. That made just a ton of sense with me.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

So we did that. How'd you dive into that though? Because that's, I mean, like you said, your wife, she's you know, like, I don't know, like, how do you get her on board with the idea? And I remember talking to her, she's like, I've learned through our years of marriage that just let Jason run. She's like, she said, she's like, let him run and I trust him, and he comes back and tells you when things are done. So how did you like, did you have to convince her? Was it something you dove in and told her about later? Like, what was that journey to actually dive into this new venture area?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, I told her about it. I told her all the reasons why, and I let her sit there with a minute. So we we do go at different paces. I'll go 27 steps, but I realize, and that's been, you know, one of my failures as a husband that I've constantly worked to get better at, is that I I I've talked a lot and then answered for her because she she thinks and then answers. And I I I think and go, right? And there's no wrong that we need both sides, and that's that's the power of our success here. However, I had to stop, speak, and then answer it her, like ask her a question and then answer the question before she can answer it. So I let her unravel with that why I came back and found other people that were doing it successfully. I said, Oh, well, like who else is doing this out here? And they started looking at their model and just understanding what were they doing somewhere uh in different areas, and they were all investing in different markets from where they are because they provided what they wanted for those types of investments. So I aligned to get mentors around other people that could be around that could show me just the steps. And the the the basic steps are pretty simple. Find a market, find a property, put team together, all of those, right? But the power of mentorship is that there's all these little intricacies that are in between that can just completely disre you, right? Where you may find all your steps on this little question come up about maybe security law or something, and you don't have any of the resources, and you're trying to find it on Google, and you lose two or three weeks on it, and all your momentum goes. The power of mentorship was that we never got off track because we just said, okay, we're gonna go from A to B. We're we're here and we want to buy an apartment building. Yeah. Okay, so what are those steps? And we just started knocking those steps down. And anytime we got a little off the rail, we said, hey, a little quick text in five minutes, we're back on track. And we went from having these two and three units to buying our first and in just about a year, nine months really, our first 94 unit uh in Louisville, Kentucky. And that really was the start because when we got into that, then you know, we just ripped the band-aid off or like got stopped doing the single family, stopped doing all those other parts, went on with multifamily, and we've closed something like um, I don't know, 1800 units since then uh across like six or seven states, uh valued somewhere like right at 200 million. So it's been a it's been a big, big transition for us, a lot of stages. But even with that business, you know, Peely and I were doing the the the first ones by ourselves, we realized we had to bring on team, and that's how we've continued to grow.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, this was what 10 years ago you said? This is like this whole journey in like a decade.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, well, honestly, we started in multifamily. We went into multifamily, like that first conversation with Peely, it was 2016, 2017 is when we started.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

So even less. Yeah, I love it. I like it, man. I do I do people get uncomfortable around you? Just in a sense of like that, you have this uh like a stoicness to you, a drive to you. I get like I I played football, man. It's how everybody is, right? You have that. But I'm always curious, like people like ourselves. Like I'm I'm always wondering, like, do you find that some people like they're in your presence and then for some reason like they get out of it because they can't handle the fire?

SPEAKER_01 21:37

I do. And uh and Pee, I'm a this you I'm sure you you you can understand this, but uh, I'm very good at going to the energy, but I I uh Pee loves being around people all day. And and I I'd like like, trust me, I'm I'm all about others. I I'm better. If you put me in a dark closet and let me go work out and then go in a dark closet and like underwrite property and do things, I'm cool. You know, and like I just still like We both have our different energies, and that same part is I have to make sure that she has that part of it too, right? Because I because I can sit it sit there and be good, right? And what I'm doing. And uh sometimes my humor, because I don't I'm I don't always have uh something to say, but when I do, I may be sarcastic on point I have to get that people may not catch my humor because it sometimes comes off to a certain notion right there. But yeah, I I I completely do.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

I just because like my wife, she like I'll be out in public, she's like, no one gets your jokes. Like I'll say things that I'm off the cover. I'm a little probably more like just loose and out there. I speak for a living, I do so I have fun, but I do understand the energy that's necessary to actually succeed, and I call it dark work. I call it that it's that that that area where you're doing things to be successful that is uncelebrated, unsexy, it's unseen by most of the world. And the but that's the stuff that moves the needle, and some people are tuned to be able to do that. Like you said, I can tuck away in the dark, get it done. I think that's the reason why people go, oh, you're going so fast. No, you're just going ridiculously slow because you can't shut down, you have to be in public and have uh you just dial in and get things done. And I I I I've heard a couple of times there's this uh this dynamic between you and your wife. I have the same dynamic in a sense of like I'm a big idea optimist, let's go to work. She's like, I have to make complete sense of it. I have to everything be super, super logical. I'm like, but that it won't always make logical sense. I know that our journey's been difficult. Has your journey like before between you and Pete, has it been easy and smooth? Have there been like push and pull and ebb and flow? Like, what has been that journey? Because I know a lot of people have things with their wives and their husbands, they want to build stuff, and it's not always that gelled.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

You know, it's it's it's a great question. And the the honest answer is we had to learn more the relationship than we did the work side because we spent our first 10 years together working, right? So that that's come more natural. And I find that all of our disagreements is just a lack of communication, right? And and you know, you know, you you you have a family, you're raising a family, all your agreements, you're like, there's so much different energy. Kids are going left, right, forward, backwards, all at the same time with all these different parts going. You're trying to run a business. And the the hardest thing is that their entrepreneurship, you know, being your own boss is fantastic, but you can never shut off, right? You can spend all your time working, and you have to choose when is that on and off, right? And there's gonna be certain times where there's gonna be seasons where you have to be all in with certain things, right? The kids are sick, you're all in, right? You know, something needs to get done. We have to get this property quote yesterday, all in, right? So that energy needs to happen, but you have to communicate. And and when you don't, right, that's where we've had our our we'll say our disturbances in the force, right? Of of what it is there in terms of what's not been our best moments. It's when we have it. And we've it's amazing enough, we've we've had far and few in between, but it's we we came to say we worked at a bar where like they would have uh uh on a Saturday 20,000 people, we'd work in some pretty crazy things. And so now it's almost like I'm like, this is quiet, you know, in a weird, in a weird, weird way world, right? So our energy has changed so much that the pressures of work are are always pressures. But it someone said to me sometime when we had something go wrong, right, in the past, they said, This too shall pass, right? And I had for um for it was funny because I thought that he got that from Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, but but that was you shall not pass, I learned later. I kept thinking that's what it was, but it but it's two, right? Our worst moments five years ago, we don't even remember today. Yeah, right? We do remember the lesson or the feeling, but we don't remember what that event was because it's so minimal or such a speed bump in what actually is our destination and what we've grown into. And when you can look at that and say, okay, what that was my best moment, what's the lesson here? That that's what you can do. We can't go back in time. We can we can say, okay, how can I improve for the next one, or how can we take this to grow, or how can I help others next time where I'm not in this position, right? And when you if you find yourself constantly in the same position, well, stop. You know, that's that's a simple thing, stop, right? And that that's our hardest point is to stop because we get so used to being accustomed.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah, dude, the whole group. My wife has that tattoo on her foot, this two-shell pest. I wanted to put it on my middle finger at one point. I never got down to doing it. Uh, and it's a good one, it's true. And I have a buddy of mine one time, I sat down with him years and years ago, and I was just kind of starting business. He was in this multimillion dollar um service business. And I go, man, how do you navigate all this stuff? He goes, At the end of the day, to be honest, I have Cadillac problems. He's like, I have problems. We all have problems. It's the same road I'm driving on as the next guy who says, but I got better shocks. I know to handle the stuff, the ebbs and the flows. And so what I'm hearing you say is like your wife and you have kind of navigated, figured some things out to where things that would shut somebody down slide off your back. Not because you're special or magical, you just lifted the weights of life to get strong enough to handle that. You built the shocks for it. Uh and I think that's that's a necessity for all of us. Uh do you and your wife have uh ever after conversation where you notice like we're like a like invincible? Because my wife and I sit down, we're like, you know what, we're pretty dope. Like we I'd I'd be hard pressed to find another couple that can handle what we can handle in life.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

You know what it comes down to, we've constantly gone back to is that problems are everywhere. But if you look at them at problems, they take you down. But if you look at it, they the world is made on solution providers. It is and you can go out there and and and create solutions, you are always in need. So, you know, our our point, our our kids think we're invincible, you're right, and like all that that's great in part, but each day it's us who we have to get over, right? It doesn't matter that the thought of anybody else. I find this like you said with dark work, like every day it's my same mind. And regardless of how good yesterday was, I'm gonna wake up with that same doubt or insecurity, that part of part where I can either listen to it in the morning or I can change the narrative, right? And that's why my morning has been such an important dynamic in just where I go, because if I just let that in, you think how anything goes, right? If you and it's all around us, you know, 80 something thousand ideas or thoughts a day, you know, so much of that is just stuff that really shouldn't fit. So when you can set the narrative each part to put yourself in a process, that's where your invincibility can come in.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

I agree. There's a National Science Foundation that a study and found that there's like between 60 and 80 thoughts per day, 80,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 85% are negative. And of the 85%, 90% are repetitive. It's the same thought over and over again. You're actually talking to it in a way that I we all experience, right? And I even found out from a neuroscientist that she's like, yeah, in the morning, our brain, we stink those negative thoughts and it releases cortisol. And our brain, not ourselves, our brain gets addicted to that actual chemical release. So every morning we'll have the same dark feelings, not realizing we're just kind of uh addicted to this negativity and until you switch that. You have a morning routine or something that pulls you out of it actionably, you'll stay in that. And I do recall, like, you have a really dialed-in morning routine, like you just mentioned it a moment ago. I do as well. Like, what is your routine and how does it allow you to take control of your day?

SPEAKER_01 28:54

You know, we get up early. Um, I I've done this now, and you think it's funny because I used to stay up till 6 a.m. and now I'll get up at 4:32. And I I've done that for a fact, is 4321 get up, right? Because you find you you can always hit the s the snooze button, but the second you're up, you're up, right? It's just getting up. And that's that first choice. And if you think about your day in your life, if like every point you're gonna hit the snooze button or there's other points, well, you're just setting up everything else. You're just giving yourself the easy button to get out of everything else you want to do, if that first thing is what you're gonna do. So I get up, uh, have a glass of water, uh, you know, make make coffee, have a coffee, and and meditate. And um, that honestly is that first part. Then I'll get out, um, typically do kettlebells or some work for 25, 30 minutes, and then I'll run. And I've done that to a point very consistently, pretty much every day, right? I uh for where it goes to get myself ready. And I come back in, by that time the kids are starting to wake up. Keely will have her time, go out there and have her morning because she's getting up a little bit later than me. And then on that part, then we can carry forward to both have our moments for ourselves to get set to get grounded for everything ahead of us, then go spend time with the kids so we can be around them. And I put into my day now, you know, of my goals is that you know, my kids are growing. I but I'm gonna pick them up every day. Right. So first thing I do when I see them, I'm just gonna pick them up. Right. And that's something that I'm gonna do every day. And so no matter how I'm feeling, what it is, right? I get up, I do my morning, I go and pick up my kids, and from there, our morning has now begun because the work's done before beginning the morning.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

I like that. Yeah, I I can't I can't pick my kids up anymore. They're like 17, 13.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

It's funny, there's that's that one day that says one time someone picked you up and it was the last time you ever got picked up, and I go, oh man, it's like sad. Nobody even thinks about that. But but I like that, man. How do you guys balance the uh the family thing? Because I I know I'm a guy, I call I'm a seasoned dad right now. Like I'm focused on doing what I'm doing, but not in a way that will ever be detrimental or take away from my kid's childhood with their father. And uh I know for me it's not always accepted in the society nowadays. It's hustle, bustle, build, grow. Family's important, but your family never sees you. Uh how have you guys navigated keeping that as a center?

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Just made sure that it's constantly part of the lighthouse. And trust me, we're not perfect by any means, right? But we we make a point, you know, like um, you know, so today's karate, I'll go to karate, you know, so an hour with them, we'll have dinner, and maybe I'll work out depending on where we go for the rest of the day. Some energy we have to go there. But make viable time for them because it does go so fast, and we think in our life that there's always gonna be that moment we have it, but then it goes away and then they have their life and then they move forward, right? There's parts of the process where things go very quickly. Yeah. And we can either choose to make the time or not, right? And you have to put it where the energy is. There's always gonna be another dollar to make, there's always gonna be another call to make, there's always gonna be another email you have to send. And that's where the level of importance or urgent, right? And if we're always running to what we seem as urgent, then we're constantly just doing a bunch of things that aren't gonna lead us. You go after the important, the other things can wait. And it's like anything in life. If you have 50 things in your plate, well, what you probably could drop 47 of them. It's the three that you have to maintain. The other 47 are probably not viable, you're making them more important than they are, right? And so for us, just carrying forward, we've put family as one of those points that can never get dropped.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

And that's really been something that we we we have to work on it all the time. We're we're, you know, there's points or moments, like it's been this is a very busy month for us. Um, but okay, great. We would take it when he comes, and then we use the energy elsewhere when it's not here.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yeah, I like that. And it's uh what my family does too, man. We're my wife has her own business and she has, you know, things she does, and I have mine, but there's there's never a ball dropped in that aspect. Like I clear my schedule, move things around. I might have to cancel a good, uh good speech uh because my son's moving into college. I'm not gonna miss dropping him off at college, right? But that's the priority. And if I don't make it the priority, something else will make itself my priority. Uh I want to pull back, you know, because uh this is something where I'm realizing that everybody has this, this uh, we'll call it freedom and gift, right? They you can get up in the morning when you want, you can hang with your kids when you want to do it, you can do what you want, travel. And I know that that's an earned, we'll call it an earned lifestyle. And it's mostly, I'm assuming, because of the kind of business that you run. Uh so my question is, what kind of person is is should look at this as a viable option for their life? Because if they do these things, it's gonna be great, right? But not everybody, I think, is fully capable of completing the steps the way you and your wife have. But I know there's a a big, large amount of people that really can do it. And so in your experience now, and you coach people on this area and give them guidance, who's the right person for someone like this lifestyle?

SPEAKER_01 33:36

You have to be patiently impatient. And and I I'll explain that in a moment because it's it's talking out of both sides of my mouth, is that you you don't want to be where you are, but you're patient enough to get where you want to be. Because we get stuck in a life where where everything is so set on just everything in front of us that we expect immediate results, right? You can just, you know, call something to happen immediately, you hit something on an app, it's right there, you know, you you do you see everybody else just making these crazy, crazy gains, right? Where if you want to change your life, you have to stop what you're doing. Because if you're if you're expecting to just do exactly as you're doing every day, you're gonna get the same outcomes. And you know, Pele and I both grew up in very um, you know, we've just grown up in in inconsistency all the time, right? We work in the bars, other points. We never know, you know, having a paycheck. There was no consistency in anything of from where we got paid, right? And so from us, we learned how to adapt to that, to understand that there's there's always more ways that you can make more money or survive or do other parts of the puzzle. Are you patient enough for it to happen? Yeah, right. Are you patient enough for those points to come? Because if you're pushing forward and expecting that I'm going to do and I'm going to get right away, that's gonna leave everything. Um, you know, what comes to mind is um I started a meetup when we first started this multifamily in New Jersey. First, first one we had like 15 people, it grew to like 25, 100, 3,000 members, right? And the purpose of starting that meetup was just like, I just want to get like like-minded people together and talk about multifamily because I didn't know anybody else in New Jersey. And I was like, great, so here comes all these people. And what I found from there is that I had no expectations, and what I got from there was access to deals. I raised millions of dollars from that group, all these things because I had no underlying fact of what I wanted to get, because I just was saying, this is gonna be cool to do. Let's see if something can be made for us all to win together. And from there, it's created so much value in our lives. But most of the time we do hoping or expecting, like, well, I did this and I didn't get this, and that's the wrong way forward. If you want to change where your life is, you have to go out there and create impact, and that impact is going to serve and it's gonna serve others. And then honestly, um, what's the book, the go-giver? It's going to provide back to you, and you may not know how. And with going in the multifamily, there's so many options to win in this space, but you have to be patient. We find we get a great transition of people who are flippers and wholesalers and where they're very active, and they may be doing, you know, a hundred deals a year. Um, and that's all well and good. However, can you be patient enough? And the ones who who really succeed understand this fact that, okay, the wheels may slow down here of me having to do a hundred deals a year, but I might do one and make three times that hundred deals, right? But I just have to be patient to give it that seven to eight to nine to ten months to manifest in the steps to do it. Because in our daily life, we get so stuck in a routine that we think if that Friday paycheck doesn't come, that everything's gonna happen, right? The world's gonna fall over, everything's gonna happen, and I'm gonna have nothing behind me or nothing as a backdrop. And that's where we get stuck in our pace, and it's hard for us to disrupt that vision, that version for.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah, that makes sense, man. I agree. And then that that's kind of like the ultimate crazy trap we all experience. And I think one of the things that you talked about earlier was you had mentors, right? So you have this, this we'll call it aspect of um, you know, this we'll call mentors that guide you, and you have this group and everything you lead. And I know that that's kind of one of the catalysts for a lot of people to step into this space. And so for mentorship to be so big and important, I would love you to unpack like how you mentor, because I went to an event where you had a room full of people who who see what it is that you put on and how you do it and respect you highly. Uh when you put that kind of into the world the way you do, what's your hope for these people? Like how are you guiding them and what are you hoping for them?

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Yeah, that's a great question. So, seven-figure multifamily is where we teach other like-minded people to go out there and buy their first multifamily property. It could be anywhere from a four-unit to a 400 unit or anything in between, right? We help them in power, teach them the steps we've done. And the the most important thing with mentorship is like, yes, here's the tried and true process that works, but also here is what we haven't done, that that that what we what we've done that has not worked, right? And those steps can be even more important at times because they teach you exactly what you shouldn't do because we've already wasted our energy and spent our time and all of our focus doing those parts of the process, then they can avoid those, right? So they can fast track to get to their goals by doing the steps for which others have done successfully to get where they want to be.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Yeah, that's big, man. And I think that's that's kind of where we all should live. That's how life's lived, though. It's what parents do. We parent, we guide, we give information, and we kind of step forward. And it's funny, and let's let's step into the realm of that person. Because I know if you're like me, like I have people I coach and guide, even given the information. Some of them, man, they still get apprehensive, they go slow, and then they man, they don't quite break to that next tier. What is the thing that separates the good students from the not so great students?

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Take action. Understand that getting out there outside of your comfort zone is natural, right? We don't want to be outside of our comfort zone. We have to take action and then surround yourself with other members who can help fill your superpowers. You can know all the parts of the process, but if you're gonna try and do it all out of the gate, you're gonna try and find the deals, underwrite the deals, put together the team, um, find all the capital, go out there and figure out how to do the due diligence, understand the construction, you know, source the market, and you're gonna try and do all that yourself, it's gonna take you longer and make it harder for you to get to your goal instead of saying, okay, here is where my focus is, here's where my energy is, here's where I'm best served, here's where my superpowers are. And who else has the other superpowers I need to win? And when I find that people can put themselves in a position to be realistic with themselves of where they can serve best, they get to their goals much quicker.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Yeah. Dialed, man. That's that's the truth about everybody in any aspect of life, man. It's all a matter of what do you not what you know, what do you do with what you know? And I think in our world nowadays, there's this, I think, an over-inundation of information. We have we gather and consume info, and then like, you know, squirrels are like responsible for trees. We gather it, put it a place and forget that it's there, never go access it again. You know, and then it's it's crazy because if we were just to pay attention to what we do know, do what we already know, man, life would be an amazing kind of thing. And then you develop a skill set to do things. So any information like yourself or somebody teaches somebody, now it actually becomes something you can capitalize on and it turns into a whole different lifestyle and experience. Uh man, I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with you. And I'd like my my brain goes to one last thing. Uh, it more so because of this where my brain lives right now, is like, what do you hope for your kids? Right? Because for me, my kids, I don't see them being exactly like me. I'm a different breed, I had a different child, different experiences, and I think their life's a little bit easier than mine. So because of that, it's a different kind of grit. And so I just hope my kids have their own, you know, future. Like, what is what do you hope for your children when you look at their life, say 15 years from now?

SPEAKER_01 40:23

And I hope that we can set the stage so they can understand how to go out there and be the best version of themselves. And a lot of that is is taking risks, of course, calculated risks, but but taking risks to understand that that's where the lesson is learned and failure is fine. Failure means you tried. Right? Being worried of failure, being worried of setback is where you get stuck in a position to not be where you want to be. I want them to go out there and explore. I want them to go out there and discover what's possible out there and test themselves. And if I can give them that to give them the uh, if I'll say the permission that it's okay to go out there and try and fail and there's always another day, then I'll feel that I've put myself and put them in a great position.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

I like it, man. I mean, it's kind of the same thing for me. I think at a certain point in time, like I want my kid, they gotta go out and do things because the experience that I have comes from my, you know, bad choices and bad, you know, things that gave me some clarity to move forward. And uh, and I don't want them to go through the same hardships, but they gotta have their own hardships. And I think a person like yourself, person like myself, we're gonna make sure we nudge them, but we'll be there to help them when they fall down. All right, and here's the absolute final question. You can take it wherever you want, but it's one that I somebody asked me one time and it really like, ooh, got to me. So I asked this question What promise did God make to the world when he created you?

SPEAKER_01 41:42

I will leave this earth better than I found it by the choices that I make. And they're not always going to be great, but it will be the choices that I choose to make after that last choice I made.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Boom. I like it. Consistency, man, it's a human, it's a human necessity if you want to be great. Just be consistent. You do that and I think things work out because it's always a goal to get higher. Man, I appreciate you coming to hang with us genuinely. I know you're a busy man, uh, and so to be able to carve out some time. I do genuinely appreciate it.