He Built Everything and Almost Lost What Mattered Most

Chris Pomerleau built multiple companies, served in the military, passed the bar, and started stacking real estate. From the outside, he had it all figured out. But somewhere along the way, the goalpost kept moving.

In this episode, Ryan and Tanner sit down with Chris to talk about what nobody warns you about on the other side of success. The tension between building and being present. The primal drive to hunt that never shuts off. And the moment his father's final words reframed everything he thought he was working toward.

We get into time blocking, gratitude, teaching kids about money, and why the 3 PM ice cream run with your kids might be the most important meeting on your calendar.

This is not a theory episode. This is a man working through it in real time. Same as you.

The real question this one leaves you with: are you building a life that looks successful, or one you will actually be grateful you lived?

Episode 83 of the Freedom Fighter Podcast with Ryan Miller, Tanner Sherman, and guest Chris Pomerleau.

Follow Ryan on Instagram: @ryanlmillerinvests
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.

Transcript

Well, Chris, thanks for joining us. Um, you know, fellow military guy, uh, entrepreneur, real estate investor, but we didn't come to talk about your origin story. You can google Chris Palmer Lu, you'll find your origin story a million times. You've been featured all, all across podcast networks. We wanted to hear more about the guy behind the mission and everything that you're building.

Uh, we know you're a father of two, um, you know, loving, uh, husband. Can you tell us a little bit more about what role your family plays in all of what you're building? Oh man. You're gonna get emo on me right away. Um, you know, family's why I do it all. And I know that's an easy answer because that's kind of the go-to answer.

And sometimes perhaps my wife questions it because she may think I'm a glutton and for punishment. Um, but we just talked about the Africa trip. There's no way I'd take that trip. If I have a boss, it's rare. You can just take three weeks off. Um, and so it's sincerely why I do it. My goal is to provide for my wife and kids, and not so much from a financial perspective, but just an environment, an upbringing, uh, where they get the best education possible and they can experience things.

I mean, you know, throughout my life as we become more and more successful, I do have access to more money and I don't really spend it, I don't really care to, um, perhaps just the way I was raised, like I don't need things. I really don't. I, I mean, I don't know. I'm thinking more in $30 jeans right now. Like I, I don't really care about any of that, but.

If my kids can see a rhino out their back door at 6:00 AM um, experience different cultures, talk to different people, get outside this box that they live in. Um, and really the flexibility. So that's the biggest thing is that today, uh, my kids get, uh, e creamery is done in Dundee and they have like two for Tuesdays or something like that.

It's not that big of a deal, but it's the last time they'll ever offer it. Well, I'm just, I'm, I worked hard last night. I worked this morning. I'm gonna go meet them for some ice cream at three. And that doesn't sound like that big of a deal. But the entrepreneurial approach allows you that flexibility and that is what I want.

I wanna be able to drop my kids off, pick my kids up. I do that less than my wife, but I wanna be able to have that flexibility go to the, they have events all the time. I don't know where, I don't know how they expect pa parents who have nine to fives to attend these events, but with. Owning these companies and, and getting to structure my day around my children and my family.

That's really the most important thing to me. And they, they really drive everything I do. How do you balance selfish ambition and that? So I'll give you an example. Just what you were just saying yesterday was, my daughter's last middle school basketball game four o'clock. How does parent want a job, make it anyhow, I had the flexibility there.

Watch her final middle school, uh, or for this year, she's only in seventh grade, but basketball game. But then I'm like, man, I got X, Y, and Z to do. Yeah. And so it's like I'm walking away from, I mean obviously it's taking what's priority, priority, but do you ever get that? Like, I can't. Just the balancing act all day, day guess struggle day, all day.

I struggle all day every day. Um, I'm an inbox zero kind of guy, so right now I'm like, I wonder how many emails are piling up. You know? And as you grow and you learn to delegate and you learn to bring people on the team, you can have people help with their emails. You can, you can have people help you with different tasks.

And even that's hard. I'm not where I wanna be there. I still feel like I have to see every email, which is not the best way to grow. It is getting better. Um, but it's really just, uh, you know, I, I do time blocking, so I, I try to set my phone aside between five and eight and, and I, I will answer it. Maybe the kids are taking a shower or bath or getting ready for bed or whatever.

And if it's something I can't be a part of, I will dip into the phone real quick. But, um, it's important to me and it, look, this is a struggle. I, I, I'm not talking about this like I perfected it, but I, I'm really trying to be present. That's like my number one thing for my kids, for my wife, but really in everything.

I mean, if we're sitting down and talking about business right now and I'm thinking about emails, I'm not gonna be really engaged. And so one of the things I've been trying to work on is being present and that, you know, that flows into the work and trying to block schedules. So between five and eight, I'm trying not to have my phone on me 'cause it's really the only time of the day get to see my kids.

I help 'em get ready for school. Sometimes I'll take them, occasionally there's an event during the day. But other than that, even when they get home at three 30 or four 30 or whatever, um, I, I want to be present from five to eight. What does that mean? I'm working a lot from eight to 11. Um, part of that's my fault for, for not delegating better.

Part of that's because I'm always excited for the next venture. But I think really just, gosh, you know, uh, you, you obviously know who Alex Ramey is. Um. I, I, I like a lot of things he says just 'cause he is blunt. Um, I, I, I don't follow everything he says, but I, I love a lot of things he says. And like one of those things, uh, he said you already obtained or you already got to a place that was your goal.

And that, that, that sounds conceited, but it's not meant to be. What ends up happening is we've already gotten to our goal a hundred times. We just keep setting the larger goal. And so coming to that realization, it doesn't mean not to have further goals, but it does mean to say you need to be present, man.

Like you're where you thought you were when you weren't gonna work anymore. You retire forever. And that's not the case. There's always something else, especially if you're hungry, like, like I am to build things. And so if you know that about yourself and you know your goal isn't to retire at 38 and do nothing, then you need to be really good with your time structuring.

That is where I've, it's a battle. I do a gratitude journal every day in the morning when I wake up. I try to think about things I'm thankful for, think about people I need to reach out to, and just really zone in on things I need to think about throughout the day. And the theme, actually, I do it through chat.

GBTI used to do it through a, uh, writing it down, which really forces you to get present. But what I like about doing it in my own project folder in Chad GBT, is that it'll reconcile the weeks gratitude, it'll reconcile the months, it'll tell you trends, it'll tell you things you're getting better on, getting worse at.

And that's something I'd like to do. And one of the things that is a persistent theme is be present. Be here for your family. Be here for people. Be here for whatever. But make sure you give it your all where you are at. With that in mind, if, if it's time for the kids, set the phone aside, give it your all, and then get back to what you gotta get to.

And that's. A work in practice. No, that's great. And one, one thing that we have on our whiteboard at home, and I'm a whiteboard guy, I got, I, I look like a crazy person putting, writing all over the walls. And if I could do whiteboard paint around the house, I would, but one of the things is be here now. And Yeah.

To sum everything that you just said, moving the goal posts about spending time with your kids, being there when you're working, it's, it's all about just be here now. Yeah. And we talk about this a lot moving the goalposts is, is a form of just not being present in your business or business or personal goals.

And what I think I struggle with, with moving the goalpost is, is when you reach that it's, well now I realize that I'm capable of this. I'm capable of much more. Yeah. But not to forget to be content with what you have or else you'll never have gratitude. And so I love that you said that. Where, where did that stem from?

The gratitude is that, I mean. Was there a, a, an awakening point where you realized that you need to be more grateful for, for every day? Uh, a couple things. Uh, I would give a shout out to Todd Zimman. He's an executive coach I use, uh, he's in town here. He's phenomenal. He has clients all over the country and, um, the, the, the street lingo would maybe be a life coach, but he helping from anything from how to handle bookkeepers to handle how to handle your children.

Uh, it's really just someone to bounce your ideas off of. And it was his idea to implement the gratitude journal, which I've been very thankful for. And then at social media, and I know that sounds weird, but, um, you know, Dan Martel, you've heard of Dan Martel. I, I love his, uh, work-life balance, uh, suggestion.

It's more like work-life integration. Um, it's really hard to say, I am only gonna do this here, and I know I just got saying you need to focus and be present. But what I'm saying is if I could construct a life that integrates business throughout the day, then I don't have to be so worried about. Um, am I balancing hair?

Am I balancing hair? That doesn't mean being at their kids' basketball game and on the phone, which by the way, I coach both my kids' basketball games, so I can't do that anyway. But it really is just about if you wanna live this life of flexibility, you have to work, learn how to be present, but integrate that throughout the day.

Um, and social back to the Dan Martel thing is that I use social to not to see what my buddy from high school is doing, not to see what some other person has that I can be envious of. It is literally micro learning for me. And, and, and that's not just a, a phrase I'm using to justify why a 42-year-old has TikTok.

It's because I'm learning. If you look at my algorithm, I'm always learning. I can't stop if there's nobody around. If my family falls asleep. I'm in the living room, computer's on the lap, YouTube's on the on, on the screen. It's playing a full podcast and I'm kind of listening in and I'm working and that's how I use social.

And from social, you learn those things from Hermo, you learn those things from Dan about integration or being present, and that's where it came from first with Todd kind of implementing that and really driving that home and pressuring me to do that, but then also seeing all these really successful people, very successful, go through the same problems, same troubles, and seeing how they handle it.

And I've seen that gratitude is certainly something that they have really leaned, leaned into. So don't reinvent the wheel and do what others do. And that's what I learned. Mm-hmm. Yeah, my, uh, I, I do a lot of the same thing. Like if I'm sitting there and not doing anything, YouTube's normally on, I just got Paramount Plus now the UFC went over to Paramount, so we all watching more Paramount, but the less YouTube.

But what I was finding is I'd be watching something with the kids. I'd be on my laptop, they'd be talking to me. I'm not paying attention. So I feel like I'm in the room with them and spending time with them. But, uh, it wasn't actually happening. My, my wife, uh, with lint, she's like, I want you to give up your laptop after five o'clock every night.

So that's been, it's hard. It's been a real struggle, but, uh, I, I'm going through the same thing, you know? 'cause you know, as much as I'm as, as hard as it is to make time for the kids, it's really important to make time for your spouse. And, um, you know, she called me out on that too. We have Friday night movie nights and my kids are seven and five.

And, um, I don't know when that'll stop. You know, I don't know when they're gonna say, dad, I'm gonna a friend's house. Um, so as much work as I can get done while we're watching a cartoon or whatever movie we're watching that Friday night, I used to, you know, I'm cuddling my kids. We have this specific spot on the couch.

They have their specific pot spots on my lap. We're watching it. And I'd be over here kind looking at my phone doing things, but. Uh, through the help of my wife. I'm getting better at that too, because like asking questions about the movie you're watching, anything you can do, because I noticed I'd get questions from them.

I'd be like, oh, what, what was that? Like? I'm not there. I'm not being present. So it's very hard, especially when you're an entrepreneur, but it's what you don't wanna do. And, um, gosh, I I, I won't get emo on this either, but I'll, I'll try not to. I always do when I say this, uh, my dad passed about two years ago.

Um, geez. Uh, I'm just, I'm just thinking too is, uh, a little, it's more than that. Um, and one of the things he, he, I, I learned my work ethic through him. I mean, he worked so much and it wasn't like this vain need to be important. It was that he was raised that way. Your worth is how much you're helping. And there's some truth to that.

But one of the things he said to me before he passed is that work less. Um, you know, you're gonna get to be 62 when he passed, or 82 or nine two whenever, and you're gonna, you're gonna look back. Are you remember all those movies and all that time with your kids? Or are you gonna remember all that cool work that you did?

And, uh, it's easy for me to say this out loud 'cause I still struggle with it so much. Right. I'm struggling with today. I had literally six phone calls on the way here. It was a 16 minute drive. I went through six phone calls. Um, but being present, uh, and learning about what's the most important, and so I'm working on that every single day and trying to remember why I do it instead of just being successful at it, if that makes sense.

Hmm. No, I mean, it makes a ton of sense. I'm similar both to you. My dad passed away at 62 ironically, but, uh, and uh, it was, he worked a lot as well. Probably just generational thing, but. Yeah, I, losing that time, I think I was, how old was I? 30, 31. 32 years old. So, you know, fairly young. And I'm, we're talking before, I'm leaving tomorrow for my sister's wedding, so I'm the one giving her away.

And so it's just all those things. Mm-hmm. And like missed opportunities if you will. Uh, so it's, it's tough. It is tough. It's very, I know it kind of looks like, uh, my, I love me wall, whatever, but those are like the, they did, he was in the military as well. Okay. So 21 gun salute. So that's where those are from.

And then that lighter he was in, uh, when he graduated, they gave that to him. Nice. And stuff like that. But yeah, so it's, it, it is a hard one 'cause you wanna provide and you wanna take these trips and you want to do all that. But I know for me, uh, what was it? I think it was at the last real luncheon, Ted asked a question of smaller group.

He's like, what drives you? And I just start thinking about it. I was like. I think it's like the hunt factor. Like we, we don't have to, we're not hunter gatherers now. I don't have to go out and kill for my family provide, but I wanna kill the biggest lion, the biggest, you know, whatever. Going back to safari stuff.

And I think that's really what it is. It's just the thrill of the hunt. It's finding the deal, it's growing the team, it's helping provide for somebody else's family. But it's, it's like a primal instinct. And that was the first time I ever thought of it that way. But what kind of drives you is, do you think it's something similar or what is it?

I'm a deal junkie. I mean, I, I like succeeding. I'm competitive, you know, I played college sports. I went on to the military, which I viewed as a competition. Uh, whether it's the PT score or just being the best, um, officer, uh, wherever I was located. Um, so I wanna succeed. Um, I don't know if that's a feather in my cap.

I don't necessarily need to be told I'm doing well, but I'll know if I'm doing well and I, I just, I don't like to be second place and the same breath again. That's a battle because, um, that urge sometimes you should ask your yourself, and, and I ask, I should ask myself is, is that urge to hunt provide to scratch that itch of being the badass?

It sometimes can that get in the way of, of what's most important? And I guess this is what we've been talking about for the first 10 minutes here. And so I think it's a healthy balance. And so putting my laptop away at five and never looking at it again, the rest of the night would be really, really difficult.

There's just give and take five at five to eight. I'm trying not to look at things and eight to 10, I may not get to watch what I want, but I'm sitting next to my wife, she's watching what she wants. We're kind of talking, we're talking and I'm working. It's that integration. And so it's hard to peel back on the competition thing, but um, again, I would just stress to myself out loud right now that.

Be aware, be present, be thankful for what you have now, and if you can keep a healthy balance, there's nothing wrong with growing because you'll never catch me. I'm telling you, everyone asks me what's the end goal? I, I don't know that answer. Well, I can tell you financially, here's the goal. Um, I'd like to be in a place where I don't have to work at all.

And, um, I, I guess I could structure it like that, although I have so many things going on that that wouldn't be a, a smart move to just pull out right away. But financially, I, I'm sure I'm probably close, but, um, really it's to give back. And that sounds like a cliche answer, but that's something that my wife and I have been passionate about and we donate a lot of money and we've discussed nonprofits.

These are things on my radar that I think. Everyone has the opportunity to help in some way, somehow, whether it's serving Thanksgiving dinners at the Sienna Francis house, or whether it's starting a nonprofit. And you had asked, you know, kind of what's the goal? I wanna grow, I wanna provide for our employees, for people that work for us.

I want their lives to be better. I wanna make our employees millionaires. I want, I want everyone to succeed. I want our investors to be successful. And then on a completely separate but related, um, outcome is I, I want to be able to give back and help others who really need it. And that's really, really important to us.

It's hard to do when you first do a startup or six, but it's really important to keep that in mind because in the end, there's only so much money somebody needs and it, it, it can become a little unhealthy to be obsessed with the money if you're using it to give back to people. I think it's the most important thing.

Mm-hmm. And so you, you talked a lot about the kids and their experience growing up and when you look at the, the length of, I mean, with both of your dads six, two years. That period that we're parents to under 18 is such a small part. And the realization that we're here just to become memories for our kids and that it's, I I think about that constantly.

And it's tough because I fall short daily. Mm-hmm. But one thing that I've tried to focus on is how can I align what we're doing, what we're building? Like you talked about charity and, and you know, those types of things with the kids. Why and how can I instill that in them and not have them become silver spoon kids?

Mm. And that it, I mean, the best thing that we've done is we pay our kids from the business tax write off, you know, all that, all that stuff. But they can't spend that money. They have to reinvest into something that pays dividends and then those dividends they can spend. Good for you. Are you doing anything with your kids to, to teach them the right way to, to build a business?

I love that. Um, I am starting to talk to 'em about that. Maybe a little too late. They're only seven and five, so maybe I could have started earlier. One of the things we've started to implement, we're not. Controlling it as well as you want. But it's that whole three bucket thing that when they get paid, they can spend a certain amount, they can save a certain amount, and they can give a certain amount.

And I've seen that as a suggestion through social from different people who've, who've been through this. And that's what we're trying to do with our kids, is to learn about, um, the importance of money. 'cause my daughter, when she gets it, she wants to spend it. Um, and then, you know, she's gonna wonder why she doesn't have any money to buy the next thing.

And so it, it's, that's phenomenal. You're already doing that 'cause you're starting really early. I didn't have any of that kind of financial education probably until after law school, to be honest. I mean, I didn't invest, I didn't do anything until much later in my life. Not so much so because my parents weren't really honed in up because it wasn't really something that I remember them really focusing in on.

And so starting early and teaching them is huge. And I really like this three bucket approach of savings, spending and giving. That is something we started to implement. Mm-hmm. That's good. Do you think, you mentioned your parents and it almost seemed like a generational thing, like society changes, things change over time.

People just used to work until, you know, they died at 65 or whatever it was and they, so they just worked till they passed and never really saved. Then I think our parents generation was probably the first one that had to save things kind of changed stock market, all this stuff. But I feel like everything's shifting again.

And now saving doesn't really get you ahead. It's more investing and what you invest in. Like even if you invest in the stock market, depending on how much you invest, you may never even reach financial freedom. Right. Do you think how, how do you keep up with the education? How do you, other than educating your children?

'cause I like, like you, I was never given that opportunity to learn. Yeah. So how, from a societal standpoint, what would be your recommendation as far as learning? You know, one of the things I want them to learn early that took me a long time to learn was, um, if you have faith in yourself, you gotta take the risk.

Uh, you know, I, I'm certainly, I'm certain that the way my father was raised was to take the guarantee and be the best of the guarantee. And so my dad was a hard worker and he was phenomenal. And even on his days off works, calling him to say, Hey, how do I do this? 'cause he was the guy, he knew how to do it.

And my mom worked really hard too. Um, I suppose, uh, the ability to take that risk and really with the light bulb for me was, I was always interested. I liked the competition and everything, but really the light bulb for me was. I did really well at my first law firm. Um, and I've told this a couple times before, but I got, there were over 300 some attorneys.

It was a NA national firm, and I got Rookie of the year. Cool. I think I got a minor bump, and then the two years later I got second attorney in the entire firm. Now, that does not mean I'm the smartest attorney in the country. It means there are four or five metrics they track, and if you, you know, depending upon how you undo those, they're gonna rate you.

Overall, I did the best, second best outta the entire company, and I got a $10,000 bonus and I was like, holy shit. Like I'm, I'm, I've hit a ceiling already. I am not being rewarded for how hard I work. And that's one of the things we try to do even in our companies. And I never thought about things like this until I started earning money like this.

But we're trying to implement things where, sure, you can make a base for some positions, you can make some money, but if you wanna make more than you ever thought, just. Just be good. Um, and what I want to instill into my kids is to take that risk. Now, part of the reason I do work so hard back to one of your original questions was I want my kids to do whatever the hell they want.

I do not want them to take some job just because it's the only way they'll make money. And I know that's somewhat of a privilege to say that. And we have no idea what the world's gonna be like in a year, let alone 10, 10, 15 years from now. We'll call it even be worth it, I don't know. But I want my kids to be raised with a financial acumen, but at the same breath, know that they can bet on themselves and that the harder they work, the more they'll be rewarded.

And that does not mean reward solely financially. It is literally how happy are you? And I would define happiness as, are you doing what you want to do in life? Are you content? So that does not mean making a lot of money. It means I love my life. I've, I've structured my life around what makes me happy and I'm making that decision and that's what I want for my kids, for business.

When, when you go to invest in something, what do you look for? Like mm-hmm. You started off real estate syndication, stuff like that, but you've diversified since then. Mm-hmm. What, what makes a good opportunity, either from real estate or business for you? I think it comes down to risk levels and like what your overall goal is.

The reason I like to diversify is I have, I have money in the stock market. I have money in real estate. I have money in private lending. I have money in startups and I think they're all just different buckets. And so if I put money in a startup, you better be, I have money in crypto. I looked, I look at startups in crypto about the same.

If it hits, it's a home run. You could lose it all. So obviously that's a smaller portion. Um. In a, in an entrepreneurial sense, you do need some income coming in. So some of my investments need to have income, and that is where real estate comes in. Um, and the way our approach is, it's through value add. So there are times in the first year or two it may not make money 'cause you have to make it a better asset and then start making money.

Or it might make money the first year or so, and I might have a little, uh, I call a couple years or a couple months of not making money. But the goal is ultimately over time, build up enough income because I love venture, I love CRAs slams and investments and stuff, but if you don't have any income coming in, uh, I think you, you could be hurt unless your job's really supplementing that.

So the answer to the question is, what do I look for in investments? It really depends upon. A diversification, and I know that's an overused phrase, but it really is not all the eggs in one basket. And I wanna earn money in different ways. I want income, I want some type of wealth growing, typically coupled with some type of tax, um, protection.

And luckily that's both real estate. Um, then there's the private lending side that's purely income, which I guess it could be a sale on the backend, but that's not the goal. But that, that's an income. And then there's these other smaller things where not a lot of my money's there, but if it hits you 10 x you 12 extra money.

And so the answer to the question, what I looking for in investments, I try to diversify so that I'm making money in every single different stream so that if one stream goes out, the other stream's still taken care of. And so do you ever, do you ever worry about the opportunity costs? I mean, that, that, or is that something you've kind of outgrown as you see more opportunities come across your desk?

Because I feel like when you're starting out, you wanna do all things, not, not necessarily possible. Sometimes the things you say no to makes you more money than the cost of, of, uh, sunk cost. Yeah. I mean, the, another way to say that is sometimes you make more money by saving money by not getting into something.

Um, right. Or walking away. Or walking away. Some of the best deals are the ones you pass on. That's a good thing to remember. Uh, there's no doubt that, uh, we are more picky about the real estate deals we're looking at just 'cause of what we've learned. Um, and if you go back to what I'm trying to hone in on as far as.

Being present in time for the family, uh, when I'm making these decisions about what next to buy, what next to invest, and I gotta think about how that's gonna affect me On my personal side, my goal would not to be to go backwards and add more to my plate time-wise. It doesn't mean I won't have more to my plate as far as lanes of what's going on, but I better have some type of system or delegation in those lanes that allow me to take on a new lane.

And so that is the filter through which I try to view things is if I'm gonna entertain something right now, like right now I'm looking at, uh, possibly another AI startup and a sincere, a sincere decision threshold or fork in the road I'm in is how much time will that take? And not only that, but is it a good fit?

Is it a good group? Is it a good investment? But also what's that gonna do my time? And so I guess the way to answer that is. Does this fit a system you already have that is going to, you know, you take on a whole new complex, but it's not gonna add a whole 10 hours a week because of your systems? Or are you making a decision that's gonna actually add 10 or 15 hours a week?

'cause if so, it better be so you, you better need it. 'cause all of these are failing or it better be, um, so guaranteed that it's worth losing 10 to 15 hours of your fam. And so that's the way I look at the investments. No, that's great. And we, we hired a coach as well. My wife and I and the January 1st meeting that we had, he told us, this is your year of, and last year you chose, does this give me more money or does it gimme time back this year?

You're only taking opportunities if it gives you more money and it gives you your time back. I love that. I like that. What, uh, what role does systems play into, into what you do? You're talking about scaling and all this stuff. You know, lawyer, obviously you got some kind of brain function upstairs. Uh, talking about being a hard worker sometimes, sometimes talking about being a hard worker, all that, but you can't add businesses.

You can't have 6, 10, 20 different ventures without systems. What role has that played in, into your process? Well, one of the things I would suggest is you gotta spend money to make money. Um, and I understand you have to have money to spend it. I get that. But sometimes people, uh, starting something will say, well, I'm gonna do everything myself 'cause I'll save money.

And that relates back to when I started doing real estate. Um, I started with my dad, who literally could do everything. I mean, he could. We did everything. We bought a single family home and we did everything ourselves. Now that was great quality time, something with my dad, so I won't give that back. But the problem is the, the process moves as fast as we move.

So without the systems. Four years later, I had four single family homes, which is four more than most. Yeah. But it certainly wasn't my path to where I wanted to go. And so what I learned early is you gotta start just paying people to do things. And by the way, uh, what's Martel's phrase? I mean 80% have done is better than 80% done by someone else is better than a hundred percent done by you or something.

They're a hundred percent awesome. There is a hundred percent awesome. Yeah. That's because you, you only have so much time of the day. And so another phrase I like that kind of ties into that is, what got you here won't get you there. And so my first business partner, and I'm not thinking about so many in particular, I'm not, but I, generally speaking, your first business partner or your first hire may have worked for three or four years, but if you're now at a different level, you may need to replace that.

Um, and so systems. We're try, we're in the middle of continuously revamping our systems. AI has helped a lot. Um, task trackers like Clickup or Asana, people are using, and now I'm saying all these things that people might know about. But you know, when I'm taking on new ventures, those are things I already have learned.

Those need to be implemented day one. Mm-hmm. Um, we don't need to teach ourselves marketing. Hire a fractional marketing person, and if you can't afford the level that we hired, hire somebody who's part-time Fiverr, or a friend who maybe wants to volunteers from the time and partake in five or 10% of the upside.

I mean, do things to where, you know, you're gonna put subject matter experts in those lanes so it can be taken care of. Maybe only 80%, but certainly better than not getting done at all, because even you're a hundred percent. If I think I'm better at insurance and risk mitigation, which I'm not, I'm not better than our risk person, Megan.

I'm not. But if I used to handle all that stuff, I only have so many hours. We'll never be able to grow and. What I wish I could have done earlier. One of the things I always say, I wish I would've bought real estate earlier, and I wish I would've scale scaled earlier because that delayed gratification to build a system is the most important thing.

Routine meetings we're on the attraction. Have you heard at traction? Mm-hmm. And I'm sure we're probably 75% doing it accurately, but I, I've been informed that throughout that book and through that process, that like it's meant to be moldable to what people are dealing with. So mold, whether it's traction or some type of cadence where you're meeting with your team members, you're hitting KPIs and data.

Now with ai, there's no excuse not to track data. You know, for example, well, uh, I use this example, uh, recently you have a, you have a complex and there are four vacants, and they're not renting at $900. What's the problem? Well, somebody who just jumps to a conclusion may say, well, $900 is too high. But then you found out.

It went vacant three months ago, and they didn't even finish the rehab until last week. So it's not that four months of $900 didn't bring the market to the table, it's that you didn't even do anything for three months. And so what's the data telling you? What is the data? Is the data saying that we have had four months of on the market for $900, we've had a hundred showings, and nobody has, then the data's saying we probably gotta lower our rent.

Mm-hmm. But if the data says, we don't know, we just finished that unit last week, then you haven't tested the market. And I know that's kind of obvious, but if you're not tracking the data, then it's not gonna help your systems. And I hope that's a, I know that's a really long general, general answer, but finding the right people in the right seats, continuous touch points, and then a request that those team members only bring me the on fire items or the 1 3 1 approach, which I really like.

I think that's a Martel thing as well. Mm-hmm. Bring the one problem to me. Bring the three items that you vetted as opportunities and tell me the one that you think I should do. You're the expert. I believe you. I'm paying you to do it. Uh, not to be an asshole about it, but like I trust you. Mm-hmm. So you tell me instead of me having to say, oh, there's a problem.

Okay, now I need research and do all these things. And those are the kind of things you need to implement with a team. Along the same lines, you mentioned AI a couple times on that. What AI solutions or how much is AI playing a role in that for you today? So much. Um, so much. I feel like I was just telling a friend this other day, whatever giddy, weird feeling I had about real estate the first few years I was started, which I still am giddy about real estate, but I just know it so well that it's hard to find out astronomically new things.

Um. Ai. I'm just, I can't stop thinking about it. I was up last night. Just, I have different project folders in chat, GBT, I'm feeding it my DISC assessment, personality assessment so that I can teach it to talk to me like I would learn the best. I'm using it for negotiations. I have a master's in negotiation that's not a pat in the back.

I'm saying I went and got a master's and I went to law school and I'm using Chad GBT to fine tune it. It's not that it's replacing it and a lot of times you gotta check the sources, yada, yada. But I'm using Chad GBT, and I know that's the lowest hanging fruit for AI to gear towards certain things. And what are the comps for this?

What are, what are the best way to handle this negotiation and then continue to feed that project folder and go back and forth with it. It was funny, the first time I ever got chat, CBT, my wife fell asleep early. She came out in the living room and I had just learned about that, uh, chat function, meaning you just press it and you're talking to it.

She walked out in the living room on, it's at 10:00 PM I'm talking to the, it was at the TV screen, but I'm just going back and forth and learning so much. So chat, GBT for sure. I know that everybody utilizes that, but I don't think they're utilizing to, most people use it like Google. Yeah, you, you can get in there and you can look it up on YouTube quick.

Little shorts will tell you, you need to, you need to feed the instructions that are in the settings. You need to do all these things so it knows who it's talking to, and it can tell you what the outcome is. You can say, be devil's advocate on every answer. You can say, fluff my pillow on every answer, whatever you want.

Do it. Um, but then the project folders, and Chad, you, but you really help me separate what I'm talking about because it's as smart as it is, it's gonna conflate things if you all have it into one folder. So, Chad, GBT, or Claude, some type of LLM for people. Um, I just got into real ai.com. I really suggest that for real estate people.

I'm still feeling it out because I didn't test its accuracy. But real AI was actually founded by the, the founders of Fundrise, which is one of the largest crowdfunding platforms. They, they, they were a tech company who would raise a bunch of money and go out and buy real estate. And they know a lot about real estate now.

Now they just came out with real ai. And that'll run all comps for you. You can upload rent rolls or or financials to it, and you'll say, I wanna do A, B, and C. Here's the debt. What do I do? It'll walk you through comps, it'll walk you through risk steps, what you can do to mitigate risks. That's something we're using, um, when it comes to financially driven decisions.

Now, I am not just throwing something into real AI and saying, yes, let's buy it. I'm testing it. I'm making sure it works. And we're always having a hard copy or going back to our roots, if you will. But it's great because every time I test it, my underwriting is coming up almost exactly what the real AI's saying, and I can tell you if there's any better feeling about moving forward on something.

It's getting corroborating evidence that's outside of your knowledge base. And so real ai.com has been really helpful. Um, I know my team likes Julius, which I haven't been using, but they're using Julius for. I don't want to explain this incorrectly, but we'll throw a lot of data sheets and a lot of financials into those and they'll just reorganize data to a certain level that we want it.

So you might have a rent roll that says, here's all the rent, but if you want to know what was all the rent when I bought it per unit? What's all the rent today? What's that delta? How long did it take that used a year ago? That took diving into all these things. Yeah. Now you just upload all four documents in there and say, this is what I want.

You should double check it. But if you double check 8, 9, 10, 11 units and they're all accurate, you're on a really good step to being able to make very quick decisions with the help of something that would've taken four. Um, I could go on. So I'll, I, I, I'll try not to go too long, but then, uh, then marketing as well.

Um. You know, one of the companies I started, uh, recently called Lead, lead Consulting is where we consult on AI automations for companies. And, um, I'm having these recorded conversations with prospects, uh, figuring out what is their pain points in their business that they want automated through ai. I record it with Fathom, which is a note taker.

I upload the transcript and the summary to, um, either one of my private, uh, private ais that, that I've paid it for access to that kind of centralizes around how to make offers and, and make it best for automations is simultaneously. I'll throw it in chat, GBT and I'll ask it, what's the best proposal for them?

What's the best tech stacks? Because the tech stacks, forgive me for explaining, but Tech Stacks are not just use chat GBT, it's saying if you integrate these seven different AI things into your company, they'll all talk to each other and they'll just make everything automated for you. It'll tell you how to do that.

And so. That would've taken weeks from before. And now that I can do all those just by utilizing ai, I think it's really, really important. And I would suggest anybody take a look at that, because as much as this entrepreneurial space here, as much as the excitement at the table is with AI or wherever it is, scratch the surface, 1% of the people are using it like they should.

And so I could talk about AI the rest next three hours. I, I've been right there with you lately. Uh, we, we just did an episode on Claude. We've both been nerding out on Claude. Yeah. Yeah. The last, last month or so. It's been very interesting. But one thing, like someone could say, Hey, go find every podcast episode Chris Ulus ever done, and just scrape all the data and all the transcripts are on YouTube and say, Hey, I wanna build my system.

My real estate system, just like Chris plu has been building for however many years. That's awesome. And it will just scrape everything. You upload it, it builds everything for you. And just say, you know, well, I, and what, that's what I did with Claude, with Claude Code, is I took, you know, Dan Martel and Ed Mylet and Azis and Logan Rankin, and I said, scrub all these people, create a mentor profile for each of them.

So if I wanna ask 'em a specific question, like, Logan, how can I care about my tenants better? You know, or whatever, what systems do I need to put in? And then I created a boardroom with all them. So here's my problem. All of you talk about it and then gimme three solutions. Love that. And so, but like you said, it's, it's a tool to use to do better.

I'm not gonna make a decision. And I know some attorneys have gotten in trouble 'cause they use the AI to do. All of their, uh, filings. Yeah, that's problematic. Um, but I use it for, like, when I'm underwriting, I, I have like a one minute underwriting, a 10 minute an hour, a 10 hour underwriting. Yeah. And if I'm doing a 500 unit underwriting, I'm gonna put the whole 10 hours in.

But how do I know until the very end if it's worth it or not? So I use the AI to build a Chrome extension where I can just have it, pull the data from these deals from a marketing package and tell me immediately, is this worth me putting even another minute into Love it. And I've been able to scale that.

I mean, just. To limit the wasted time, I think is huge. That's exactly how I'm using real ai. Um, you know, when I underwrite a deal, a lot of times I'll look at, I'll just, I'll go right to the financial, look at the NOI, I'll, I'll understand some, what the, what the cap rate is in the area. And, and I'm really only investing in the areas I'm already in.

So I get an, I already kind of know what the per door should be, but I'll look at the NOI that's my one minute. Like they're asking a, a three cap on this. Like, I'm not even, this isn't worth my time, but if it passes that, then I wanna start underwriting a little bit. And that's when I would just start using real AI to kind of fine tune it.

If all of that looks good, then I start throwing offers out there simultaneously. I'm really digging deep. And of course you dig even deeper during due diligence, but yeah, AI can save you hours because that's another thing. Uh, we were passing on deals all the time 'cause I was the underwriter. And so I don't, it takes forever if you're just doing it all yourself and instead of hiring somebody to underwrite, we can utilize AI to take care of 80% of it and then make sure that's accurate on the backend.

How, uh. How much is speed part of your game? So having that ai, and I know you got, uh, private lending money and stuff like that, but I've seen you talk about speed. Uh, Cody Sanchez talks about she's got a couple things just about speed in business and stuff like that, but how much has speed been part of your, your game, if you will?

It's got me in trouble because I'm an inbox zero guy, so I'll send off an email to somebody if I don't answer in an hour. I'm like, oh, where's that answer? And that's a little, that's a problematic on my side, but behind that feeling is speed does kill deals, it'll kill your deal. Mm-hmm. Um, you could be really close to somebody on buying something, but if you're putting that offer in a week after somebody else put an offer in, you might not get the deal.

And so with, especially in the real estate sector, if, if, if we're learning four months in that the damn unit wasn't turned for three months. Their speed right there live telling you your whole dang business plan is screwed because your speed wasn't there. And so you, you mentioned Logan Rankin and, you know, I got a chance to speak at one of his conferences and he was on our, um, podcast.

Really good dude. Mm-hmm. The reason he's successful outside of being intelligent and driven and kind is he is scary, just data-driven. You can make your fastest decisions through data. I don't wanna speak for him. I I, I know he'd jump on the podcast if he hasn't yet, but what he, he doesn't hide a thing.

He'll post on X or wherever. We had this many turns, it took exactly this long per unit because we rented them another three weeks later. We save this much money by it not being vacant for, like, those are the decisions you have to make. And that's why AI and speed is so important. And so whether I'm counting on AI or employees or team members, I don't, I don't even like to say people work for me.

We're all on the same team. But like, if we're gonna make quick decisions, you need to be on top of your stuff and AI's gonna help you get there. And, and I think there's been several instances over the last five years, right? We were all in the same market. I'll be underwriting a deal and I might have a client or I'm looking at buying a, a property and you know, we're still thinking it over and brainstorming.

And then boom, Colin, Chris bought it several times. I mean, I can think of so, but it, it usually works out. I don't ever hear about it crashing and burning. So the unknown unknown that I was sitting there dwelling on, the likelihood of it coming true was probably a lot more slim than I was giving it credit to.

Mm. And so I, I think that people don't take action because that fear of the unknown, but obviously you got the reps in. And so if, if you had to give a percentage to it getting burned by taking action too quickly versus missing opportunities, what would you say would be the, your, your threshold? Yeah, I like that question.

I mean, it's gonna depend on what it is, right? So if I hear that I should have put money into Shiva enu before it blows up. Uh, speed does matter there if you want to, if. Multiply your returns by 7000%. Extremely risky, right? When when it comes to real estate, you have a boatload of time. I mean, you literally have the due diligence portion of the contract where you can back out whenever you want.

Yes. You'll spend time, and I'm not saying to get into deals, in fact, I can only think of one. I think I can think of one deal. Maybe two, but I, I can only think of one deal right now that we've backed out during due diligence. Now that's a reputational thing too. You don't wanna be that guy that puts, there's a guy local here, I'm not gonna name names, but he's well known.

I don't think he'll ever get a deal here again because he put everything on our contract and he was just trying to wholesale it. He can never wholesale it, therefore it fell outta contract and everybody was screwed. So you don't wanna abuse that power. But you have thumbs systems. You have some investments that have built in timelines, like due diligence.

And then I would, cons, I would go back to this whole inbox zero thing. Not necessarily to be inbox zero, but to make sure that selling agent or that seller knows that you're there. If, if they say, Hey, what do you think about this? Here's my answers. Or What do you think about this price? If you take four days to answer, that's too long.

And if you don't have time in those four days, you need to find a team member to help you with that. Because I've sold things and I'm gonna sell it to somebody who I know is going to close, but also is here, is present, is is back and forth. And so I think speed's extremely important. But I, I would also.

Really stress that many, most of these decisions, decisions, especially if you're just getting started or you're relatively early in your career, you have a lot of built in time to back out and not make a mistake. Sure. You, you didn't get the deal and you spent your time. But that's education and I'd rather, I'd rather waste a little bit of time learning something than waste hundreds of thousand of dollars learning something.

Mozy talks about it too. I mean the, um, the fear of, of missed opportunity versus the fear of regret. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's always my fear, like putting money on, like, I remember the first time I put money hard on a real estate saying, I was like, I can't back out. Like I know just that, that, yeah. It just like this money.

If, if I back out, it's gone. So I, I do think that's, it's very, very real. What, um, you're starting over 2026. Would you still get into real estate as your first thing or would you do something else? What's I mean, yeah. I mean, if I'm starting over, let's just take the hypothetical that I have the knowledge base that I do now.

Right now we're at the bottom of the market. I get in bar bottom of the market for this cycle with how the interest rates increased so much, it decreased, it increased the cap rates, which naturally drove down the value of assets. But that's cyclical. What happens all the time right now is the time to buy.

No doubt. Um, you know, I've used this phrase before, you buy right now and interest rates have come down a little bit, not where we want them to be. But you buy, you buy something now and you fix your debt for five or 10 years. Well, if rates go up, you were a genius 'cause you have rates lower. If rates go down, your property's gonna raise in value whether you do anything or not.

And you're making moves, you're doing things, you're learning. And so if I had to start over right now, I would most certainly get into real estate. The only thing I would do differently than when I got into real estate in 2013 is I would find team members quicker. Yeah, I do more with people and I, you know, I said this at that r when I was speaking today, but like I, I, I view real estate as a perfect opportunity for businesses because you don't have to partner with the same person on the second home or apartment.

I'm not saying get into relationships and partnerships, knowing you're gonna not be in that partnership for the second round. But not only do you have that built in due diligence and time to get out of a deal usually, but if the first deal doesn't go the right way, maybe you view rehabs differently, maybe you view money differently, whatever.

You just don't do another deal together. And I, it's an awesome opportunity when it comes to business. It's not like you're starting a Chick-fil-A franchise where you're stuck holding this brick and mortar Chick-fil-A and you have a partner. And so I think real estate's, hands down the easiest way.

There's that phrase that most millionaires are made in real estate. It, it's true because there's just so much long-term money available. So a hundred percent I would get into real estate and I also use other people's money faster. Now, technically I'd use every people's money. Day one, I, I used my dad's money.

Yeah. But my dad would never have used a dime from anybody else. And that's why we were stuck on single family homes. And that's why we were stuck not paying someone to come in and lay the flooring. And that's why it took us a year to do each house because we were doing everything ourselves. If I could restart, I would immediately, I, I'd share profits with everybody.

Because what's gonna happen is you either scale a company so large that you don't give a shit about all the profit going every which way because it's making so much. What's that whole, I'd better take 1% of the watermelon. I don't have 1% of all McDonald's than a hundred percent of one. I'm always like that.

That's why we have 700 investors. Like, I hope they all succeed. I hope we succeed. Um, but if you do it that way, then you'll, as you grow, you can either choose to branch off on your own or you can be so successful that you want to keep your team and it's going to work. And so starting off in 2026, I would for sure start to surround myself people smarter than me.

Um, I don't mean to go on a too long of a diatribe, but. It, it, I'm learning from social and hearing all these really successful people, like I want to be the dumbest person in the room. I wanna be the dumbest per dumbest person at my company meetings. Like I, I want, I sincerely want someone to say, look Chris, I I get that you underwrote that way.

A couple things changed the last two years. Here's A, B and C. Here's why I think we should do something different. Awesome. Let's do it. 'cause I'd rather learn that now than two years later or hope that I researched that or whatever. So just surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals and, um, being better as a group is certainly how I would start in 2026.

Well double down on something or double click on something you just said. So you started off with your dad using your dad's money. You say your dad would've never used anybody else's money. Then you, sentence or two later said, I have 700 investors. I'm sure your mindset was pretty similar to his whenever you started off.

How'd you change your mindset? Yeah, I mean, really what happened is two things. One, I hated some nights, but certainly every weekend changing toilets and doing all that stuff. I love spend time with my dad, but I also wanted for my dad to have something that was an actual return on investment. Now, for single family homes, which we still own today, have gone up a boatload in value.

I mean, a lot, they don't cash flow 'cause they're single family homes, but the value's there. Mm-hmm. Um, after about three years, I did not tell him, and this was all part of the plan. I kept helping him and my dad was the kind of person that he had faith in me. I had succeeded in life, but he, he would wanna see actual proof.

So I branched off on my own. I bought, I don't know, 50 or 70 units without him knowing, using other people's money. First time I ever did that, I borrowed a hundred thousand dollars from a family member, which I'm not saying everybody has that opportunity, but it doesn't have to be a family member. It could be anybody.

It could be to re me up or whatever. People have money. That's the one thing I've learned. There's money everywhere. Um, and maybe that doctor or maybe that electrician or maybe that whatever wants to be in real estate, they doesn't have time. If they trust you, certainly if you, if you can show some experience, they'll give you the money.

They get some profit, you get some profit. And so that's what I did. I took on a hundred thousand dollars from somebody. I gave 'em 10% on it. I didn't have to pay for a year. So a year later, I gave them back 110,000. And of course they said, I. If I don't want it all, just gimme the 10 and let's do it again for another year.

And after I did that for two years, I was able to drive my dad around and say, uh, I own that. I own that. I own that. And he was like, whoa. And that was a big wake up for him. It happened to coincide with him having pancreatic cancer and having to stop doing all this stuff we were doing anyway. But the reason I started doing it is that I didn't want him to work as hard.

And if we're gonna spend time, I'd rather spend time doing something else than changing toilets. Um, but that's why I branched off is that I saw, I'm working full-time attorney job. These weekends are tough. I got kids coming. I'm not, this isn't sustainable for me. Let me show him how it can be done by trusting other people, which is really hard for him to do.

And it's still a little bit hard for me to do as well. And that's. Kind of how I snowballed into that direction. So was that, was that the milestone that you felt just, I made it like, you can smell the flowers for a second. I mean, you've had a lot of accolades, you know, getting your, uh, or passing the bar, you know, getting commissioned in the military, uh, buying your first multifamily, all these great successes.

But I feel like we're, we're such driven people that you, it's hard to pause and really take it in. Was that moment with your dad one of the most memorable showing him that stuff? Yeah, it was, it was for, uh, because I could show him that it, it was successful. And there was partly probably a part of me that was like, see, I was, I was telling the truth.

Um, I think that was the most rewarding, you know, and I'll, I'll be honest, I lucked out. I think I worked my ass off. I think I made smart decisions. I certainly, certainly made mistakes, but I also lucked out just in the cycle of the market. If I would've started in real estate in 2022, I might think real estate was the worst idea ever.

Um, so I start, I lucked out. That's me. Yeah. And you know, and knowing what I know now, if in hindsight then there was ways to succeed in 22, you just find 10 year fixed debt and figure it out. But, um, yeah, I, I think that that was extremely rewarding for me and, uh, I'm very thankful for it. I just, I wish I would've learned it quicker, but at least I learned it.

Well, was it the luck? Luck is where opportunity meets preparations. Yeah. I like that. Um, how, how has your investing philosophy changed from 2019 to now? I mean, the cap rates are inverted, you know, interest rates are higher than most of the cap rates in our area. Mm-hmm. So is it more equity or you're going into it with, uh, more heavy agency debt?

What, what's your, I love this question because when I started. We were good. I felt like I was pretty dang good. And, and, and we cared and we were successful. Um, and then as we gained investors, we could point out our past successes. Well, that's changed. It's not as easy to cash flow. Uh, one of the things that certainly got pushed right, if you will, is we were flipping apartments in a year or two.

Um, that was because we would implement our value, value plan, so we would make it worth more, but simultaneously the interest rates were going down. So on steroids, our business plan was just making everything successful. And so I could sell how cash flow was always happening. Um, that's not always the case anymore.

Like if I can invest only my own money, which we have $330 million in assets, so I, I can't write $110 million check to, to own all this myself. Uh, uh, what I wish, or what I hope, uh, people come to realize is that there will be cycles and as rates start flying down those speed lines, those, uh, those, those timelines will, will shorten and cash will get better.

But one of the most important things to learn, and I've learned it the hard way, is that there is still tremendous wealth in real estate, whether you're getting income or not. There's four ways to make money in real estate. There's cash flow, there's depreciation and write-offs. There's appreciation. Real estate's just gonna appreciate over time, just like the stock market.

Now, if you take a snapshot from 22 to 24, no it didn't. But unless you're in the flipping game, if you're in the long-term hold game, you put your money into Apple, you might have a bad 2022, you lost 20%. You put it into Apple and you look at it 30 years later, you've made a lot of money. And so if I could somehow wipe this slate clean and say.

Here's a perfect investment. It would not be so centered on cash flow, although that's important 'cause you want that buffer to make sure it's gonna sustain itself. And of course everybody likes a nice check in the mail, but it really is, are you buying an asset that you can make worth X amount more dollars regardless of what happens in the market?

And are you kind of mitigated on risk because of how well you're buying that asset and don't stress so much on just cash flow. I didn't name the fourth thing. The fourth thing is your tenants are paying off your node. So you might, right now we have a handful of deals that are not kicking out cash flow.

They're worth more than we bought them. The tenants are paying off the debt and we have millions of dollars of write-offs. It's a huge win. Huge win. None of those, can you say about the stock market and I, I don't pin them against each other. I have money in the stock market, but I would stress that it's not always about cash flow.

That's the easiest to sell. Look me, I, I make a check every mailbox money every month I'm on the beach. Yes, that's great. But just because a, an asset is not kicking out cashflow for a temporary basis doesn't mean it's not a good investment. It is a entire package. You're making an asset better. And that's what I've learned and how I'd like to structure the most of my deals is that it's, am I buying it for 6 million and selling it for 10 million or am I buying it for 6 million and getting a check every month and selling it for 7 million?

Which would I rather have? Yeah, it's, uh, I got in 22 and I'm gonna, you know, buy everything. I'm gonna cash flow. I'm gonna make, get to a hundred units, a hundred dollars a unit, $10,000 a month. Oh yeah. I'm gonna be living on the beach. I haven't quite, uh, hit that in time though, man in time. No, I mean, I started off for good, but yeah, it's been interesting.

But I, I changed, you know, to your point, like I don't care about cash flow now. As long as I can take money from my business, invest it. Write off a lot of taxes. That's really what I go for now. Yeah. I wanna ask a question. You mentioned kind of the economy and the market and stuff like that. We've got a new fit chair coming in.

I started listening to this very riveting book yesterday called, uh, applied Economics by Thomas OI don't dunno if you've ever I've heard of it. But, uh, really riveting stuff. He, he talks about in there, he says, throw that, throw that in a chee and have it summarized it for you. I got the audible one so I can listen that two x, so that's good.

Uh, but he says, he was talking about, I think it was Nixon and Clinton and how politically savvy they were and how they thought third, fourth, fifth, sixth move politically. But when it came to economic decisions, they only thought about the immediate impact that it would have on the political impact of them.

Yeah. And so I wonder with this new Fed chair coming in, everybody's saying, oh, he's gonna lower rates, gonna lower rates. But are we just looking at the first term, like. I'm gonna come in and cut rates and not looking at the second, third, fourth order effect of the economy. What do you see coming? Um, crystal ball.

Yeah. And yeah, you know, it is a crystal ball situation, but I would say that our investors count on us to kind of have our ear to the ground and, and figure out what's going on. Um, I hope this highlights how unselfish I'm trying to be. If rates go down, we will be so successful. I, I will personally and our investors will, will make so much money.

Do I want all of that? Yes. But if rates come down, um, and we're in a deflationary situation where, well, I guess it, it would inflate, it would, it would be an inflation where rates have come down. Now we've flooded the market with more money and now everything costs more. I worry a little bit about how.

People who don't have the same access to money that I do, how they're gonna live. I mean, I, I'm so surprised now going out for lunch and getting a $28 salad. Um, and sometimes I, I look at my wife and I'm like, how do people afford this? 'cause like, I sincerely, I said earlier, like, I don't spend money. I, I really don't.

I spend money on the businesses and I think I buy all my shirts from True Classic, which are like $15 a piece. Like I don't, I don't care about any of that. I do care about how my investments do. Um, and I'm a little worried if rates come down, it could be a difficult situation. There's a possibility that it just so happens to coincide with ai.

And that guess is, is, I don't know, because if things are more expensive because of rates, that's scary. But if things are less expensive 'cause they're easier to make 'cause of ai. I don't know what's gonna happen there from, if I'm wearing the hat for just my assets, it's gonna skyrocket everything. I mean, it did it for us already when I bought stuff in 13 40, 56, 70.

And those rates started going down. I mean, I have, I have one note fixed for another 31 years at 2.6%. It's cash flowing 3% right now with a 35 year loan. Yeah, it's cash one 3%. So I might have a couple of investors like, oh, I thought it would be seven. Listen to me, we have 2.6% debt fixed for 31 years. It's free money.

You have an asset that's only gonna go up in value. Um, and so I guess what I'm saying with the interest rate and the crystal ball thing is whatever outcome can make it so that my portfolio is that much better, but nobody's struggling to eat. That's what I would hope happens. Uh, but I do think rates will come down not to be political, uh, but.

I, I would not say that, uh, our president makes decisions based upon everybody's wellbeing. I can say that his entire wealth is wrapped up into real estate. Mm-hmm. And so when rates go down, he becomes that much more wealthy. And to your point, remove, uh, a person from politics not to pick on our president.

Past presidents have the same problem. Mm-hmm. They're worried about getting voted in. Again, who knows if Trump runs for a third term or whoever he puts next, but like, you're gonna say, look at gas prices, look at interest rates, and you're not gonna talk about that $48 salad. I don't know. So it, it's a, it's a tough decision to be in politically because.

We as a society are. So just what's happening right this second. And if you're only gonna stay in power or stay as the president or be viewed upon positively for these little onesies and twosies things, it can be really hard to make the right decision up top. So I don't know what's gonna happen. I can tell you I really doubt interest rates go up.

It's like $5 foot long is, you know, 10 inches for $7 now. Is it, I mean, people measuring their sandwich and, but so one thing that you've talked a few times about is the shiny objects of, you know, there's so many different ais and systems and, you know, uh, a, a asana and, you know, Monday and all these different things.

One thing that seems like you've done very well is stay in multifamily and now you're at a point where you have the luxury being able to diversify into more businesses and some mixed use projects and some, uh, energy projects and stuff like that. Um, but what would you say has been the, the. Biggest reason why you've been able to stay focused on one thing rather than diversify too much?

Um, I'd say there's a handful of items. Number one is 'cause I quit my attorney job and this, that, that was it. And that was a hard decision. My family thought I was crazy. Um, wife Shivani, very supportive, but scared as well. 'cause she's an attorney and she had already quit her job to stay home, which by the way, that's a full-time job I would be awful at.

Um, her patience is way better than mine. Um, but, um, I, I'd say that, uh. When you quit your job and you put all your eggs in one basket, you want it to be the best. And then there's the, what I talked about earlier, this competitive nature of me. I wanna be the best period. And then I thought I was getting rid of, and I don't wanna say get rid of, but I thought my life would no longer hold very upset clients 'cause I was a divorce attorney for 10 years.

Well now I just have clients who care about their money. So they're just as nitpicky. And so because of that, it's all, I have all eggs in one basket. I wanna be the best and I have people to report to. I have investors that I want to make successful. And those three things, uh, really keep me honed in to be as successful as possible.

Because if they're happy and the investments are going well and the company's going well, then I'll be able to relax and live the life that I wanna live. So it hasn't been hard for me to really drill down and be contrary. 'cause I. I don't, I'm handling people's money now. It's really important. I'm making the best decisions.

Well, and it it, from what I've seen, obviously from the outside, it seems like you're willing to gamble with your own money. And if it sticks, I might turn this into a business. Yeah. If you're not out there raising capital on an idea, or I'm gonna, I got this pro forma for the short term rental package and we're gonna buy the whole thing with all your money.

Yeah. So it, I mean, is that fair to say that that's kind of been Yeah, I think a rule of thumb, big time would be if you're gonna syndicate money, which is a legal phrase for, I'm literally taking in money and the people I'm taking it from are passive. Um. If you're gonna take somebody else's money, you, you better know what you're doing.

Uh, I'm also a huge proponent of you should put your own money in the deal. Now look, if it's your first deal and you have all the time in the world and you're gonna fricking flip that house, and you're gonna be awesome, and you're gonna be boots on ground every day, and you get an investor who gives the money, that's understandable.

I understand that. But if you're gonna, you still put skin in the game, you're putting a boatload of skin in the game, um, I mean, shoot, they could put all their money in and you could sell the house for the same price you got it for, and maybe they make $0, but you just wasted a lot of time. And so I think it's important to be, I'm glad, I'm glad you hinted to that.

If we're taking on something new, we're trying to do it ourselves. Um, short term's, a good example, uh, development's another example. We have a development going with Dodge right now. It's, it's gonna be big and we're really excited for it, but, uh, I, I didn't, we didn't send that out to our 700 investors. Um.

Colin and I put a lot of our own money into it. Uh, we have a great developer in Brett West, so it'll be successful, but we wanna make sure we're really comfortable that it's gonna be successful before start asking for money. Now we do have a couple investors, but it's literally friends and family, a couple of business partners, a couple of family members, and they're invested in a much of our other deals.

So, you know, they're well diversified as well. But if you're gonna be spending other people's money, you should really make sure you know what you're doing because that's, that's a large amount of responsibility and that's something we don't take lightly for sure. Mm-hmm. I got a gee whiz way off subject question.

Love it. Putting on multiple hats. You divorce attorney hat, your syndicator, capital razor hat, what happens? You're married. I invest in your fund. Me and my wife get a divorce. Yep. Stock market. If I'm investing in the stock market, we can sell, we can split up money. You know, we got a hundred thousand, we take 50, whatever.

How does that work? For you guys? Yeah, just a random question came to mind. Well, we've had it happen. We've had people get divorced and people die. Um, and you look at it the same way as if they die, it's gonna go to their estate. And or if they, so that means they, they, they keep it. And instead of John Smith owning it's John Smith's trust, so they don't lose their, their value if it's a divorce, with divorce is you either ask the judge to make the decision or if you're smart, you negotiate an outcome.

'cause you're always gonna have a little bit better outcome than the judge. In my many trials that I've seen, um, so often you have two options there. If you're gonna divorce, you can either say, let's split our investment and let's split our 50,000 investment into two 25,000 investments. And that way we don't have to guess what it's worth, whatever the heck it ends up being.

That's what it'll be. And we all, we we equally, is that based on a share? Per out a share? Yeah. So, uh, when we sell our shares, they're a thousand dollars a piece. So, um, you know, if it's $50,000, we can just split 25 shares over here, 25 shares over here, and that way we don't have to guess what's gonna happen.

You're both just gonna take the ride with us. You can also have a judge and or you can negotiate and you can give a value current day to what that's worth. And they th in the divorce, they'll throw it in the whole mix. So for example, let's say that the marriage had no assets except for it had a house and it had the investment in 11 wealth and the investment in 11 wealth was $50,000 and the equity in the home was $50,000.

Well, you could choose to give that 50 to one spouse and keep the other 50 50 other spouse as long as it's, uh, somewhat fair. It doesn't have to be exactly even, but it, they want it to be somewhat fair in, in its outcome. And so. We've dealt with that before, and thus far we have not done the splitting of the assets.

They just said, uh, this spouse will take these shares and this spouse will take the 401k or whatever. Hmm. One, one thing you, you said earlier is that you have coach, um, uh, obviously that's something you've done recently, but as you reach these tiers of success, the mentor pool starts to slim out and where you get guidance from, there's, there's a very limited amount of people that have had the problem of a $5 million wire being frozen.

Mm-hmm. Where do you start seeking more guidance as you hit those upper echelons? That's just more expensive coaches. Um, a good mastermind or a good group of people is, is really needed. I mean, I, I, I remember when I first secretively branched off from my dad, I did pay for a $10,000 coach, and at that time I was like, what am I doing?

Um. That $10,000 coach looked at one of my bids, crossed off a bunch of stuff, and I think saved me seven, like took a $17,000 bid down to $10,000, or I, I, I don't remember the exact number, 20,000 down 10, like saved me all the money in the world just from that one thing because I found somebody who was smarter than me to help me out.

And it doesn't have to be a 10,000 coach. It can be caffeine and cap rates meeting with Owen on a Thursday. It can be, it can be the YouTube University, but as you get. More and more experienced, and perhaps you take on bigger and bigger problems. You just try to surround yourself with bigger and bigger people.

And I know that's an obvious thing to say, but they're always out there. I mean, you can partake in these very large masterminds, which they can cost you $25,000 a year, which is a lot of money. But you wouldn't even think about that $50,000 a year. You would not think about that unless you were making somewhat decent money.

And that decision is the same percentage decision as trying to afford that $5,000 coach. You're making X amount of money. It's not very much, can I afford a thousand dollars? It's tough, but it's gonna work. Let's do a thousand dollars. Well, if you're making this much money, then it may make sense to spend $50,000 on a coach, because again, you don't wanna be the smartest person in the room.

And it's, I yearn to be around people smarter than me, and I'll pay for it just because, uh, well, heck, her mozy. He paid for Grant Cardone, her, they both told this story, but he paid for Grant Cardone and I, I forgot what it was like a hundred, $200,000 for one hour, and I think Hermo left 40 minutes in.

Mm-hmm. And got what I needed. Grant said, here's what you need. You're a fucking genius, but nobody knows about you. And now Hermo already admitted he spends 2 48 hours, two full days a week only on social. That's all he does. And three fourths of that time is just prepping to be on social. And it's not that he grew up in his life.

I don't know. I don't know him personally, but I find it hard to believe is this Jim Rat sleeping on the ground that he thought his job would be YouTube guy. But that's how he grew his business. And he learned that by making a little bit of money and continuing to spend that money as a business cost on bettering himself.

And that's what we always try to do Now, what was it, the highest revenue generating book launch in history. I know. Insane. Good for him. All from, all from being a good marketer. That's, I love, I love his, uh, he had a round table, you know, we were sitting in a meeting or whatever recently and he is like talking about how many hours he spent on, uh, media in a week, and his wife and uh, er or whatever, his business partner, they started laughing.

He's like, what? Mine's better than yours. Yes. I I saw that same clip. I was dying. So what, uh, I know we gotta get you outta here for some ice cream, but No, I have a meeting before that. Oh, do you? So I got 20 minutes. I got 20 minutes. What does freedom mean to you? Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I used to define happiness in that, and I, I, I, I kind of still do.

Freedom is just the ability to do what you want, when you want. Now, that's loosely said. Mm-hmm. I, I can't just clear, I, I can, and I have cleared all my meetings in a day for an emergency, but I mean, you still need to be there, especially as a founder or taking care of people's money. But like, freedom really means to me, being able to do what you want.

And that means if I'm going to get ice cream with my kids at three 30 on a Tuesday, I never would've made as an attorney, I would've been in court. I would've been arguing about somebody's ironing board and why they didn't get it in the divorce. Like I have structured it so that. I can still work my ass off, but I'm, I'm, I reap what I sow because I make more money the harder I work.

But I can do it on my time. I, I've had this conversation with my wife. If they took everything from me right now, I could never be an employee again, ever, because I'll always hit this ceiling and I find it hard to believe I would find a founder like us that would want me to succeed as much as the employer.

And of course I have employees, so it's a weird thing to say on camera. I have people that work for me, but. We're talking about profit sharing, we're talking about trying to get them shares of deals. We're talking about trying to provide, like, I want everybody to grow together because it's one thing to get a paycheck every two weeks.

It's really nice to know the better you are at your job, not only do we get a bonus, but you also own something that you're already working on anyway. And so that, that's important to me to, to, to, to make sure everyone's in. But as far as what does freedom mean to me, it really just means doing what you want when you want.

And I don't mean that selfishly, I just mean not being tied to the stereotypical nine to five situation. I work way more than I did as an attorney, and I worked a lot as an attorney. I don't even view his work though. Like if my, if, if Shivani falls asleep and my kids go to sleep earlier or whatever, if I have a second, I am not outside mowing the lawn.

I haven't mowed my own lawn for 10 years. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you like it, if it's your escape, if it's your relaxing time, that could be a meditative time. Good. Do it. I'm literally looking up real estate. I'm, I'm looking up ai, like I yearn for it, but that's what I want to do. So my freedom is getting to do what I want to do instead of saying, oh, shoot, they fell asleep early.

I really need to figure out how I'm gonna argue at court tomorrow for somebody's ironing board. Like, I can do what I want. And that's, that's what freedom means to me. Yeah. I was, uh, talking to Colin a couple, maybe a month ago or so, and he, he asked me how much I worked. I was like, uh, I was like, well, you know, I'm trying to balance my business with real estate, make sure I keep the hours for real estate professional status.

I was like, you know, I probably worked 50 hours between both of 'em physically. I said, but mentally, I think I worked like 160 hours at 168. Like, that's so true. I, my brain only sleeps for a couple minutes each night. That's true. But mentally I'm always wired. But it's, yeah, like, but it mean, it may mean you like it.

Oh, it gives me energy. I never once, never once did I drive away from the law office and for the rest of the night, think about. How to take somebody's kids from them, like mm-hmm. I, I, I wasn't, I wasn't passionate about that. I think I was good. So don't get me wrong. Like, I think I was a good attorney and I cared about, in fact, maybe I wasn't the greatest attorney because I cared too much about my clients.

That that emotional struggle, watching somebody through divorce is tough. I was intelligent. I think I held myself outright in, in court and we were successful, but, uh, I cared about them. But like, if you can really get to a point where you're doing what you want, and I I, if you literally said, I have nothing to do for the next four, eight hours, and you find yourself doing the same damn thing you would've done, to me, that's freedom.

And one of the things that I've gathered from what you said is your freedom is happiness, but it's not happiness. When it's happiness now. And everything that you're doing is about mindfulness and about contentment where you're at. So with, with that in mind. What's next? I know you just launched your Raven Fund, is it, and you're starting to, to do Reg A.

What, what's next? What are you building and where are you headed? Yeah, so the fund we launched Raven was a few years back actually. So we launched a vestment fund recently. Um, vestment fund is, well first off, I'm still working on the whole being content and happy thing. That's a work in progress. What I like about the investment fund that we just launched is that, you know, when you're just getting started or for the first 24 syndications you do, it becomes easier to raise money.

But it's still a system where you're saying, Hey investor, I'm gonna buy that asset because it's very easy for an investor to say, I like that asset. Um, once you show enough experience and you show you, you can be successful in a number of markets, that's when we form the investment fund. And the investment fund is, Hey, investor.

The fund already owns these three assets and we're gonna buy four more this year. If you invest in the fund once, you'll own those three. You'll own the four we own this year. You'll own the four we buy next year. And what that helps them do is diversify. If you have our eggs in one basket, you're taking a risk.

Real estate's a risk. It says it in all the legal documents. We all know that just like a stock market, but I would call it the same as a mutual fund. That's not legal advice, but really that's why people like mutual funds. Mm-hmm. Is that they're not counting all on one stock. They're saying I might have 80% of these hit and at at different levels, home runs, single grand slam, and then I might have 20% of fail.

But if I own all of it, then they can kind of balance each other out. And that is what's so good about the investment fund. In fact, that investment fund also invests into liquid lending solutions. Our private lending company. And why that's beneficial is that oftentimes the first two years of a an investment, you're not getting a lot of cash flow.

You're dumping everything into the project and you're trying to make it as good as you can, as quickly as you can. Well, if part of your pool of money is also invested into liquid lending solutions and you're just making 10% every single month, it's a way that the fund can make a little bit of money while you're also raising the value of these assets.

And that's why we're so excited about the investment fund. Mm-hmm. That's awesome. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you coming here, learning, getting to chat a little bit more. Yeah, man. I know you got a meeting here in 15 minutes, so I wanna honor your time, but really appreciate it and uh, yeah, well hopefully people get value out of it.

I know I did. I appreciate you guys having me. Sincerely. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, man, thank you very much. I appreciate it gents.