Dragon's Gold: The Magic of Mindset

Living in the Moment: Matt Owens on Mindset, Money & Mastery

• Justin Mills • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Episode Summary:

In this episode of Dragon’s Gold: The Magic of Mindset, host Justin Mills welcomes Matt Owens, CPA, and founder of OCG Capital, to share his journey from a monotonous accounting career to raising over $150 million in real estate capital.

Matt dives into the hard lessons of the 2008 financial crash, how he rebounded from personal losses, and the mindset shifts that helped him scale to flipping over 1,000 homes and lending over $35 million to investors. From getting burned in bad deals to mastering due diligence and risk mitigation, Matt reveals what it takes to thrive in real estate investing and create financial freedom.

Key Themes:

  • Escaping the traditional CPA path for real estate investing
  • Lessons from the 2008 financial crash & bouncing back stronger
  • How to mitigate risk and vet investment partners properly
  • The importance of mindset, resilience, and emotional control
  • How financial freedom is built through consistency & discipline
  • The power of relationships & integrity in real estate deals

What You’ll Learn:

  • How Matt transitioned from a career in accounting to running a multi-million dollar investment firm
  • The biggest mistakes investors make and how to avoid them
  • How to structure real estate deals & build lasting partnerships
  • Why sticking to core principles leads to long-term success
  • How financial discipline & a strong mindset fuel sustainable growth

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About Gold Dragon Investments:
At Gold Dragon Investments, our mission is to bring joy to others by helping them win the game of investing — helping every client become the hero of their financial journey. We believe that wealth is a tool, but joy is the ultimate outcome.
Through meaningful partnerships, we strive to empower our investors to create freedom, and build lasting legacies of purpose, fulfillment, and wealth.

Join Us on the Adventure:

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us once again for another episode of Dragon's Gold, the magic of mindset. Today we have the pleasure of having Matt Owens, founder of OCG Capital. Matt, welcome to the show. Thanks man, appreciate it. Looking forward to talking about this stuff, man. The mindset is super important. Most important thing in business, It is. I agree completely. And well, let's start with your story, my friend. Let's go back to the beginning. Where did it all start with, Matt Owens? You know, it really started with that mindset, right? really being bored out of my mind, I'm a CPA, I was doing tax and audit and everybody can understand how monotonous and boring and just soul sucking that kind of work can be, I would say, right? And then I just wanted something different. I was bored and going, can't do audits and tax for the next 40 years. It's just not my personality, not what I wanted to do. I was good at it. good at numbers consistently. actually became a CPA because they didn't have architecture school at UC Santa Barbara and I wasn't going to leave the school because there was too many girls there. And so that was my mindset at 18 years old, going, I'm not leaving the school. I'm just going to do accounting like my dad. My dad was a CPA. So, and I'm working at the CPA firm, just, bored and wanting to get out and didn't know what to do. One of my stepbrothers came to me and he's like, Hey, you got to come check out this school. It's a real estate school And I had never really been to like a networking event around real estate. And I felt like when I went to this event, I was actually going to flake on him at the last minute and be like, no, I'm not going to go forget it. And he dragged me to this event and ended up going to it and immediately was drawn to it because there was another way to make money and create financial freedom in your life through that strategy. and the energy in the room from the other real estate investors and other people in the room just kind of like sucks you in to where you're like, I want to be around these people. And whether, they were good or bad or knew what the heck they were doing at all, didn't really matter. was the energy in the room that really got me to that point where I just had this draw to it. And I remember signing up for the courses, taking some of the courses, getting my first deal under contract, and I just quit my CPA firm job. So That was in 2006. I was a real estate genius for about a year and a half before I got my ass handed to me by the market crash, of course, and realized that I was not a genius and I didn't know what I was doing at all. And really, that was a massively humbling moment because, my whole ego was I quit my job, we're killing it, we're flipping a bunch of houses and, we got an office at the World Trade Center in Long Beach on like the 23rd floor, which was a huge mistake from an overhead perspective, of course. and really just thought I was dope because my bookkeeping was done and we're buying a bunch of houses and I thought I was a good business owner and realized, no, I was not a good business owner. And, you know, my credit score was 790, never missed a payment in my life. And then all of a sudden I get this massive punch in the face and was like, man, I had to hunker down, continue to push through and went on unemployment, tried to look for jobs. And it just kept trying to do the real estate thing while I was doing that. And, took that major mental and emotional hit and that ego hit, which was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, honestly, because you realize through those ego hits who you really are. And, you push through with that just grit and it shows you what you're capable of at the end of the day, which you don't really know in the beginning until you go through those trials and tribulations. That's when you see you take that hit, you're going. Well, what am I going to do? What's the action items I'm going to take right now? And you don't even realize you're going through it. You're just stressed out, freaking out, wanting to cry, going, my God, my credit took a hit. Like that's the most horrible thing in the world for me at that time. but yeah, that's the backstory. And then, I kept going and ended up taking, taking out 200 grand on my credit cards to pay my investors back. cause I had a 790 credit score. I had 290 grand worth of empty credit card lines available to me and took that out, kept pushing through. since then we've flipped over a thousand houses. Now we have over 35 million lent out to flippers in different markets. I've raised over $150 million for real estate now. And that wasn't the only hit. Trust me after 18 plus years of doing this, you learn to take those hits and just move forward and learn how to wipe them off your shoulder and just keep pushing. That's really the moral of the story is don't ever quit because you're going to take those ups and downs and those hits along the way, right? So. Absolutely, and learning from the experience, right? Every time you go through one of those experiences, what did you learn from it? And then applying that knowledge. I definitely wanna dig deeper into some of those trials and tribulations, right? We call it the gauntlet. But before I do, I'm gonna ask you, when did you know that you were destined for greatness? When did you know that you wanted something more, You talked about going to that real estate course and experiencing that and not wanting to be a CPA. But a CPA before that, did you always have a hunger or desire to do something great? What was your perspective of that? To be honest, just thought, hey, go get a job, go to college, get a degree, get a job, work at the CPA firm And I thought that that was my path really at end of the day. I kind of think that I was a lot less self-aware than I am now, of course, after going through ups and downs and constantly learning for 18 plus years, doing real estate and entrepreneurship. You don't know who you are until you go through those ups and downs and those trials and tribulations. I feel like I was just unaware, right? When I quit my CPA firm job, I had no idea that it was going to be this hard, If I would have known, I may have just stayed at the CPA job and tried to like do it on the side or something because of that stability. and I thought, Hey, I'm to be able to go to gym every day and I'm going to have all this free time and everything, which is the opposite of the truth. You just work 14 hour days going forward until you push through and make it right. And. I don't think I ever thought that I was destined for greatness. I was just in my mind in a lot of pain. And once you're at that point of pain where I was going to work wanting to cry because I couldn't just do this monotonous everyday stuff, it was so boring to me that was to the limit of my pain to where I had to make that shift to something else and didn't realize I was going to go to another form of pain. for a period of time as you learn those things, but you then start to realize you have this power to where it's on you focus, push through and, you are responsible for you now, instead of being bored going, yeah, I'll get my work done, but I really don't care because it's just boring to me and I don't have any incentive to like necessarily grow other than looking at the managers of the CPA firm, seeing them work even harder than I was working going, I don't want that. So What am I going to do? Right. And it was really out of necessity more than anything else. And then you realize through going through those ups and downs through your career, multiple people stealing from us, losing money on deals, having that self doubt. And then finally, pushing through multiple times and multiple issues that you push through that you realize that, I can take this crap. I can push through this. And I still have those self doubts going, man, like, do I need to deal with another problem? You know, sometimes you just have to laugh going, did I just deal with 10 problems before noon on a Monday today and, push through. And after a while you just learn to emotionally not react as best you can. And you still have those emotional trials and tribulations about yourself. that doubt yourself, you feel like a fraud sometimes because you're like, how did I just, with all this experience, just take another hit, right? Or deal with another problem that I should have known about already, you know? So a couple of years ago, I got stolen from by over $500,000 from a contractor that jacked us on like eight properties, eight big was emotionally able to brush that off my shoulder, Even though maybe it took a week to do that, I was still, able to say, okay, how do I make it back? What's the action steps? They're going to push me through this time because you know, through those other trials and tribulations, you have those mental epiphanies to be able to say, no, it's just a matter of action. I don't fail unless I give up. what action items do I need to take to make this happen? Right? So that's really what you learn through that process. I hear you say about making a change because of necessity, right? Sometimes the pain of change has to be less than the pain of staying the same, So you make this transition, you make this shift, you go into the world of real estate, you have these growth moments, right? These pain points and what a to the gut, the $500,000 stolen from you, Not only is it a monetary aspect, You still have to make sure the investors or the contractors or wherever you're employing in that regard still gets paid, Because your responsibilities don't disappear. and plus there's the aspect of trust that's injured in that, right? So not, just for the relationship here now with that one individual, but the trust that you have now with other people in the future, potential vendors that you'll utilize. And so learning from that experience, but not becoming jaded by it. I'm going to ask you, did you deal with that and how has that impacted your relationships future business partners? and partners? and that wasn't the only time I was stolen from. I had, good friends of mine steal money from us. not purposeful theft, but gross negligence and lying and things like that. I've invested in deals where everything was going great. And then the owner after 20 years of doing business in this field decided to, you know, take a bunch of money out of reserves and go lend it to friends and unsecured debt type situations. And, know, out of desperation, take money out or, deals that I've invested in that were fraudulent operators going through and making fake financial statements and crazy stuff you have that hard time now doing business with new people. And now I just go a lot slower where I'm, let me do baby steps and see what this person has done. Let me make sure I do all that due diligence. Let me call all the people that have invested with them. and ask those questions. Let me do background checks. Let me do criminal checks. I'm not skimping on the due diligence process. And I'm learning from that to say, what things could I have done that would have pointed those things out? And a lot of times it's not necessarily anything even fraudulent. It may just be a lack of experience or a lack of understanding of their accounting function or their operations or their asset management function and learning. What does it take? to be a good asset manager, right? What makes them a good asset manager? It's their team. Let me dive deep into their team and their operations of their team and who's doing their accounting work and who's doing the property management and the construction side when you're working with other people in that way. And I used to own a property management company and after owning a lending company for years, after a while, you're like, I don't trust anybody anymore from an operations standpoint. And so you put proper checks and balances in place upfront. but also throughout that operational aspect and try to retain some level of control through those aspects by mitigating those risks as best you can. And you really are not going to be able to do something if someone becomes fraudulent. You're like, what do I do if this occurs? And that's a very real risk. And it's not necessarily just fraudulent. It's, bad operations or messing up or not having the right experience about. what move to make, if a problem arises because they may not have gone through that in the past, how could I step in and help them if they come into those problems, if I'm working with different people, right? Because this is all about working with others. You also really want to be focusing on who they are as people, understanding what their moral compass, where it comes from. and who they are in that way before going deep with someone a business, right? Seeing how they communicate, how do they handle their stress? Are they yellers? Are they mean to people? It's like looking at somebody when you're out to lunch with them and they're mean to the waitress. You're like, I see where that person is majorly insecure and that's gonna be a problem down the line. You start to see and I look back at all the problems that I've had with certain people that have cost me money in the past, whether it's theft or just negligence or messing up on asset management or messing up on any aspect of business. And there were signs that I ignored because I was excited about a deal or I just said, no, no, that's not going to happen with this guy or this girl or whatever it is. then now I'm much more in tune to those things that I take a step back and say, wait, Like, let's go investigate more. I'm not going to let certain things go. I'm going to dive deeper into those specific aspects, ask questions, make sure I have some level of control. And then at the same time, find ways of mitigating those risks by saying, if this happens, what's my action step after that? And how do I retain and make sure that I don't lose money? it's more about action. if and when those things happen in the future, right? Yeah, you can't control other people. You can only control yourself. Right. When you're in a situation where you recognize the opportunity that those people had to steal or be fraudulent, etc. Oftentimes, because we empower them intentionally or not, we allow them that power by not doing our own due diligence, by not making sure that we vet the sources appropriately, by not listening to those warning signs when we feel them, right. That gut instinct when we know something's there. And we let shiny object syndrome overtake us. Or we get excited about the opportunity, whatever it may be. with everything that I heard you say, one of the things in particular is there's no substitute for experience. The school hard knocks is a good teacher you're willing to learn from the lessons. And if you don't, they will teach you again. One of the things you also mentioned that I really resonate with is the aspect of character. are they coming from at a root or a base as a person? Because regardless of what company you're in, regardless of what business you are in, whether you own a restaurant or you're a school teacher or you're in real estate, who are you as a human? And when you boil it back, that's really, we're all on this spinning rock together. understanding When things are difficult, what really comes out? When things are hard, the person that you show to the world oftentimes is a true self. And so something that I've reflected on myself and I think that many people would benefit from is that when you are in those moments and you are reacting, take a moment and be introspective enough to look back and see how you're reacting and say, the kind of person that I want to be? And the cool thing is that while yesterday is history, right, and tomorrow's a mystery, You have today the present, gift that it is, and you have an opportunity to change the person you are for the better and move forward in that regard. And so while that may not necessarily help other people in past relationships, and reputation also is huge, right? so when you burn a bridge, like remember that things come around, the world is small. The idea about that character and having high moral standards and making sure you're just a good human. think that that's such a valuable piece, it's such a valuable insight. And ultimately you make such better relationships that are much deeper and more profound and impactful, meaningful. And one of the things you mentioned in regards to relationships the people that you've met in this... line of work in this industry. I'm curious, I call it fellowship, right? The allies, the mentors, the teachers that have helped us along the way. Who would you say are some of the people that have been with you on this journey that you'd like to cite? there's a ton of people and this business is all about relationships And, you realize there's certain people you can talk to and that will, guide you and mentor you and help you any way possible that you can rely on. Right. One of the guys that I worked with for like the last 15 plus years, it taught me the syndication space is a guy named Jeremy Roll that, basically went through and showed me, Hey, this is the right way you structure deals, This is the right way. to structure your legal docs. This is how you do business this arena. And you go through and you find certain people in your relationship base that can do that. Now you don't really know them in depth until you're doing business with them and you see maneuver problems and that grit that really matters And that's really what it comes down to is when there's a problem, what action are they doing? And are they moving in a positive way and they making the right decision at that time in particular. when you see that over and over again, and that's what has really helped me massively is having those people in my life to kind of guide me. I have my dad as a moral compass for me. He was a ranger and a sniper in Vietnam. He was a black belt in karate. He my friends in high school and made me do accounting homework in college and things like that on top of my own homework. the, things that guide you and he's passed away now. And, know, I, I kind of want to live to make him proud of me in different ways. And, know, I've personally taken hits for my investors every time that there's a problem. My investors don't, or have not in the past taken hits from any of my deals that I've worked with. you go through and you try to find ways of. making sure your investors are taken care of and that you're doing the right thing because you want to have respect for their capital. You want to have respect for the relationship and find ways of mitigating those risks that come up and finding ways of taking that hit because long-term they're going to reinvest with you. They're going to help you across the board. And I've had so many of my private investors that have come out of the woodworks for me. to just help me in every way possible saying, hey, what other ways can I help you? Because I've seen you take these hits. I've seen how you've taken these problems and turned them into solutions and pushed through, and then they've reinvested with me. That's why I was successful now when I look back when I was taking those hits when the market was crashing, and I took out 200 grand on my credit cards to pay my investors back. they already invested with me and that's how i was able to start flipping again is because they're like wow you just took the hit for us and they told fifty other people that all started investing with me and it started snowballing in that way and i didn't even realize it at the time i was like oh my god that's hours of their life i can't let them lose that money because that's them trading their work hours for this i'll figure out a way to get it back i can't emotionally let them lose their money with this and it helped me push through. And so I look for that in other people when I'm trying to work with people and saying what issues have you had to deal with? What did you do during that time? can I talk to the referrals of the people that you worked with at that time? specifically, how did they feel about it? that's how you kind of vet people a lot more is finding out what did they do during those problem times, you know, so going through the crucible, shows that true character. But one thing I want to comment on you mentioned respect others and all those other facets. But one of the things that I think that's so important in what you did was about respect for yourself. Because when you look at yourself in the mirror, you know that you did the right thing. and the thing that many people wouldn't have, But it was the right thing to do. the fact that it paid dividends in your reputation, It was seen, even though you didn't know that it was, but it showed your level of character and the level of dedication that you had, the commitment that you had made and that you followed up on, right? I think that's crazy important to understand is no matter how hard it is, doing the right thing as best you can at all times, you will be able to sleep okay at night no matter how negative the situation and facing those problems, which is not easy to do for anybody to do. Like when there's a problem come up, our natural reaction is, I don't want to deal with that right now. Let's like push that off or, find another way or whatever, get away from the pain, right? But if you face that pain head on and you push through that pain as best you can and do the right thing, no matter how painful it is, that's when your character really, really shows. And that's when people will trust you because they realized, hey, you just pushed through that pain. I had a deal that wasn't working and I was struggling with it consistently. And I just stepped up and worked 80 hours a week to just kick that thing out. And it was like, grinding grinding grinding was painful and it took away time from my kids and my wife and it was super painful to do that but it was the right thing to do to make that work so that investors weren't gonna lose and that things were gonna work out okay we had to push through it took like a year and a half to like get that thing up and running and to where it's at least break even and starting to make money as well and it just was super painful but you go through that pain and you push through and you got to sacrifice yourself sometimes in that situation. And it sucks. really does suck. But that's what you got to do problems come up, but then that leads to some great, amazing things down the line. You realize that by going through that, by pushing through that pain, you find so many new ways of making money. You learn so many lessons and you realize that, that, pain is temporary. As long as you keep pushing and you don't give up. that pain is going to be temporary the whole time, you know, Matt, I'm super grateful for gold that you've dropped so far. I do want to ask about the Dragon's Gold, which is some of the achievements, the mindsets, the things that you've learned in those lessons. But before we get to those lessons, oftentimes there's a moment we call the darkest hour. And you've already shared with us some pretty rough stuff, but was there a moment when you thought, I'm done? this is too much and I don't want to put myself through that pain, Is there a moment where you're going to throw in the towel and then decided not to? How did you push through mindset shift helped you through it? does like last week count or no? At the end of the day, you're gonna go through these trials and tribulations across the board, right? You're gonna go through those ups and downs. And there was periods of time when I'm waking up at 3.30 in the morning, I can't sleep, my alligator brain starts going and I immediately am like panic mode, action mode, take action. But then in that panic mode, it's hard to take action. It's hard to make the right moves and you start to actually. doubt yourself and have self doubt and you start to eat yourself up where you're like, am I cut out for this? Can I even deal with this anymore? Like this is just too much. I don't want this anymore. And you're going to go through that as an entrepreneur, as a real estate investor, as anybody that's trying to strive for more in their life, your character is made in those instances. And some of the best things that I've done is I realized you have to have these stress hacks. to reduce your stress and find ways of increasing and strengthening your mindset. And so, a couple of things that I've done is one, I've dialed in my health, right? I started trying to eat right. I started focusing on the gym. I started going through and learning as much as I could about health because without that, you can't go through and have the right mindset for business and push through that stress. One of the other aspects that I've done is I started doing a lot of meditation. So I utilize a lot of Wim Hof. I don't know if you've heard of him in the past, but I highly recommend anybody going through and starting to utilize his, some of his breathing techniques and methods, but it's like a hack for your actual stress response where you can calm yourself through breathing, right? And being able to say, okay, I'm going to go through and I'm going to do, 30 deep breaths in, and then hold it, hold all the air out for a minute. There's box breathing where you're doing four seconds in, four second hold, four seconds out and four second hold out and doing that slowly. regulating your stress response through some of these things, right? One of the other aspects other than health as well as meditation is making sure you find ways of living in the moment, right? Like we all go through and we want to go spend time with the family and you know, maybe your mind is still going and I've had struggles with that, right? Where, I'm trying to listen to my daughter's stories or basketball with my son and I'm still in my own dang head going stop with all that focus on living in the moment right now and you will be happier and you have to have that living in the moment time for yourself. to pull yourself away from those stresses, go sit outside and just watch the sunset, go play with the kids, spend time on a family night with your wife or something like that, and take that time for yourself because without that, you're not gonna be happy. You have to have that kind of balance in your life, and living in the moment is where true happiness really is, and so you have to find ways. of pulling out of your mentality. One of the things that I've done is, every morning I'll meditate, but also meditate right before I go in and talk with the kids and, with the family, because it stops me from going that hundred miles an hour all day type situation at work to then saying, okay, right now for the next two hours, I'm going to live in the moment with my kids and I'm going to go play with my daughter with her dolls and things like that, even though it's excruciating for sometimes to do those things and be like, I'm playing wrong with the dolls, right? So according to her, you know, my, my son wanted me to watch a video with him that I'm just like, have no interest in this video or this cartoon or whatever, but focusing on him and his joy and happiness as well and living in the moment right then with him and trying to teach him in different ways, really does massively help. So those kinds of things, health, the meditation and living in the moment. those pieces will help you get through those challenging times and help you so that when you do wake up at three in the morning, you can calm yourself. You can then say, once you're calm, now you can focus on what the right activity is to move forward with. one of the other big aspects is writing things down and going through and just literally documenting. These are all my problems. These are everything that I'm, I'm stressing about that, you know, if this happens and this horrible thing happens, but 90 of the 90 % of the time, or more when you think about this horrible thing happening, it's not gonna happen. Like 99 % of the time it's never going to happen. It's just you're thinking about the worst case scenario and then you can write down your problems. You can say, well, what if I took these three action items? And most of the time your stress is because you don't know what action items to take to solve that problem. But if you write it down and you can develop action items that you can take. then you have a plan and now that stress response gets reduced because you're like, no, there's action items I can take to move this forward and solve the problem. They may not work, but I'm going to try anyways, you know? So. I think that what you said is incredibly powerful and very appropriate on many levels. One, enjoying the moment, right? Spending time with your children, your family, or whoever it is that's special to you, right? Those relationships, because what makes this world, this life worth living, right? And it's those relationships that we have. if not for that, then what are we doing all this for, right? Because it can be very thankless in many cases. Absolutely. When you talk about ways to deal with that stress, the ideas about breathing and meditation, I completely agree. As matter of Bryce Robertson, yeah, I love that guy. He showed me breathing, breath work, and I've been doing it consistently and it changed my life. I didn't realize how impactful it would be, and it is. It makes me think of the idea too about that self-regulation. You can't see bottom of the pot when it's boiling, right? And so you gotta let it cool so you can see through It's the same idea, the adage of muddy water. When you stir it up, you gotta let it set and settle, right? So when it's agitated, it's murky. You gotta let it calm. And so that's a really insightful way to be able to regulate yourself and allow yourself to calm. I appreciate the idea about that self meditation prior to entering the home, because I think that's something that I could use. I tend to go 100 miles an hour all the time. it's a little much, right? Because you don't jump on the treadmill going at speed 10, not often. when you run in the house and you're going speed 10 and your family's all sitting at speed 0.5, it is very disconcerting. And it creates a lot of stress, right, between you and the family. And so want to say thank you for that thought. I will be employing that myself. That's huge. And I think, you one of the things that I've really started to do as well, which most of the time, if you see me on a zoom meeting or something like that, I'm on a treadmill walking all day long. by, doing that one, it regulates your weight and stuff like that. It's highly, it's hugely helpful for your health, but it also it's weird where it actually can, it's like moving yourself forward all the time through this process. You also don't get tired and stuff from after lunch and everything too, cause you're constantly walking and everything. and burning off those calories. it's like a, it's a mental trigger where, know, during the day, if you're consistently walking, you're like, I'm making progress doing something, even if like you're doing busy work or answering emails or on a zoom call or something, you're still being proactive in that way. And I think getting a walking desk or a treadmill desk and doing that consistently has been absolutely life changing in my eyes because it's been so beneficial. took me from I'm about six foot and it took me from about 196 pounds down all the way down to 155. And my friends were like, eat a sandwich crack is bad for you and stuff like that. And so, and then, then I was able to gain some weight. I'm back at 170 right now. but my trainer wanted to take me down to 10 % body fat as well. And then now he's like, okay, you can go through and, know, start to start to eat some more and we'll try to put on some more muscle and some more weight and stuff like that for you. at the end of the day, you realize moving yourself forward in this way consistently really, really helps you mentally and having that exercise. I don't care if you're making a rule for yourself that, once an hour, I'm going to go do 10 pushups or 10 sit-ups or something. Just keep your body moving consistently across the board really helps with your mindset and your mentality as well. And if you set that commitment, do it. Right? If you that commitment, do it. I think it's such a big thing. think a lot of people, like New Year's resolutions, or people say, I want to do this and this is my expectation. And they go at it hard for a couple weeks. Right? And then it bleeds off. so... that's why walking is so important because my trainer literally says, Hey, like no one's going to sit there and run for the next 30 years every day of their life. It's painful and nobody likes doing it. Yeah. You can do it a few days a week, but you're not going to be consistent for the rest of your life. this or most people will not be, but you can walk because walking does not pain, right? You're just walking, right? You're not out of breath and you know, consistently in pain doing that, right? So, right. and doing things that are repeatable, And that's one of the things earlier you made comment about the journaling, right? And so I think about being consistent with writing down those thoughts. It helps to formulate those plans, right? There's something about, and I don't know about you, but for myself, I've found putting pen to paper and physically writing it out is so relevant. I've tried it with typing and it doesn't have the same effect for me. But when you can formulate those thoughts and let it flow on the paper, it's amazing what creative solutions you come up with and frankly how therapeutic it can be to put those thoughts out and get them out of your head and onto that paper. That's where I think that work-life balance aspect of it, everybody says it's a myth, but at the end of the day, it comes down to those types of things. Writing in a gratitude journal each morning saying, is what I'm grateful for, really changes your mindset to say, all my problems don't really matter. These are the things that actually matter. all of those types of little things that you can do, whether it's reading a book for 30 minutes a day or an hour a day or something like that, or doing your gratitude journal or walking on the treadmill or hitting the weights three times a week and being consistent on those different aspects can be life changing. Those are the things that you know will push you through versus just working 14 hour days. That's when my weight was higher. When my health wasn't as good as I was just nonstop work, work, work, work. forget everything else, throw myself to the wolves and don't care about my health. you're not happy in those situations. There's always going to be something missing, so you have to do those things. So one of the things that you've touched on, like the walking desk, the treadmill, reading every day, like for an hour if you can, which I think anybody can if they carve the time out. You can't make more time, but you can choose to allocate it and where it's important to you. So those things are what I would call tools and weapons, right? Things that help you along your journey. Are there any that you would share with our listeners? Any specific books that you've read or anything that you would suggest that they could try and employ that would help them. Absolutely, there's it depends on who you're talking to specifically But one of the things that I think are important from a business perspective is there's a book called Traction That I think is great. There's another book called Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell Things that can consistently push you forward to be able to structure your life the way you want it and plan out your life the way you want it those things are key and having like this kind of rhythm that you push yourself through on the business side, but also striving for, for being, I'll say better than you were yesterday with the buying back your time methods and finding ways of implementing certain strategies to buy that time back and be free to be able to do those other things that you're talking about, you know, because if you get 500 emails a day, you know, maybe you should be getting somebody in your inbox to be able to help you with some of those things, which is a very difficult emotional thing to do to let someone else answer all your emails, right? I've struggled with that. I've gotten about 10 % or 15 % of the way there with certain people to be able to say, no, I'm not answering these types of emails. Someone else handle those. And it's, you know, slowly getting through piece by piece on those aspects with Traction and Buy Back Your Time huge beneficial books from a business perspective and I'll say life structuring perspective. Super grateful for both those recommendations. I advocate for both of them as well. They're actually sitting over on my shelf. I totally respect and appreciate that. So The idea of passing the torch, right, the legacy. I like to call this the hall of heroes. If someone were to walk through and see a massive statue of Matthew Owens and on that there was a plaque and it could say anything you want that they could learn or know about you, what would you want it to say? when I think about that question, I think about what I would tell my son and my daughter about how they can be the happiest because what's my goal as a father. It's to find a way to make them happy no matter what, not making tons of money and all this, which of course I'd love for them to be entrepreneurs and stuff like that, of course. but at the end of the day, it's what would make someone happy. And I really, it goes back to exactly what we were talking about previously to saying live in the moment. That's where true happiness lies. And I think that saying right there and consistently focusing on living in the moment, whether you're doing a hard task, but enjoying that hard task and pushing through that, whether it's stepping back and living in the moment with your kids or living in the moment with your family, finding ways of enjoying life through living in the moment, I think is the most important aspect in my eyes of being happy. of course, helping other people and stuff like that. think really, really, I get a lot of joy out of doing that and teaching other people and just finding ways of adding value to other people's lives. that really matters to me. but at end of the day, it really just comes down to living in the moment. And that's where true happiness lies. that in my eyes is one of the most important things that someone could keep in their head at all times to remind them. to do that because it's all a matter of percentages, right? We can't do it all the time. We're always, you know, might be worried about something in the past or something in the future, a relationship or a problem we got to deal with. Of course, that's going to be in your head, but what percentage of the time can you live in the moment? Can you force yourself to say, no, I'm going to take a step back and I'm going to forget about all those problems and I'm just going to be present right now. Matt, I'm incredibly grateful that you spent this time here today with me and with our listeners. What's the next quest for Matt Owens and OCG Capital? So I've shifted a lot of my business practices. I've stopped flipping properties and things like that. I still have some projects that I'm pushing through to get finalized and everything. And I've actually stopped lending direct and I'm just buying debt now as well. I'm shifting a lot of the strategies and the structures of my business to be more passive so that that way I can spend more time with my kids and my family and do more of that activity because I've gained some wealth now. I have a great knowledge base about this stuff, about how to create cashflow streams. I help a lot of investors in these ways, but I also want my own time and I want my own life and I want to be able to, live my life the way I want it without having to deal with the stress of all this operational work all the time and things like that. And, know, flipping houses, if I'm flipping 10 houses a month, that's a lot of work, right? I've gone through that I'm shifting my business to build the life I want and to same thing that Dan Martell says in Buy Back Your Time, I'm buying back my time through shifting these strategies in different ways. And I'm focusing a lot on working with other operators and things like that and structuring my business to bring in the right COOs and the right CFOs and the right team to be able to. buy that time back and be able to have more freedom with my kids and literally go live on a mountain somewhere in an RV with the kids and you know be out in nature a lot more and have no cell phone reception and that kind of stuff and just unplug for a period of time we all deal with our phones and it's constant communication and constant action all the time and constant things to do and it's how do we slowly dial all that back so that we can actually go live in nature go live with our kids and be happier, right? So as my kids grow up, my son is nine, my daughter is six now, And it's perfect time for me to just, you know, live with them and be happy with them and focus on them consistently. even though it's hard sometimes, cause I want to achieve more, but achieving more comes down to doing those exact structures and structuring your business the way you want. so powerful, especially considering when you want to go and step away, be off the grid or be out of cell phone range, which you say that to most people now and that's like saying, I'm to take your air. So the idea about trying to step away when you've structured your business and you have a team that can support you in such a way and you've created those passive streams of income, that's what gives you that freedom, right? Being able to step away and to know that things are flowing well and if they're not, you have the right people in place to be able to handle it. It doesn't mean that you remove yourself completely, but you can step away for a significant amount of time, do spot check-ins, et cetera, and making sure, keeping your finger on the pulse. But it took a lot of time and effort and energy to get to that point. But when you paid your dues, you've done that. Doesn't mean you're done, right? You've still got more to do and you've shifted strategies and tactics. But I just think that's such a powerful thing to be able to do and be able to say, right? And I'm sure that you feel proud of yourself, but I just want to acknowledge, I think it's wonderful to hear you say, and I want to say kudos to you, my friend. I'm excited for it. get to coach my son's basketball teams and get beat up by my daughter. Her favorite thing in the world is kicking me in the face with her dirty feet, of course. And you know that kind of stuff. And you're like, that's enough. You've been running around the house all day with your barefoot. That's gross. You know, but she's like, that's funny daddy. You know, so, you know, those types of things. The characters. My daughter's in college right now and I hear you saying that and I just, I blink and it was yesterday, right? That that was that. My oldest daughter's in college. My youngest is nine. And so I still have a few more years. Yeah, we hit the reset button and I'm glad of it. Being able to really enjoy those moments again. I recognized and enjoyed it the first time around, but even more so. So, but yeah, kids are a gift, right? They really are. This is not easy. They're not cheap, right? And there's a massive that comes along with it, but it's also such a rewarding experience, right? So. pretty funny seeing the differences between the boys and the girls too. My daughter is a little terrorist and she's running around being mischievous and hiding our stuff and wrapping it for Christmas afterwards and stuff like that, being a jokester. And my son is just like any typical boy, just oblivious to the world. Like, I didn't realize that. And they're like, how did you not realize this? Right? It's just, you know, you're like, wow, like I guess all men are dumb until they're like 35 years old at least, you know? Yeah, no, I think it's hilarious. And I would would argue that some people, most women would say, I think it goes later than that. think it's all right. And I can't I can't argue it in some cases. So Matt, I want to ask, when we talk about Dragon's Gold and those moments, is there anything else that you would want to share with our listeners? Anything you can think of that you would want to make sure that they know? Hey, you're going to go through trials and tribulations. Make sure you continue to push forward and don't ever give up on what your goals are. Continue to push forward and, focus on doing the right thing and moving forward and the proper communication and having those hard conversations that you have to have with other people. And you'll be successful long-term at the end of the day. And you, have to continue to learn and continue to grow as much as you possibly can. Life is all about growing and learning. So if you're stopping growing and learning, then that's where your life ends in my eyes. you have to continue to push yourself forward and push with that grit and move forward through those trials and tribulations and realize that you can formulate a plan to get there. You can create financial freedom in your life. You can create time freedom in your life. You just have to learn how to do it. Right. You have to implement the right strategies and get the right mentors and learn from everyone else and be humble. Realize that you don't know anything. Nobody knows anything at the end of the day. We're all just trying as best we can. Cut yourself a break for your problems and the things that you've done in the past and don't actually beat yourself up for those things. Learn from them and continue to try to learn and continue to push yourself forward as best you can. So powerful, Matt. I want everybody to rewind and listen to that again. That synopsis was amazing, incredibly powerful, incredibly insightful, very appropriate. My friend, got one last question for you, and it is my favorite. If you were any mythical creature, what would you be and why? I saw that question. It's a very difficult one, of course, to think about mythical creatures and things like that. I don't know that it's a mythical creature, but my mindset tells me to tell you that it's a lion, like the shirt that I have, you know, being a lion. And it comes down to, I think, courage and strength and grit and being able to push through and... hunting for what your goals are and being a hunter all the time and being strong and that Helps you be mentally strong helps you with the right mindset of saying no I'm going to push through and I'm gonna persevere no matter what I'm gonna be the strongest I possibly can because the stronger I am the stronger I can make my kids the stronger I can help everyone else become as well and it's hard sometimes you actually don't want to be the lion sometimes you want to be like I told my wife, me a hug real quick. I need a hug right now. And you don't want to be that lion all the time, but at the end of the day, being that lion, really, really helps you with that mindset and being able to push forward and say, no, I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep pushing. I'm going to have that grit. And when you don't want to do something, that's when you got to be that lion. When you, when you really are going through something, that's when you got to be that lion and, keep pushing forward. Super powerful, grateful for all the time that you spent here today with myself and with the listeners. Matt, really, it's greatly appreciated and thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it very much. Matt, if any of our listeners want to connect with you, how can they reach out? They can go to mathewowens.com with one T in Mathew My parents couldn't spell, so they spelled it with one T of course. So that's what I say all the time, but yeah, mathewowens.com and they can reach out. We have due diligence checklists. We have master classes. We have all kinds of great free tools and techniques on our site just for a free download for people to help them any way they possibly can. Awesome, always adding value, very cool, thanks Matt. My friends, thank you for joining us once again on our quest to inspire, educate, and empower you to turn your dreams into reality, one mindset shift at a time. We'll see you next time.

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Justin Mills

Host
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Aaron Iler

Producer
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Mathew Owens

Guest