Dragon's Gold: The Magic of Mindset

If I Knew How to Quit, I Would Have: Cory Harelson on Resilience and the Power of One More Step

• Justin Mills • Season 1 • Episode 25

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Episode Summary:

What do you do when your sewer plant catches fire, your insurance comes up short by $600K, and you're burning $50K a month in operating costs?

If you're Cory Harelson, you don’t quit. You improvise, adapt, and take the next step.

In this raw and powerful episode of Dragon’s Gold, Cory gives us so much more than just a real estate story. It’s a story of grit, identity, and choosing to keep moving when everything feels like it’s falling apart. Cory opens up about facing the unimaginable, the fears, and the lessons that made him the leader he is today.

Key Themes:

  • Trading burnout for purpose and passive income
  • The $670K mistake that almost took everything
  • Affordable housing as a mission—not just a market
  • Running 100 miles and leading with consistency
  • Bringing others along the journey to freedom

What You’ll Learn:

  • How Cory built a $21M+ MHP portfolio from scratch
  • What ultra-marathons taught him about leadership
  • How to move forward when quitting feels easier
  • Why the best entrepreneurs take the next right step—then the next
  • The power of aligning time freedom with meaningful impact


Tools & Weapons Mentioned

  • Getting Things Done by David Allen – Mindset + productivity structure
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad – The first spark
  • Born to Run – The book that inspired his 100-mile race
  • Pro Forma Modeling – The first spreadsheet that changed his life
  • BiggerPockets – The community that helped him launch his journey
  • 4AM Wake-Up Strategy – Two years of action before sunrise

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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, welcome once again to another episode of Dragon's Gold, the magic of mindset. Today we have the pleasure of having Cory Harelson, founder of Freedom Investing Group. Cory, welcome to the show. Hey, super excited to be here, Justin. This will be fun. brother. be fun. brother. I'm excited to have you, my friend. Thanks for joining us today. So as I like to, let's dive right in. Let's take us to the origin story. Where did it all begin for Cory? Yeah, so about a decade ago in 2015, I was working as a structural engineer designing buildings. It was a fun career. I was doing cool stuff, working with cool people, but I was working 60 to 80 hour weeks and it was kind of burning me out. And then I had a kid, my wife and I had a kid, my only kid at the time, he was one, he was like, not quite two. And it was like, I felt like I was missing seeing him grow up. And specifically there was, there was one week where I was in the office so early. was in office before he woke up. I would come home after he was already asleep and I did not see him awake for an entire week. Um, and I was, it was, it was awful. And it was like Sunday afternoon and I was still in the office. It was like working on some deadline. I was like, screw this. I'm going to go home and put my kid to bed. Right. I was like, I'm, shutting the computer off and going home. So I go home, I come in, I go to take my son from my wife to go give him a bath and put him to bed. And he does the like stranger danger thing where he looks at me like he doesn't even know me, starts clawing, screaming, trying to get back to mom. And it, like I had become a stranger to my son and it broke my heart. It was awful. And so that was when I was like, I can't like. I don't know what I have to do different. I cannot do this until I'm 65 years old. I hadn't put any thought into retirement or anything up until I was like, I think I put 200 bucks a month in a 401k and like, I'll figure it out when I'm 65. And that was as much thought as I used to like to climb and run and do all this other stuff. And so I was, working and, and trying to do stuff outside of work. And I never, so I was, I was 35 years old and, and like, Whoa, like this, just like hit me all at once. Like this isn't sustainable. I cannot, this can't be my life. yeah, so I, then I did what a lot of people did. I got, someone gave me Rich Dad Poor Dad and I read that and went, my gosh, assets that pay you. Why didn't I think of this? Like, this is genius. And then bigger pockets. And I was like, okay, they, they do. I've got some stories about some teachers that I know that do, but yeah, for the most part they don't. And that's the thing, I didn't know any of that was a thing at all. it was like totally, like once you learn it, you're like, it's so obvious. It's not even. Well, like, I'm an engineer. think I'm a smart person. Why did I not just figure that out? Right. anyway, I didn't and I had to read it in a book. had to read it in a book. have to be shown, Or we have to be able to see that it's possible, And then we can follow in that path. So speaking of paths, the leap of faith, when we know we're destined for greatness or something more, it sounds like that moment is absolutely pivotal in your life. When we talk about those moments, those trials, those tribulations, those things that we go through, that unfortunately are a bit uncomfortable, but oftentimes help us to grow. What would you share are some of those trials and tribulations that you've experienced along the journey in your life and in creating your business? Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, the first the first trial and tribulation was just I don't know what I don't know, right. And I had to I had to go find resources and people to learn from. So we I went to biggerpockets.com and read all the stuff about real estate. And my wife and I were gonna we were gonna go buy a duplex first. We were so we I'm an engineer. I'm a nerd. So I built I googled I learned that what the thing that you use to analyze the property is called a pro forma. So I could Google the word pro forma and figure out what goes in those and then figure out the formulas. And I built my pro forma spreadsheet analyzing deals and I got kind of discouraged. Like I wasn't finding anything that worked. And then we stumbled across a mobile home park for sale on Craigslist of all places. And I pushed that in my spreadsheet and was like, this is much better. This looks great. And so I guess I would say that and then just along the way, it's like you keep leveling up and you're like, sweet now. So we went and we bought that first mobile home park and it was like, you know, it was a big leap of faith because used a HELOC on our... The first thing was like, well, we didn't have that much in savings because up until that point, we became really good savers after that. We really, really buckled down on our expenses and everything. But up until that, I didn't have a ton of savings, but we had equity in our house. So we figured out, maybe we can use a HELOC. And so... We use the HELOC for the down payment, but I remember buying that first mobile home park and it was like just having to take that leap of faith where we took out a hundred grand of equity from our house as the down payment and we bought the thing and we closed. And it was like, had this like, what if all the tenants just decide not to pay rent at the same time, like this month? And I was like, what are we going to do? There's all these expenses that come along with it, right? That you think the tenants are going to pay for it. everybody paid rent and the bills got paid and there was money left over that first month and I was kind of hooked. Yeah, it's right. Once you get that taste, you keep wanting to come back for more. The taste of entrepreneurship, right? It's, it's a challenge. no doubt. And constantly there's an evolution. It's something I'm curious. So you, you, you went in two websites, you found about what's a pro forma. You created your own. When you created it in hindsight, did you realize that, that it was lacking? Like it wasn't as robust or efficient as it would be now should you went back and recreated it. Yes, and the answer is definitely yes, because I have gone back and created it multiple times. I still use my own custom pro forma, but it's now much more in depth. the idea behind why I asked that question is simply just to elaborate on the fact that we don't do it always right the first time. The idea is to take that action, to take that step. You've got to have the fire, you have to have the drive, and you have to action. And in that evolution, as you grow, then you find what you can do better, what you should stop doing, then it evolves and it grows. And so I only use that as a real time example, but just to show and demonstrate to all of the listeners that anything you do, doesn't have to be perfect. You just have to start, And then it broke. a cycle and it's never perfect, right? Like you're always like, okay, what can I do better? And you're iterating and you're like, this works really well. I'm going to double down on that. That didn't work so well. Let's see if we can fix that. Right. And so it's, it's never, I've, I've literally got an ASANA task in my thing right now to make some, underwriting updates. So, I'm always, yeah, we're always iterating on, all kinds of stuff, but you're right. It's, totally like the next step. Like what, what, what can I do? And like, when I first decided I was gonna do real estate, was like, was just trying to say every single day I'm gonna take one step. And so we, I read Miracle Morning, because I was working so much, I was like, when am I even gonna do this? So I started waking up at four, for two years straight, I woke up at four in the morning every day, so I could have a few hours in the morning when I could actually do something where no one could take that time from me, because no one else was willing to wake up early enough to do that. So, yeah. want to touch on that for a minute. You talk about, you got up at 4 a.m. every morning for two years. Was that easy? Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah. it was awesome. Cause I could see the progress I was making, but that alarm clock every day sucked. Yeah, I did not. I'm not a morning person. it I'm not a morning person. it right. You push through you you had a dream, you had a vision that was that was bigger, right. And you had a an idea to be or do more than what you had and where you were. And and that took effort. Right. It's easy to have the idea, the dream to see the fancy shiny thing in the distance and say, Hey, I want that. But how bad do you really want it? Are you willing to take the time, the effort, the energy to make the commitment and take the action to actually achieve your dream? And unfortunately, most people aren't willing to put in the time and the real dedication, right? But the people that do, the people that push through, the people that don't quit, those are the ones that win, So we talk about the fellowship. And so I think about people, because this journey that you're sharing with us, right? Like it's not a straight line and we don't go the path alone, Very commonly there are people that come along with us, whether it's for support, whether it's people that we bring along with us, whether it's mentors that help to guide us along the way. Who would you share in your fellowship has helped you along in your journey? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people like at different steps, but especially like in that first phase, I knew one person in the world who invested in real estate. That was it. It was my buddy, Matt. He was our real estate agent. And I remember I, when I, found that park on Craigslist and I was like, Hey, Matt, we got to go grab a beer. and I was like, I'm thinking of doing something crazy and I need you to talk me out of it. And I need you to tell me why. and I was like, I'm thinking of buying a mobile home park. Cause at the time they weren't like, like nowadays there's more people in the mobile home park space. It's a little, it's still a very, very tiny niche, but it's a little more out there at the time. Everyone would just look at you sideways, like you're doing what? But he, he, he was like, no, I know who guys, guys who invest in those they're, cash cows. And so, yeah, we, and he helped me and he helped me find the deal. So he, he, know, we, got a list of all the parks, all the parks in my County that were valued, you know, under whatever amount that was kind of our price range. sent letters to all of them, got a bunch of responses back. he, yeah, he was, yeah, good, good buddy who really, really helped me out. Yeah. really, really helped me out. Yeah. out of it. And then he's on the journey with you. Right? Yeah, that's it. So that's awesome. I love that. I think that there's, there's a lot of value in that. And that just that one example to, to peel back on, but who else might you share that came along that journey or help to support you along the way? Yeah, I mean, for sure, my wife has been there like every step of the way with she doesn't get as much into the details, but like she's like we're totally 100 % a team. I couldn't do any of this stuff without her. Like she's she's always like holding me accountable to stuff and drive me forward. Like like I love my wife. I wouldn't be any half as good of a person as I am right now. Not that I'm that good of a person. I could always be better, but but I wouldn't be as good as I am without her. So. Yeah, I respect that. And empathize with it. Like saying, my wife is my rock. That woman is what keeps me going. So we talk about the darkest hour, a moment where along the journey, like it was just, it felt too much and you were gonna quit or throw in the towel. Is there a moment in your life that you would reflect on and share with that? And how did you overcome it? What was the mindset you used to overcome that Yeah, absolutely. So for sure. we so I we bought our first park in 2016 and we bought some more in 17, 18 scaled up. I did some cash out refis, sold some things, scaled up into a 51 lot mobile home park. Beautiful, beautiful park. It's it's over in Michigan, right on the river. Stand up paddleboard is going by all tenant owned homes. Very nice. But it had a. what's called a wastewater treatment plant. So it had, there was no city sewer access. And so most parks with no city sewer have septic fields, which a lot of people are familiar with, but because this was so close to the river, you couldn't have septic. And so it was an actual private sewer plant where the poop water would come in one side and it would come out in what's called clean effluent on the other side and discharge the river. And I was, Understandably, like I knew I was okay. This is like a serious thing. I need to do to due diligence I need to so I I did all the research on these things. How do you do due diligence on these? I I had it inspected I interviewed the operator I talked to the city to County the state the federal EPA everything was tip-top They were taking they had an operator taking daily samples of it to make sure it was clean. Like everything was good But I screwed up I I made a pretty bad error one tiny little error that was the difference between this deal being a nightmare and a homerun And I didn't, when you get insurance, when you have a mobile home park or any other kind of like commercial bigger building, you have an appraiser who comes along, they do the appraisal and as part of that, they have recommended replacement costs. And that's what you use to set your insurance limits. And I didn't question the appraiser's replacement costs. I took his word for it. And he was off by about a factor of 10, I found out later in the cost of the wastewater treatment plant. So. We, he had a replacement cost in there of $70,000 and about a year and a half after I bought this property, I had at this point, things were going great. Like we had started, we had just closed our first syndicated deal. had some friends and family come and say, this is so cool what you're doing. And I had actually gone in to quit my job. was like, I have passive income. have a stack of cash in the bank. Like I'm financially independent. This is awesome. I went into quit and my boss convinced me to stay part-time. Thank God. Two, two weeks later. I get the phone call from the property manager that's like, Hey, was a, it was a Saturday, I believe. And he was like, Hey, there was a fire last night. The building, the wastewater treatment plant thing was in a building and the building that was in caught fire and totally burned down and totaled the plant. and it ended up being a serious nightmare that the replacement cost I came to find out. was $670,000, so almost 10X the $70,000 insurance limit that I had. And so that big stack, what I thought was a big stack of cash in the bank wasn't big enough. And then it got even worse because while the replacement, while there's no sewer plant, the sewage is still flowing, right? So. We had to have it trucked. So multiple times a day, a guy would come with a truck and pump it into the truck and take it to, fortunately one of the local municipal plants agreed to take it. But by time you paid the truck guy and the plant and all the things, it was $800 a load times multiple loads per day. It ended up being a burn rate of around $50,000 a month on top of the replacement cost. So some insurance kicked in. I had some extra like $100,000 of insurance. was basically two months of this that I had covered. And then I was hosed and I didn't know what to do. I was I was like it was a recourse loan So like I I was like I had a teary conversation with my wife where I was like I think we might lose everything We might lose the house. We might we might lose everything like I I don't know what to do I was I was so lost I did not know what to do And yeah, if I knew how to quit I would have But but I just I just had no clue and so I all I could do was just keep focusing on okay What is something I can control? What is one step I can take? and I'm gonna take that step today. like every day I just woke up like, what am I gonna do? And so I started calling people for advice. called like one of the mentors in space is Frank Rolfe. I called him. He had some other people to call. I started like just trying to figure this thing out. And the best advice I got, speaking of like really good things, I called my buddy Blake, who's actually the person who sold me my first mobile home park. We're pretty good friends now. I've actually sold him a park too. So super good guy. And I was like, I don't know what to do. Like, here's what's going on. was like, maybe I have to do it. Like, like, I mean, it's not just me. It's like all these tenants. can't live there with no sewage. Like, like, if we don't save this thing, there's 51 families that are gonna lose their homes too. Like, I mean, it was like a serious, I didn't know what to do. And he, he had the best advice. He was like, and I was like the loan and the whole thing. was like the property gross revenue gross before any expenses was about 25,000 a month coming in. And it was 50 a month going out for the sewage pumping. So He was like, dude, you got to just call your lender and level with them. And I was like, yeah, you're right. So I called my lender, John Metternach at First Secure Bank out of Chicago. And I was like, John, this is the call I never want to make. I never want to be the person who's not going to pay back money that was given me. don't care if it's from a person or a bank or anybody. And I was like, but here's the situation. I don't know what to do. And I just kind of laid my cards out. he was like, I think you're OK. And I was like, What do mean? Did you not just hear what I said? But he was like, no. And we, looked at it it was like, well, I bought it a good, I bought it right at the COVID dip. got it under contract in like March of 2020. And I got it right at the COVID dip. We added a bunch of value. You we brought in homes and filled empty lots. We installed sub meters and billed back waters. So we had raised the revenue. So I bought it under value. I raised the revenue. So he's like, no, you've got a ton of equity in this thing. So he actually worked with me to do like a a pretty fast cash out refinance thing basically for the construction that was secured by the property. So cash out refi. So between that and my emergency fund and some money from my HELOC, I got the thing done. got the replacement done and it took months and know, reviews with the EPA had to review and approve everything and they're pretty slow and like the person was brand new and... She kind of didn't know what she kept like, we'd answer all her comments and then she just come back with another round of comments and she'd take like a month every time to answer. And was like, that's 50 grand, that's 50 grand. But we got it done and we replaced it. We got a brand new wastewater treatment plant in there, external, so no building to catch fire over it. We ended up selling the park after that. Now it has brand new infrastructure, tenant home, beautiful location. So we ended up selling the park and sold it at a very good, what would have been like a triple your money in just a few years kind of situation if I hadn't put all that money in, but got the lion's share of it back out. So I still ended up a little bit negative on it, but I chalk it up as a college degree in infrastructure replacement. And then we ended up finding another deal in Illinois where there was a seller in a similar situation to us where he had equity in the property, but not enough cash and he had a failing well water system. And so I was like, Hey, I just went through this on my property. So we, got a really good deal on it and a big seller credit from him, kind of against the equity towards the construction. So we ended up getting this park where we, did another infrastructure replacement, kind of got that guy out of a pickle and we got a great park in a great location. That's now got brand new infrastructure at a great basis. So trying to make lemonade out of lemons, but yeah, that was definitely the most stressful, darkest, like can't sleep at night, my brain's spinning sort of situation I've been through. wow, what a story and unbelievable. And to push, I liked how honestly you just turn around and say, like, if I knew how to quit, would have. Like, if I knew how to just get out from this, right? But like, I'm roped in, like, I'm chained to this situation, right? And there is no easy exit. But when we're back in a corner, sometimes that's the fiercest we fight. And the idea is, is that in a moment like that, you have no option, there is no exit, like you have to move forward. And what are you going to do? Well, take it one step at a time. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The idea is just take those steps, one piece, like this is what I can do today to make this difference. You reach out to the network, you reach out people in the space that have had experience. And I'm actually going to fast forward a little bit then at the very end of it all. when you come out smelling like a rose, and I find that funny considering we're talking about wastewater treatment, the idea you come out of that and yeah, you took a little bit of a loss, but it wasn't a 10 X loss, You have investors there, you're able to get them back their capital. You take a little bit of a hit yourself. And may I clarify that you did have friends and family or investors that were involved with you or that was just you? that were involved with you or that was just you? mean, that would have been a whole nother level of nightmare. No, that was just my own money in that one. So, yeah. I would way rather lose my money than someone else's money. Like that would have been, yeah, that would have been 10x as bad. but the idea is, is that you come out of that stronger for the experience, you're now seasoned, You're like, cool, like most of the things that will happen will probably be not exaggerated is that I'm going to make sure that I underwrite these properties. And I'm not going to, you know, the lessons you learn, I'm not going to take things at face value, I'm going to do my own appropriate due diligence, but make sure I the right insurance policy to cover the things that I need, right, as best possible. And then out of all of that, then you get into another opportunity. where someone else is in a similar situation, you're like, I've been there, I've done that, I know how to fix this, right? So you can help them get out from a negative situation where that person probably just was like ready and throwing the towel too, like I'm good, I'm gonna walk, right? And so from crisis comes opportunity. And in that situation, you were able to find and then now deal with and then exponentially multiply your gains, not just like monetarily, but from the experience, the wisdom. that you have from these experience and then use that to employ in future opportunities. So just think that there's so much in that story that I'm grateful that you shared. I'm sorry you experienced it, but it's easy, once you're outside of it and on the, on the, backend and you can look back and say, well, that was in the past. You can reflect on it differently. And then suddenly you find the value in it. It's actually a very valuable experience. It doesn't feel like that in the moment. It stinks, right? But now you're stronger for it. So thank you for sharing that, my friend. Totally, yeah. So you like to do a lot of outdoor stuff, right? Like climbing and running and like, so if I'm not mistaken, I think you have a story that is impactful that I would love for you to share with listeners about an incredibly long marathon that you ran. Would you mind sharing that? yeah absolutely. I used to run a lot of, so for a number of years all I wanted to do was climb. That's kind of why I was not figuring out investing because I was spending all my time climbing. When I wasn't climbing I was thinking about climbing or reading about climbing. That's all I wanted to do. So was climbing rock and ice and mountains, all kinds of stuff. And then at some point when I had kids I realized that's taking too much time. So I took up ultra running because it was actually more time efficient than climbing. Ultra running what that is, is that's basically any race that's longer than a marathon. So I started doing those. And like right out of the gate I read Born to Run and got all excited and decided to sign up for the Leadville 100, like a hundred mile race. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea, but I did. had to sign up on New Year's Eve. was like mid, the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve is when it goes on sale. It's like first come first serve, so you have to skip the New Year's party and be sitting at your computer ready to register. was the way they had it back then. so anyway, what Leadville is, it's a hundred mile race. It starts in the town of Leadville, Colorado, which is at 10,000 feet elevation already, and it goes up from there. So it's very high elevations, like elevation sickness is problem. got 15,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, 15,000 up and 15,000 down total over the course. And it's 50 miles out and 50 miles back. And so I trained, I trained for months. got myself, I didn't know how to train. So I ended up like internet stalking. I went to like one little 50K locally and I internet stalked the people who finished in front of me, like on Strava. Like who's the people who are like just a little bit faster than me. I made friends with them on Strava and managed to get myself invited. And then I started training with them and running with them. I, so race day comes and I'm excited. I'm ready to go. It's five in the morning. It's dark. You start to go and you run and. you know, an hour or two in, you get your first of the two sunsets, you're going to, sunrises you're going to see over the course of the race. I, I'm going, uh, all the way out to mile 50. I went back to mile 60 where there's an aid station where my family's there. And one of my good friends from college who was going to be my pacer. Pacers like someone who jumps into the race for the last 40 miles in this case to run with you to kind of keep you company when you're starting to get loopy and make sure you don't wander off into the woods or something. So, and I remember coming into mile 60, feeling great. And was like, I can't believe I feel this good having just run 60 miles. And then I got this idea in my head. That's the stupidest, probably idea I've ever had. But the phrase like there's only 40 miles left was what was in my head. And I was like, it's time to pick up the pace. Like, yeah. And I started to think about like what finish time I can have. I still have 40 miles to run. And it's, you know, four in the afternoon or something. So it's gonna get dark in a few hours. But I was just like, yeah. So I was like, Ian, like, let's go, let's pick up the, so we have, was a big, tall, know, several thousand foot up climb out of this aid station. And we just hammered the uphill passing people. But by the time I got to the top, was like mile 62, I was bonked. was like, all of a sudden, like I could just feel my energy level go. My legs just stopped working. I just lost it. And I like, I got to point where I was like down to a slow jog. And I was like, I can't even jog. I just gotta walk. And then the walk pace got slower. I like the only reason I kept going is because Ian would not let me sit down. It was like, you cannot stop. So he he just kept me moving. just turned into this death march to a death shuffle. And we're going we're going we're going and it's now the middle of the night. It's one or 130 in the morning and we come into it was the mile. Because I think it's like around 102. It's like a slightly longer than 100. I think that because I remember it was it was a mile 76 aid station. And you've got about a marathon to go. And so I come in and I'm freezing cold. I'm shivering because I'm just not, I can't even move fast enough to generate enough body heat to keep myself warm. It's the mountains, right? The temperature plummets at night. So I'm really, really cold. I come into this aid station. the medical tent had a space heater. So I sat next to that to get warm, put on a big down puffy jacket. People are bringing me like cups of soup broth and stuff. And I'm just like sitting there, total pity party, total, total like. What am I doing here? This is stupid. Why did I do this? I didn't train hard enough. Like I'm not good enough to be here. What this is. I can't even keep myself warm. Like this is, I have to run a whole marathon. I can barely walk. Like I can't do that. Like just total negative for 40 minutes. I was just sitting there like not going to move. Um, and then they, they carry this guy, they carry this guy to the tent who had passed out cold, like unconscious on the trail. And he was like half conscious when they brought him in and they put him up on the table and they were gonna set him up for an IV. And he like fully comes to and an IV, you're disqualified. If you have to get an IV, that's a DQ, you're out of the race at that point. And so he sees that they're trying to give him an IV and fights them off, gets off the little table and staggers out the tent door to keep going. And then I'm sitting here going, well crap, what's wrong with me? like. my legs hurt, like, I guess I could keep going. guess I need to keep going. And so I remember thinking like, don't know if I can run another marathon, but the next aid station is only a couple miles up the thing. Like I can walk to the next aid station. So I just left my big down puffy jacket. I filled up a cup of coffee and just kind of strolled out the tent and kept going. And it was a very long night. I've got lots more stories of like almost seeing aliens and like crazy stuff. But I guess that. The end of it is I just kept going like I can get to the next aid station, I can get to the next aid station. But by breaking it up into smaller chunks and just focusing on like, okay, that is, I don't know if I can do the whole thing, but I can definitely do the next piece. So I'm just gonna do that before I quit. And I just kept doing that and eventually got to the end. I did, I finished the race in 28 hours and 40 some odd minutes. Yeah. hours and some minutes and did you sleep at all during that? Right. Yeah. And while I recognize that, I just wanted to make a point to say that, right? To push yourself beyond what you think. There is so much incredible value in the story that you just shared, Cory, unbelievable. And some of the lessons that I want to extrapolate from that, that I want to share with the listeners just to acknowledge is, One, you were, when you made the decision, you had to make the sacrifice of playing and partying on, New Year's just to be able to get your name, to get your quarter up, to be able to be on the race. Then you had to train for a ridiculous amount of time and it, and you didn't know what you didn't know. So you started doing the research, right? You started finding people that have done these things. What are the steps they've taken and in the, in the races and the things, marathons, the training that you do, you start finding who's doing it better than me. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. just have to find out what are they doing that's different than me and how can I emulate that so that I can do better, right? And so that goes back to the idea about putting yourself in rooms that with people that are smarter than you or know more than you, right? that's know more than you, right? that's the thing with those rooms too is like you meet these people and you think like, they're running these crazy races. They must be these like different type of human than I am or something. And same thing with real estate. Like, that guy's got a hundred million dollars real estate. And you start talking to these people and they're like, you know, trying, they're like maybe parents like trying to struggle with the same stuff about how to be a good mom or dad. Like just, they're all just people, right? Like if someone else can do it, you can do it. You just have to put yourself around them and figure out how they did it. Literally what you just said is the entire reason for this podcast is to share with people the fact that you can too, right? That's it. So you go you miles 60 more than halfway through, like I got this and then you push yourself. All right. Well, there's a, there's a, there's a reason pacing is a thing. Right. And so, but like you push yourself, right. And then, and then to the point of exhaustion where I love the death march to the death shuffle, like, Right. I I envision that and I cringe to think about the pain that you push yourself through in that regard and you go and you sit down right and then you have that that pity party right. Woe is me. darn. Like what am I doing etc. And there's moments in life along our journey whether it's in our personal life or professional life where we think man what am I doing what I get myself into right. It's easy to fall into that trap and then to keep feeding that beast. Then you see an example where someone comes in falling unconscious cold, like in my brain, like you hit the ground. Like if you passed out, you hit the floor, right? So that didn't feel good either. you get up and then you fight off the people trying to save your life potentially just because you are so driven and have that mission. And you see someone do that and you're like, well, if that guy can do it, I know I can too. Right now in that story too, like when you shuffled out of there, you leave the down jacket, you get a cup of coffee and you go, where was your pacer? He didn't even know, he was off like, I don't know, filling his, at the food, he didn't even know. I couldn't even like, I got my little burst of motivation and I was like, I gotta go right now or else I'm gonna change my mind. So I didn't even tell him, I just walked out the tent door. like a couple hundred yards down the trail, he came running up like, dude, you gotta tell me if you're gonna leave, you can't just wander off like that. And I was like, sorry man, I just had to go. Yeah, no, I think it's great, right? And then you push yourself through and you know, like 40 miles sounds daunting when you were just about to quit or thought your body couldn't take anymore. Right. But then you're instead of thinking about the big the big vision, which you have to have the vision. But when you're in it, and I think about goals as like a lighthouse, right? So that that that goal finishing the race at the lighthouse in the distance. But you're on those turbulent waters, and you've got to just not capsize. So what you've got to do is just keep going, right? Just that next step. What's to mile 76? Get to that next marker. Get to the next aid tent, right? Like, I don't have to eat the elephant a bite at a time to bring that analogy up again. I just need to take the next bite, right, and then consume it. I think even though that's a story about a race, I think that that literally overlays perfectly for an entrepreneur's journey. It's just that constant forward motion. It's learning. It's growing. It's not quitting. That's the magic. Don't stop. You can achieve anything you put your mind to. And you have reserves of energy and power that you don't even know you have. And sometimes you have to dig deep to find it. And sometimes it takes external motivation to remind you of that. Or just to say, like, if that guy can do it, I can too. Such a powerful story. Super grateful you shared it, my friend. I feel you've already shared so much of this, but I'm going to ask, I call this the Dragon's Gold, the rewards, the accolades, achievements, and most commonly it seems to be it's the mindset that we achieve or gain on the journey. Is there anything that you would share with the listeners that you would consider Dragon's Gold? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we've hit on it a lot here, but it's just really that idea that you really can, like, if you really want something bad enough, you can do it. And it's just, like, I think the mindset really, for me, is knowing that you can. so you take, I actually take this from like the David Allen Getting Things Done book, was really, really had a big impact for me. but it's this concept of figure out what done means, what does success look like in that big goal, and then between you and that goal is gonna be a whole bunch of stuff that looks daunting and makes you think you can't do it, because it's just too much. But you can ignore all of that. You don't actually need to think about that right now. You just need to say, what is the goal and what is the very next thing, what is the very next action I need to do? And. If you keep taking, if you keep doing that, once you take that next action, then you'll have more clarity and you'll see something you didn't from where you were before. And so then you'll know what your next action is and you keep going and you keep going. And what's cool about like that, the a hundred mile analogy is like, it really is a good analogy because if you just keep taking like the next step and the next step and put one foot in front of another, if you do that enough times, you are guaranteed to finish the a hundred mile race. So it's, it's literally just like, it's one step at a time. And if that's your focus, like you can always take a step, right? There's never a time when you can't take a step. And so if you just keep doing that, you'll get there. So I think that's one of the big things that's helped me through a lot of that stuff. That's gold, my friend, that's gold. Thank you. All right, so passing the torch. I technically call this the Hall of Heroes. If there was a massive statue of Cory Harelson and it had a plaque on there and could say anything you want to someone who read it, what would you want it to say? I would want it to say that Cory helped bring a lot of people along with him. and what I mean by that is we've, when I first started my investing journey, it was a pretty selfish motivation, right? It was like, I want more time for me to spend with my family, right? And what's ended up being pretty cool that was unexpected from it is that, A, we've had some other, first we had some other friends and family come along and want to join the journey. And so we've been able to like work with some investors to kind of help them along their journey too. And getting to have those conversations with them, like what's your motivation? And so many people, what I was going through wasn't as unique as even though I felt kind of alone when I was in it, but it wasn't as unique as I was realizing a lot of people struggle with a lot of things and being able to help other people along their journeys towards freedom to do what's most meaningful to them as well. And so bringing it, people along that are investing with us. And then on the other side of that also like trying to, the asset class that we invest in is mobile home parks, it's affordable housing. And there is, like I have now been exposed to it for years and seen it. is like the affordable housing crisis is real. And like there's actual like really good, like there's just people that are really good people that are families and they have a job and everything else and they just can't afford a home in today's market or rent in a. apartment that's going to cost 1800 or $2,000. so being able to so my goal, my mission is kind of two prong. I want to help our investors that are coming along with us achieve their financial freedom. And I want to do something to put a huge dent in the affordable housing crisis for for our residents. that's so that that's probably longer than will fit on the plaque. But that's that's what I'm trying to do. But that's that's what I'm trying to do. I love the idea behind it, right? And, and ultimately that's exactly, it's the legacy. It's, it's what we're sharing and what we're leaving behind, right? And how we're helping people. So what's next? What's the next quest for Cory Harelson and Freedom Investing Group? Yeah, so we're growing, so we're trying to just grow our portfolio and what we're trying to do is find there's a lot of mobile home parks out there that they're all made, most of them were constructed in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So there's a lot of them that are still owned by the original, like mom and pop who built them or maybe second generation. They haven't had a mortgage on the thing in decades. so they've just, the cashflow for them has been good enough, but it has been motivated to keep up with the maintenance. They have a lot of deferred maintenance. Oftentimes there's empty pads just sitting there. There's an affordable housing crisis. It's the most affordable form of housing. And then there's just like empty pads sitting there where there could be a home that someone could be living in. So what we're trying to do is grow and find those parks, like the ugly parks in the nice locations and make them nicer and fill them up to provide housing. that's it. hunting for deals and trying to grow. Nice, well, best of luck to you, my friend. There's no doubt after the stories you've shared, you will achieve that, no doubt. So my friend, I've got two other things I wanna talk about. One, and you've already talked about three different books so far, as I recall. But we call these tools and weapons, any resources, things that you've used that have helped you along in your journey, what would you share with our listeners that might help them on theirs? I would say that Getting Things Done book is fantastic. It's not actually about getting things done. It's way more of a mindset book. I think the title is almost wrong. It's really about how you structure your life and how you organize yourself so that you can make progress on the things you wanna make progress on and not have all of the things that life is throwing at you stress you out. So the subtitle of the book is The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. And I that should really be the title of the book. I mean, there's a zillion real estate books and other things, but I feel like that's the one that I keep coming back to that has helped my mindset the most. love it. Thank you for sharing that. All right, last question I gotta ask and to me this is the most important one my friend. If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be and why? So I would be a Toothless Daydream, which I don't know if you've read. So there's the How to Train Your Dragon movies that a lot of people have read, but there's actually a book series that they're kind of based on. It's a 12 book series. I read it with my kids. I'm actually sad that I've already read it with both of them. It is excellent, excellent, excellent. The movie doesn't spoil it at all. The characters have some of the same names, but the plot is totally different. But so Toothless, the dragon in there, is this little kind of wimpy, he's like a. a common dragon and everybody makes fun of the main character Hiccup because his dragon's just like this little wimpy thing. But so Toothless always claims that he's not this common garden, common variety garden dragon. He claims that he's this special type of dragon called a Toothless Daydream. And so he ends up being like one of the heroes in the story. So it's cool from that perspective. But he also is like always playing pranks and always joking and like not taking things too seriously. I like that concept of trying to do great things, but also enjoy life and not take yourself too seriously either. So I'm going with the Toothless Daydream. I love it. It's a fantastic share. I'm really grateful that you share it. It's also unique. I've never heard anybody say that one before. And so I love that. But I also love so much about with the why, Understanding that like you're the hero of the story, but you got to enjoy the journey, right? You got to enjoy that. You got to have fun. You got to share some humor and some levity with the people that come along the journey with you. Right, enjoy the experience. It's not just about the goal, it's about what you do and how you grow along the way there. Cory, what a great interview. I'm really thankful that you were able to share your story with myself and with the listeners today. Thank you for that. Yeah, this has been super fun, Justin. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. So if anybody wants to reach out to you, how can they connect? Yeah, so I've got a free PDF on mobile home park investing that kind of talks about how, what it is and how you can do it and how you can do it passively if you want to. And so that's at passivemhp.com and you can get it there. All right. very active on LinkedIn, so feel free to connect with me on there. Very cool. 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. Thanks, Justin.

People on this episode

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Justin Mills

Host
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Aaron Iler

Producer
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Cory Harelson

Guest