I was $15m in debt...now I own a billion dollar portfolio

0:00 Ten years ago, this guy owned zero dollars of real estate. And today He's got a portfolio of about a billion and a half dollars. And he did that with no outside investors, just starting from scratch. One property after another, flipping, flipping, flipping, compounding until he built a billion dollar portfolio. He's also my brother in law, and I've known the guy for ten plus years. I've been asking him to come on the podcast and he likes to keep a low profile, but finally he agreed to come on and tell his story. And the story's a little bit crazy. He started off as a broker. Ends up making a few million dollars doing deals as a broker.

0:31 And then gets caught holding the bag when one of his clients Um I don't want to say screws him over, but leaves him holding the bag. And he ends up fifteen million dollars in debt. And instead of declaring bankruptcy, He decides to try to pay it all back.

0:44 Piece by piece by piece. He does, he pays it all back and he ends up with a billion dollar plus real estate portfolio. Using a very specific strategy. So in this episode I asked him how he did it. to tell that story and to explain the strategy and his approach to real estate because it's a little bit different than anybody else. So Enjoy this episode with my brother in law, Sanjeev, aka the rhino of real estate.

1:03 I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day song. On the road less travel, never look back. My brother, we're here. Your story's a roller coaster. You have crazy highs. Complete

1:19 Lowe's where you lose it all? And then rebuild build back up. twenty times bigger than the first time. So I wanna go into that story. So Today.

1:28 You are sitting here, you've got a collection of real estate assets that you've built up over the last ten years. That's now how big, roughly. About a billion and a half in total. Billion and a half. One point five billion today. And that's really in kind of just a decade. And so I want to go through the steps of how you got there. So where where did the career start?

1:46 Yeah, name of the podcast. My first million, right? How you made your first million. Yeah. I you know, for me it started I I went to law school. Did an MBA. Did you plan to be a lawyer? I was full onset on being a lawyer. You know, I went to law school, worked for a very famous lawyer, uh, Mark Gargos out of LA. He we were working the Scott Peterson case and it was very intriguing. you know, in criminal law.

2:08 when I met my my now wife or my wife She was very much me against me being a lawyer. For some reason she was always programmed that, you know, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna do certain things to win cases. So we had always talked about, you know, I'm gonna work for a lawyer for five years and then I'm getting real estate. Okay. She goes, why do you need to why do you need to Work for five years. Why don't you just do it?

2:28 You know, me thinking I'm like, Oh wow, that's a different thought. I don't have a good answer to that. Uh, you know, so uh I ended up opening a a real estate broker's office, uh, went back to my hometown where I grew up, town called Modesto and Opened up this. You know. uh uh real estate just broker's license. And I had small hundred foot office.

2:46 And a phone. Start calling people, trying to understand the market and Really, I think my first high came when I sold my first building. Uh I called someone and actually I need to grow my office and I called this person, I said, Hey, what if I lease your office?

3:00 Will you let me sell your office? Said yes. If you lease it, I'll let you sell it. So if you become a tenant, you could be the broker when you got it. I I I never had a planned or it just happened to be that way? No, I I don't know if it was planned. It was kinda just like you know, sometimes You never ask, you never know, right? Right. And so at that moment I had asked. It was an older couple and I sold the sold the building for them quite fast and

3:22 I made sixty grand. And from there I started You know. doing real estate brokers. I started understanding and I started meeting different tenants in in retail.

3:31 You know, I was working for Jack in the Box, Autozone, B P Arco, different tenants that I would help Get them spaces for. Now tell me because today you're A real estate developer. Well that's interesting. You started as a broker.

3:43 I think Many brokers want to become developers and rarely. Gets to the scale that you got to, right? What were you like as a broker? Are you just dialing for dollars? What were you doing? I mean, yeah, gosh, man, I would I would be knocking on doors, I'd be calling.

3:56 I you know, I I learned early on that if you don't ask, you don't get, right? And so It was no real like shame in my game. It was kinda like you know it was just like hey, I'll ask and so you know Oftentimes Uh We'd be going to anywhere, whether we go to an Indian party, whether we go anywhere as growing up, I'd

4:13 What do you do? How do you do it? Oh. You own you're a doctor. Oh, you own this office building. Would you ever sell it?

4:19 No, but I'll lease it. Great. I'll take on the leasing business. Anything to anything at that point to build up my CV a resume up of Things that I was able to get done. Right. And so

4:30 I fell kind of into a r uh a a deal with the Jack in the Box operator. And you know, this person was probably the first person in my life that ever, you know I would call I thought was a mentor. Or even like a father figure. Okay. My dad was a little bit

4:45 Different. And I kinda drank the Kool-Aid. And so I started doing really well because what would happen is I'd have this relationship with these Jack and Box guys and I'd know where they want to go. I didn't have the money to do it myself.

4:58 'Cause I was just starting out. So what I would do is I would basically do development in a box. I would go and I would Find the property. I get the tenant. And I'd go to another developer and I'd say hey

5:10 Give me the buy, sale, lease commission. Give me all three. I'll manage the process for you. Then a as time went on, I started to manage their construction process. I didn't have the money to do it.

5:20 But I was doing it. And that went really well for me. Uh, until the Jack and Box operator, you know, basically didn't pay their payroll taxes. You know, kinda fell in dire straits and you know a week before, maybe say three days before we're supposed to close a big deal and

5:38 I was gonna make my first 10 million, not even my first million. Just on the commissions from the buy, sell lease side. So what had happened was we started buying property. With These guys buying it. So in essence, we would buy it, we'd do all the work, and then they would buy it later on using their lines of credit. Right. And so what happened was this

5:56 This person that we were developing for was the largest Jack in the Box franchisee in Sacramento. And then what ended up happening was they didn't pay their payroll taxes. But you had bought it on spec. Thinking this guy's he's good for it. He'll take it off me. Yeah, and I still remember it's funny, I I would sit there at night and you know, they'll there's an old rule that it you know, people said never count your money, but I man, I would be looking at that sheet every night. Yeah, baby. Let's go, you know, you'cause you're taking a big risk. Yeah. You know, at that time I didn't understand the risk.

6:24 But you know, at that it was a big risk. I look back now and I say, Wow, that was you know I think I borrowed like fifteen million dollars. How are you able to borrow fifteen million dollars at the time? I mean it was all private lending, you know, I'd I went to private lenders You know, when you when you come out of school you get a W two or ten ninety nine. I was ten ninety nine, I was a broker.

6:42 Ban underwrite it. Right. The banks looked at it and said Oh, you went from this? To this? Wow, how We don't understand. We can't understand it. We don't understand it, right? And so, you know, as they don't understand it, then all of a sudden, you know, you're like, Oh, okay, well

6:56 Um Where's my options? And so we had, you know, we had everything kind of lined up. And you know, literally three days before we're supposed to close. Uh And we were we were

7:07 Getting ready to close and you know, this person's not on their phone. This person would talk to me daily. They would call me. They're the first person in my life to ever call me son. Right. Yeah, it was I was I drank the Kool-Aid harder than anybody. And then you know. This happened where they where they ended up getting in trouble and you know The deal's kinda got

7:25 Soft. Right. How many did you have? It was ten total. So you committed to ten. You borrow almost fifteen million dollars. You're ready to make your first ten million bucks.

7:35 You're looking at the sheet every night. Three days before. The guy. What you guys were doing together. Yeah.

7:43 And now you owe this money. And there's no way out. 'Cause you signed it. You're you're you're under contract, basically. We no, it we bought the property and we we owed the debt to the money. We we we spent the money. It was there and so You know, I still remember, you know, and and this is where the lows start, right? I still remember, you know, going home to my wife and You know, three days I cry.

8:03 You know, literally crying. Grown man just like tears coming out of my w my eyes and My wife says, You know, look, you always like to work out, San Jeev, like Go to the gym. Get out of the house. Go to the gym.

8:15 And so Normally I used to go to the gym at like Nine, ten o'clock at night. And there'd be two, three guys in there, you work out. You know, the gym was always an interesting atmosphere because You have no clue who the other guy is. Right. He could be, you know, homeless, he could be a billionaire.

8:29 You nobody ask you, hey, what do you do in the gym, right? Hey, bro, let me uh can I get a spot? Let me help you out. So there was A guy I used to work out with at nighttime and there'd be very few of us in the gym and so we would always say, Hey, how are you? We talk about life, but we had I generally had no clue who he was or what he did. And so

8:47 Uh this random day we walk in I walk in the gym at two o'clock and This guy's standing behind the front desk. I look at him and I say, What are you doing, Dave behind the desk? He said, Oh, come into my office. You got an office here?

9:02 So he's a manager, he owned the place? He owned the place. He was the owner and he's actually said, Hey, I'm trying to sell this place. All right, so I've built a few companies that have made a few million dollars a year, and I've built two companies that have made tens of millions of dollars a year. And so I have a little bit of experience launching, building, creating new things. And I actually don't come up with a lot of original ideas. Instead, what I'm really, really good at, what my skill set is

9:29 is researching different ideas. different gaps in the market in reverse engineering companies. And I didn't invent this, by the way. We had this guy, Brad Jacobs, we talked about him on the podcast. He started like four or five different publicly traded companies with tens of billions of dollars each. He actually is the one who I learned how to do this from. And so with the team at HubSpot, we put together all of my research tactics, frameworks, techniques on spotting different opportunities in the market, reverse engineering companies and figuring out exactly where opportunities are versus just coming up with a random silly idea and throwing it against the wall and hoping that it sticks. And so

10:02 If you wanna see my framework, you can check it out. The link is below in the YouTube description. I gr grew up bodybuilding at a young age and so I was always, you know, very fascinated by the fitness business. I was a trainer when I was in college and Yeah, for me it was like oh my gosh. You know and I asked him I said does it make Money.

10:21 Yeah, he says, Yeah, net's thirty thousand dollars a month. Oh, quickly I'm starting thinking, all right. I can do my real estate. I can buy this gym. I can do all this. So this is still while you're on the hook for the Jack of the Boxes. I am all the way on the hook. And and how long of a period did you have to like kinda resolve this?

10:39 What was your plan? You're gonna start open up Jack in the Buck, what were you gonna do? I couldn't open up Jack in the Boxes because I went to Jack in the Box Corporate and I'd recorded a deed restriction on these properties. So basically I recorded something Before closing again, you learn later on in life. Right. Never do that. But y you know And and so I was kinda stuck with this It could only be that it could only be that. And that was what the it was a random deed restriction that we had

11:01 They create it and and I couldn't get it off because the guy was still alive. Yeah. So I couldn't quit claiming, I couldn't do certain things. It was kind of a very unique situation. Right. And so, you know, so I in essence I bought the gym to pay for my real estate. And then

11:16 You know, the first month in You know, I still remember Wait, so how'd you buy the gym? So the guy says it's debting thirty grand a month. Yeah, I says I'm netting thirty grand a month. I need to get out of this. He says, You know, I ha I have a big tax bill, so I don't want to get paid up front. How about you?

11:29 Take it on and pay me over time. Okay. Oh. Okay. Pay an installment's perfect. I I went home, I asked my wife, I said, You know, hey, I wanna buy the gym we work out at and she laughed, you know, no way. And then thirty days later, sure enough. We bought the gym. Right. And needlessly she doesn't laugh at anything I tell her we're gonna do now. She's you know

11:47 So bought the gym and thirty days in You know, I I go to the bookkeeper and I'm like, Hey, where's my check? Yeah. Where's the third grand? Where's the money at? Let's go. And she says, actually you need to write check for twenty two thousand. I said, what? Twenty two thousand dollars? How?

12:04 I was gonna make thirty. At least give me fifteen. You know, and so she just She showed me Did you not diligence the thing at the time? I didn't understand how to read read a Profit. the a profit and loss. There's a difference between cash and accrual and all these things that you show. And you know, he had slimmed it down not to show every manager he showed it, you know, and not in a bad way. He just showed it the way that he could have saw it. Yeah. He saw it wasn't what was actually there. So how old are you at this time, roughly? I am twenty eight. This is two thousand eight.

12:32 And uh there was a period of time, so m the way my wife tells the story. So we're brother in you're my brother in law. The way w my wife tells the story is You start dating her sister. Yeah. And you're this guy that comes out of nowhere. You are like This hot shot real estate guy young, right? Like I think you were pretty twenty five, twenty six. You're twenty five, twenty six and you were making millions of dollars as a broker, which is not common, correct? Like you must have been a top, top performer

12:56 Is that fair? I I mean I don't know much about the time I was. I mean, you know And you're Buying her nice gifts that you're living this great life. And when the Jack of the Box thing happened, at some point I don't maybe I don't know if you've got to this part of the story, at some point you're like You have to move back in to your

13:10 to the parents' house. Yeah, move back into your childhood bedroom. Is that already happened or am I jumping the gun? No, that this actually so what happened was, you know, basically, you know, and long story short, we're paying for the real estate. I have to go become the general manager of store. And we didn't have enough money to pay everybody, so my wife ends up becoming the Zumba instructor. And you know this. And and so she's teaching like you know, she must have been teaching thirty, forty classes a week, maybe more. And she was great at it. But you know You're just at the gym all day long and

13:41 In order to pay for our stuff, you know, we went from a Range Rover to a Ford Fusion. Right. And we we We got out of our house to pay for pay f again, we're paying the bills. We were always like, Let's pay. Right. And so we then ended up At my

13:54 My childhood high school room. And I still remember this the first night. And my wife was a little bit upset, you know, we went from this standard down to this. You know, naturally. You know, it was it was a it was a very big culture shock, right? And what I didn't tell you was that in order for us to buy the gyms And not a lot of people know.

14:13 I had to come up with a little doubt. My wife pawned her wedding ring. For us to buy the gym. So she's a ride or die. When you talk about a ride or die, like that girl's been with me through it all. And so by the way, are these 'Cause I know her. Uh but I don't know her back then.

14:30 Her idea? Your idea? You're like hey, you know. If only there was a way we could come up with this how did that conversation go? I gotta know. It was definitely not her idea. But you know, she got on board with it fairly fast. And she understood that If we

14:46 Fail, we fail together. And if we if we feast, we feast together. And so, you know, at that point we were feast or famine, right? We're either gonna be able to try to figure out how to eat or we're starving. And you know, and and in life, you know, it was a it was a big up and a big down because you know, you're twenty seven, we're driving a brand new Range Rover, we're living in an eight hundred thousand dollar house. This is amazing. You know, she's got a nice fancy

15:08 Well, everything on the outside looked great. On the inside we ha we owe all these people money. Right. Who who do you go to, by the way, when this stuff's going down? Do you'cause you didn't you're not a big mentor, network guy. Like you you've always been a lone wolf as long as I've known you, really. When shit's hitting the fan, obviously you're telling your wife, but How did you try to get out of the pickle? 'Cause that's a unbelievable amount of money to owe you owed fifteen million dollars.

15:30 I mean and and you know, honestly, I was crying in the fetal position at home. My wife just literally said, Get out of here. Get up. I have this story I tell my kids, the light bulb story. Right. Uh, and what it is is I'll plug in a light bulb for my kids, a lamp. And

15:47 I'll just turn the bulb. A hair. And the bulb turns off. And I asked my kids, I said, What what does this mean to you? And my kids look at me, they're young. Oh I want to see it. means that success is just this much far away.

16:00 The difference between a successful light And a broken light. Yeah. Hair. And so I always had that kind of mentality.

16:09 that you know I'm almost there. I might have not always been there. Right. But my mentality, Oh, baby, I was let's go. I mean, you know, that was And so we we lay down at night and we turn the light off when we're the first night back and we look up and

16:22 In my age group, I'm a little older than you, we used to do these stars and like stickers on the dark. Glow in the dark to turn off in the The whole world appears. And we turn off the light and we hadn't stayed in this room for You know, forever. We just we had our own place. And we both just start laughing out loud.

16:40 And I told her, you know, I said, Give me nine months. Give me nine months, I'll figure it out. And You know

16:48 Uh The switch kinda clicked for me then. You made a promise. I made a promise. I gotta stick to it. You know, it's almost like when people m take a a a weight loss challenge. Right. Right. I've got a reason to do it. This is my timeline. Let's do it.

17:03 But you have no plan yet. Or you have a plan or not? Well, I you know, I I I said I'm gonna grow the gyms. Right. I I I had I we started to turn it around. The first one. And then we're like, let's open up a second one.

17:15 And Yeah, we we ended up being able to uh build a second store. It took us a long time. It took us a little bit it took us about a year. And Yeah, we we just

17:26 started working harder. And and honestly, like I just you know, I would go to the gym if we needed to pay a bill. I would go to the gym and sell memberships myself. I'd some nights work till midnight'til we close. You know, we were twenty four hour in the first store and so I would just If I needed if I needed to get it. We had to go get it.

17:43 And we we lived very, very um You know. Uh within our means, you know, we would I still remember we would share Food.

17:51 For probably about five years. We wouldn't go anywhere and E you know. Tumbles. Right. There would be one meal she would eat, whatever's left, I would eat.

18:01 And You know. And vice versa, some nights, you know, don't get me wrong, there was times when You know? I first, but

18:08 Most of the time it was Sharing and trying to get there. And so As we started to build the gym up. That's when we started getting back to like okay, we're paying everybody Good things are happening. Let's go. Could you not just declare bankruptcy with the Jack in the Box situation to at least get to zero again?

18:24 I I could have and that may have been the smarter path. Uh you know, I went to law school, so you know, my law school professor was always like, you know, bankruptcy is immoral. No, it's not. Right. You know, but but you know, these thoughts are put in your head in life that you know you don't know where it came from. By the way, spoiler here is You end up creating, I think at one point, the largest gym chain in California, right? In Northern California. We were one of the largest. We were definitely the largest

18:49 private operator. We didn't have partners, so we ended up getting to eighty two stores. Uh And we were growing the business and we had done some really smart moves. along the way. I would option properties, which we can talk about and like do certain things in our leases that we just started learning and We built a great culture. We had almost two thousand employees.

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19:43 The guy basically says, Pay me as you go, give me a little down payment. You pawned the wedding. You get the down payment. Yep. You turn that gym fr you thought it was profitable, it w turns out it really wasn't Ca the cash flow really wasn't there. You start to squeeze it by working your ass off. Great.

19:58 A year later you get the second store. Give me a sense'cause I've never owned a gym. A gym like this. Um Yeah, what are they?

20:06 What do they meant? Like if I go to a if I see a gym around the corner, I think these were gold's gyms at the time. Yeah, we went to five with golds. And then you created your own concept. Then we created our own concept. And then Like a gold gem. Uh What are these things?

20:21 Make revenue, profit roughly. I mean it depends on the Gold's Gym. If you're in Gold's Gym, LA, which was kinda like the Mecca. They're making eight to ten million a store. You know, and and the gym revenue or gross revenue. I mean gym is a fixed cost business. Once you've paid your employees and your rent and your lights.

20:38 doesn't really go up, right? I mean what may variate is if you do personal training, it may variate on certain services. But generally it's a fixed cost business. So you wanna get to a certain number of members. And then after that Everything is Profit.

20:52 And so it's a higher margin business, you know, most people, you know, m gyms at one point were forty percent profit margin. Now I'd probably say they're closer to twenty twenty five. Because labor has increased. And membership prices haven't increased. As much as maybe

21:07 They could or should But there's also a lot of competition, right? There's only so much pie in every Corner or every other corner there's gyms being opened. So what did you figure out?

21:18 What did you do differently that let you build this eighty two Store chain. Well we started out as gold gym operators and you know We realized that Gold's gym was a bodybuilder model. You know, there was people that would come in the gym, they work out for three hours a day. Heavy protein, you know, people are farting, drinks there for

21:36 You know, It might be the worst type of customer. But they use it, right? And then you look you know, you start to look at this model called Planet Fitness where they're Signing up. Fifteen thousand people. At a low price. And when we were in the gym business they were just coming up.

21:52 And so we went and saw one and said, Man, this is actually interesting. They were serving pizza and bagels, things that we just never even like understood. Like why. Now we understand it's because people will come and eat Pizza. Twice a month. Or every week and they'll get their nine ninety nine worth.

22:09 Right. So they were they were they were smarter than most. They were already ahead of the game. And uh We then started seeing other brands like we said, Oh, well, gold's has some good stuff. And so we started combining the models to create our own model. And we created basically a large box, high volume, low price model with classes and group training and

22:27 We basically combine Gold's Gym and Orange Theory and a Planet Fitness all in one. And in that process we started doing really well. Did you figure out any great insights along the way, like You know, my first business was a restaurant business and restaurant business location really, really matters. One thing we figured out very quickly was

22:45 Chipotle spends. I don't know. Forty million dollars a year figuring out the best locations to be. You could just So

22:54 Go to ever go r try to get next to every Chipotle is actually just like Now you spend zero. But you get the benefit of all of their location scouting. Right. We figured out that you could look at the receipts. And if you understood how to read the code, you would know how many customers this Chipotle gets versus this one. So I could even compare

23:10 within that, which location is better than the other. Right. So like we started getting a little smarter about how to play the game better. Were there any moments like that for you in the gym business that you s you started to figure out maybe how to pick up members faster. Or you know, how to take the average value of a customer from ten dollars a month to Upsell them in some interesting way. Did any any good business insights from that? You know, what we did was we created a really unique referral. Mechanism.

23:34 And so what we did was we we realized people love things for free. Right. I mean a lot of the people I've heard talk on your podcast, it's like give'em a deal that they can't ever say no to. Right. And I I I think that's always a great business tool to keep in the back of your mind and you're starting anything or doing anything. So You know, we created this Uh me and John who's my who's my COO and

23:53 And like family to me. He's been with me a long time and We sat in a room and we're talking back and forth. What What would make A member.

24:02 One refer some. And John said, you know, jokingly. Give it to him for free. Yeah.

24:09 I said, yes, that's what we're gonna do. And so we're like, How do we do that? And so we're like, All right, well, Sean's paying You know. Let's say this for every person Sean refers that joins. He could get a dollar off his dues.

24:22 And so in that process, Sean is thirty dollars a month or twenty dollars a month. Sean asked her for twenty, twenty dollars a month. For that twenty dollars. And we found that our members like when we did our sales page, we said, Hey Sean, you know our membership's thirty nine ninety nine. But you can get it for free. Would you like to know how you get it for free?

24:40 You'll be like Yeah. Great. Sure, for your friends, your family, your co workers, anybody you want. Here's the pass. We're gonna write your name on it, Sean. How many passes do you want?

24:49 Johnson. I want. I want forty'cause I'm paying forty dollars, but Great. And now when they sign up, they come in and give us Sean's pass. We would we would connected to their membership.

24:59 Sean's dues would now go down by a dollar. It was amazing what we saw where people were so motivated. Even for a dollar that worked. And it was amazing for people for even for like, you know, because you'd have people that would go down from forty to zero and all of a sudden Two people would quit.

25:13 So their membership's now two bucks. Who's the two people, you know? And you're like, Well Okay, start shaking people down. They start calling people and be like, How did you how did you get out of the gym? I mean, I watched it happen myself. So we created this referral Concept that was really good. And you know, that kind of

25:31 Escalated us. And then we started to realize look, we got to As we grew the gym, right? We We learn what we did right and we learn what we did wrong. For example, like You know, we would build pools in some of our gyms. Oh.

25:44 There's nothing wrong with having a pool, but The reality is you're gonna have two to three, maybe four people in at a time. It's gonna take ten thousand square feet. Right. Six thousand to ten thousand square feet. That's a lot of footage for four people. Right.

25:56 And so we started just realizing what our model was as we went forward, and then we just decide, okay, we're gonna give A great Value. At a great price. And then we're gonna incentivise you.

26:07 To refer people. Right. And it worked. So how long did it take you to get out of the holes? So the initial mistake was big.

26:13 Fast forward to two thousand eleven. Okay. I now have Uh twelve gems. And I'm with Gold's gym. 12 goals gem 2011.

26:23 I had Bought some property. And Uh one property I had. I paid four million dollars.

26:30 Okay. I owed seven fifty. I've been paying Them every month. Thirteen percent for Three years. And so I go to this lender, I actually went to high school with this guy's granddaughter.

26:41 And they were good old boys from where I grew up. You know, and I went to them and I said, Hey, look. If I give you fifty thousand dollars, and for me fifty thousand at that time was All I had. Right.

26:53 Will you rewrite my note and give me another year and change my interest rate? Because I'm now starting to climb up on the cash, right? And and my my sales. I have twelve gyms, they're all doing well and So the guy says Sure, Chopra. Bring us the fifty thousand dollar cashier's check tomorrow. S

27:10 Okay, let me have my lawyer draft up a document. You don't trust us, Chopper? You need a lawyer? Yeah, again, no mentor. No coach.

27:21 Go. Get the fifty thousand cashier's check. Bring it in, put it on their desk. Two weeks later I get a foreclosure notice. Now and call'em, what's going on? So well we think this property's worth

27:33 Four million dollars. So We're gonna take it from you. Whoa. So in the initial time I

27:42 start calling around and go and then I go to Gold's gym the next week I go and m the guy has now passed away. He's the president of Gold's Gym at the time. And I go in and there's this big Golds convention every year. Whether it was Vegas, LA, San Diego. It was at the time I was in Vegas. I still remember I went and met with them and I said, Hey, look, I've opened up twelve stores in three years. You know? I'd like to open up fifty.

28:04 And he laughed. I'm my favorite. You can't open up fifty. We can't even open up. Fifty.

28:12 He said, But look, I'll do you a favor. So I You can have open up a gym for every time you have one million dollars in the bank. So you want to open up fifty. Show me fifty million.

28:23 Remember fifty thousand for me was Ooh. So I have this franchise agreement. And so I call this lawyer really trying to save the property.

28:32 Right. I call but uh somebody I knew from law school and Said, hey man, I got this property. You know, can I sue the lender? What can I do? And we're not really in the lawsuit type of thing at that At that point and so To file bankruptcy.

28:45 I said no. Tomorrow I can't do it. And then we started looking at the benefits at the time. We were paying everybody. And uh You know, long story short, we ended up filing chapter eleven. We were able to rebrand.

28:59 We paid everybody a hundred cents on the dollar that was secured. And we started growing the gyms after that. And in the process we we we reorganized our life. We paid All the the All the people we all the fifteen million we owed, we paid.

29:13 With interest. But that also built me on the next round that we'll talk about. Right. I I I was I was very like some of those lenders are still great friends to today. Where I can pick up the phone and call and say, Hey We're from the Bay Area, right? Like so I call them and say, Hey, can I get a loan? I just called one.

29:29 Uh And they said, Yeah, we'll do it for you in a heartbeat. You don't need anything? No, we know. You stood behind. And so, you know, so we started building the gyms and we started building more gyms and then

29:41 Really, we had no real estate at this point. We had sold our house, we had sold our cars. We just had gyms. We were just a gym operator. And I think by two thousand and fifteen We've gotten up to about thirty three stores.

29:54 And uh Uh Decided to tell my wife, like, I wanna get back into real estate. And but I didn't have the I didn't have the C capital. Real estate was always Capital intensive.

30:04 And so I look through my portfolio and sure enough I remembered I optioned that second gym in Oakdale. So I basically

30:13 Use that option to buy. The center. And then I sold it to someone else based on my new lease. Sorry, so explain how this works. So what I if I've never done real estate, I understand how this option buy sell. What do you mean? So what you what in our lease we put this option, let's say you're Mr. Seller. Right. And we say Mr. Seller, we have the right to buy this at we'll rent it for now. Correct. But we have the right to buy at a defined price. Correct. Okay. At at this defined time. Okay. And

30:40 In order for us to do that, we just have to tell you we're buying it and we have sixty days, ninety days to close. Right. So We knew there was a buyer who wanted to buy gym and do other stuff in the market. Broker approached us and said, Hey, would you sell this? They didn't know I didn't own it. But they said, Would you sell it? And I said, Actually, you know and so we had optioned out at like I think it was like three or four million bucks.

31:01 We sold it at seven million. And so you knew risk free in a way because You have the option to buy at a defined price. You already know there's a buyer lined up. So you're not Speculating as much as long as you believe that they would close, that they would actually buy the thing. Yeah, and there's no such thing as risk free, because if that buyer blows out, I didn't have the money to buy the thing anyway. So you but you did like a double escrow, basically. In essence, we did a double escrow and we made

31:25 You know, several million dollars. And I'm like, Wow. And so now that I've invested with you, you do this a bunch. And it is like the the two sweetest worlds in the English language are double S which basically is like. We agree to buy a thing, but before we even have to take the money out of our pocket We sell it. So the same day they ask us for the money, we just take the money from this guy, we give them their their share, we pocket the profits. Yeah. You bought the thing and sold the thing on the same day without ever having to take the money out of your pocket.

31:52 Beautiful. And you've done you do this all the time now. It's great. Yeah, you know, we I'll do a deal with you and you're like By the time we get to buy this. We're already gonna have sold. Ten million, seven million dollars worth of the equity, you know, because we already have buyers lined up. Yeah. Um and so you did this for the f so that's how you did your first deal. That's how I got my first seed money to buy real estate. And then I just started buying them flipping.

32:12 For you know, uh For years. And you were doing it the same way, gym options or no? That was just like a few gym options and I did a few gym sales. Then I got enough money to go buy a property and build a gym. And then I ended up hooking up with this company called Harbor Freight Tools. And so as I started getting into fifteen, sixteen, we started getting in the higher number of gyms. We're like sixty five, seventy. We bought this building in San Francisco.

32:36 Uh on Market Street. Market Street. Yeah, one two three four Market Street. I think you actually came there one. Yeah, the vanity uh the address. I remember just thinking you got one two three four markets. I was yeah, no, and there was you know, every day we go out and pick up the needles that were outside. It was it was crazy. But you know like Th at that time we had a store there in a non profit A mosque. You know, approached us and said, We'd like to put our church here.

32:59 And we negotiate a deal and we said, Well, we wouldn't make that money in probably like Ten years running a gym. So we sold it. And then, you know, like we're like, oh wow, made some money here. And as I was building my next door. Uh somebody from Harbor Freight Tools randomly called me and said we'd like to We'd like to

33:17 Least that box. So I go home and tell my wife what do you think? You know, I want to build this gym. I'm used to building all these gyms. She says, Well why don't you just do it? Right.

33:27 And so we did it. And we ended up building a very big relationship there. I'm a big relationship guy. Uh a lot of the tenants we work with, we've worked just for years. Um And we ended up doing over a hundred for those guys.

33:39 As time went on. But uh But yeah, it just kinda s kind of evolved as time went on. And then we got to seventeen. And you know.

33:49 My dad was not really the I won't say bad things, but he wasn't a loving type. A little bit abusive. A lot abusive at times, but you know, he was just a different character. So You know, my thing was whenever I have kids

34:02 You know, we can't change the past. But we can sure as hell change the future. Right. Yesterday's gone. But tomorrow has not been written yet. And so

34:11 I kinda always had that philosophy, but I wanted to be a great dad. But during this time from two thousand eight to two thousand and probably sixteen. I work seven days a week. Probably Eighty to a hundred hours every week.

34:23 I mean I would Get up at five thirty and be in the gym. And then I'd come home by midnight. I'd come home every night. Wanna see my wife and kids. And I'm thinking I'm doing a good job because I'm busting my butt.

34:35 But I'm still, you know. Um I'm still trying, but my table was wobbly. You know, we talked about this give the table metaphor. So I always have this belief that there's three your life is like there's three legs to a table. Right.

34:48 Your your your family. Your job And your faith. And your faith doesn't have to be God. It could be your faith in fitness. It could be your faith in the way you eat. It could be the faith the way you treat people. A code. It's a code you live by. It's whatever you believe your faith is in for you to feel like you are foundationally sound.

35:06 Well if if any one of those legs, you know, let's say my job is strong. But my family life is weak. What happens to the tape? It wobbles. I mean my faith may be weak.

35:17 And my job may be strong. My table wobbles. And so for me. I was you know, I was working a lot. I was making money.

35:27 There's a great relationship with my wife, but one day I'm driving home from this from Santa Maria. I had a gym in Santa Maria. It was probably On the coast, it was probably Mm gosh, I'd say it's Four hundred miles from my house? And I would drive in the morning.

35:39 And I would come back the same night. I go train, I'd go meet the managers, I'd walk my store. I wanted to see and touch and feel. And uh Anyways, uh my sec my second son, Chase.

35:52 Uh your nephew calls me crying hysterically. Mahamon. My wife gets on the phone. Honey, what's he saying? And she's crying.

36:02 Says you know He really misses you and he wants you to come visit. He doesn't think you live at home. And I'm going home every night on purpose, right? Like I'm driving four hundred miles. I'm like, I'm gonna be there. I think I'm being a good

36:17 Dad. Yeah, I'm kissing them every night. I'm I'm watching them. I You know, and and so The whole day it didn't sit right with me. And that's when I decided for myself, I said

36:29 I built this great business, but I can't do this long term. Because for me to do it right or the way I wanted to do it. I was unable to do it. And be a good father.

36:40 And so that kinda changed my path of where I started focusing more on real estate. Right. And the type of real estate you would do 'Cause real estate's a big word, broad word, could be an anything. You do Shopping centers, mostly.

36:53 You've done other stuff too, but now you do Retail shopping centers. Yeah. And as a tech guy in Silicon Valley, that always felt super random. Like retail shopping centers like okay Oh you're

37:04 You're like an archaeologist. You do dinosaur things. Like I get it. Yeah. Like what are you talking about, dude? Like but it's this incredible and now I invest now I invest a ton of money with you'cause I'm like blown away by this. But so so just explain kind of like even just the space you the the sandbox you play in, why you play in that sandbox, um and like, you know, what's your model? What do you do? You know, two thousand ten. All the news was retail's dying. You know, but what it really did was it insulated retail.

37:30 Because what happened after two thousand ten, people started building way more multifamily storage industrial But they didn't build retail shopping centers. No, they built these pads a lot more. Post COVID. 'Cause what happened in Covid, right? You were closed unless

37:45 You got a drive through. Right. And so those businesses that had a drive through They crushed him. And as time went on, you know, there's been a lot of retailers that have left. It's no doubt. Well retail has sustained.

37:56 And it's kinda become a supply and demand thing where it's like, you know, and what we are is we're value add retailers, so we're developer. So basically what we do is we find things that we feel we can add value to, whether it's new tenants, whether it's breaking it up and selling it in pieces, whether it's construction. We always have a game plan to go in and do something. You know, and I often get asked, why didn't the other guy do it? Right? Why didn't the guy before you do it?

38:19 I don't know. You know, sometimes it's just there and S sometimes people just been in a project too long. Yeah, I give times I've times there's some times I've been in a project for five, six years and I'm like I just wanna be done. Right. Right. And then there's been projects I've been in for five minutes and I'm like, let's go.

38:33 Yeah. It it just happens in that in this business. And so Um You know, we build a lot of good relationships with a lot of tenants. And you know, the good part is is that we can email these tenants.

38:44 Or the brokers within You know, we buy we're looking at a center, we can we can find out generally who wants to be Give a sense of um what good looks like in real estate. What have you been able to do in your track record? You know I I

38:58 Typically what I we see is we see people Trying to compare or you know, match the S P or kind of be standard, you know. Seven, eight percent a year, they get some depreciation. You know, and they're happy. They're diversified. They're diversified. They you know, they can do certain things and and uh we're more we target for

39:17 Our folks now mid twenties to low thirties. I R annually. And in order for us to get there, we actually have to go do something. You went from having zero d zero real estate assets to over a billion dollars in real estate assets in ten years. How do you do that? Don't we all want to know.

39:34 I mean I think You have to find someone who's already kinda figured out that game and kinda run with them, I would say. I'd also say that like it's It's Compounding.

39:44 You know, it's You buy one deal and You sell it, you made some money. Now it's when you do it again and again and again and again and again. And so in our business, I was able to compound it by doing it again and again and again and again and again. For many years.

39:59 And so I would tell anybody who's young, like, you know Mm. You're gonna start with something. Right. And then you You gotta figure out how to make that make money and move on to the next.

40:10 'Cause if you stick to just one There's a lot of people out there. They have one building. They enjoy it, but they didn't compound it to really get to where They could have gone. You you had also told me um one of the deals we did

40:22 Yeah, I'm learning about this as you go. And you're like, Oh, we're buying the center and you're like there's a So and so grocery store. And one of the reasons we're getting this price is that that grocery store They only have like a year left on their lease. But they have an option to extend it like twelve or fifteen years.

40:37 But they you know, they're not picking it up'cause they don't have to yet. They have one or two years left right now. And I was like, Okay, so what's the plan? You're like, I'm gonna get'em to extend it. And I was like But uh why? Why would they do that? How do you know? And it was a combination of intelligence. You were like, Well, I know it's a high performing store. I know they should want to extend it.

40:54 But they won't they don't have to do it proactively, but I do know the the person who's like runs their real estate She used to run real estate for this other company. And actually one time she left me holding the bag, she pulled out of a deal last minute, and I ate the loss and I didn't I didn't hold it against her. I didn't w I know I I treated her well even though We took a big financial loss on that.

41:15 I believe she's gonna treat us well here and then sure enough, like, you know, we buy this thing and Suddenly we got a fifteen year lease extension and that property's value, you know, skyrockets from that. So sometimes it's also about Taking a loss well. Not just a When somebody wins. Yeah, it's all you know, it's easy to high five when things are going great, but

41:32 How do you how you act? When things don't go your way. defines the character and defines the relationship, right? Hundred percent. I mean uh you know it How you act on a loss is almost more important than how you act on a win. Right.

41:43 Well your kids play sports. Do you teach'em this and you know when uh when it comes to their baseball, their pitching their you know, what what they're doing? You try. I mean, they're young. They got a lot of emotion. So it's it's it's kind of a fine balance'cause you don't want them to want to lose. Right. But you want them to understand how to lose. Because in life in order for most entrepreneurs out there Most guys have had some sort of failure in their life.

42:05 And then Boom. It clicks. Right. And they use that as like a catalyst to just skyrocket. Right. Not every business person is super successful right out the gate. And most guys who have made it really far have

42:18 They had to grind their way through. Right. And so, you know, I I'm for my kids that's That's what I want. I wanna see them I wanted to do baseball. Baseball's a sport of failure. Right. You hit three out of ten, you're in the MLB. You're you're a Hall of Famer, right? Th that's thirty percent of the time you're touching the ball. Right. Or hitting the ball. So I like the sport because it's mentally and I also believe like, you know, sports are a great way for kids to learn to compete.

42:42 You know, and and have healthy competition. But at the same time you have a lot of people teaching their kids that I've seen. They think they're competing with other kids. I try to teach my kids that you're competing and I would tell any adult this. Not to look at everyone else. Right.

42:56 Because I can only do what Sanjiv can do. I'm competing with me. Yeah, there's a There's a guy who came on this podcast, he had this great phrase, he goes He's an investor and he talks about investing in founders. What do you look for, man? Uh what's the what are some of the key things?

43:11 And he goes, I want to know if they're pre fall or post fall. He said all great men have a fall. I love it if they're already postful. 'Cause I know that they know. what it takes to come back up. I know that they're gonna have a certain level of maturity and humility because they're post fall. Right. And

43:27 Prefall. You always have to be wary because somebody who's only ever seen the ups. You don't know how they'll handle the downs. You don't know if they'll even anticipate that there can be downs. They might get so full of themselves that they don't actually see that that's a possibility and they don't guard for it and you know, watch for the wall and make the turn as you need to do when you're when you're riding the race. So I've always remembered that Then and guys that red line or push the limits.

43:50 They're gonna have some falls. Yeah. So, you know, some of those people who have never had a fall. Maybe they're playing it. We're not they're playing the game as hard as they Maybe could be.

44:02 Right. What are some other like core I don't know, philosophies that you have. Yeah. Core philosophy always

44:09 Think of this. What would I advise my son to do? What's an example where Maybe if you had just been thinking from your own perspective, you could kinda talk yourself into something, but when you think about it like what would I advise my son to do? The answer's much more clear. Do you can you think of an example?

44:23 Yeah, I mean like when when like when a tenant buns you or when people burn you and you say, Man, I wanna call that person and tell'em I'm not gonna do any more business with you. You know, we're gonna use the the key the stick. Right. And What do you gain with that, right? What what would my son what would my son Shaden gain from that? Okay, the other person knows you don't like'em. They're not gonna bring you any deals, they're not gonna do anything. Or you could say, Hey, you know what?

44:48 This one didn't work out. Let's find another one to win together on. Right? There's it's a long game. It's not a short game. Life is a long game. Yeah, that's what that's It's like things go full circle.

44:59 Right. And people say what does going full circle means? It means As you're going On longer and longer. Different opportunities come up. It comes all the way around. And and so

45:09 For that it would be an example where I would probably tell him like, Hey, look You know? Don't kill the relationship. Build the relationship. Find another way to win be with that person. Don't hold on to the

45:21 You know, th that's the problem is most people hold on to memories that are You know, uh The right word I would say. The memory's that affected them in a negative way. So they carry these negative ways.

45:34 Instead You can Forgive. You don't have to forget. Right. Right. I mean and so

45:42 It it's it so there there's been times in my life that I've even had to use this for my own Like I I tell people a lot of times, like, you know I will sometimes have to make a decision. And I will think as if my sons or my daughters Are the ones having to make that decision.

45:55 And I ask what would I tell them? And most times it takes me five seconds. And this is something that I had a conundrum about in my head for weeks. You know, oftentimes I talk to you and we're outside and You say things so common sensely, you know, like oh

46:10 Well why have I been thinking about this for two weeks? Sean got this to me in like thirty seconds, right? All right, listen. The two most beautiful words in the English language. Our email subscribers. You need more email subscribers, I guarantee. I don't care how many you have, you need more of them. I need more of them, you need more of them, we all need more email subscribers because email is an amazing way to build your business, to build an audience, and to build a direct relationship that's not dependent on TikTok algorithm, the Instagram algorithm. It's how you get people to engage directly with you so you can get them to trust you, to like you, click your products, uh, check them out, check out your stuff.

46:43 That's how you build a relationship with people. And so email subscribers are key and they're free. And it's an amazing tool. And the tool I use for my email subscriber base is Beehive. It's a tool that was built by the folks who were actually running Morning Group. So they were running growth at Morning Group. They grew it to four million subscribers. And along the way, they had to build out all these special tools in-house that made Morning Brew great. It helped it grow faster, helped it make more money, helped it uh nurture the email subscribers. And so they took all those tools that they built internally and they said, Could we provide those as a separate Star up.

47:13 for anybody to use and not just Morning Group. And so that's they made it available to everybody. Because before Beehive, you were duct taping five different apps together. Google Docs, MailChimp, Stripe, a spreadsheet and your dream. It was all bundled together. Well now Beehive is just one tool that does it. And it's a single purpose thing. It's what I use for my newsletter. I send the newsletter out to over a hundred thousand people and that's what I use. And so for listeners of my first million there, I should do in a special code. So if you're thinking about, hey, I should have a newsletter, I should have subscribers, I kinda wanna build an audience that way. Well check it out. Uh they'll give you 30% off. Use the code MFM30. Go to beehive.com. That's B-E.

47:47 H I I V dot com. and use the code MFM30. I'll put the link in the description to make it easy for you. Start scaling your content today. What have you seen, um Just in uh'cause you're in retail, like what have you seen as the trend? What's going on? Like what What's changing

48:02 Maybe what's dying, what's exploding. Yeah. What can you teach us'cause you see a different part of the world than Than we do and you you you you see more of the leading indicators. You know who's expanding, you know who's contracting. Right. You know which which locations are thriving and which ones are struggling. Um, what have you seen? I guess what's what's going on. So for retail specifically, there's been a lot of new things called experiential retail.

48:22 It's come out, you know, in in fitness centers. We've been there for a long time, but now there's pickleball, trampoline parks. You know. Retail's important for any centers to drive traffic. So retail used to be Like you know, where that now it's let's say pick ball or a trampoline park. It would have just been go buy clothes at the store.

48:41 Right. That's is that basically like that's the shift that's happening is like people b buying you know, maybe more of that stuff's being bought online, but you can't buy the experience online. Yeah, and and and there's there's places that are thriving like Ross Dress for Less or Burlington Code or T J Max. My wife loves home goods or T J Maxx. Your wife loves it. It's like a treasure hunt, everything you go. Right? And they're they're sourcing things that people can go and they're looking for that treasure. Look at all the junk we bought, but the deal we can do is amazing. So the experience for that. So that that also becomes experiential, but it also becomes where Yeah, it it's it's not stuff you could easily find online.

49:15 Right, and so Uh Online has definitely had some form of effect where you've had some brands that are going away. For example, as of recent big lots went away. Joann's went away.

49:27 You know, right it is in bankruptcy and you say, Well, when's the last time I went to a big lots? When's the last time I went to a Joanne? They never adapted into today's Market. to be able to do both because really all

49:40 All retailers should have The retail also being their distribution. Right. And so an e commerce person needs distribution. So now if you can do both.

49:50 And that's where the smarter retailers have gotten. Where they'll ship out of stores. Yeah. They'll do certain things to create where now they have a they don't have to do a hundred fifty thousand square foot distribution because they got a best buy. in this part of Wisconsin. That part can ship everywhere.

50:05 And I think retail's also changing the fact that you've got more You know Uh Offices uses now going to retail. You know, you have lawyers and shopping centers, you have insurance people, you have doctors.

50:17 They're going where the foot traffic is. Right. Right. And so and then food has become a big component. Right. And the experience of food is what, you know, and you can door dash anything you want. But even you know, the ghost kitchen concept has been tested. DoorDash did d ghost kitchens. They closed the majority of it. The reason is because people like the experience. They want to pick what they want.

50:38 And yeah, you can order it from your house. You can go there. Near forte, but You can get it. The kitchen has value. And so I think it's the the fundamental is that the location and and and when when we see things we also see

50:51 Where Retail's over ninety percent lease right now. A very high occupancy Um

51:00 And there's certain parts of retail that are no longer viable. You know, you t you think about the old town like where I grew up. There was a small Town and There was a J C pennies on one side. Right.

51:11 And then Lowe's, T J Max, Home Goods all went to the other side of the freeway. Everybody went on the other side. Target, everybody's there. Well that other side of the retail It's hurting because it's not in the right location. So location's also another key thing that

51:28 I didn't really understand when people would tell me when I was younger location, location, location. Now Yeah, location, location, location. And and you know, and I I think in any real estate it's important to understand like when you're trying to make money in in real estate or I would say any business.

51:43 You really make money on the buy. If you're thinking you're gonna make money on the sale immediately. You're speculating. But if you bought something right. I buy.

51:53 Like I can buy a car. And I know the car's worth Thirty thousand and I buy it for twenty eight. Twenty nine. Whatever that is. I did all right.

52:03 I made money on the buy. Whereas people buy things on speculation. And When that speculation doesn't come to fruition. That's when we get hurt.

52:14 Exactly. Like you've you've done a bunch of all these like electric car charging stations and stuff like that, like new New retail uses that are, you know, coming up as well, right? Electric cars, we do uh recycle stuff, we're doing uh fireworks everywhere.

52:31 Anything that we can bring traffic in, you know, and we we want you to bring your You know? Your Tesla to the shopping center.'Cause you plug in and You're gonna go eat for twenty minutes. Right? And so you know

52:46 But the number of retailers has reduced over the years because A lot of those concepts were either You know. The kind of tough part for retail is there's been a lot of private equity that buys'em. They put heavy debt.

52:58 And then when any change in the market happens or they don't adapt to anything, can't survive. Can't survive. Right. And and that's what happened to like Joanne. Or You know, even you know

53:08 Big lots, big lots had to two billion dollars in debt and But they also never adapt it. One of the things I always wanted to do was you do the you uh when you owned the gyms you would do these like sales trainings, you do these like motivational talks, you do a lot of these things. Yeah. Maybe you I don't know if you like doing'em, but like

53:25 At some point you probably were happy to to to be done doing it for a little bit, but What would have been the highlights? What were the what were your best Or your best bit. I'd often talk about Kobe Bryant. I

53:34 I was love you know, Kobe Bryant's analogies where he would say, Ah, you know I look at it like this. I work Two hours extra a day. Every day.

53:43 Now you gotta take that time five days is ten hours, you know, a week. Take that times four weeks a month, that's forty hours. Take it times twelve. It's four hundred eighty hours. Over my fifteen year career. I've almost done

53:55 eight thousand more hours or ten thousand more hours than anyone else. Stacked days. So I a lot of my motivation was how do you stack days. The other thing that I was Always very important on in training. Was

54:08 When you're there Be there. What does that mean? Right. Well, when you're at work

54:14 Be at work. When you're at home. Be home. Don't be at work. Thinking about home and at home

54:20 Thinking about work. And people don't get that often. 'Cause you only get so much time. So when I when my game face is on Let's go. And when I'm with my kids.

54:30 Let's go. When I'm on my own? That's what I get to do with let's go. Right. For myself. But a lot of people don't understand that like when I talk about the commodity of time. Right? It's limited.

54:41 And now so if you're here thinking about here, you're here thinking about here, and you're doing all this stuff like So that's something I think that every entrepreneur young person should focus on themselves.

54:53 Right. And then I also would teach them to have a game plan. Make a list. Some people say, Oh, I don't need a list. When you write it down. Majority of people are visual learners.

55:03 I'm for me, I'm a visual guy. I if I write it down, I'll remember it. You tell me that There's a good chance I forget it. Right. So what's the way you remember? What's the way that you're gonna remember what you're doing? Because you gotta write down your goals and kinda get to the next step.

55:18 of vo of taking that time and really pushing you big on that, like kind of writing down a vision or writing down whether it's affirmations or a vision or a goal. Like Were you a big kind of like Self. motivator in that way. Did you did you have any habits that served you well? I never really wrote down affirmations or any of that stuff, but I would always

55:38 Ask myself why. Why am I doing this? What is my goal here? And for sometimes it was my goal was to make money'cause I gotta pay bills. I'd be at the gym and

55:48 ten thirty at night calling someone randomly saying, Hey If you come in with your entire family to Tonight by eleven o'clock and spend two thousand dollars. We'll give you an extra year for free. Whatever it was. Right.

55:59 Because I needed the two thousand dollars. So at that time it was money motivated. Other times it was because I wanted to actually like for my employees or even my kids. I really want to see them succeed. And I wanted them to learn a way I mean, there was employees that we had come in and

56:14 Never had made more than eight dollars, ten dollars an hour at that time. And they started making hundred fifty, two hundred grand a year. And it wasn't just sales, it was also treating people right. It was also understanding, you know, what What motivates people and You know, when I I always tell a story like sometimes I would tell

56:29 When I was young My dad used to always do a thing that was pretty you know, when I say abusive, what does that mean? My dad would take me You need a few drinks, use Indian guy.com. You'd be sitting at the table doodling. Till's probably like twelve or thirteen, he would come and grab you by the neck. And take you to the restroom.

56:45 You put your head near the toilet. See that. That's what you are. And I you know And I s I always tell people, you know, that that could have affected me in two ways.

56:55 It could have completely demotivated me. Or I could have used it as I never want to be that. And so Everybody's experience is different from the others. That's why I always tell people you're not competing with someone else.

57:09 Yeah, like your um Kind of. Be be there wherever you are, be here now. Uh is is so I think even more underrated now. Because in a world of Distraction.

57:22 On tap. I'm bored. I can solve it right away. I'm half here, I'm tired. I can solve it right away. I'm annoyed. I can do I can I have this pacifier in my hand. Like I've I have a little baby, I have a one year old. So I think I have a passy right here. At any time I could just

57:39 Suck on this and I'm gonna have I'm gonna have my problems soothed for a moment. And so being able to just be wherever you are, but be there fully and like there's a um My sister had this situation where she was

57:54 In business school. Uh in Indiana. She went to uh Indiana University for for business school. So they're in Bloomington, Indiana. Uh, Louis is not the nicest place. Didn't want to be there. And the next semester they were gonna go to Italy. So they had this like

58:07 Next semester we're in Italy. But while they're in Bloomington, they didn't bother going out and making friends. They didn't bother like checking out the area. They didn't You know, they were just kind of going through the motions. And the reason why was they thought, Oh, Bloomington's lame. Italy gonna be amazing, though. Can't wait. Do you know how we're gonna be when we're there? We're gonna be Oh, I'm gonna be speaking Italian, I'm gonna be gelato in cafes and I'm gonna be so

58:29 It's gonna be so amazing. And I was like, That's great. You're not there yet. Mm. Mm. And while you're in Bloomington, you wish you were in Italy.

58:37 Guess what, when you're in Italy, you're probably gonna wish you were back in the States, you know,'cause you're gonna miss certain other things. Be if you're in Bloomington, be in Bloomington. Make this your Italy, right? You can choose to to have that Italian experience. You can have whatever experience you want in the place you're at. And I've now seen over time this has become a superpower where Like you said, like you know

58:56 You're at work, you think about home, you're at home, you think about work, you're with your kids, but you're half thinking about work, you know. The half in, half out. The dim light. Versus being able to go off? And then shine bright when it's time to shine bright. But if you're always flickering at this sort of dim level on all things.

59:12 You're just gonna feel unsatisfied in all aspects of your life, right? And so I think that's a great simple reminder that's in everybody's control. Doesn't take any talent to really do that. No. Yeah, it just takes a little bit of awareness. And so that's the one I'm gonna take with me the most out of this whole thing. I think we hit everything. I think we hit the highs, the lows and the build back up. Uh

59:32 Dude, I appreciate you doing this. I know. You're not uh you're not a big kinda get out there and and and and go toot your own horn, but I appreciate you doing this. It's great to be here and uh And appreciate it. Alright, that's a wrap. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my law in it like my day's off On the road less travel never looking back

59:54 All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzi Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Louise and Fonzi are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're gonna hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're gonna hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcasts.

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