Getting Raw, Ripped, Rich, and Rare with Cody Sperber - 095

In this episode, I'm joined by Cody Sperber aka The Clever Investor.  Cody is a pioneer in the real estate and online education space, making millions wholesaling real estate before getting into flipping, buy-and-holds, and long-term investments.

In addition, he's been on the biggest stages, built a massive personal brand, and been through the wringer in his entrepreneurial journey.

And I've said it many times on this show, but this one truly stands out in a special way. This was hands down the funniest and arguably the rawest podcast episode to date. We cover childhood trauma, relationships, real estate, business, the economy, personal brands, and so much more.

Do not miss this episode. Period.

Inside The Episode:

• How Cody made millions through real estate
• How to overcome your scarcity programming and childhood trauma
• Cody's raw and deep backstory that's never been shared like this
• How to bounce back stronger than ever from life's greatest challenges
• What you need to do to prepare yourself for tough economic times
• How to man up and face your fears and do the deep work
• The #1 killer of success
• The importance of building your personal brand (and how to do it)

Connect with Cody

• The Clever Investor Podcast
• Instagram
• Cleverinvestor.com

Connect With Bradley

• Bradley's Instagram

Transcript

0:31

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the, not most people podcast. This is your host Bradley, and this is the show for those allergic to mediocrity group. Think and following the status quo. And this episode. Is a little bit different. This is one of our few live recordings that we've had. There's a event series. That we've put on with that. Most people call dot most people live, which includes a live podcast in front of a live audience. And this is the third rendition of that. They've been awesome each time. If you have listened to. Either episodes with Princeton Clark or with Carlos Rayez, those were both live. So it will have a slightly different kind of feel to it. You may hear some. Audience in the background, maybe some laughing particularly for this one. And, uh, uh, came out really awesome. It was one of the most value packed podcasts. Of all time. I know I say that a lot with this show, but this one was truly special. Everyone in the room. Was deeply impacted by it in one way or another. And also a thoroughly entertained, I would say. Hands down. This is the funniest. Episode of the, not most people podcast to date. you will laugh throughout it. quite a bit. And I wouldn't say it's all politically correct necessarily. So just a forewarning or maybe some. Language or, uh, you know, He's Cody's very tactful boat blunt says what he needs to say in this episode. So just to kind of set that stage for you. if you're not familiar with Cody, Sperber, he is. Known also as the clever investor. Uh, you just got a real big. History in real estate, really large following kind of a pioneer in the space and in personal development. And,, you know, has a, has a massive following. I think the 1.1 or 1.2 million on Instagram, and he can go check out his stuff there, but. This is an episode that just. When so many different directions, it was like I said, very funny, but also got very real, very raw, very deep. in ways that are going to impact you listening. So. Man that is it. Another thing that I'd like to mention, uh, depending on when you're listening to this, we have the, not most people summit coming up. The first event of its kind of at scale. Uh, definitely worth checking out. That'll be in the show notes and I'll also be doing a. Episode, just specifically on that event and kind of breaking that down, what that's going to look like and who it's for and all that good stuff. So. That is it guys again, if you enjoy this episode or any other episode, I just ask that you do me a huge favor. And that is that you simply share it with a friend shared on social media. Or leave a review on apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you might be listening. as that really, really helps grow the show and doesn't cost you anything to do. I put a lot of time, energy and money into the show and I don't run ads. I don't monetize directly. And so I just asked that. For bringing you value that you would just kind of helped me. You know, do the same. Pay it forward by sharing it and helping me grow the show. Cause we're really relying on you guys. Hopefully. You get a lot of value out of it. If you don't get value out of it, don't share it. But, that's it really, other than that, we got a lot of stuff going on and most people, and you can find all the information for that stuff in the show notes, but Without further ado, here's a special live recording. Of the novels people podcast with special guests, Cody Sperber enjoy. All right, man. Look at this. Yeah, we got a set up here. We do. Now I'm back in my element behind the podcast. Mike, this is, uh, this is where I'm at home, if you guys couldn't tell, but dude, this is, uh, this is kind of crazy because, I dunno if you know this, but of course you wouldn't know this, but you, your course, one of your courses on wholesaling was the first online course I ever bought. Me and my wife, uh, went through most of it, didn't really apply, all of it. you know, wasn't, wasn't ready at the time she went, but I went through the whole thing shit. Sure you did. Uh, No, but it's funny because when we discovered that, it was also like one of the first kind of like when I talked about not most people and how it came to be, and I started learning from these successful people and everything they told me was. Different than what I learned my whole life. You were kind of one of the first people that we started following. This was when we were back in Connecticut like six, seven years ago. So it's just kind of wild to be here today. Um, well, I'm proud of it's happening, man. Yeah, thank you. That's huge. Thank you. You know, regardless if you went through it initially, did you ever end up doing any real estate deals with, or we didn't. You didn't. We, we dabbled, you know, we went to, uh, clever Summit back in 2019. Mm-hmm. um, and that sort of thing. And, you know, she was full-time nursing and I was kind of working on some other projects, but, uh, you know, we were, we were intrigued, but we never really got too far into it, but, well, I was gonna say I was proud of you, but I take it back. I know, I'm being honest together, Bradley, we're like, yeah, I wholesaled like 10 deals. Yeah. Yeah. No. So, one thing I wanna ask you about briefly is your story. And I know it's hard to condense and kind of hit the highlight highlights, but um, I know it fairly well. I know you kind of started literally from scratch, right? Mm-hmm. no mentors, no. um, no savings, no like kind of anything. Right. So what was that and like with that? I know you've been super driven since you got into real estate, but were you, were you super determined and driven, like before you got into it and you were just looking for that thing? Or was it like you kind of like caught the scent of what you could do with that and then things took off from there? Yeah, so, um, let me start with the end real fast of the story, just cuz I think that gives some context. Um, uh, now I'm at a point where I've done thousands and thousands of deal. I don't even know how many mm-hmm. um, own an awesome development company called Green Elvin Development. I'm partners with my two best friends, Brian and Garrett. We've been best friends for over 15 years. Um, I got 26 houses going up right now, all two to$3 million. I got over 50 luxury Airbnbs, uh, tons of multi-family, tons of shitty little houses all. Can I cuss on this? Oh yeah. How real can I get Bradley? Dude, I want you real. What person? I want a Cody Spur. Do you want tonight? You want, do you want. At the podium in front of like, uh, professional people. Cody Sperber. Or you want Real rock? Well, like, let's real, like how, how, how hard can we go? You want real talk? I mean, Carlos went full real talk, so you gotta you got some competition from the last one, you know, coming. Oh, oh shit. Hey. Yeah. Um, uh, okay. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, I've been blessed. The real estate thing has changed my life. Um, building a brand has changed my life. Uh, scaled that company, uh, done every type of deal under the sun, parlayed it into tons of other companies. I verticalized the business. I own a title company, a data company, a software company, like all the good stuff. Cause I asked myself the question like, who's making money off of my transactions? And I think a savvy entrepreneur takes a look at, at, at their, at their main transaction and tries to figure out what are all the peripheral things that people are making money on? And just. see if any of that fits the model. Kinda like what Apple did, just verticalize everything. Mm-hmm. And so that's the end, right? Own an education company. You know, me from Clever Investor in education business, I fell in love with real estate. Uh, n n But if I go back as a kid, moved maybe 10 times. By the time I was in sixth grade, my parents almost divorced like seven times. Uh, all the stuff that you would expect in a very low income household. Uh, great childhood though I never, if you would've asked me how was your childhood, I said it was a good childhood. Mm-hmm. My, my mom passed away last year, unfortunately from cancer. And, uh, it was rough to go through that process, but when I think back, she was a great mom and I had a great childhood, but it co you know, like all people, we have our demons that we grow up with and, uh, mom was bisexual. Uh, dad cheated on mom with the secretary. I walked in on them banging on the stairs, um, never having any money. My grandparents were Pentecostal, real hardcore cri, you know, Pentecostal spoke in tongues and rolled their eyes back and flopped on the ground and handled snakes and weird shit. cornered me when I was 10 years old and said I was gonna lead a big flock someday. They were right in some weird way, but, uh, you know, I hated religion because of it. Grew up, you know, rebelling against it. Um, started smoking weed in the seventh grade, started selling it shortly thereafter. Quickly graduated to mushrooms and acid, uh, was a horrible drug dealer. I did all the drugs and I gave it all away which, uh, I just like to, I guess I just like to party and have a good time. Mm-hmm. But I was always had a hustler spirit. Um, before I you know, before I was selling drugs, I, I went to my dad one time and I said, you know, I wanna get this new electric scooter. They just came out and he said, what do you think I'm made of money? All the things that broke dads say right on accident to their kids to give'em a shitty relationship with money. Mm-hmm. what is money, growing trees around here, all that stuff. And I, I said, I don't know man, you're my dad. Like, where else am I gonna go to get money? And he's like, but he did a power move, which I thought was brilliant. He goes, I'm not gonna give you any money, but I will give you a loan. Figure out a way to come up with a way to create some money and I'll try to help you. And so I started selling candy. That was my big business idea. So I always had that hustler ambition. At what age? Uh, I was probably. 12. Mm-hmm. something like 11 or 12. Mm-hmm. Um, right around that time, I also, I, I got a taste of making a little bit of money and so, uh, I got my first job, a legal job, washing dishes. I was a really little guy. Um, I didn't even, uh, go through puberty until like, almost the end of high school. So I was a great friend for all the pretty girls and, and that's, and I honed my skills being funny then. Mm-hmm. you know, never got laid, but I was fucking hilarious, And, uh, uh, uh, I just, uh, I wanted to make money and, uh, I, this guy was standing out in this alleyway smoking a cigarette, and I said, what do you do here? And he said, we are an Italian restaurant. I said, can I make any money at this Italian restaurant? You need any help? And he. You, I need help washing dishes. You wanna wash dishes? I'll pay you under the table. I said, fuck yeah, let's go. I was so little. He used to pick me up and put me in the sauce pots and I would scrub'em from the insides true story, Uhhuh And he would pay me under the table and I'd, I'd, you know, buy candy and eventually weed and, uh, but anyway, yeah. So I Natural progression. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had the hustler spirit, but I was never ambitious enough to do much with it. I only did enough to solve whatever my immediate problem was. But I never had clarity. I never had a path, I never had vision, no mentorship, no successful people around me. My dad was the most successful person around me, and he got fired every two years. And so, you know, you, you go, I, I, I went to college for maybe three hours. Um, uh, walked to the biology class. I think I put my shit down, picked it all back up and left. That was about it. And, uh, never went back. I couldn't get outta there fast enough. Like I was so uncomfortable. Like I just knew I wasn't, I wasn't ready for that. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I went back to my dad, who's my conse, and I said, what should I do? And he said, start a business or go in the military. And so next thing you know, him in San Diego, in the Navy. And, uh, best move I ever made. Why did you choose that instead of starting business? Well, at the time I was getting ready to join the military, I was actually, um, I just got charged, uh, with a potential felony for shooting an old man off a ladder with a paintball gun. And, uh, It was kind of a good move cuz the, they dropped the case because of it. Okay. And, uh, my other two friends that I was with, I was trying to sell my pants. I was expecting, I was trying to sell my paintball gun and we, they're like, well, let's drive around and see if it works. And next thing you know, we're shooting people as we're driving down the street. uh, I was more of the, the guy egging'em on from the backseat more so than the shooter. But they balled us all up. One, one big felony. And they both guys went to juvenile hall. I went to the military mm-hmm. And, uh, so I'm, I'm disconnected from that toxic environment. Um, the year before, um, there was this bully in, and I grew up in east, in, in Mesa, like in heavily Hispanic na neighborhood. Um, a lot of the people look like Carlos in that neighborhood, you know? Yep. And, uh, there was a gang leader. and he picked on everybody and he picked on me pretty bad, stole all my CDs, just pushed me around. We also picked on this other kid named Matt. Well, Matt had enough. He went and stole his grandpa's gun and blew Derek's head off in front of all of us. And all of this was happening at that one moment in my life. And next thing you know, I'm joining the military and getting disconnected from that. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Uh, looking back now, I'm, I'm just so grateful for that choice. Not only did I man up in the military, I lost a ton of weight. I finally went through fucking puberty, I'm stationed in San Diego. My ship's not built yet. They were like, I'm like, what do you want me to do? Until the ship's built and. we don't care. Just chill here and we'll let you know. And mm-hmm. So next thing you know, I'm raging in Tijuana, banging chicks in Tijuana. Like ladies night, every Wednesday was great. And, uh, we're just having a great time, you know, and, uh, and, but they were forcing me to work out. They were forcing me to shine my shoes, make my bed care about details. Uh, I got used to that structure and, and caring for the first time in my life, I cared. Mm-hmm. And I came through the military and the next thing you know, I'm getting discharged and they punch a hole in your car. And it's, I'm envision it's a lot like getting outta prison. You have all this structure and all this comradery and then all a sudden there's nothing out in the wild and you're by yourself and you feel so much anxiety and fear. And I'm like, fuck, what am I gonna do with my life? I still didn't know. And, uh, I went and, uh, to San Diego State, and I went and talked to the history professors and I said, you know, since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a teacher. What's your life like as a teacher? And I left that meeting thinking, fuck that. I'm never gonna be a teacher because one, they told me they had two jobs and they weren't making any money. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, that sounds horrible. And two, they were all like, libtard. And I'm like, what the fuck is this a socialist world? Like, where are we right now? Like, where's the, like let's go fucking dominate and kick ass energy. It was like just a bunch of communists. And I'm like, all right, I'm not doing this. And uh, and uh, so I, I go back to my dad, who's my cons, and I said, dad, what should I do? And he goes, I don't know, but I wish I would've learned more about finance and accounting because that, that's the language of business. And if you're gonna make money, like you say you wanna make money, you gotta learn that. So next thing you know, I'm going to WP Carey School of Business to get a degree in finance. I got DS in school. Mm-hmm. my whole entire childhood. For some reason I made the mental decision to, I wanted to get straight A's in college. And it just goes to show you, it doesn't matter where you grow up or what your background is or whether you're book smarts or not book smarts. I was never book smart. You apply yourself to anything, you can accomplish anything. And I got straight fucking a's four years in a row at college for no other reason than I wanted to do it. While I was going to college, my friend Jeremy flipped a house. I had always thought of real estate a certain way, right? Mm-hmm. rich people do real estate, right? And real estate agents do real estate. And, uh, he flipped a house and he was going to school to be a, a computer, um, like a programmer. Yep. And uh, I'm like, how did he pulls up in his brand new Mercedes? I said, how'd you get the new car? I flipped a house and made 80 grand. I said, you're full of shit. Next thing you know, we're talking at lunch. He's penciling wholesaling out on a napkin. I had never heard of it before and it changed. That lunch meeting changed my life. And next thing you know, I'm going down this rabbit hole 18, 19 years ago on how to learn how to wholesale. Mm-hmm. And you look back and it's like just a bunch of pivotal moments. I call'em like pivotal moments and recalibrations, you never know in life, as you look back you see'em. But like in the moment, I didn't know that I was gonna go be a successful real estate investor. I just thought, fuck, this is like a lot like selling drugs. I buy low, I sell high, I make cash, I move fast. Right. And that, and, and I liked it cuz there was very low barriers to entry. You know, a guy like me can go out there and hustle hard and, and do it. What I didn't understand is when you get first get into this real estate business, uh, it's a lot like drinking from a fire hose. Mm-hmm. like when I took your course. Yep. Drinking from a fight. Well, I do that on purpose cause I wanna sell you mentorship you know? Yep. I blast you, I blast you with all the big words. I didn't understand all the upsides. Come on man. Just look. And, and a fast action bonus is always a call with my business development consultant, you know, cuz we're gonna get you into mentorship one way or another. But, um, you know, it was just one of those things where it was like, I, I, I, I overwhelmed myself real fast. I bought too many courses. I talked to too many people. I was, I went to too many events and, uh, my mentor told me something much later on when I eventually got a mentor, um, that I think it's every person listening to this that can relate to trying something new and feeling that overwhelming anxiety is, uh, you gotta, in the beginning, you're gonna say yes to a lot of things. Mm-hmm. Um, and that's okay. But the real power is in saying no. Because yes, we'll get you outta Egypt, but no, we'll take you to the promised land. And once I was kind of, I got overwhelmed, uh, four, nine months in, I still hadn't done a deal. And it was kind of brutal. Yeah. Because I talked a lot of shit to everybody. I was like, dude, I'm gonna get fucking rich. Like real rich. Like I'm retiring my pa I'm telling my parents, you're getting, I'm gonna retire. You mom's gonna be good. I'm getting new cars for everybody. Like, we're gonna go travel, we're gonna have this great time. And then like by the third month, you know, you're starting to, starting to second guess yourself a little bit. Mm-hmm. credit card bills are due. Cause I didn't have any money. I was just putting everything on a credit card. Yep. And some of your friends start talking shit by the fifth month. Everybody is kind of like whispering in the background. Thank God there was no social media. I probably would've been really hurting. And uh, by the seventh month, I'm arguing with my girlfriend. about bills and this idea of doing real estate. It's like she keeps telling, just go get a fucking job. I'm like, you don't understand. Like, this is it for me, like I'm gonna do this. Then on the eighth month, my parents sat me down and said, Cody, um, we think you're making a big mistake. You gotta just stay focused on college. Later on. Get a good job, go do stocks or something, sell stocks, make a bunch of money, and eventually you can get into the real estate business. And I'm like looking at my dad like, you're fucking wrong. Like, this isn't, no. But by the ninth month I had this deal that I had worked really hard on. I was only gonna make a few thousand dollars, but it was gonna be my first deal. Right. And some fucking realtor tar got in the way, and next thing you know, the deal falls apart. They cut me out of it and they do the deal without me. Hmm. And uh, I remember sitting there and I was, I was kind of like crying to myself a little bit and I was like, you know what? Fuck this. I can't do this anymore. And uh, that day I'm walking at ASU by a bulletin board and there was a job ad for a bookkeeper and I'm like, God, I need money so bad. Like my bills are due. Like I gotta figure this out. So I called the guy and I said, Hey, you hire him for this bookkeeper position still? And he said, yeah, you know how to do books. I'm like, yep. Mm-hmm sure do. I was taking an accounting class, so I'm like, how hard can books be He goes, great. It was actually down here on Central Avenue. Next thing you know, I'm at his office and I had to go borrow my dad's suit cause I didn't even own a suit. Nice. And it looked ridiculous. And uh, he goes, can you start on Monday? And I said, hell yeah. That was Friday. I went immediately to the bookstore, bought Bookkeeping for Dummies, read that whole thing. All, all weekend long. Showed up. I'm now a bookkeeper that lasted maybe three months before I wanted to kill myself. Mm. That's more than I thought. Yeah. No offense to book. I love, I mean, I got a lot of bookkeepers on payroll right now. Like thank God they love, love their job cuz that was not for me. Mm-hmm. But the guy was a developer. So even though I was quitting the business, in my mind I was still kind of in the world. Right. Because I was watching the money and my belief system started to change a little bit because this guy was a dumb ass. And I'm thinking, how in the hell is this guy killing it? I can't even fumble into a damn deal without getting cut out. And this guy's a complete bozo and he's murdering it. He was doing so well. He was flying in some dude from Japan to make him custom suits. you're doing 80 flips at a time. 80. Cut. All historic downtown Phoenix. raising tons of money, and I was just doing all the money in and out, in and out, cutting all the checks. It was like early two thousands. Mm-hmm. yeah. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, I can't do this. And I'm like, I'm gonna give wholesaling another try. But this time I, I needed to do something different. And, uh, my friend Zach Bali, who is probably one of my favorite people on Planet Earth, because he convinced me to go to a Jack Miller seminar. Now, if you've never heard of Jack Miller, you should look him up. He is a phenomenal, phenomenal, creative real estate investor. Old school from the seventies and eighties. He passed away a long time ago. Outta that Jack Miller group came, Pete Fora, John Hab, and my eventual mentor, a guy named Lyle Wall. But this crew had been together for 30 years. all cr like you guys have heard of Pace Morby, right? Mm-hmm. has anybody heard of Pace? Morby? Phenomenal real estate investor. One of my favorite people around in the game today. Everybody was, imagine 400 pace morby, like just everybody just doing the most creative slice and, and Dyson of, they called it transactional engineering. Zach convinced me to go to this seminar. Now you gotta put yourself in the position of somebody who's been to seminars, blew through 30,000, tried for nine months, quit the bit. Like I didn't want to go to another seminar at all, but for some reason God was kind of tugging on my heart just saying, come on dude, you're not happy. Like, just go. And so I went and I met my mentor Lyle there at, at a lunch break, pivotal moments and recalibrations. Hmm. And I had this amazing lunch with this old man who looked like Yoda and talked like Yoda. And I'm like, you gotta be my mentor. You guys wanna hear this story? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said You, I said, you gotta be my mentor. And he said, you don't want me to be your mentor dude? I said, no. I tried this business for nine months. I told him the story. I said, I can't do this alone any longer. Like I don't know if it was ego or what, but I was too proud to ask for help. I need help. And you are the guy, I don't know why you are the guy. He said, dude, you don't have what it takes for me to mentor you. I'm like, yeah, I do, man. Come on. Like what? What do I gotta do for you to mentor me? And he's like, you really want it bad enough? And I said, I'll do anything. He said, anything. I said, fucking anything, let's go. He said, anything. I said, lie, I'll do anything. That's what I'm trying to tell you. He goes, you like baseball? I said, not really. He goes, well, three strikes in baseball. Right. Well, with me, if you want me to mentor you, There's three rules. Rule number one is you're gonna show up tomorrow with$10,000 and$5 bills. You're gonna hand it to me. I'm broke at the time. I'm like, okay. He goes, rule number two is just like baseball. Three strikes in, you're out. You talk back in any way, shape or form. I don't like how you're acting. You get a strike. Third strike, I keep your money tell you to fuck off. You'll never talk to me again. Thinking to myself, wow, this is going great. What can rule number three be? How bad can rule number three be? And he goes, rule number three is simple. Your first big deal, you get to keep 100% of the money after that. If you ask me a question, if I'm involved in any way, any way whatsoever, I decide how much you keep and how much I keep. I don't even think it took me a third of a second before I said done. I'm in next day. I show up with the money hustled all day to get it. And it's funny, you know, when I hear excuses a lot of times from people, uh, I used to, I used to be that guy. Mm-hmm. growing up in that kind of an environment, it's easy to be that guy where you're in this, this, this place where your vision and your belief system, you're conditioned to think and act a certain way. And what happens is you try something or you hear about somebody who tries somebody or somebody gives you some advice and you have all these negative toxic inputs. You don't realize that they're toxic at the time, but you're around all these inputs and so your outputs are the same, right? Mm-hmm. inputs and outputs. And so I didn't realize I was just a guy walking around life with my blame thrower and just blasting people. You know? I was a guy that was a victim. I was a great procrastinator, I was a great over analyzer and agitator. I just didn't know any better. Mm-hmm. but you drop any crackhead into the middle of any city on planet Earth and they want drugs and they're broke, they're gonna fucking find that shit. Mm-hmm. And it's like, okay, I came up with the money, I figured it out. Next thing you know, Lyle happened to have a, um, a, uh, winner home out here. He half the time in Colorado, half the time out here. And I would sit there for hours when he was up on this old rickety whiteboard explaining how a subject two transaction worked and a wraparound mortgage and a seller finance, and how you take an income stream and create a note and then sell off the first 180 payments and then have it return back to you afterwards and do the whole entire thing in your self-directed Roth tax free. And I'm like just getting schooled. I didn't understand any of it. Like every fourth word I got mm-hmm. it'd be like trying to learn Mandarin. All of a sudden it's just like, whoa. But I knew. I knew it was like building scaffolding in my brain. Mm-hmm. and just being around a real deal maker changed the way I thought about things. I saw him building relationships with people. I saw the rapport, the influence, the sales, the negotiation, the transactional engineering happening. And I'm like, wow, I want to do that someday. And, uh, you know, Lyle Lyle, I'm not here because I'm so great. I'm here because a great man like Lyle Wall locked arms with me that day. Whether I paid him or not, he took me on and I was a terrorist for that guy. You know, I was savage. Mm-hmm. And I also got two strikes real fucking quick. you know, cuz that's what we do. Mm-hmm. as, as you know, entrepreneurs, I'm rebellious and I don't like people telling me what to do and Yep. I push the boundary, but not enough to get fired from that relationship cuz I, I valued it. Um, My first deal, I made$40,000. It took me, took me 14 months before I met, uh, 12 months before I met Lyle. By 14th month I'm cashing a$40,000 check. So two months after he started, two months, man, that was fucking it. He did the one thing that I hadn't done and he put blinders on me mm-hmm. and said all that other dumb shit you're doing is a waste of time. You do these three things, kept it simple. You do these three things over and over and over and we're gonna get you a deal. And he was right. And I am, I, I got a deal. It was a very complicated deal, but I got a deal and I made 40 grand and that next fucking day I quit my job. Cuz I told myself when I was going back in the business that if I can make, this is how big my vision was back then. Mm-hmm. if I could make$4,000 a month consistently for six months, I'm going full-time real estate.$40,000. I was making 34 grand a year as a bookkeeper. I'm done bookkeeping, I'm now full-time real estate and I haven't looked back. Mm-hmm. Wow. And how long ago was that, that first deal? Two thou, uh, 2003. 2003. Mm-hmm. So you got this deal and then was it off to the races from there? Yeah. The distance between D deal zero and deal one was 14 months. Deal one and two was maybe a month and a half, two months. Two to three was maybe three weeks. I, I condensed time by increasing my skills and capabilities. Mm-hmm. and just, uh, let everybody know. Lyle was not nice to me, not nice to me at all. He took every fucking dollar he could. Hmm. I paid that guy millions. So did you maintain that relationship or at a certain point, did you kind of go your own way? Mm-hmm. I talked to Lyle probably every other week. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, my first year in business, even though I made Lyle a lot of money, I made 1.3 million in wholesale profits. Wow. Um, Lyle didn't solve all my problems for me. He just guided me as I needed it. He wasn't around every second of every day. Mm-hmm. I, I did a lot on my own too, but he was always there for me. And, um, uh, my, one of my first big lessons I had to learn as in real estate was that I wasn't really in real estate yet. I was in a transactional type of job called wholesaling. And I learned that when my$600,000 tax bill. because I spent all the 1.3 million I had a real good time that year. But new cars, I think I went to Vegas like 50 times. We were having such a good time. I mean, cuz like you come from nothing and all of a sudden you're making real cheddar, right? You don't know how to manage that money. This is why all these athletes go broke. Mm-hmm. you really don't know and have a positive relationship with money. I, I grew up with, uh, what am I made of? Money, energy, right? And so I'm just blasting through it and I didn't even have my businesses set up the right way. And, and I say this because a mentor isn't gonna come in and like, solve all your problems and set everything and do everything for you. Like, I still had to learn a lot of fa through failure in, in different things. But, um, you get this$600,000 tax bill. What, what do you do? What's your, what do you do if you make 1.3? You blast through all of it. You might maybe have 50 K, 80 k and uh, but you owe 600 k. What do you do now? You gotta go do more deals. That's it. Yeah. The problem with doing more deals, what happens next? More fucking taxes. Yep. And because I wasn't paying, what do they hit you with? Bunches. Bunch of fees. And dude, the amount I was, dude, I would get these letters with big fucking red, bulky texts at the top saying like, you're going to fucking prison and we're taking all your shit. And, you know, it was, it was scary. Uhhuh, And uh, and it would say, penalties and fees,$7,000. And I'm like, fuck, I just went backwards. Like, or I'd pay 15, but then they charged me eight and I'm like, shit, I'm not really getting ahead. Uh, so I just had to make two and a half million the next year. And you did? Fuck. Yeah, I did. It's a great motivator to not to go to federal prison. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, you just make more money. But, but I started hearing words, Lyle had been telling me the whole time, which is, you need to own real estate to be a real estate investor. I used to look at'em, be like, Lyle, your car's a piece of shit. You drive, you live in a shitty house. I don't care if you have 23 million in your self-directed Roth, you live like a hobo. I don't wanna live like that. I wanna ball out. And I thought, fuck, I'm pretty good at this wholesaling thing. I'm making it rain. It's like a cash spigot. Just turn it on and make money. Mm-hmm. But I really started to understand the wisdom in what he was telling me. And I'm like, God, I gotta, I gotta make bigger chunks quicker. So I stopped selling all my deals to rehabbers. I started rehabbing myself. And dude, my first deal, my contractor stole 65 k from me. First time trying to re uh, rehab a house. So when I hear people are like, oh, it, it was tough to get. I'm like, yeah, yeah. It's designed to be tough. The game is fucking. otherwise everybody would be healthy, wealthy fit. I mean, how many guys do you know with Rolexs on that are fat fucks with titties out and wearing a t-shirt at the pool? And you're like, yeah dude, you murdered it in the, in the money game. Mm-hmm. nice Rolex. Yeah. But your health game is awful. I would never trade places with that guy. You know, I want to be like my, one of my mentors, Wes Watson says, ripped rich and rare. Mm-hmm. that's the guy I want to be. I wanna trade places with a guy that's fucking got nine pack or 12 pack or whatever most packs you can get. And so, uh, I didn't wanna be like Lyle when it came to saving money, but I started to, I started to understand what he was really telling me and I'm like, damn, I gotta, I gotta keep more. So I started rehabbing, then I started doing more creative deals and next thing you know, I'm building a portfolio and it took me four years to unbury from those taxes. Four years. Hmm. Um, great lesson though, cuz immediately I, I went and set up better bank accounts. I hired better accountants. I hired better financial people in my life. I stopped taking advice from my dad and other people that had never made millions of dollars. Mm-hmm. and I, I built a squad around me and I'm like, okay, if I'm gonna spend the next 20 years building wealth, I'm gonna do it. Right. Yeah. So I feel like I could ask you a bunch more about real estate and making money and that kind of stuff, but you touched on something, um, just a second ago, and then you also, I saw you speak last Saturday at, uh, was it elevator night with Dan Fleischman, where I beared my soul? Yes. So I, it was funny cuz I was like, you know, there's, I was imagining the conversation and the things I was gonna ask, and then that happened and I was like, man, there's more important things to talk about than money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So your heads at, yeah, you touched on it and you said, you know, I was making money, but there's all these, you know, wealthy people who were outta shape or, you know, terrible, you know, Family situations and all that kind of stuff. And it's funny cuz Carlos touched on it last time too, about how, you know, he had this period where, and I feel like I've been hearing this as a recurring theme, right? People get super wealthy, they get super successful business-wise, and then at a certain point it clicks, they're like, all right, I got all the money, but I'm missing everything else. And now you gotta go back and kind of like re you know, take care of those other areas, right? Yeah. So you said, um, recently too, like you were making lots of money, things were going well, at least on the surface, but not so much, you know, behind the scenes or kind of on a deeper level. Yeah. So can you dive, I know you wanna dive into that so much, right? But Oh, yeah. Therapy session, right? Yeah. You know, I just think it's important my, my energy and my vibe. First off, I just want to, I want to tell everybody listening that I'm happier than I've ever been. I really feel good about where I am in life right now. I, I feel I, I really love myself. I love the energy I'm putting out to the world. I love the way I'm making an impact. I love my, the way I treat people and the, my friendships that I have. I have a better relationship with my kids than I've ever had in my whole entire time being a father. I've gone deeper, even with Shannon. Um, you know, we've been together 18 years, married for 14, who I'm going through a divorce with right now. Um, and it's because I'm in alignment with my purpose and it took me 44 years to get there. And that's what you heard me talking about. Mm-hmm. just because, you know, some men and women I guess. Um, but I could definitely speak from a guy's perspective cuz I've mentored a lot of'em and I am one. Mm-hmm. That's my pronoun by the way, in case you, in case you fucking wanted to know. Thanks for clarifying that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, the world we live in is fucking wild right now, isn't it? Yeah. Um, I'm sorry, I should've asked you that before. Yeah, yeah. No. So it would've been more politically cracked to leave with them. uh, uh, what was I saying? Yeah. I'm in alignment with my purpose. Um, just, and I think it a lot of men, we, we hide the real pain. Mm-hmm. we use it. I think it, it's like, uh, the way I think about it now is kind of like, I'm, I'm Dexter and it was my dark passenger. I hid my pain from growing up in my environment and my situations and the way I thought about things and the, and just all my pain and men do different things with it. For a long time, I hid my pain and achievement, and it was the driving force to go out there and become great because I could not stand the idea of somebody controlling me and pushing me around any longer. I hated that feeling of being bullied one more fucking time. I refused to allow it to happen, and over and over it happened. I, I was tired of being the friend. I was tired of being never chosen. Mm-hmm. you, you know, you know that feeling where like, everybody's lining up and they're like, I'll take Timmy and Bill and Sam and, fuck, I guess I got spur I hated that feeling. And business is a great way to take control. Achievement is a great way to feel important. Finally feel significance. Mm-hmm. and, damn, I got, I, I learned the rules and I got good at the game. But what you find when you buy the Rolls Royce, which I did, or the Lambos or the big houses, is n n the way you feel about yourself never changed. It just never changed. Mm-hmm. I wanted it to so badly feel like I was really important, but deep down inside, I still felt insignificant. And, uh, it's because I didn't truly love myself and I never went deep enough to put in the real work until guys like me, some guys need punched or slapped. Some guys need really kicked and put down, and some guys like me need ran the fuck over. And when I get ran over and I'm laying there just a disaster, and I'm finally alone in my thoughts, I'm like, I gotta, I gotta really fix this. Like the karmic debt that's being paid to me, the way that the choices I've made in the past and what was happening is, uh, I was lying to. You know, a marriage is a contract right in the US and it's a legal contract, but it's a spiritual contract. And when you violate that contract, no matter how good you cover it up, no matter what you say, no matter how many good deeds I do, how how many tens of thousands of people I helped get in the business game and make money. I couldn't hide the fact that I was cheating on my wife and I was paying the price for it, carrying around this giant anchor, and finally it got to be too much weight. I would look at my daughter and I would just feel like a piece of shit, and I preach, set a standard, be a leader. Step your game up. Do the right thing, even when nobody else is looking. These are personal core values of mine, but I wasn't living it. And finally the weight got too much. My mom's dying of cancer. My marriage has falling apart. We were good. We friend zoned each other. And my big mistake is I put her in her masculine and it's hard to wanna fuck a person that's in their masculine. I mean, I guess if you're gay, that's great, but like I, I wa I, I fucked, I fucked up by not allowing her to be this badass feminine warrior that she is. And, uh, I paid the price in it by, and I hid from that thing by just going and making more money, right? And eventually I said, you know what? This gotta stop. I'm not gonna allow. And here was my real thoughts, if you guys wanna understand. It wasn't even about me. It was more about like, I'm not willing to steal any more minutes from her. Mm-hmm. And that sentence got louder and louder and louder until finally one day I just told her. And it was like a thousand pounds came off my chest that day. It was the first time I started to get a little bit back in alignment. Then my mom dies. And if anybody had anybody pass away in front of them, it's the most tragic, horrible, awful thing. Cancer is awful. And, um, and then I just, I I hit rock bottom, you know? And because I was at rock bottom, I was, my back was against the wall. I was scared. I was having a hard time and more bad stuff. Ha. Started happening. And you realize rock bottom has a basement. Hmm. And you just go a little lower and you're just like, fuck. I think it's time. I think it's time to really put in the real work. I called Scottsdale Psychological Counseling Services. I said, I need help. They said, we're busy. They have this, this week long intensive. They said, we're busy. Maybe three, four months out we can get you in. I said, you don't know me. 30 minutes later, I'm at the front desk grease, the front desk lady with 500 bucks in cash. Said, fucking kick somebody out. Call them right now. Get them the fuck outta here and put my name on that calendar. I'm coming. I will show up on Monday. I'm not gonna say who, which front desk lady she is, because I don't want her to get fired for that. I think she saw it in my eyes, the pain I was in and how desperate I was at that moment. I shut my social off. I told my team at work. I'm go, I'm, I'm gonna be gone for a week. Don't please just step up and help everybody did. They, they knew I needed it. and it was, uh, the best week I ever spent. Hmm. I showed up. I did one years of therapy in one week, maybe 13 hour days. Horse therapy, acting therapy, em, d r, individual therapy group therapy, like every type of therapy under the sun. And, and I, God really helped me that day because he put me in a group with eight other men, nor sometimes they have men and women. They just happened to be all men that time. And every one of those men was a high level entrepreneur. It was the first time in 40 years of them doing this, that we were all men and all super high level entrepreneurs. And when I say high level, I mean this guy had a family office with 500 million under management. This guy owned 27 TV station. This guy owns half the dealerships in town. Like it was like boom, boom, boom. And I'm like, these are my people. Mm-hmm. thank you. These are my people. And, uh, It was, it was such a great experience. It was the hardest thing I ever went through because I had inner, I had open heart surgery on my inner child. I got my intimacy circles in alignment. I built a trauma egg. Never even heard of a trauma egg. It's literally every single thing you've ever been through in your life. Like I have amnesia. My ability to compartmentalize in bury pain was instant. I could cut your head off, bury you in the desert, and never think about it again. Like I would've been a great serial killer. That's real pain. You know where you ha, you're able to just turn the switch and it didn't exist. That's how I made it. Four years cheating on my wife. Hmm. When you go deep, You realize something that you cannot give, what you do not have. And I didn't have unconditional love for myself. So how can I unconditionally love the people around me? So when I say I'm in alignment now, that was, uh, last year, for the last eight months, I've been working my ass off part to fix what I did. The shame, right? I'm driven by guilt and shame in part just because this is my new operating standard. This is my new software that I operate by. I'm free, man. I'm free. I feel better than I've ever felt. My health is starting to get in alignment. I got a six pack, like fucking six pack, like I look good. Naked dude, and, uh, never felt that way about my body before. Mm-hmm. First thing I did is went around to every one of my business after doing everything with my family, having to sit down with my kids and tell'em what I did and all that, which is very hard. Um, went around to my business partners and I said, you know, I owe you everybody a big apology because if I can cheat and lie to my wife, I can cheat and lie to you and I owe you all a big apology. Cuz that's not the standard I wanna set. I want you guys all to know that when it comes to battle, you can trust me and when it comes to the bad times, you can trust me. And uh, and I did it with my friends and I've been, you know, if, if you're in my world, you feel me, when I walk into a room now, I change the. and that's the, that's more important to me now than teaching people how to make money or, you know, whatever, whatever financial things I can help. I think that's great and I think that's part of the equation. Mm-hmm. But now if you're a mentoring student of mine, like half of my, more than half, probably 85% of like our time together is me spent going deep with you, really trying to understand you and your, where your pain really is and what we need to do to like, go deep. Because the money starts to fix itself when you fix yourself. Yeah. Your health starts to get on point, your relationships. And I'm also starting to do the one thing that I really did a good job in business I was always really good at. Like if you, I spend well over 150,$200,000 a year on consultants. Mentors, masterminds. Mm-hmm. I'm, I will cut a check real quick to go further faster, but why did I never do that with my spiritual game? why didn't I go pay the best spiritual thinkers and mentors in the world for proximity like I do with business? I do it with a personal trainer. Mm-hmm. Why don't I do it spiritually? Why don't I do it with like a love coach? So I started like cutting checks in all these different areas of my life, just trying to be like, man, I wanna be that guy. Mm-hmm. I wanna be ripped, rich and rare. I wanna be deadly and fucking dangerous and you wanna fuck me so bad at the same time. Like you're just like, I don't know why I wanna fuck that guy, but I wanna fuck that guy. Right? Like, I wanna be a hardcore lover. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. Not you. You know what I'm saying, Bradley? Yeah. I got Bradley. I got Bradley blushing a little bit over here. I like it. Oh, I don't know how to respond to some of those things. Yeah, that kind. I want that energy. Yeah. Winy you said, right? Winergy. Yeah. That's my, that's my phrase for 2023. I was talking to my friend, spectacular Smith, who's in the, the boy band. Boy. He hates when I say that, the, the r and b band, pretty Ricky. Uh, he said it one time to me, he said, man, we're just, we're just all about that energy. I'm like, dude, that's my 2023 slogan. I love it. Well, first off, thank you for sharing all that. I know that's probably not easier. Does it get a little easier each time or is it, it's not that it's hard. Yeah. No, I don't, you know why I like to like, to kind of have this kind of conversation cuz nobody gives a fuck about my Rolls Royce or how many deals I've done. Not one person's gonna remember any of that, but there's gonna be at least half a dozen men in here that are gonna go back and apologize to their significant other today. Mm-hmm. And they're gonna say, I'm not in alignment with our relationship. And it could be just thoughts. Look, it doesn't happen. Like, it's not like I just one day cheated. Mm-hmm. It's a very slow progression, whatever that is. I don't know what that, it could be porn. Then it leads to, you know, you fucking some hooker and then next thing you know, you're off on these tangents. It could be whatever that is for you. You know, you mm-hmm. you opening a door, right? On a dm. Why are you opening doors on dms with other people if you're married? Mm-hmm. I did that kind of, that's how it happened. For, for, that was the beginning part for me because I got millions of followers. My dms are stacked. I got some good talent in my dms, but the fact that I interacted with them, it's wrong. It ain't cool, you know? And I should be able to operate as if she is standing right next to me a hundred percent of the time. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but you justify and next thing you know, you're off. So that's why I like sharing it, is there's gonna be some people that are like, you know what, I'm, I am. embarrassed at how I look naked. I am that guy that wears a t-shirt at the beach. I don't wanna be that guy anymore. Mm-hmm. And maybe that's the step that they're gonna take, is just, man, I'm, I'm gonna go for a walk tomorrow for the first time in a long time. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm just gonna take that step. And how do you eat the alignment Elephant One, one bite at a time, baby. Yep. That's it. So it's like, yeah, I'm a little extreme. Like, I'm like hiring Irwin McManus to get me closer to God and I'm a hiring, you know, west Watson and turn me into a vicious fucking killer. And, you know, I, I got all these masterminds with all these bad asses and like, I'm trying to do it all at once. Mm-hmm. But if somebody listening just like, you know, this is that one area I'm gonna work on for the rest of 2023 so I can have that win energy. We did our job. Amazing. I have no idea what time it is. Uh, I could ask a hundred more questions and keep this going, but. 8 41. Wow. We're actually on time for the first time ever. That's a big step. So, uh, that my wife knows that's not my strong suits being on time. So dude, some of my podcasts lasts like two, three hours, so I'm cool with it. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So, I mean, one thing, it's funny cuz I didn't even know you were here, Bradley. I just talked for an hour. I'm sorry dude, I hijacked your whole shit. Hey man. Uh, great interviewer. Here we go. I'm a good listener. Right? Play to your strengths, I mean, self-awareness. So that's something that I feel like you talked about without really talking about like when you went and you did that deep work and like all of these things that you're been talking about your whole past, you're like, well this happened as a kid and so that's why I do this and I'm really good at this and here's how I cope with that and that sort of thing. So were you always very self-aware or was it kind of like a more mm-hmm. recent, like exponential thing? I mean, one, I just think, I think winners have a bounce back spirit. I think. I, I am naturally, uh, I'm probably naturally more than a glass half full guy. Mm-hmm. I'm like, even if there's no glass, I'm like, let's go fucking create a glass. Like that's my energy. Yeah. It's always kind of been that way. I don't know, maybe I'm born with it. I don't know. I, I feel like, I feel like, uh, I feel like a lot of this is the million dollar question as are entrepreneurs born or made? I thought. I think it's both mostly made, but even the ones that are made, they tend to be more born into some sort of environment, maybe some core ingredients that make you a great entrepreneur. You're born win, making some personality traits that like, you know, or certain people are skewed more towards like a sport athletically. Right. So you, you kind have certain attributes. But I would say, I mean, if I had to put a number on it, I'd say like 70 May 30 born. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. As far as back as I can remember, I always kind of had that like, figure it out. Mm-hmm. gritty, little stubbornness. Well, yeah. It's, uh, you know, you know what it is? Underdog spirit. Mm-hmm. I think that's what it is, because I'm not real good looking, you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. I had to work really hard, you know, I was never gonna get laid otherwise. because I wasn't seven foot tall. I can't dunk a basketball. There's just certain things I just am not born with, I'm not great at. Mm-hmm. So I always felt like the underdog and, uh, it probably makes you more gritty, which is a, a, a great thing as an entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I did wanna say one thing though, cause I've been, I don't know why I have this on my mind. It's around complacency. and I don't know why I've, I've been looping this thought all day. Mm-hmm. about how complacency kills progress. And maybe that was the spirit of this talk is, you know, there's a lot of people that there's this graveyard of potential greatness that was killed by complacency. See, and I, um, I wanna encourage people this year, because there is a recession coming, we're talking about grit. Mm-hmm. we're talking about, you know, making money and being better in all these areas of your life. It's easy to settle, especially if you have a little bit of success. Mm-hmm. um, it's really hard to not be complacent in your health, in your relationships, in your business. Maybe that's what, maybe that's the spirit of, of what we're talking about here. Mm-hmm. let's fucking kill complacency in 2023, and let's take advantage of this massive opportunity that's coming our way. You know, they say that most adults have four, maybe five opportunities in their entire life that are life changing opportunities. Two of them typically happen before the age of 21, so you don't even know what to fucking do with them. One of them happens at the age of 65 or older, so you really don't give a fuck. You've already done your thing. So that really leaves two, maybe three, but definitely two moments in your life where you have a shot at greatness, like real greatness. It happened for me in 2008. I made tens of millions of dollars during the last real estate crash. The symptoms that are happening in our country right now. You know, we're joking around about pronouns and dumb shit, but they fucking destroyed our currency. and it's gonna get a lot worse. And, uh, whether you like Democrats or Republicans, what they're doing to us is awful. Mm-hmm. and a lot of people should go to jail over it. Yeah. Between the pandemic to the way they, you know, are pushing socialism and communism and all this crazy shit that's going on. You know, the, the, the solution, all of it is capitalism, right? Mm-hmm. Right. But, you know, you look at what's happening. I can't control you voting for Biden or somebody passing some rule or gas going up or whatever. I can't control any of that. The only thing I control is what I do on a daily basis with my family. Mm-hmm. and how I build my little protective wall around that. Maybe if I'm lucky I can impact some other people, but like that's the first step. So you gotta elevate your intention, your enthusiasm. You gotta kill that complacency instantaneously and say, I gotta go to fucking war right now. Right? And if you don't have that kind of like warrior mindset in 2023, you're gonna be part of the have-nots. Mm-hmm. because we're killing the middle class. The gap between rich and poor is getting really big really fast. I'm good. Mm-hmm. I got a lot of, I built a lot of wealth already. I want a lot more, but I'm never gonna be homeless. I'm never gonna be one of those people that gets the rug pulled out from'em. These like, look at a lot of the baby boomers are gonna get their 401ks and their pensions just stolen from them. They're gonna be fucked. Your dad is, you know, there's gonna be a lot of people's parents that get screwed. Mm-hmm. they're ta they're just, they're just, it's awful. And so what can you control? I can control my skills and capabilities. Now is the time to hire those mentors. Pay cut the check, go further faster, increase your skills and capabilities. I can control that. I can control which money-making vehicle I'm sitting in. All these people that give the worst fucking advice, go follow your passion. It's like, yeah, go get rich teaching guitar. Dumb fuck You know, it's like, I love that you want to teach guitar, but go build real wealth in a money-making ve vehicle that actually has the potential to build real wealth. This is why I love real estate so many layers too. But like I bought a building last year, paid four, uh, 4.2 million for it. Uh, put another couple hundred grand into it and have uh, a million dollars worth of this flooring that's in it. Did a cost egg on the building, got a a three and a half,$4 million write off. I obliterated millions of dollars in taxes on one power move. Wow. The only difference between me and the next guy is I'm playing the game. Mm-hmm. So when I hear people like bitching about like, oh, Trump doesn't pay taxes. Like Yeah, cuz he's smart. He's playing the fucking game with the rules of the rich. Mm-hmm. this was the lesson that I didn't understand when I got that$600,000 tax bill, cuz I was playing the, I was still in the wrong game. I was in the make money game. Yeah. Trade mu time for money game. Worst tax bracket game. You gotta own real estate because you get the depreciation, you get all the expense write offs. Well, first, before even that, you gotta get in to start a business game because if you don't have, if you're not incorporated, you're, you're not even in the game yet. So that's phase one. It's just start a fucking business. And if you start a business that's in the real estate game, it's even better. because now you're in the, I'm in, I'm, I'm able to take advantage of some of the tax code stuff, but I also can buy these assets with leverage. I can go buy 5 million worth of real estate with$1 million. Where else can I do that? Can I do that in stocks? Are they gonna give some newbie with stocks some margin bullshit? Mm-hmm. No. But I can immediately go to any bank and I could borrow a million from you, put it into my business bank account, raise private capital, then go buy$5 million worth of real estate, get a massive tax write off, earn a bunch of money from my tenants that are paying down that debt. That's good debt. Paying down that debt. And then five years from now, we can sell it for a massive profit, 10 31 in it, uh, to a different building and go buy something for 20 million. Build real generational wealth. Mm. I don't give a shit. If you're an anesthesiologist making a thousand bucks an hour, you're never gonna get there. That's right. Yeah. That hamster wheel always keeps turning. That's it. Yeah. So what's one, one bold prediction you have about the economy, real estate, whatever, in the next year or two? Um, I hope it crashes cuz I'm gonna get embarrassingly wealthy Is that a prediction or a, I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's a hope. It's a hope. You know why? And maybe it doesn't and it's not because I want people to get hurt. Right. It's because I understand that when you print$5 trillion and hand it out, incentivize people to not work, not create our gdp, goes down. We got all these bozo politicians making all these stupid moves. They want our currency to crash. The Federal Reserve cryptocurrencies coming, they're gonna force everybody over into it. If you think that China's real bad and we're real good, you're living under a rock, social credit scores, all that shit, they're tracking everything. It's going to be a system where you, you can't rely on the government anymore. You can't rely on your parents. You can't rely on a job, and you have to take advantage of the opportunities as aggressively as you can when they come along. Mm-hmm. And so this is a zero sum game. Money never leaves the ecosystem. It just changes hands. And I'm not gonna be one of the have-nots. I'm not gonna be a renter. I'm not gonna be somebody with his handout that's desperate for help and dependent on the government cuz they've proven that they can't help. That's right. Mm-hmm. And if you just change your language, what you say to yourself from the economy's gonna crash to this is gonna be the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes. If it crashes, I'm ready. Mm-hmm. And if it doesn't, great. Yeah. I'm still already on the path to go kick ass. Yeah. Well no matter what. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but real estate, you know, is probably gonna crash, uh, a little bit like different than last time. You know, if you just look at the mechanics when interest rates go up, people get priced out of the affordability. Mm-hmm. you know, we have, the only thing saving us right now is we have a huge supply and demand issue still on. If you look at the mls, we just dropped about 13, 12, or 13,000 active listings. The fastest dec we're decreasing by like four or 500 houses. A month, month after month. Here in Arizona, that means new houses aren't hitting the market, but the demand is still strong to buy houses. Unfortunately, when interest rates go from just six to seven, everybody in that lower price range gets immediately priced out because a six to$800 monthly swing to most people is impossible. That's how fucked people are. Mm-hmm. the average American saves a thousand dollars a year. The average American, they're one flat tire away from just being done. Mm-hmm. And if you look, how much money do you think you need to comfortably retire? I don't know, low end five mil. Okay. Maybe five mil. Did you pull that number outta thin air? Did you actually sit down with your wife and look at what do we need in backwards engineering into like the kind of lifestyle that you really want? Yeah. I've seen like people kind of do the reverse math and like how, I just didn't know how you came up out and stuff. Yeah. I'm not putting you under the Yeah, no, I really wanna know like that probably five mil, like if I probably have a goal, am I probably not gonna hit it? right. So like you gotta know exactly what it is you're trying to backwards engineer into so that way you can live that life. You know, Forbes put out an article a few years ago, they said you need 1.8 million to comfortably retire. They modified it to two something because of inflation. Mm-hmm. Um, if you wanted to make$10,000 a month for 20 years, starting at age 65 going to 85, you need to save 3.4 million to live off of and just pay yourself 10 grand a month. Mm-hmm. I would bet you if I asked every person in this audience to write down how much money you have saved for retirement, and then at the top of your page was 3.4 million in cash. There's a gap there and it'd probably be embarrassing if you had to walk around and show other people in this room, your pa, your paper. Most people can't earn and save their way to 3.4 million. It just, um, if you start a business scale it, you might be able to get there. If you get into a vehicle like real estate, you might be able to get there, but just earn working and saving very difficult, almost impossible. Yeah. What if I also told you that if you wanted$10,000 a month, you can go buy, let's call it seven Airbnbs and you could buy these Airbnbs using creative finance with none of your own money, and we could raise private money for the furniture and everything else we need and we can use opm, other people's money. You'd be like, damn, we could do. And each Airbnb is gonna pay you three to four grand a month, five grand a month in pure cash flow. And I, I'll even hook you up with a manager to manage'em all so you don't even have to touch'em within a year or two. I can get you seven Airbnbs, right? Mm-hmm. it's a doable thing. Yeah. Now you got your 10 grand a month. You don't have to wait till you're 65 to retire. You can retire in one year, two years. It's just a different sa same result, different game. Mm-hmm. uh, average American saves a thousand bucks a year. Super Savers by timer Retirement. How much do you think they save? Super savers, like hardcore? Maybe a million, 2 million. 97,000 That's how bad we are at money. Hmm. I mean, it's pretty embarrassing. People are, we're hand, we were handed all this money and we blew through it already. Mm. uh, credit card debt's going through the roof right now. Student loan debts through the roof. All these idiots getting these wor the worst degrees on planet earth. You know, like what are you gonna do with these degrees? Yeah. Or education system's broken. I love podcasts like this because it's like we're talking a little bit of financial intelligence here. We're just trying to get people to think a little different today. I had Robert Kiyosaki on my podcast. Great conversation by the way. Oh, plug my podcast. The Clever Investor Show, by the way. You guys should check that out. Thanks Bradley, for plugging my podcast. Of course. You got it. While you're at it, get, get Bradley five stars. Can we give this guy some five stars for getting guys like me on the podcast? Thank you. You know, when I hear a guy like him talk as crazy as he is, he scares the shit outta me. Mm. It really does cuz it just makes you think. God, we've, we've screwed so much up. I can't control any of that, but I know what I could do tomorrow. I can wake up with a positive attitude. I can go hit the fucking gym. I can love as hard as I could possibly love. I can pray harder than I've ever prayed. I can go to war in battle mode. I can show up and set a standard for every one of my team members and everybody around me. I cannot be scared to raise money because my skills and capabilities are so good. Every single one of you guys in this room that has any lazy money needs to go to clever capital fund.com and gimme all your money. Cause I'm gonna go to war and I'm gonna go buy great assets that are gonna pay us great cash flow, that have great tax benefits and we're gonna go whip ass for the next few years and we're gonna take advantage of this big opportunity. Mm-hmm. So I'm not scared to promote myself real hard. And by the way, let's just maybe end on some of this shit. Every single person in this room should be building a personal brand. Every person listening to this podcast should be building a personal brand. You have zero excuses not to be out there being loud because money flows to where attention is where positive attention is. Mm-hmm. look at all the people that are celebrities. Look at everybody like, why do I go hire a celebrity and do and get, do a celebrity endorsement deal cuz they got the eyeballs, right? I know that. That's where the atten, the attention is gonna be, where the money is. How come I haven't heard of a most of these people in this room? I don't recognize your faces. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you're about. I don't know what you do. Why is that not enough energy? They're just not fucking loud enough. They don't believe in their shit enough. They don't have the right intention. They're not aggressive enough and they're a bunch of boring ass adults. Remember when we were little kids and you saw a puddle? What did you do? Jumped in that motherfucker. Yep. Splashed around. In fact, if you were next to me, I'm trying to get your ass right? What do we do now? Oh, honey, there's a puddle. Oh my gosh. Let's walk around. I don't wanna get wet, right? We bitch and moan if we get wet. Mm-hmm. what happened? When did we stop having fun in life? When did we stop being aggressive? When did we stop jumping in the puddle? Because we've been told no so many times, right? And it started as little kids, we were conditioned. What? How many times do you think a parent says no to a little kid? I can't count that high. 10,000, 10 million? Because we don't go, no, we go, no, no, no, no No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. No, no, no. right? Yeah. We hit'em with like 50 nos and it's like, I wonder as an adult why I'm a little bitch. It's like, it's cuz we're conditioned to be that way, right? Mm-hmm. Well, what if you just said, you know what? I'm gonna use artificial intelligence to sound like a badass. I'm gonna go into chat, G P t g M l m N O P and say, Hey, I'm a real estate agent. I want more business in Arizona. I want, and I want to dominate in Scottsdale. I'm gonna tell chat g p t to give me, write me a one minute script on the five best places to visit in Scottsdale, Arizona. That's my prompt. Hit, hit submit. It's gonna spit me out a one minute clip. I'm gonna modify it for th 30 seconds to make it about me and have a little call to action at the end if you need help with your real estate needs. Called Cody the retard. And, uh, I'm gonna go onto an app which everybody should download. Uh, the Oh yeah, it's big View, B I G V U. Yep. Download the big view app, which is a teleprompter app that has AI technology built into it. And you're going to record your, you're gonna input your little script, you're gonna record it, and you're going to hit export with captions. And it's gonna create your little one minute short video, and you're gonna post it and you're gonna post 10 of those a day. And all of a sudden, and in the beginning, nobody's gonna like your shit. Nobody's gonna engage with your shit, nobody's gonna care about your shit. You're gonna be a birthday party of one and it's gonna be embarrassing. And after about the first week, your friends are gonna start making fun of you. And, uh, you know, maybe by a month or two, some people are gonna stop calling you. Unfriend you, unfollow you. And they'll tell you too, by the way, I love this. The power move is like, dude, I'm unfollowing you. It's like, thanks for the email, You know, it's just the, just so ridiculous when people leave me comments like, I can't, I can't believe you posted about only fans. Like I'm unfollowing you. And I'm like, who the fuck are you What are you talking about right now? Thanks for the notification, But if you stay consistent and you keep up your enthusiasm and your intention, something magical happens. Yeah. Everybody. You repel the people that you don't want. You attract everybody that you do want, and people start showing up. And if you are, as you're posting, you are finding your little tribe and you're the people that you resonate with and you're liking and engaging their stuff, they're gonna start to see you. Cause now you're fucking with the algorithm and then all of a sudden they start liking, engaging your stuff and over time you just become one of them. And it becomes like this round robin of like, support. And by a year or year and a half in, this is the new you, this is the norm. Nobody's making fun of you anymore. Yep. You know what they're doing. They're asking you for a fucking job. Mm-hmm. They're asking you if they, you could borrow some money. That's it. And because you have the intention, your organic attention, you can create any type of lead in any industry. It doesn't matter if I'm in solar, that's what I'm doing. If I'm in real estate, that's what I'm doing. If I'm trying to blow up this podcast, that's what I'm doing. And I'm just creating up. It's not about qu quality, it's about quantity. and when you just flood the market with that 10 views here, 12 views here, me and me and Carlos were just looking at my views. You know, I'm getting millions and millions of impressions every single, uh, seven days. That's dude. And last year I sent 54 million emails out. Like I'm a really good email marketer. I sent 50. I get'em all the time. Yeah. Yeah, dude. don't get trapped in my web, like every email I have. Yeah. Yeah. I swear those are all me. not Mr. Chat, G p T. No, I made$10.8 million hitting the send button last year. Profit. Mm-hmm. 10.8 million. Have a 48% open rate. I got a million people on my email list. I could literally not put my pants on and make$10.8 million next year. On only fans I could do. I make an extra 10 on only fans with my six pack right now. Shh. I could at least get 4 99 a month outta some people But you know, I, that happened because people see me on social, they come off of social, they download an e-book, they end up in my world. Next thing you know, I'm following'em around everywhere. I'm omnipresent in their lives. Mm-hmm. you didn't buy, you bought my course. You never even did real estate. But it probably, IM imprinted some things in your guys' world and next thing you know, you're, it led to other things. Yeah. It led to other things. And now you're meeting other people and you started this awesome podcast and next thing you know, we're sitting together having a, having a chat. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hey man, it's been amazing. Build a brand. What I'm trying to tell you guys is build a fucking brand, Build a brand, like go for it. Don't be scared to not do it. Yes sir. So we were on time now we're not, but no. Well, sorry about, um, I gotta finish with the one question I ask everyone, and that is, what is your definition of not most people? ripped, rich and rare. That's it. Three words. People that short answer have gotten, you've got it. People, people that operate like that. People that I wanna trade places with, people that I want proximity to. Mm-hmm. people that I would be proud of to call a friend. Love it. Somebody I would call when I need help. Yeah. I love it. Great answer. Um, and, and then I know you already shouted out the podcast, but what else you got going on that you want people to know about? Dude, if they're not on your, you want my whole, you want your whole audience to get trapped in my web. Is that what you're saying? Look, my favorite thing I got going right now is the podcast. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I, it's, I, I'm not monetizing it. There's none of that stuff. It's literally just me sitting down with really interesting people, uh, and having really raw, crazy conversations. The Clever Investor Show, um, clever investor on all social channels. Uh, you know, some of my favorite, I I, I've been lucky enough to be teaching people in real estate for, you know, since 2010 through my company, clever Investor. So if I can ever help anybody learn about the real estate business, would love to have you come in. My favorite people in the real estate space, um, Carlos Reyes, you know, one of, one of one of my favorite human beings. Mm-hmm. um, pace Mortgage, Jamil Dam. G I mean, these guys are all really great real estate investors. Vena Jetty. These are people that they, you need to be looking up and looking, uh, trying to connect with. Mm-hmm. um, I'm a founder of Avengers Mastermind. If you're looking to get plugged into a, a, like an investing mastermind, you can go to, um, avengers mastermind.com. Dude, I don't know, whatever, you know, just come hang out. Don't be a stranger for sure. Shoot me. Yeah. Got your free, uh, your free deal hour that I just went to last week. Yeah, yeah. If you're in Arizona, we'd love to have, have you, you know, we run, uh, the deal exchange, um, I think it's deal exchange meetup.com or something. Mm-hmm. I don't know, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I got too many websites. dude. I own, I own over a thousand websites, so many websites. Mm-hmm. I forgot. I own, um, I haven't done anything with it yet, but I, I just remembered the other day. I own, um, self-made millionaire.com. Wow. I need to do something with that somewhere. For sure. Yeah. That'd be dope. That'd be a dope brand, right? Mm-hmm. south millionaire.com. Well, I feel like I gotta go to prison first and then write a book. like some tragic shit really needs to happen first. Uhhuh Like, don't, doesn't everybody need that? Like that, that part of the story where it's just like, I can't believe he, he fucking spectacularly imploded. But then he came back, right? He's back. The heroes are crazy. Better than ever. Yep. Self-pay millionaire.com. All right. We'll be looking for that here soon. Someday it'll happen. Will you, will you write, will you write something on the cover? Like, uh, like, you know how like you get people to like type something, like endorse like an endorser. Yeah. Forward. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really not gonna ask you, but I didn't think so. I'm just doing this to be polite. We're just ending this podcast strong. Yeah. Well, unless, I mean, if you grow this audience to be like Joe Rogan shit. I'll put you on my buck. All right, deal. All right, deal. Yeah, All right, man. Well, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for coming on. That was, that was one of the wildest, uh, conversations I've been a part of. So thank you, man, and, uh, thanks guys for being here and listening. I don't know how long we went, but it was fun, man. And guys, give it up for Cody real quick. Thank you for having me. Yeah, that was awesome.