Welcome to Cleveland real estate investor. On this podcast, you'll hear about every aspect of the real estate investment business. You will talk to your rockstar investors about their businesses, how they built them, where they came from, and where they're going. Who am I? I'm Joe Lieber and I've made millions of dollars from the real estate investment business over the last 20 years. If you're ready to hear the good and bad from a guy who's learned this business from the school of hard knocks and get educated by some bad ass entrepreneurs, then put your helmet on, strap on your chin strap. Let's ride.
(00:36): Hey, what's up guys. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Cleveland real estate investor. I am here today with my boy, my mentor, Mark Evans, the DM Mark. Thanks for coming on today, dude. I'm super grateful that you're here. Thank you. Thank you. How are you today, sir? Amazing Joe. How you doing buddy? Thanks for having me, man. Oh dude. I'm so grateful. You took the time out of your day to sit here with me and talk about what I want to talk about today is your new book release your new book that just came out there. It is. There it is. The magician verse, the mule guys. This stuff is great, man. I mean, I spent a lot of time with Mark and going, talking about magician versus mule traits and things. And finally, Mark wrote a book about all these things that he's been preaching to us over the years.
(01:24): It is super, super cool Mark. This isn't your first book either. I think you've written about 10 books at this point that are 10 books. Yeah, that's actually my 12th book actually. Holy smokes. So definitely not your first rodeo. Is that in the middle of it? I'm still learning. I still don't know the difference between there, there, and there. That's cool man. Mark, you're a seasoned vet and you've been in the business over 20 years. You've seen everything, every aspect of it from the wholesaling to the retail or they'll buy and hold or that the flips everything. And, and also now you're going into other businesses, right. And you're learning those traits and you can apply those to really any business, which I'm sure it's cool. Yeah, no, I mean that's, that's correct. I mean, I've been in other businesses over throughout the years, but never.
(02:08): That's how I got started right in the seamless gutter company. That was my first business at two days after high school. But you know, just, I don't want to call that a business that was just a low paying job, but I was learning things as you know, that's how we got earn our chops somehow. Right? You have to, man, you have to. So today we're going to just kind of dive through, you know, I read this book cover to cover a lot of fun. I pulled some things out of here that I just want to take a deeper dive into about really being what is a magician versus a mule. You know, I grew up like you, you know, with working class parents who I would always have that model, like you can outwork me dog. You know, you put it on my back, I'm going to do it and sunup to sundown, whatever it takes, I'm going to do it. And I'd only get you so far. Really. It's only going to take you so far. And I love the example you used in the book. You know, even from a kid, you look at things differently, Mark than a lot of people do,
(03:00): Right?
(03:00): You look at things where you're not like, Hey, I'm going to buy this property. And we'll talk about real estate in this example, on this property. And we're going to get it fixed. We're going to get it flipped when you buy the property
(03:11): Instantly, who is going to get it fixed and get it flipped where a lot of us get stuck in saying I'm going to do it myself dog. And what we learn quickly is there's no scalability to that. And it doesn't really work.
(03:24): Mark. I want you to tell a story in your own words, the grass cutting story. I want you to tell it to my listeners. I think they'll really enjoy this story about the mindset. So go ahead and tell us the grasp
(03:34): Cutting story. If you don't mind. Yeah. When I was a kid, you know, back home, my mom and dad, like you said, small town, Ohio, 650 people in our town. And I was going around door to door, getting lawn care jobs like, Hey, I'll mow your lawn for $20 or 10, whatever it was back then. And I'd get out there, I'd get the job. And then I'd hire my buddies and I'd pay him 50% of what I was getting at four. So if I'm doing for $20, I'm going to pay them $10 and I'd have six or 10 of these jobs going on at any given time throughout the week, once a week. Cutting. And I remember my dad and them, they were like, what the hell are you doing, man? You know, if you worked as hard as you did not working, how much more money would you make?
(04:08): And I'm like, I don't want to cut six lawns a day by myself. It's just a lot of work. So, you know, again, for me it was like, I was just trying to figure out how to do more in scale. But my, everyone around us was always like, if you don't do the work, you're not worthy of their money. And really started bothering me. And actually I was doing the work myself. I started doing some of the work myself as well, but I've always like hired other people to help. It's like, Hey, they're getting $10. I'm getting $10. I can do six lines. And I don't even have to do the work. I'd rather have 60 doing nothing than one 20, doing everything for many reasons, you know, for effort I can play Nintendo back in the day. I think we played Nintendo right. Or sorry, whatever it was and I can play.
(04:47): It's hard. Why these kids are out making money with me. So they're earning money. I was earning money. People are getting their jobs done and you know, I feel good. I was actually, truth is I wasn't playing video games. I was actually trying to get more jobs. I was, you know, I could have flyers. I'm still looking at it. We had a house fire when I was 10 years old and I was doing this before that, but I actually had flyers made up and everything as a kid, like Mark's lawn care service. And I had it in a little firebox. I don't know if you remember this little cheap fireboxes back in the day. My buddy actually has it. I believe he was just telling me about this over the weekend. So if he has it still and it's still intact, I have my flyers still that I used to put out. I had lawn care, weed polling. I mean, I would do anything, snow shoveling and I just wanted to get paid Joe.
(05:30): That's what I saw about. See, it's such a cool, there's so many cool things there that, you know, they, first of all, they say that you can't one thing you can't buy is time, but you really can buy time because what's you're doing in that example is you're buying time. You're buying other people's time and you're multiplying your efforts. If you were to cut one lawn and make the $20, you get $20 for that hour.
(05:51): But by you not cutting
(05:53): In the lawn and you got five people to cut lawns, you are now making $50 an hour. So really you are buying time. You're using the multiplication effect to really increase your income and buy time to let Mark do what Mark wants to do. Exactly,
(06:10): Man, I was young. I mean, now we do it on a way bigger scale, off course as adults. But you know, it's the same principle. And not only that to Joe, everyone always talks about it, especially in real estate, other people's money. Well, the truth is I was thinking, I wasn't even thinking about that deep. I was thinking about other people's efforts, you know, LTE. And we do that. By the way you use title companies, you use landscapers use contractors. I mean, there's a plethora of people that you're using in the real estate space. But my dad was in construction. I saw my whole life. My dad would go do these amazing projects, come home. And the house would be falling to pieces. Cause he's like tired. By the time he gets home, he doesn't want to deal with her. And now my dad just pay someone to put the new roof on it's only $1,200. Geez. I could get the materials for 400 and do it myself.
(06:51): Oh the weekend. But he's been saying it for four years, right?
(06:54): I'm like, just do the work. And again, I get it. You don't have time. You were out, you're working 12 hours a day. But like now, you know, as we know the roughs, if the roof goes bad, then it goes into the drywall and insulation. I mean, it becomes a way bigger projects. And that would happen all the time as a kid. I'm like, what am I missing? You know? And it's so hard to fight that, but he was fighting that thing in his brain. Like I can't pay for something I can do. You know what I mean?
(07:16): People get sick of that mindset all the time. Mark. And it just sets a really good example. You used, of course, you know, grass cutting is very small scale. And now as adults, we have to do it bigger at any rate, but it's just really cool how that principle breaks all the way down. Another chapter. I'm just gonna move along here in the book a little bit and talk about things that I thought were awesome. And there's a lot of awesome things in this book.
(07:36): I'm not going to be able to hit on them all. But
(07:39): I like how we talk about asking different questions, leads down different roads. Use the example in the book. And I went through this as a young kid and even adults. Well, why would they buy for me? I'm too young. I'm too old. I'm too fat. I'm not rich enough. But instead of asking a question, why would they work with me? Why wouldn't they work with me? And when you just look at those two things and you start going down, each one of those roads by asking the different question, it leads down different roads I love.
(08:11): And it feels different to Rachel feels totally different. So like, I think the biggest thing is there's a buddy of mine. I was going to bid a project. It's like a $50,000 job. And I was in this junky truck. I was literally 18 years old and I got the job. I walked out with a $5,000 check. He's like, dude, you're a kid. Why would they give you him? I'm like, why wouldn't they I'm like I showed up by the way, contractors very rarely show up on time. I showed up, I was professional. I knew exactly what I was talking about. I can get the job done and the time they allotted, so why wouldn't they sign it? And he was like, Oh my gosh. But that also comes with preparation meets opportunity. Right? So, you know, I call this thought auditing and where do your thoughts come from?
(08:45): Why do we think that way, Joe? And asking ourselves these questions? Like, so if you wake up in the morning every morning and say, God, why am I so fat? Well, you're going to find the answer. You know? I mean, I know I did over the years, but, and it's like, you know, why wouldn't they, why, how can they, how can we do more together? Like, and then you and I, as we get older, right? We've gotten older over the years. And we love people that come to us and that are hungry and hard working and ready to do the work. Like why wouldn't we want to work with someone like that?
(09:13): Absolutely. I love that mindset process. You can go down and it's just two different questions and they lead completely on different roads. That's a great point. You made in the book, man. I really appreciate you pointing that out for everybody. Here's another good one. Progress over perfection. I struggle with this myself. I'm trying to get a book out there in the marketplace, right? I want to, I have over 20 years experience in the residential real estate business. I want to help folks shorten that learning curve myself. And every time I go to sit down to work on my book, I'm like, Oh man, this sucks. Who wants to know this? And I guess, cause I'm trying to make it perfect. But if I continued on this path, it'll never happen, right? So I have just make progress and put something out there. And I love for you to dive a little bit deeper into that thought for a second Mark, about progress over perfection.
(10:03): Well, I mean, perfection is a form of procrastination, right? It's just something that allows us to keep putting it off tomorrow. It's important, but not urgent, right? This conversation is way different is like if you only have a thousand days left to live, what information to me, I don't look at this book as by far, this could be way better. And that's the goal. Hopefully in two years from now, we come out with an updated version. My shampoo I use every day, it's always new and improved. Why, if it's the best, why is it new and improved? Because the world evolves. We evolve as humans, products and information and all the stuff, all the ingredients are evolving, real estate changing all the time. I mean, look at the products that are going on in real estate and different things that are happening in the economy.
(10:44): You know, we're updating, we're editing, we're changing. And to me it's like, these are legacy builders. This isn't a book about you as the reader, even that's what I want it to be. But it's really for like when my kids, when I die and I'm gone and they can, they're great. My grandkids to read this book about what granddad had to say about magician verse meal, you know, or whatever. So to me, it's like, just get the information out there. We've live in a world now where you can actually shooting videos like this or shooting videos on your camera. It's okay to have blemishes and stutters in the conversation and all that. It's like, it's authentic. It's real. It's you and Joe, I I've always told you this. I think you're the biggest secret in real estate. The guy that's never telling anybody anything, but you're just not getting it out there.
(11:27): And you have, so you and I have talked about this on the course, you've forgotten more than most people know. You know? So it's comes so natural to you now. It's almost like doesn't everyone know that it's like if they did, when they all have the money you have, when they be living like you got, you know, and things like that. So the truth is the answer is no, they don't even this book magician versus, you know, this has been in me for 10 years. I just didn't understand how to put it together. But you know, just start conversing. The truth is you just gotta set block time and do the calls. I only spent about five hours of audio on this book. And then the ruts, the real work is in editing. That's where the real hard work comes in to put it into a format structure and organized structure, I should say, and make sure the reader has a good experience and you can help hit the points and help them get results. That's the ultimate goal.
(12:14): Awesome. I'll tell you what was a great move for you too was doing this on audible.
(12:18): Yes. You know, I'm a die hard
(12:20): Audible guy. Listen to books all the time. By the way, guys, that's a trade secret of the rich you concept,
(12:26): Educate yourself and read books. And what's so cool about Mark's book on audible.
(12:30): I have never heard before and I've listened to hundreds of Audibel books is he has a little
(12:35): Like what's that I'll take with meal. The outtake at the end,
(12:40): Outtakes it to every chapter. Like a, I guess you got someone to like a rap on there or something or sing a song. It's cool. It's engaging. Nobody does it.
(12:48): It's really good to get the audible. If you're not a book reader guys and Mark actually narrates it himself. So you get to hear how Mark is so passionate about what he does and he's really a go giver. So I would really recommend getting it both ways, you know, get the hard copy of the paper back and get it on audible too. There's a lot of great cons that you can actually hear. Mark's Mark. Talk about different things in the book and it hits different Joe, like you said, and the truth is Joey yak, the guy that created that whole put the whole audio book together for me, he's the one that came to me and said, Mark, if we just had this little extra piece at the end, the first one he came to me like, dude, I sound like a little kid. This sounds terrible.
(13:27): Don't do that one. It just, it wasn't like the right vibe. But then he created another one. Really what it comes down to is surround yourself around better people. I would never think of that. Like, Hey, what if he did that? Like, he's an artistic guy. He actually used to go on tour with a bone thugs and harmony, which is kind of crazy out of Cleveland. He did all this cool stuff for me. And he's like, Hey, let's add this last piece of every chapter. It's different. Actually. Amazon doesn't really like that, but we had to create it in a way that they're allowed to get through. So it wasn't like offensive or music royalties or whatever, however that works. But all I remember is it again, it's like anything in life in business, surround yourself around people that are better than you and things that you're not good at. And that's what it was. He made. He adds a little flair to it. I want to add
(14:09): Surround yourself with people that are better than you. You know, a lot of times us as business owners, we will hire people that,
(14:17): That are cheap, cheaper, right? Yeah.
(14:20): And we're not getting that quality. They're not bringing in a new ideas into the business, I guess you want to say, and it really will hold business owners back. You think you can't afford these people, but you can't afford not to get them.
(14:32): Ultimately, this all comes with time and you know, just experiences. You know, there is a point in time, maybe in the beginning where you're trying to achieve your way to the top. I've never met someone super successful is trying to figure out how to pay the least, you know, maybe on certain things in life they are. But the people around you, I mean, there's a great book called how to increase your salary by Dale Carnegie. And the book is awesome because Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie knows God. I mean, these guys, this is like late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds. These guys are billionaires, massive levels. And they're like, how do you invest more? Like I'm at the stage in my life where I had paid Joe more money than anybody I've ever paid. Because when you're doing that, if I'm paying Joe more money, guess what I have to make more money.
(15:12): You know, it's not like, I think, you know, in the beginning, right, Joe, you know, let's like, we feel like if I give you money, it's taking out of my pocket. And you know, everyone's like, I'm a huge believer in massive abundance and blah, blah, blah. But every action they do is super limited thinking, Oh my gosh, $12 or 10, I'll take the $10 thing. Oh my, you know, like watch out people ordering the restaurant. You know, I want a steak and lobster or both. What's the matter. It's $25 a piece. It's 50 bucks to get both maybe like one or the other eat half and half. Like, you know, so it's just, how do people function? And it really is, you know, I believe most people listening. Aren't real business owners at the massive, at the next level. I believe they're business owners or are in the making, but like, I don't want to be a business owner.
(15:53): I want to be a board member of my company. I want to be a CEO. I don't necessarily want to be the day to day drivers. I mean, there's a lot of levels on that, but I've tracked, but we have to invest in people. People are greatest the best, well, first year, the best asset yourself, invest in yourself, books, reading, masterminds, the shutter, and then investing in great people around you. Like you never know. I mean, my lawyers are the best investments. Even though we complain about paying 500, 600 bucks an hour or this person or that person like these people make a lot of money for a reason accident.
(16:27): No, it's not funny story. It goes into that real quick Mark I'm sitting about that was over 10 years ago with my wife. We're at Outback steakhouse. And at that time I had a lot of property. I probably had 60 or 70 doors, you know, and I really was trying to make my impact and I'm sitting there and the menu comes, I'm trying to side, what stake should I get? Should I get the seven ounce or nine ounce filet? I'm like, nah, I'll get the seven ounce. Right. Get the smaller one. Right. Paying an extra six bucks. You know,
(16:52): Literally right after I gave the waitress, the order, my phone rings, it was the plumber. He goes, look, dude,
(16:57): Sewer lions. Correct. Got dig the whole thing out at six grand. Okay. No problem. Now I have no problem spending six grand the sewer line, but I won't treat myself the $6 more for the nine ounce filet. And it just goes back to all that again and great point, Mark. Thanks for bringing it up.
(17:13): We're abusive to ourselves. It's wild. We're so abundant to the world, but to ourselves, for so abusive, we don't maximize it. We buy the cheapest car. Does X, Y like there's limited beliefs, not you anymore. But like I used to do the same. Like we all do this. It's, it's wild. How it's a protection thing. I think that for a minute, but also is something that hinders us from massive growth in the future.
(17:34): I agree, man. Yeah. Another, a couple more things about dive into social circles, right? Kind of goes into all of this. Who are you surrounding yourself with? And I love that you say all the time, my friend and I use this lot line all the time, King, the dipshits.
(17:50): So he'll have it, you know, and everyone likes to try to make himself feel good. Sometimes slow run the King of the dipshits model. And what that basically is, I'll explain it. You explain it better. Mark King of the dipshits is where you're the guy who, you're the engineer making $80,000 a year. All your friends are making 50 and you walk into the bono like, Hey everybody, Joe is here. Hey, Rhonda beer is on everybody. You know? And where's that, where are you going with that? You know, where you're, you're making more money than all your friends. You really, if you really want to grow and evolve as a person, you have to look at your five closest friends. And you really dive into that in the social circles chapter. And tell us a little bit more about your social circles, Mark and how important that really is.
(18:33): Yeah. Listen, I'd rather see everyone lock themselves in a room and read books. You know that if you don't have much money to get in mastermind groups or country clubs and go to where the money is that go, where are the opportunities at it's uncomfortable? It's scary. I remember I used to wear a hundred dollars. JC penny suit to what is the steakhouse at the steakhouse in Columbus, Ohio, a rough executive drive. I go in there, hang out and I'm listening. I didn't even drink back. Then I'd get like soda with alignments, make look, I'm drinking alcohol. And I'm just hanging out there. Just listen to all these older guys, chop shop, you know, Hey man. You know, remember when the homers came out, the big yellow hunters, the old, well, we could turn this up. This is a write off cause it's over 6,000 pounds of farm machinery and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(19:11): And I'm like learning like what these guys talk about was not what I talked about. All my buddies are talking about what they're going to do on Friday night, Saturday night, get wasted, recover on Sunday, could flow watching football, eating pizza, and then go back in, you know, dang it. I gotta go back to work on Monday. And these are the people I was associating with. And I was like, until I changed my circles, my outcomes, I'm going to be different. Just like asking different questions, different outcome. So King of the dipshits, I mean, it's, I hear it still today when I'm hanging out with family and friends out with the high school and they're like, dude, I got a 3% raise. Oh man, you think that's bad? I got two and a half percent. Right? I'm like 3% rate. Like this is not earth change.
(19:45): Why are we even talking about what? This does? Nothing for anybody. But they like, get it. It's almost like an ego thing. Like they're wearing it with a badge of honor. Like I'm making more than you. But I lived in a trailer. My parents bought a back when I was seven years old, they bought a big screen TV, a 55 inch, my neighbor Landis. They bought a 60 inch. They up, they hung up and I'm like, well, we live in a trailer. What are we doing? Buying big screen TVs. That's a top gun was big back in the day. You know? Like sounds amazing on top. None yet. It's just wild, man. It's a true story though.
(20:19): Awesome. There are so many good chapters in this book, Mark and Oak ahead. And everyone, I want to hit on one more though, because it's near and dear to my heart. And mostly also because you and I have children, right? And that's about kids' education. And I really believe everyone should read this chapter as such if they have children. It's so near and dear to me. And now that the covert world's happening, things are changing. Right. And the kids' education, we just had a real situation, happened to us just last night. I'll tell a story. Then we'll get into the chapter. I took my kids at universal Orlando, right. And we did the Harry Potter experience and it was cool. It's very cool. If you've ever done it really, really elaborate. And it didn't mean much to us though, to be honest, it was just kind of like a cool fun, no last night for the first time we watched Harry Potter, the very first one Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone. Right, right. When it came on the kids, like I was there, I was there. I was there. I was there and the correlation, they can relate to that material. They were engaged. They watched the movie. It was amazing. I could only imagine, like you talk about in your book, if you were to visit the pyramids or the, I don't even know half the stuff you mentioned here,
(21:27): Because
(21:29): Policy, I mean, imagine if they visited that and that had a history lesson on it, right? Whoa, mind blowing. And that box education you're getting in the school system right now is very broken. And I want you to just expand on that a little bit more because that's chapter is so near and dear to me,
(21:47): I mean, listen, I it's all true real right now. It's never been more real with different options that we have available to us as parents. I was never a big school person. I didn't like school. It was never my thing. You know, I'd sit down and I would cheat, which is, you know, well actually I was collaborating, it's called cheating in school. I was great at math, terrible English. Why can't we come together? And I'll help the person's bad at math and me better in English. And we help each other. And you know, unfortunately they just don't teach that in school. And I remember in fifth grade, like learning about the Sphinx and the pyramids and I'm like, well, I'm making sand castles or whatever. And I'm like, if I was just there, what would it look like? I could touch it, feel it, see it.
(22:23): And you know, my wife and I Dina and I, when we were boyfriend, girlfriend and fiance, we traveled the world for seven years. So I mean, I was going to places in Paris. I mean, places I'd never even thought walking the Camino de Santiago 42 day walk across Spain. Like I want to do that with my kids one day, you know, Dina does, won't ever do it again. Cause it is a 500 mile walk. But walking with the kids for 42 days, just imagine the conversations you'd have, you know, you'd push through struggle together. You talk about the fun times. You'd see amazing things happen. Like to me, these are things that will change. The hard part is us as adults. Like we had, I came from a basic education, public schools, whatever. So it's always weird to me. It's like, well, what about the connection with the other kids and your buddies and all that?
(23:02): The truth is I don't talk to any of my high school buddies except one he's like my brother, you know, I don't hang out with him. The truth is I'm trying not to hang out with the other guys. Cause there's still booze and drugs and whatever they're doing and talk about not dipshit stuff, everything they're still talking about, like, I'm going to grow up, do you, I'm 42. I've done growing up. I'm still trying to grow up. But like I'm way past that stuff by 10 years plus, and I'm in a guy actually in California and he's a young kid and I'm in his dad, we're hanging out cigar bar. He's 21, he's smoking $20. She goes, I'm like, how does he do it? And his dad's, I mean, they've taken these kids. This kid knew more about the world than I did. And he was half my age.
(23:36): And I'm thinking I'm like, Holy cow. It's because his dad and him traveled. Imagine touching the Colosseum, walking, they're talking about having a tour guide that someone that lives there, the whole life that's learned about this and sharing that information, not through a book, but through touch, feel, see, and smell and all that. And I could only imagine just like where I would be in LA. I don't even know what it looked like. Honestly, it's so crazy to me, but I am excited for what my kids will look like because when we're flying there and you know, challenges to, you know, getting luggage, you know, all that stuff, it's you learn how to like overcome and enjoy the ride. It doesn't have to be structured. I don't want my kids to be a students. I want them to be great people, you know? Sure. I don't need to have A's.
(24:15): They just need to be great human beings. So yes ma'am yes, sir. Open door, you know, like we can teach that stuff that does not come from school by the way that comes from the home. But I'm excited for it. As you know, I'm homeschooling a hundred percent forever, so hell or high water I was going to before. It was a cool thing. Now it's kind of cool. Cause of COVID I'm definitely all in. It's not convenient. It's not a form. It's not cheap. There is a cost to it. There is a time restraints to it. We're not doing it ourselves for hiring teachers and stuff, but you know, it's like, I'm excited for the future for the kids just to see how they evolve. You know, everyone's worried about the social aspect of it, but there's so much socially active out there that these kids can grow so fast. It's pretty wild.
(24:54): It's amazing. And that's everybody says the social aspect of it now more than ever, it's becoming more and more popular. My neighbor told me that they did it in the late nineties in which was unheard of. Then that was definitely, yeah,
(25:06): You're a weirdo back then. You're aware now.
(25:08): Yeah, exactly. And there is a whole world out. There are people who are doing this and her son who got married two years ago, his best man was from their homeschooling people there in, in my town. And it was amazing, man. So it was his best man. So it works. It can get, you know, it's just awesome. Alright. I don't want to give too much this book away. I'm gonna give one more chapter and then you have to go out and listen to it. Or you have to buy the book, being all in, right about everything you do about being all in and Mark, this is one chapter that I want you to talk about. I really enjoyed playing all out, going all in. So talk to me about being all in.
(25:47): Yeah. I mean, listen, you know, your audience is real estate guys. I've been doing real estate 24 years. So I know you've been doing of 20 plus years as well. And I remember, man, I almost went bankrupt twice. I've never had a safety net. My safety net was me. I kept investing in myself reading books. There was a point in my career. I was in a one, a, an efficiency apartment. Literally I could take a bath, do dishes and you know, use the restroom at the same time. Cause the place was so small. I had no, I no electric. And I had no gas and it was dead winter. I got my car repoed, but I was all in. It's not it. Wasn't called my mom and dad complaining. I wasn't borrowing money for people. I was like, I need to make this work.
(26:23): I think too many people are so weak on us. Just straight up. I think people are weak. I think they're like, man, my mom and dad won't cut me loose, quit taking their money. Then they'll cut you like, you gotta cut it loose like that. It's the path of least resistance. Not always the best path. So what happened is know the truth is I don't even think my parents still know the story about me living in that efficiency, departmental first app with no electric. No, I had candle going. I was reading real estate books. I had to go to the library back then. This was 98 ish. I was like, you remember the library? We had to pull off the debt cards. You did. Okay. Section of blah, blah, blah, whatever. I was reading books and like Lauren, I'm getting excited. Cause I'm all in.
(26:57): Like when you're all in, there's nothing that can stop you at all. Just like the way you met your wife. Just the way I'm when I'm going after someone I'm going out, I'm all in. There's no deterring. There's no shiny object syndrome. There's no way you could, are you going to get smacked around and going to beat up? Are you gonna have times of doubt? Absolutely. But when you're all in, there's no other result except accomplish the end result. That's it? And this is not easy sometimes, but man, it's a, as you know, Joe, it's very rewarding and will go through cycles. Right? Cause sometimes you're like, sometimes I'm all in. Sometimes I'm not. And you'll know when you're not all linked. Cause you feel it. You're not sure you're a little anxious, a little overwhelmed. You're like, something's not right. Well the truth is, cause you're just not playing to win. You're just playing to hang out. And when you go all in things the universe aligns with are all in effect. You know? I don't know how it works, but it does. It does work.
(27:48): I set myself like when I say that Oh man acquisitions, it's hard to get acquisitions right now. But when I focus on acquisitions and I'm all in, I'm like I'm buying houses, dude. I'll buy 10 houses in a month.
(27:59): I mean, it really, really what happened. And I know like you said, I know when I'm all in and it's really cool, man. The truth is Joe too. Like it's this all comes down around people you're hanging out with as well. Because the reason a lot of people aren't all in or they say they're all in, but they're playing small is because let's say Joe, you say, man, I don't want to buy one extra house this month. I'm like, dude, that's nothing buy 10 more. It changes the conversation because buying one is easy. You know what it takes to buy two. Now you just have to buy one more. You just gotta do a third more of your efforts and you'll get one more deal. But when you go from two to 10, things have to change. You can't be involved in every aspect. You have to think bigger.
(28:33): You have to do different marketing. You have to do those Facebook posts like, Oh my God, I'm afraid to push, submit, boom, you pushing it post to the wall. It's like, damn, I'm a real estate investor. And everyone knows. I'm kind of weird about that. You know, whatever. So it pushes you out of your comfort zone. And you know, if your people, by the way, this is spec the social circle. If your people aren't pushing you and pushing you and driving you to do bigger and better and inspire you and encourage you, right? Like we all need encouragement. We both do still like you need to get rid of them ASAP. Like my grandmother was my, I talked about it in the book. I went to her house with two checks, like 50, 60 grand I made in a day. It's two o'clock I'm ready to take her lunch, get back to work.
(29:12): Who'd you rip off. Are you scamming people? This doesn't last forever. Don't count your chickens. I'm like, I'm not doing anything wrong, grandma, what are you talking about? But if I, if I didn't have the mental fortitude knowing I was prepared for that conversation. Cause that's how she was raised. That's what she's like, your grandfather had five jobs or raised these nine kids. And I'm like, okay, but I'm not grandpa and I'm different and blah, blah, blah, blah. So needless to say we had lunch and you know, she was always that way. And my parents still don't know what I do, John. And they know I do real estate, but they don't understand the scale or business that we're up to because just different conversations. You know what I mean? And I love that story guys, that stories in the book about Mark's late grandmother tells some great stories about having lunch with her and that mindset, those older folks came from.
(29:53): It's super interesting. I'm not going to tell you any more about it. My loyal listeners, because I really want you to hear firsthand from Mark and get this book. So to wrap this kind of up, Mark, I just want to tell the folks, listen, this podcast, Mark, you've been a great friend and mentor to me. I've been in Mark's mastermind for quite some time. Now Mark runs a very high caliber mastermind for business owners, entrepreneurs, real estate people. If you're one of those people out there who Mark, I know you're very cautious on who you take on to come into your inner circle like that. So, but if you're one of those people, who's doing some serious business and you've got a real company, I'm sure you should probably further your conversations with Mark. He's been wonderful to me and helping me grow my organization and just been a great person all the way around.
(30:38): I want to thank you from that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for coming on my show today. Totally awesome. Is there anything that you would like to talk to these listeners about to wrap it up, man? First of all, thank you for the nice words. As you know, I like to work with guys that have money and they're slow learners. They're the best, right? That's why I created an audible. Cause none of my guys don't know how to read. They look too busy, too busy, counting the money. No, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, we've all been built as meals. So we've been built, go to school, sit down, shut up, raise your hand, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, it's like, you know, let's get calluses in our brain. They don't see that in your brain.
(31:09): They only see it on your hands. And you know, we'll all outwork each other. That's why we're all here. But the truth is, there's a point in time when you don't have as much junk as you got none of that. I think it's irresponsible knowing that you could be a magician and do more for yourself and your family. Cause my ultimate goal now where we're at Joe and I it's like, we're building this for the family. It's not on past me. I still want to do me, but I'm also bigger. I get bigger. They get, I'm thinking more 20, 30, 40 years. I'm thinking about death. Something, you know, like I take that stuff very serious as we're developing and growing, but then I'm telling you, you guys need to be following Joe. You need to be encouraging Joe to get his book out because the book will be amazing. I don't even know what the topic is, but whatever the topic is and real estate will be awesome. And just keep doing what you're doing, Joe. I appreciate you having me, man. Let's help you man. Yeah, brother. Thank you so much, man. I get the book. Thank you Mark for your time today. I'm very grateful, man. Thank you buddy. Appreciate you guys.
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