From near death experiences to the devastation of homelessness, how and where do we find the will to overcome insurmountable odds? And when we do overcome these challenges, how do we pass that story of survival onto others? Life on the rocks is that place where these stories are heard from those who live to tell them. And now here is your host Kyle Miller.
(00:22): Welcome to life on the rocks. I'm so excited to have you guys here on the show today. I got my good friend, Mike MCLE over here from Colorado Springs, Colorado guys. I've known this guys for a couple of years now and I I've got to know him and what a great dude. And I, I brought him on the show today cause I want him to share kind of what he's been going through, what he's done and what he's done to overcome some of these things that have popped in up in front of him. And he's just out here. Just keep killing it. So with that, Mike, how you doing today, buddy? Good, Kyle, thank you so much for having me on the show here today.
(00:58): Yeah, man. I'm so excited. So now we've known each other for a couple years now and in the same mastermind group and that's where we met. I've seen some of your journey. I ha definitely haven't seen all of it because we haven't known each other for, you know, only two years, but I know you got a lot of stuff going on, so yeah, for sure. I mean, we say this all the time. We're, we're both just getting started. Right. But there's, there's quite a backstory, I think for both of us and yeah, I'm happy to share a piece of it. Yeah, man. So who is Mike? Like where did Mike start in his career? Cause I, I, I kind of connected to this cuz I'm a small town guy.
(01:38): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Well, I'll try to go through this pretty quickly, but the, the long story long-ish story is I was a farm kid. I grew up in a small town called Braddock, North Dakota. Actually I lived on a farm near Braddock, North Dakota. And to give you an idea of how small it was, I was one of three students in the third grade. All three of us were named Michael. Right? Jesus. That's that interesting? Yeah. In the fourth grade, two of the Michaels moved away. So then I was the only kid in the fourth grade and fifth grade I might be missing a year in there, but it was a pretty small school. It ended up closing and then we got shuttled to, or combining with the, the next nearest town. Yeah. So that's kind of where I, I became, or I got started in life, you know, I was out on a farm in small rural towns and I graduated in a class of 14 in Hazleton, North Dakota.
(02:38): And from there I did go to school in Montana state university. I went into school to be an engineer. I got a air force, RTC scholarship. So I went to school to be an engineer. And they told me where I'd go to school and where I'd go after. So I just said, Hey, if you're paying for it, I'll go right. Graduated. from there went into active duty air force as an officer and yeah. Started my my, my military career at that point from Utah to gosh, where else did I live? Ohio and Florida I think is the places I was over station. Yeah. Nice. Nice. So how long were you in, in the military just under, I think seven years. Total. Okay. Nice. So then what'd you do after that? You got out why'd you get out?
(03:27): Yeah, it got out. I just I was on the fence for a few years. I just wasn't feeling like full satisfaction, what I was doing, you know, it was more project management. It wasn't really hardcore engineer. It wasn't my hardcore military. It was kind of somewhere in between, you know, and we started to make jokes about the movie office space that kind of fit the world that we're in for the most part. Yeah. So if you've seen that movie, you know, where I'm coming from so that there was actually an incentive program that, that bought certain people out of their career field to, to separate a little bit early. So I was kind of my the catalyst that, that got me off the just helped me make a decision. I said, well, I'll take a little bit of money and separate early and took that, did some travel in Europe for about six weeks and then came back and said, okay, now what am I gonna do with my life? And that's when basically jumped into the entrepreneurial journey and started our first business, which my wife now, Kim, she and I weren't married at the time. We both started a CrossFit gym together. And this is you know, 2007, 2008 timeframe. So that was a little before CrossFit was mainstream, right.
(04:36): We started that little gym. It didn't grow very big. You know, it was six or seven, seven days a week just grinding it out. And we were really focused on quality over quantity. And you know, we loved the, the experience that we had. We changed people's lives on a, on a very small scale, you know, in that, in that community. But again, we never took a distribution out of the business. The money that I had saved up was running dry. I had a big mortgage to pay and you know, when I bought that house in 2006 in Northwest Florida, it wasn't the best time to be behind a house at that time. So gotcha. Yeah. So that's where we started having some problems financially. So basically broke I and broke in and thought the entrepreneurial journey just isn't for me, let's hang it up. I'm gonna go get a job and went back to work for the government as a civil servant. And so I went back to work for the air force. Fortunately, I could flash a resume at the time and, and get picked up as an engineer, working civil service.
(05:43): Now, when you were going, when you were going through that, through that CrossFit stuff and you weren't, you know, weren't making much and you had a mortgage payment and you had all that stuff going on, did it feel like it was like at the end of that journey, you know, it's not gonna last as far as being the entrepreneur, being the gym owner, what were your thoughts going through your head? At that point? I felt like a failure. You know, it was like, I, I, I feel like this is a good thing and there's value here, but I just, I couldn't do the math on how I was ever gonna make any money in it. I mean, it, like I said, we changed some people's lives and it was, that was neat, but we just couldn't I don't know. I just felt like a failure. I walked away just saying, you know, this isn't for me. Like, I can't, I'm just not cut out to be a business owner and that's that's life. And I'm just gonna go back into the, the trenches and join the workforce again.
(06:30): So you were basically, you were, you were hanging it up, you thought this was the end of your entrepreneur career. Yep. You thought literally saying like this isn't for me. And when you said that, when you said this isn't for me, you just thought it was like, cuz we, I feel like when we say stuff, we verbalize things and, and what we say comes true. Like we, we speak things into existence. When you say things, this isn't for me, what did you mean by that? Did you just like the business aspect of it? The whole, like the lifestyle that an entrepreneur is supposed to have you, did you think, Hey, maybe I'm just supposed to be the person that sits behind a desk the whole time. Is that what you were thinking?
(07:13): Yeah, it, I just didn't have an answer, you know, but what you said was true. Like, I, I declare this isn't for me. I don't have what it takes, you know, businesses for other people, but I clearly just don't get it. And you know, maybe I can make some money in a different way. And I don't know, I was really, I was pretty beat down, you know, and I, I began to believe things that weren't true about me. I started to believe I didn't have any value outside of the prior training and education I had, you know. Gotcha. So I kind of succumbed to that for a while and so that was just kinda, you were going back to you, you were an entrepreneur for two years and then, then you're kind of feeling like, oh, sh I don't have this. Like I need to, I need to go back to what I'm comfortable at. Yes. Right. Yep. A hundred percent. Okay. Okay. Right. So you're going, you're going back to comfort. So you're going back to comfort and then what happens? What do you, what, where do you go? How does it work out?
(08:09): Well, back to comfort, right? So yeah, I worked civil service for a while and then we thought, well, let's, let's at least move back to the mountains. And so I was able to work a transfer after a year or two there, we transferred to Colorado Springs. So I got to work at Peterson air force base here. And it wasn't, we weren't here very long before I started to realize, you know, like financially I can't see an exit here. Like I, I can't see how I'm gonna be financially free in this career path. I mean, they've got some pretty good go old and handcuffs and that, you know, you've got good benefits working for the government. You've got a pretty good retirement plan if you stick it out for another 20 some years. Right. And that's when I really started to feel like trapped. And I was like, okay, maybe this, I got comfortable, but it wasn't setting me free internally, if that makes any sense. Oh, absolutely.
(09:03): So I started to read, and this is where I had maybe failed before as an entrepreneur. I wasn't really reading, I wasn't learning how to be a better entrepreneur, how to really grow, how to actually create wealth. And, you know, it really started with reading rich dad, poor dad. As, you know, a lot of people have started out and I read that, that, and it wasn't even about real estate directly, but it, it led me going to a investing club meeting. So I did that and went to this club meeting. It happened to be a about real estate. And they introduced me to a book called the four hour work week. And they also introduced me the idea of wholesaling real estate, which for those that don't know, it's basically finding a property that is probably distressed that you can buy at a major discount and then sell the rights to buy the property.
(09:57): You basically sell the contract to somebody else that wants to buy it. And they basically take your position in the deal and you get paid a little bit of a difference as a assignment fee. So right. That whole concept was introduced to me. And I thought, well, that's interesting. I can make, you know, five, $10,000 in a, a week or two of effort instead of you know, over three months. Like that sounds pretty good. So once I got that, I started learning more and more and more. I took a course on how to wholesale real estate and then just started marketing and ended up finding a different job in the civil service that would move me up to Littleton, Colorado. And the reason I took that jump is because they were starting to do teleworking, which would allow me to work from home part of the time, as long as I got everything done. As far as my job requirements, you know, were fulfilled. So I basically said, I'm gonna start this business and I'm gonna work, you know, from home, part-time working for the government. So you, you basically, you found in the same, you know, niche that of work that you were doing the same field, you found an opportunity to start working from home. Yes. And that way it would give you, allow you to have a little bit more time, a little bit more freedom to kind of say, Hey, I'm gonna start working on this too. And you could stack hours and, and do things like that and start working on both your dreams as well. Nice. Yeah, that's right.
(11:29): So obviously you were thinking about this, you know, you were working on this in Colorado Springs because, and now what led you to, to Littleton. I know we know now, like, because it allowed you to do the teleworking, but how did you realize that that's what you needed to be able to make that happen in my mind at that time, again, very limited. I mean, my belief systems, I just didn't think I had enough time to do what it takes and really what that means is like being able to call people, you know, cold call and follow up with leads and things like that. And I probably could have tried harder, but my belief system said, no, I need to force some bigger gaps in my time outside of my nine to job, right. To be able to make this work.
(12:15): And so had you already done any deals before you went to Littleton or no, No, no. I barely done anything. Barely did any marketing. I was messing around. It was interesting. You could actually get leads from Craigslist at that time. Like really easily. I had no idea how good it was. Yeah. But no, I had back in those days, you could literally sit in front of your computer and pick deals off the internet. Yeah. It was, it was wild. It was a lot easier than it is right now. I had a few leads. I went on a few appointments, but I hadn't converted any deals at that point. And then we just moved up to Littleton there and, and got started. So you just picked everything up. You don't have any kids at this time.
(12:54): And we did have one son who was nine months old and well, so this is kind of a crazy story too. As a side note, we moved up there, we couldn't find a house. And you know, like that was kind of the where the market in, in Colorado real estate really started to accelerate. And this is 2012. And again, we don't know how good we have it now then, or had it then compared to now, but the market was getting very competitive at the time. It was hard to find like a house that was suitable to us at a price that we thought was reasonable. So I'm like, well, I'm gonna learn real estate. Anyway. I might as well do a fix and flip. So we found a junker bank owned property and bought at it and remodeled that house learned how to remodel a house while living in a camper on the side of the property, there took us about nine months. And I learned a lot of what not to do in that process. So with a nine month old baby and a camper,
(13:50): Hey honey, I'm gonna have a nine month old baby. And just so you guys know, I just looked it up little 10 Colorado is like right out. It's literally Denver. So it's just a, it's, it's a, it's a place right outside of Denver, the main city of Denver. And you went from Colorado Springs to, to Denver and you bought a fixer upper, never bought real estate to fix up or anything like that before in your life. And then you told your wife we're gonna sleep in a camper for six months. Why fix this thing up? That's about it. Yep, man.
(14:22): Yep. She was extremely supportive and let's, she's like, let's do it. So we did that. And so we got the house the way we liked it. Life was good. And then it, then they started to pull the, well, we don't want people to telework so much anymore. So I ended up basically working that full-time job. Full-Time, you know, in the building where I was supposed to work and I was already committed to learning real estate and wholesaling on the side. So I was basically, you know, working 16, 18 hours a day. And my wife was just like, you know what, honey, we've done a couple deals. You, I believe in you. But at this point you gotta either do your full-time job and stop complaining about it. Or you need to do real estate full-time, but you don't get to do both anymore.
(15:11): We got another baby on the way and like, enough's enough. Right? So she had my back. I said, look, I, if we're good, I'm gonna quit my job. And we're gonna do real estate full time. We're just gonna take a leap of faith. She said, let's do it. Here's the rub. We didn't have any money. And we couldn't afford a pair of mortgage and stay there at the same time. So what did we have? We, you know, did an inventory of our resources. And we said, well, we've got equity in our house. And and we've got the knowledge that we know this business can work. Yeah. So this is the crazy part. This is probably the wildest leap of faith I've ever taken is again, she had my back and we had a baby on the way, but what we did was we put our house on the market and we bought a house site unseen in Greenville, South Carolina. Well, really, we put it under contract. I flew out there for the inspection and flew back. So I'm not completely under unseen. And we picked Greenville, South Carolina because we had some good friends that we knew in Florida that lived there and said, Hey, come live here. The market's great. So I did a quick analysis online. I said, sounds good. I'll move there. I've never been there in my life.
(16:26): Kim's requisite was she wanted to live somewhere where you can wear sandals most of the year. So there we go. That was all the research we did. Colorado was not it. So we made the jump. So we we put our house on the market, bought a house, had a baby quit my job. And we moved across the country and started a new business all in about a three to four month time span. Okay. Bought a house, moved across country, sight, unseen, moved across country. And she never saw it until after you close on it. Right. That's right. Yep. Wow. So I, I flew her and the kids out there and I shipped one car and I drove the other one. So she was actually in the house before I was, and she camped there. Oh, nice. Nice. And so you drove the car across the country and, and finally met up with her. Yeah. Okay. So now you're in Greenville, you know, nobody, nobody you're running out of money. How did you make any, you, you must have made some money on the sale of that house.
(17:29): Yeah, we made about a hundred thousand dollars and, and so that was what we had to live on and pay new mortgage and pour into marketing and whatever infrastructure we need to, to hold this business up and feed the family. So it, it was enough clearly. Right. But at the same time it was finite. So we got started and this is October of 2016. We started marketing and started marketing. And I, I think here's where I made a mistake is I had, I had paid for two or three different coaching programs and different ways of doing real estate. And I was trying to mix them all other. And so my message was mixed. My approach was mixed. I was trying to do, you know, wholesale lease options. I was trying to wholesale. I was trying to do creative financing deals. I was just desperate to do any kind of deal I could.
(18:22): And gosh, I mean, it was mid, I remember it was mid-January, I hadn't, I didn't even have really made good leads yet and wasn't getting traction with my marketing and I was already feeling like I was just moving deck chairs on the Titanic. Like I was like, okay, this isn't going well. I had found out from some other people, they were having good success with this particular coaching program. At the time it was well that it still exists. It's wholesaling Inc. At the time it was Tom crawl was running that program. So I got on the phone with him. I said, here's my situation. Can you coach me? He said, yep. I, I got you. Let's I'll coach you join my program, but here's the deal. Forget everything you think, you know, and follow my stuff by the rule, my system, or it's not gonna work. I said, okay. And that was the best decision at that time I'd made was just following one coach, one program, one system, and
(19:21): That's true, you know? And that's just like everything in life, right. We talked to there's so many people out there, there many things that we have access to information to all this stuff and this person's doing it this way. And I, and I hear it too. People call me all the time and they wanna talk about real estate and they, you do lease options. No. Do you do this? No. Do you do this? No, I don't do it. You know, I, I have my niche and I just know that niche and I go after that niche and that's what I make happen. Now there's guys in making money in there too. The thing is that you can make money and any of these little, these little niches that you do just stick to it. And then once you figure it out and once you can put it on a sys, you can systematize it and make that happen.
(20:07): Then you can go and start to maybe open up some other channels to make stuff happen. But until then, focus on one thing. If you know, it works, do that one thing, right? When you start talking about all these different options that happen in life and all these different things that you could do, your brain gets mixed signals and it doesn't know what to focus on. Right? That's right. You knew you wanted to, to do this real estate stuff. You said, we're going to Greenville. We're selling our. We're moving out there. This is what we're doing. Your body knew that. And then you got a hold of Tom and said, listen, Tom, my stuff's not working. Tom's like, Hey, let's make it happen. This is what you gotta do, but you gotta narrow it down. I coached a guy just like this too, man.
(20:51): He called me up and he's like, I wanna do what you do. And I'm like, yeah, sure, no problem. And he got on the phone with me. I told him what to do. I told him to get a list. And he was like, well, what do we do when this, this, and this happens? I said, stop. Don't worry about it. Yep. Because it's not gonna happen. And if it does, then we'll worry about when it happens. And, and so just step because people just get so many steps ahead. And what about at this? So what all the, what if syndromes, you know, what, if this, what if this, what if this, what if it, none of it's a real thing fricking pans out. So sorry to hijack that. Keep going, man. I'm loving. Yeah.
(21:25): So that's, that's where it's at. So I had the am. I had the plan, I had the roadmap. And again, from my perspective, being an engineer, like I, I was so used to having perfection and knowledge of the system, knowledge of how this work with repeatable nature. And so it, for me, it really helped having, like, this is the plan, just follow it. Like don't, you don't need to figure out all the unknowns. Right. So started marching down that path. And what was really crazy was I still wasn't getting the results that I was hoping for fast enough. Right. And it was may like first part of may. And I, I called to, I said, look, this isn't working like this is broken. And he's like, okay, stop doing marketing strategy completely. You're done with that. I want you to switch 100% all in on this one, make that switch.
(22:15): And what that meant was I went from direct mail to cold calling at that time. And he also, it was really interesting because I had a belief system issue. I forgot about this. He goes, you don't believe in your market. You don't believe in your marketplace that there's deals there. And, and I was like, yeah, I do. I think. And, and, and he knew exactly what to say. Right. Kind of got me in a bluff, but I was like, okay, fine. And he goes, pick a different market. So I picked a different one. I don't remember what the city was at the time, but I was like, well, I've already got leads from Greenville. So I might as well follow up with them. And it wasn't. But a week after that phone call, boom, I got my first deal under contract. And then I get a phone call from a lady whose house side wholesale in Colorado a year before.
(23:03): And she says, I've got this townhouse up near Denver. You wanna buy it? And I was like, heck yeah, I wanna buy it. She named a price. Embarrassingly. I wouldn't have offered a price this low. I like, are you sure? She goes, no, I love doing business with you before. I want you to have this deal. You need it more than I do. And I was like, you gotta be kidding. And she said, no, I actually gave her $5,000 more than she was asking. And just, just bolt out a blue deal that I think just came. I spent a lot of time on my knees praying every day that I was on the right path. And God would just open up a window for me. And sure enough, he did this window of opportunity came and I'll never forget it. That was like a $80,000 flip that ended up being like, it was, it was a tremendous deal. And then just staying with the follow ups that I had that year. Yeah. I went from $0 in revenue June 1st. And I think I had $180,000 in revenue by December 31st, just from sticking with the process and, and following through it with what I had. Yeah. So once I had like two or three deals under my belt, I was like, Tom, do I, do I need to really switch markets at this point? He goes, Nope, you got it now. So it was really crazy psychology of just what you believe to be true will be
(24:21): Absolutely man, whatever it is, like you believe that your entrepreneur dreams were done and went back to your job back to a job. And now here we are, you didn't think you were gonna have deals. And then, oh, we got a deal. Oh, maybe that changes. You know, just those, those small little wins. Once you change your mindset, your whole vision changes, everything changes. And then you can see things differently. It's amazing. Yep. I love it. There's a lot to say there, but that's probably the biggest things is just being really convicted to the process and sticking through it and just having the faith and, and, and doing the right thing every day and eventually big things, you know, big thing come if you're just patient enough to see it through. And so now you're still doing deals in Greenville, but you're living back in Colorado. How'd that happen?
(25:11): Yeah. So that's a really interesting story too. So yeah, we had a good first year, 2017 we've we got on the board 2018. We just did more of the same again, a belief system was, Hey, why don't we just do bigger deals? So we basically doubled our revenue, but did the same number of deals as the year prior. And then it was starting to think, okay, now it's time to actually create a business and start building out a team. So I started in the fall of 2018, the hiring process got a, a gentleman that was gonna start with me January 1st as an acquisitions manager. And right before he came on board Kim and I got to talk and she said, Hey, do you think we would ever live in the mountains again? And I was like, I wasn't gonna say anything, but I really miss living in the mountains.
(25:58): I live miss living out west. We both kind of felt like strangers in a strange land in South Carolina, again, nothing wrong with, with Greenville at all, but we just didn't feel home there. Right. So when she said that to me, I was like, well, you know what, maybe we can make this business work, but live there. She said, okay, let's do it five year plan. We'll move back. Right. About two weeks later, three year plan, we'll move back. And about a week later, we're like, why don't we just move next summer? What would that look like? So like, well, I don't know. Let's, let's let's map it up. And I'm like, well, if I do this and this and this, and I don't move forward towards like getting a, an office, but we have everybody work from home. We'll just structure the business so that we can run it anywhere. And by July of 2019, we kind of reversed the process of moving to South Carolina. We bought a house, put it under contract, flew out there, inspected it, checked out. And we moved out actually that summer by July, we were moved into Colorado Springs and we've doubled our revenue twice since then. It's been it's been a journey. That's awesome, man. And how are you light? You guys love living out there? Yeah. Yeah. It's this is the lifestyle that, that we're here. I mean, I'm in this Jeep, we love to go out outdoors, camping. We spent six weeks last summer pulling a trailer and camping while running the business remotely. And you, yeah, it's just the, the lifestyle that we had in our hearts and, you know, we believed it and we went and found a way to make it work,
(27:30): Man. That is, there's so many people that can't vision that. Right. And they, they think that there's only one way to make it happen. Guys. There's so many different ways to make life. How happen the way that you want. We, we call it lifestyle by design. You know, we wanna build these businesses to fit our lifestyle. We don't want to be the slave. I have people say, well, why don't you work on your houses? Why don't you do, why don't you do the, the work on it? I'm like, I don't wanna be doing it. I, I wanna be out there. I, you know, live in the life that I want. I don't wanna be swinging hammers. I don't want to be doing that. And I like to travel. I like to go out my my goal. I I don't know what state it's gonna be yet, but it's either gonna be Montana, Colorado or Utah is the, the three states that I'm I in of going, Hey, where am I gonna end up living?
(28:22): Because that I need to be in the mountains. I, I feel it in my soul. Like, that's where I need to be. And so I I'm like you I'm putting together that plan. All right, what do we need half? And laying out the map, trying to figure out how these pieces gonna go into play. And then how are we gonna put these pieces into play? And you've done this. You've only, you were only in Greenville for two, three years. If that you moved there in October 16 and by 19, you were back in Colorado. That's right? Yep. Yeah. We've never been in car Colorado, as long as we were there in, in South Carolina now. It's, it's crazy. Yeah. If you put your mind to it, of what you wanna accomplish, you can do it, you know, because here you gotta go. You, how many people did you ask? How many people did you talk to on trying to figure this thing out, right. How, how to make all that work, but you have your goal in place. And so, okay. Well, how do we make this goal a reality, right?
(29:19): Yeah. Yeah. And so it's a good point. Something that comes to mind, as you say that you've gotta be careful who you do share these things with, because, you know, I, I remember talking to certain people. I said, here's what I think I'm gonna do. I, I think I'm gonna quit my government job. I think I'm gonna start this business. And I'm gonna, you know, get into real estate. And a lot of people were like, why would you do that? That's a dream job. Why would you wanna quit that? And they start spilling onto you, their doubts and their belief systems. So you have to be very careful not to let those types of people influence your dreams. And if, if you sense that they can't get on board with your plan, you just gotta find a new crowd. Somebody that supports your dreams, cuz I mean, that's, that's critical. You gotta do it. You gotta cut some ti cut, cut some relationships. In some cases. Absolutely. And it's not necessarily, when you say cut relationships, I mean, you're cutting people off, but it's those people don't even know what they're doing. You know what I mean? They don't realize that that they're cutting you down. They, they think you're crazy first, but they don't realize that that's a negative aspect to be put on to you to where it affects it could affect your thoughts. They're sharing those thoughts, those words from their self doubts.
(30:36): That's right. It's has nothing to do with you. And so if you're wanting to create the lifestyle, the dreams of what you want in your life, then you can do it. Just start asking the right questions, start hanging around the right people, be around individuals that inspire you, be around individuals that can help you. And you'll see a drastic change in your life. And yeah, sometimes it is family members. Sometimes it is people that you're your friends that used to hang out with all the time. Right. But now it's, Hey, we're moving on and it's not cutting. 'em Off. You're growing past them. Right. You're growing more than them. A lot of people stop growing and they they're, they're comfortable at this lifestyle, but they don't realize how much further they could go. Like you and me, we, we read, we, we listen to to guys always trying to make us better, trying to make us better humans, better people right now you're doing 75 hard, right?
(31:31): So that's two workouts a day. That's a gallon of water a day. That's reading 10 pages out of a book a day. That's a diet a day. I mean, it's dedication. There's a lot of, of people that don't put theirselves in those situations where all you're just trying to do is just get better. Discipline, self discipline. Let's get better. Let's get better. Let's get better. And just keep going, man. I'm loving it. So out of your whole, you know, through every experience that you have from, from RO OTC to being able to, to, to jump ship, go down to Florida, not jump ship, but leave the army. After you get out, go down to Florida, start a CrossFit gym, have the confidence to do that. Don't make any money, but it is what it is. And then kind of come back. I mean, How are you able to just, and you do this multiple times, right? Pick it up. Let's go. Like how, like there's some people I know haven't even moved out of their own county. Right. Ever moved out. Right. And, and so how are you here? You're jumping from Florida to Colorado to Greenville. Like, how are you able to do that? Like the mindset of just saying, Hey, I'm gonna go here. And I don't know anybody there. I don't have any business going on here, but I'm gonna make it happen. Like what, what are the thoughts you tell yourself on that?
(32:49): I don't know. That's a really interesting question. You know, I always thought I had a really weak belief system, but I, I mean, clearly I had to take some leaps of faith. I don't know it's gonna work, but this is what I want. Right. I don't know the, the a to Z steps, but I know a to B is where I need to start. And I know generally where I want to go. And here here's even an example of how I ended up in Florida. I was, I, the air force sent me to schooling my master's degree in Dayton, Ohio, and, and the air force will just tell you, this is where you're gonna go next. And you can kind of put your wishlist in, but ultimately it's up to the needs of the air force. They will tell you where to go.
(33:30): So I was slated to go to Rome, New York and you know, I was single at the time. And I was like, I don't wanna live in Rome, New York. It just did not sound attractive. I didn't wanna work in this AB there. And again, I, from when I was in ROTC, I was like, I want to be at egg air force base. I wanna be in Florida on the beach at that air force base. I remember talking to some friends of mine saying that I remember the girl I was dating at the time talking to her dad about it. And I didn't know I was gonna get there, but I wanted to be there. Well, fast forward I'm at school. I get my assignment, Rome, New York. I'm like, ah, that's not what I want. And a friend of mine in my same course in my class, he said, Hey, Mike, where are you going? He said, I got Rome, New York. I'm not too excited about, he goes, Hey, I'm going to egg air force base. I'm like, Hey, good for you, buddy. Yeah. He goes, Hey this is gonna sound kind of weird, but would you trade with me?
(34:29): I'm like, what? I was like, I, I, yeah. I mean, if we can, he goes, I, I don't know if we can do it, but let's trade. We were both in the same career path. We had the same credentials. So we, we threw it back to the air force and say, Hey, can we do a tra they worked it. And I got what I had spoken years before where I wanted to go. And just as a, I've got goosebumps right now, I forgot all about this. I got what I wanted, you know, because I spoke it into truth. That's it, man. And, and I think there's so many people out there that's not speaking what they want or they put very, they don't know how it's gonna happen. Hell we don't know how it's gonna happen. Right. Yeah. That's what we want. And we're gonna push to get there. And once the universe knows that that's what we want. It's gonna conspire for it to happen. I love it. Like there's so many things that I can look back on life and go, well, I wanted to do this or I wanted to do that. And I like, I really wanted to happen. And some crazy easy things happen. I just, for example, I would just pick something little that, that came out. And this is when I was really starting to realize what manifestation was and what yeah. Creating things in my mind were I just got done reading the book, the secret, I think it was.
(35:36): And there's another one in there. I'm, I'm blanking on it. But so I'm like, all right. So I pick, I pick a inanimate object. I pick this red balloon, right. I have this red balloon that I'm thinking about. And I go clearly, if like, how many times do you just see red balloons all the time in your life? So clearly if if I'm thinking of a, out this red balloon, it's gonna stand out. If I see it right. And I don't see a red balloon every day. So first day goes by. I'm thinking about red balloon, red balloon in the morning. Think about at lunch. Think about it. Before I go to bed, wake up the next day, thinking about in the morning, thinking about it before I think about at lunch before I go to bed. Third day, I wake up thinking about it in the morning.
(36:16): Think about at lunch. I come home that third day walk into the house. My son's upstairs in his room. I walk up the stairs, I walk into his room and there is a red balloon tied to his bunk bed. And I am just like, how crazy is that? The kids never brought home a balloon okay. In his entire life. And this is when he came home from school. One day, never brought home a balloon. And then not only that, like, how is it a red balloon now? I didn't say what shape it was or anything. But I just said a red balloon and there, it was, it was a Rose's red balloon right there. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Right. Like, and that's what I really like. It shocked me to the cores. Like, man, this stuff is real.
(37:06): And then it's like, what else can we do? I also put down on my notepad. One of my goals one day is I wanna speak to my high school class or not, not my class, but a high school class from my high school. Right. And me and the boys were out. It was just me and the me and my two sons. We were out, we were pizza. We were getting pizza one night and we were hanging out and we were eating. And lo and behold, my old principal is sitting next to us, a chair down and we start chit chatting and you know, just back and forth, I'm telling her what I'm doing and everything like that. And she goes, you know what? You should come in and speak to the school. You should come in and speak to a couple entrepreneur classes we have going on.
(37:50): I didn't, I didn't say anything. And I was like, what? And it hit me again right there. And it's just like, man, what am I not putting on my goals? What am I not putting out in the end universe that I really would like to have, maybe that stuff's gonna come true as well. And those are just two little examples, right? You know, every time I needed a deal, a deal came up, cuz I'm thinking about deals. I'm thinking about relationships. I'm thinking about who else can I help deals pop into my, I had three today, three deals today. People brought to me because they were like, Hey Kyle, boom two text messages for deals and a phone call, Kyle, I got a deal. Can you come look at it tomorrow? Like how does this happen? It it's, it's it's crazy. So we just have to realize what we, what we think about manifest. And that's not only just for the positive stuff, but that's also for the negative stuff. Very true. You know, when you start thinking about negative and it's all bad, that's all you're ever gonna see when you start thinking about that stuff, then turn it in. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta change those thoughts. Change your thoughts you'll change your life. Absolutely.
(38:54): I mean, I, I believe, you know, the Bible says we were created in God's image and God was the ultimate creator. So if we have just an inkling of his creation abilities, again, just our very thoughts can actually bring things into our reality. And I think that there is some element of truth there and absolutely. We, we don't even begin to understand our abilities are, you know, when we put our minds to something, I mean, it sounds cliche, but it's very, very true. Oh, we have so much power untapped power in our, in our brains, in our body, in our, like our being like it's it's there. Well, just think about how, how did you meet mark? Oh man. Well, social media helped us there, but I, I originally saw, so we're talking about Mark Evans, who's our our mentor in, in our mastermind. So I started seeing this guy with the, the goofy hat, you know, the, the white kale that he usually wears. He usually wears a white for you guys, Mark Evans. Yeah.
(39:54): Smoke in the cigar. And I thought, who is this? Who's this guy, you know? Right. Just like being all flashy and, and you know, I, I had these like belief systems about what people that had money and were flashy looking, you know? And, but I started to like pay like, okay, I'm gonna click the audio on and start listening to what's this guy saying, cuz he keeps coming up in my feet over and over. And, and, and I was like, man, this guy is down to earth. He makes sense. He actually has wealth, but he is not like, it's legit wealth. It's not like I'm showing off. But I'm actually broke behind the scenes. Like I was like, this guy's legit and he's just got good value systems. He is about a family. I was like, man. And again, believe stem kicks in. I could never be part of that world.
(40:40): Like I, I don't know how I could ever, you know, be there, but I'm gonna pay attention. Cuz I think this guy has something to offer. Well, I mean it wasn't, but a couple weeks later I found out a friend of mine Bo was actually in Mark's mastermind. So I was like, well shoot, I'm gonna call Bo. And just be like, what's up? You know, how, how does what's this like, you know, to be at, at this next level. And so we had a conversation, he goes, I'll I'll I'll introduce you the next day. My phone rings and caller ID, Mark Evans, DM. I'm like, holy cow, Mark's calling me and we spent an hour on the phone just talking. And I shared with what I was trying to do in my business and my vision and, and growth. And he invited me to fly out to Ohio at the time. And we spent a day, I stroked him a, a big check for his time and you know, it was a great experience. And I thought that was that. And I came back back to Colorado, got back to work. And then he called me a few days later and said, Hey, we want you in the mastermind. I was like, nice man. I cannot afford it. Can't afford it. But I can't afford not to take this leap. Right. And so I was like, this is an opportunity that will never come I'm around again. I'm in, I
(41:54): Gotta do it. Yeah, absolutely. And, and it's, and we're we invest in ourselves and invest in these groups to be around guys that help us with these problems. See E everything in life is a problem. And there's already somebody that's already figured out this thing. Yep. And we can just ask them, you know, we have the connections. That's why we're, that's why we pay to be. We, we pay to go to these groups. We pay to be around these guys, you know, cuz they can help you with problems. I mean, everybody thinks it's okay to go hundred K in debt for student loans. And there's a lot of people out here and people listening may, may have 'em of coming out with a I've said this a couple times, but a liberal arts degree. And I don't even know what a liberal arts degree does, but you've paid a hundred grand for it for the last four years.
(42:37): Right. But people won't invest in themselves and put money on themselves and have the belief in 'em that they have to go learn it and, and make it happen. And I think those are the, the game changer things, man, like people ask me if they have $5,000 or $3,000 or thousand dollars or you know, somewhere in that, in that realm of about a money, where can I invest with you? No, you can't. What you need to do is invest in yourself because the knowledge that you're gonna get from investing in yourself is worth way more than what kind of return I can give you. Right. And that's, that's where you need to put the money and you're gonna see tremendous growth in your life and your business and family, but be around the right guys. So you have to vet 'em. So you have to really see, you know, if you're looking at mentors and stuff, don't always go with the ones with the flashy cars, not saying, cuz mark, mark, Scott two rolls in a Ferrari. And I think he's like, I think he's awesome now not saying that they're not gonna have good stuff, actually I, I probably wouldn't invest with somebody who doesn't have those things or, or not on that way on that process of getting it. And yeah, so that that's just invest in yourself as the biggest takeaway. I, I can give you
(43:53): Yeah. You, you gotta find somebody that is where you wanna be. And then if on the surface they are where you wanna be, then check their value system. And if those two things check out, you you've got a good odds of having a good relationship with that person to help you lift up.
(44:09): Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Mike man, I am super stoked. I I'm really happy that you came on and shared the story with, I think it's gonna help a lot of people just in different parts and aspects of their life and going through this because life's hard, man. It's not easy. I mean, we're gonna have our ups, we're gonna have our downs, but in the end we're gonna be coming out on top. As long as we keep going. So many people would've stopped after this CrossFit thing and said, ah, I can never do it again. But you actually said, no, no, I got, I got the bug. I gotta go back out and gotta try. You know, at least try I that's the thing just don't ever die. Not trying. I, I, I think that's the biggest deal that you could take if, if you're out there trying, you don't make Hey, but lemme tell you something. Here's another thing I just thought about this. If it's working for somebody, it can work for you. Right. Absolutely. Just figure out what that some person is doing. And you, you mentioned it before in here, figure out what that one person is doing. And then just kind of copy 'em model it. It's called modeling. That's all, all these business are modeling, figure this stuff out and model them. So
(45:12): Yeah, that was one of the first things. When, when I did fly out to Ohio and I met with mark for the first time and he said, you you've gotta just look at where you're at and then look at where you want to go. And then borrow that belief system. I mean, he talked about it many times. There's a borrowed belief. Like you might not fully believe it yet, but borrow that belief that this other person has, that you wanna imitate and copy and just, just take it for a little while until it becomes your own. And I mean, that was some of the best advice I ever got. Yeah, man. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I love it. I appreciate you coming on here, man. And sharing the story. Mike, thank you so much. How do how does anybody follow you or find you if they connected with this? How do they reach out to you?
(45:53): Yeah, so I, I don't have the biggest Instagram following yet, but that's probably the the best place to reach me. And it's the underscore Michael underscore MCLE and so I am sure you'll see my name spelled out here on the podcast. That's how you find me. I'm also on Facebook, pretty public on there. Again, if you look for me Michael MCLE, you'll find me there and yeah, I'm gonna be developing more online presence here in the weeks and months to come. So you should be able to find me more in the future. Nice. Sounds good, man. Well, thanks Mike. I appreciate you coming on, man. Yeah, it was a pleasure, Kyle. I really appreci. You having me on the show here and we'll definitely do it again one of these days. Absolutely. Thanks brother.
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