Speaker 1: 0:20

I like that where that world's going. So the healthcare side I really watch a lot the new technology that's coming out. When we moved our headquarters to Nashville there was more startup capital going into healthcare than anywhere else in the country was actually in Nashville, so I learned a lot about that stuff A lot of AI going out there, a lot of pharmaceuticals and medical devices and technology and so forth so I was able to kind of start hovering in that space and then really realizing how much money is being dumped into that space and how many boomers are in need of certain things you know, or anybody in general you know, and that was really an eye opener for me on how much healthcare is needed.

Speaker 3: 0:55

What's up everybody, welcome to another episode of the playbook. Today we have a bad-ass guest. I mean this guy is, first of all, he's not only done so well for himself in business, but just one of the most genuine, like legit, nice guys, well-mannered dudes that I've ever met in my life, and I appreciate that so much Manages over $500 million for his investors and is a powerhouse in the development arena. He's got a big project right now in Lake Havasu the barn caves and I think you're really going to enjoy this one. We talk about a lot of cool stuff, from business to personal, and so I hope you enjoy. Here we go.

Speaker 1: 1:40

All the guys that were there at the bar that I got a chance to talk to. He's like, okay, so this guy owns this company. This guy owns this company. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly the networking I'm shooting for.

Speaker 1: 1:48

You know it's a $10,000 buy-in and it's seasonal. So you know, out there, park city, seasonal. So same thing in Havasu. It's seasonal nine a month where you're there. But then you get all these kind of like you know, amenities, whether it's, you know, park your car there, leave your car there, whatever you want to do, but you can, you know, show up to all the events, you can have your clients come there, you know, have a little office, what have you? So it's pretty cool. I feel like that's a little cheap, oh yeah 10 g's, 10 racks, but I'll fill it up.

Speaker 2: 2:18

You look at the networking side for these big groups like the ypo groups yeah, bro I mean some of these groups are 25 or 30 000 bucks a year yeah, a year it's like oh man, and and you've got a refined, smaller group. This is a lot larger group, I think, a lot more value yeah, I think, and right, what I?

Speaker 1: 2:35

what I see happening is like the golfers like right now they're nowhere to go, bro, it's fucking hot. These guys do not want to golf. So I have four golf simulators. They're going to go in there and golf all the time. So that's like a whole vibe and then during the summer it's like a whole nother vibe of groups that come in too. So that place is just be buzzing all the time. But if we can do like, hey guys, we're raising money for kids with cancer you know what I mean Like that that will turn up for sure. But, dude, I have so many.

Speaker 1: 2:59

The thing about Havasu, growing up going out there. I have friends that are like from LA and San Diego. They're from everywhere and they all go out there. But it's like such a like a like a family oriented environment that everyone kind of sticks together and it's like it's very clicky, but not like in a bad way, it's just everyone sticks together.

Speaker 1: 3:16

You know the boating community is very, very helpful, very supportive, and so that's kind of what I want to do is all these business owners that are bigger and boaters Cause I mean I know guys not by their name, by the names of their boats. Like you know what I mean? What kind of boat does they have? Oh, it's. You know, it's big daddy, the M35, or you know what I mean? Like that's how people know each other out there. They don't really know each other. Oh, it's the guy, it's true. So it's like those are the guys you want in there, because everyone's really, in essence, using that to build their brand. So by like, oh yeah, I got the guy that owns this company, this company, so they want you to drop their name.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Are most of your projects centered around some event Like this is for boating for the Havasu project, but the other locations do they have something like that?

Speaker 1: 4:08

It's boating or golf or something, yeah, you know. So what I, what I? I am now before not necessarily so much. So I have a project I'm completing that's a multifamily right now in San Antonio. That one is 21 units of townhomes, um, oh sorry, 21 units of apartments, and we're about 30% complete on that one. But that's pretty much the only one that I have right now as far as in my portfolio.

Speaker 1: 4:22

That is doesn't have a lifestyle trend to it, and what I mean by that is if you look at baby boomers and their spending habits, they're like hey look, I'm going into retirement, I want my RV, I want my boat, I want to get out of California, I want to save on taxes, I want a better lifestyle, they want to travel, they want to give more to their grandkids List kind of goes on. So when you watch that much wealth which is where all the wealth is is moving in these directions, that's where I try to hover, and one of them, being in Havasu, is like one of the most desirable retirement communities on the West Coast. But you pull people from here Phoenix, scottsdale, vegas, all over California, and now it's going up to Washington, oregon. It's really expanding. So that's what I'm trying to watch is health care, because health care is the fastest growing industry due to baby boomers beginning more frail and anything that has to do centered around that and lifestyle trends is really what I'm watching yeah, but in the baby boomer realm yeah, massive industries.

Speaker 2: 5:18

Massive, and that's part of what our, our stuff works on is you've got these three major I? I would actually tell you healthcare, the housing, or big banking side, and big utility right. Or big oil, all kind of the same, and that's nice, Cause you've kind of brought this, yeah, you've brought that all together. That's really nice.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Yeah, so, so I think, like right now, so we're so heavy in Havasu, I don't think I'll go in. I don't. I don't think I'll go in, I don't. I don't think I'll build another project in Havasu. I have been approached to build something like a top golf out there, which I think would be, if I do do more, would be something like that, you know, but more entertainment. The one thing I'm really trying to do is marry up. So we're building that 30,000 square foot gym but I'm bringing in like a jujitsu area and you know, I'm trying to help with the youth side because there's just nothing, nothing to do out there for the kids. So if I can bring some of those components into it, I'd be huge. You know, like baseball, football more, like private training, that type of stuff that are specialty work. I'm trying to bring in trainers for that too in havasu, missing in havasu for the oh yeah believe it or not, it is.

Speaker 1: 6:21

So it's crazy because people are like ha say it's very seasonal and it is, but, like during the winter, you have the snowbirds that come out right and they all come and they want to get away from the cold, but they're very active, they love the razor, they love to work out very healthy. The health and wellness side is really growing too, even in the baby boomer realm, because a lot of people are kind of over the let's call it the big pharma movement. A lot of physicians are going to going back like hey, go back to working out and eating clean and eating healthy. Let's not give you more pills, and I think a lot of people are going back that direction.

Speaker 1: 6:56

So you're seeing an uptick even in gym activity. So more subscriptions, more people are signing up for gyms, and my buddy that's going to operate my gym he has 30 something locations and franchisees and he's giving me a lot of this data. So you know it kind of. I'm just kind of lining into that, you know. So you want to cater to your community though, yeah you know his gyms are dope too.

Speaker 1: 7:18

His gyms are real tight. It's a. It's a nightclub, is what it is. He went after he went after a nightclub field yeah with like real equipment, like the arsenal, like manly, like primal equipment. It's badass, yes, that that's cool.

Speaker 2: 7:31

You know, we looked at one development project that we modeled out, that the community itself would have a direct health care center and so instead of running through big insurance, they had access to direct health care. So like right down the road here they had access to direct health care. So like right down the road here my buddy owns a direct health care company and really that's taking out all of the health insurance side and it's all pre-negotiated cash rates and so I pay him like I think it's like 99 bucks a month. And now I got my doc on speed dial. I don't have to go in and go through. That's killer. Just go through all the garbage of healthcare, Like if I need a prescription done. It's like healthcare and big insurance requires that I go down there, meet with the doc, get these forms filled out and then go do this direct healthcare pre-done cash.

Speaker 2: 8:19

I'll give you a real example. I've got a kind of a weird kidney issue and I get blood work done every three months. If I go to my regular process at the Mayo, it's like 1200 bucks If I go through and go to the lab directly and cut out. And male is the best in the world, right. So I get it. You pay for your. You pay for the best. If I go direct to the lab, it's 220 bucks. If I pay through direct healthcare, 220 bucks. If I pay through direct healthcare, $9. Wow, $9. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:52

That's in this environment and this economy and the cost of living going up, and because baby boomers are now spending more time and energy in their healthcare and need to. That is a movement that will boom because your healthcare costs are compressed. That's a big movement for sure.

Speaker 2: 9:04

Yeah, I see that in healthcare and in housing, what you're already doing, and then in energy these massive movements, man. It's moving away from the big, big, crazy control from these massive entities and it's all coming back and to facilitate giving that back to the average American, is a big, freaking deal man.

Speaker 1: 9:23

No, to go back on the healthcare thing, there was a group that was out of San Diego and I really liked kind of what they were trying to do, but they were marrying up the Oura Ring and some other technology with like Apple Watches and so forth and what their kind of philosophy was is that you never go to the hospital until it's an emergency. How about identifying certain patterns with inside, the way your body moves, that will trigger your doctor to say, hey, why don't you come in? We need to talk almost like preventative healthcare, but it's able to catch things before they they happen. For example, delos wellness, which is, you know, a Goldman back company out of Manhattan. They have hospital, hospital grade air filtration, circadian rhythm lighting. They've been able to identify how circadian rhythm lighting has a direct effect on, like your, uh, your sleep patterns.

Speaker 1: 10:13

You know melatonin, all of these different chemicals, because this is all synthetic light. We're under right, and how that blinks real fast. What we don't, we can't see it, but it does have an effect on us over time, all the way down to like certain, like this is all paint, custom paint. Well, there's certain you know, uh, things inside the paint that we're breathing in. So that, yeah. So there's this filtration system actually identifies what's in there. So it also has this other technology and sensors throughout the house or commercial buildings where it identifies what's in the air and starts filtering it out before you even need to worry about it, kind of thing. It's pretty impressive what these guys are doing, but it's an insurance play, and so that whole health and wellness movement is getting bigger and bigger. And how cool is that? To say, hey, you know what? Your blood pressure is really high before you're like, you know, I don't feel so good. You know, start identifying that. And you're getting a call from your doctor going hey we're getting triggered in over here, right.

Speaker 1: 11:06

So there's all this technology going into this right now and I see it. It's going to take a little bit of time because doctors have to come up to par for that systems and software and so forth. But there may be kind of like a, a center, where that is all kind of being compressed to and then everyone gets made contact with. That's your, your body's, hey, your body's acting up when you, we need to, we need to see you or see what's going on. Oh, I love that, isn't that crazy.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Yeah, coupling that with like that direct healthcare model would be fantastic. I mean, we put check engine lights on cars and we don't have them for our own bodies. Like we trade our cars in every three to five years or whatever, but our body we need for life.

Speaker 1: 11:43

Hey, your tires are low. Yeah, exactly, man, we don't check our own body.

Speaker 3: 11:47

We've got my blood pressures high Like what's up, you know.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Oh man, I think that's brilliant. It's brilliant, dude, yeah, to tie that in.

Speaker 1: 11:53

And it's a subscription base, it's like 19 bucks a month, like they figured this out and you can.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Someone out there is going to do the math and they're going to say for 19 bucks a month, you're going to save the country's going to save trillions of dollars. That's crazy, I love that.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Well, think about with, with your, your situation. I don't know the depths of it, but if something were to trigger you, you're getting notified before it happens no-transcript how many times you go to the doctor and be like oh well, you've been having this issue for years and you're just now finding out because it finally hit the wall. You know it's true you know.

Speaker 1: 12:41

So you finally get to a point where you're like, hey, I'm, I'm hitting a wall, and then you go to the doctor. But this has been something that's been building up and going on for years and you just didn't know it.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Oh, this is exactly that I found this out because of a totally different issue and it went and I had it. I was born with this deal. It's really kind of like an autoimmune type issue, yeah, and I'd never known it, but it was something else that kicked it up. And had I waited, it would have been really and just by pure luck, man, pure luck, See. If it would have went longer it'd been worse. You know this goes on.

Speaker 1: 13:10

So, yeah, I like that where that world's going. So the healthcare side I really watch a lot the new technology that's coming out. I would Nashville there was more startup capital going into healthcare than anywhere else in the country was actually in Nashville, so I learned a lot about that stuff. A lot of AI going out there, you know, a lot of pharmaceuticals and medical devices and technology and so forth. So I was able to kind of start hovering in that space and then really realizing how much money is being dumped into that space and how many boomers are in need of certain things. You know, or anybody in general you know, and that was really an eye opener for me on how much healthcare is needed.

Speaker 2: 13:47

And it's most going into the baby boomer.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Yeah, just due to the fact that they just are getting more frail, and it's very consistent. But you are also looking at kind of this movement of like people are starting to spend more time on their health and wellness. They care more, they have more, they care more about what they're eating, right, it's a big movement overall. But when you see how boomers are starting to live their life, they want to be more outdoors, they want to be more overall healthy, they want to be traveling and not having issues with walking, and the list goes on. So you're seeing kind of this holistic movement with boomers. So they don't have to spend so much money on healthcare but they have a longer, more enjoyable life right Journey and they're trying to implement more of organic healthcare practices to be able to get to a better lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 14:35

And so it's nice to see, kind of what they're doing. So a lot of the believe it or not, a lot of the technologies and more like software and systems to read your body. So the preventative side, like it's crazy what's going on out there. I love watching that stuff because I'm going to implement it as soon as some of that stuff comes out for me, you know, and not only just because I don't want to deal with the pain or what have you, and I want to be here for my kids. But it's like I have a lot of people that rely on me to be down for three days or five days, or it's almost like. It's like bankruptcy level stuff, like we can't just be down for two weeks or three months or what have you you know, you start thinking of things at that level you know like hey.

Speaker 1: 15:09

I need to stay on. It's like right now I'm eating to perform, I'm training, I'm trying to stay focused on every I haven't I don't know when the last time I had a drink. You know I love my tequila man, my high end tequila bring it baby.

Speaker 1: 15:19

I probably would like totally break the break that you know. But the bottom line is is like I just I'm so focused on on work and my life and my kids. I just I'm trying to stay focused on the way my body operates, to eat, to perform, because you know I already don't sleep enough as it is. So if I can try to offset that by eating right and training right, then I'm doing better right. So I'm trying to implement the best thing, all, every, all the practices as possible to operate at that top performance Nice.

Speaker 3: 15:49

We kind of jumped right into this thing. Yeah, I want to step back a little bit. So you know, over I mean I would say especially over the past, I don't know five years. You know, I've been kind of in the entrepreneurial world for a long time Past probably five years I've learned that there's only certain people that I want to work with and if I don't like you like, I don't care how smart you are or whatever I don't want to work with you. I bring that up because it's just been like a pleasant surprise getting getting to know you. Obviously, ray introduced us which, uh, shout out, ray, but um, you've clearly done very well, um, for yourself. You know, I know you've you've been through a lot on your journey, but it's like dude, you're just like the realest dude.

Speaker 3: 16:39

And you're probably the most, one of the most polite guys that I've ever met and and that's, that's rare. You know, you got a lot, a lot of guys, especially in the social media world, that are not doing probably near as good as you and just think they're hot shit and just kind of walking around with this ego.

Speaker 3: 16:56

And it's like dude, what like? Why Like? There's no point in that. So I just wanted to like commend you for that and say I appreciate that and that means a lot, and especially you know when, with this deal that we're working on and partnering up on that. So now I appreciate, appreciate you with that Well thank you, yeah, dude.

Speaker 3: 17:13

So, secondarily, let's, let's take it back a little bit. You know, clearly people are going to hear how wise you are, smart you are on this thing. Let's take it back like where you, where you started. And I want to start, I guess, with um. You kind of briefly told me a story, uh, uh, when I was out in Havasu about basically 2008 crash, you lose everything and you're like I got 30 grand left in the bank account, called up the boys, let's head to Vegas, let's just blow it out, and but what's what's cool? And you'll tell the story, but what came from that and the relationship that came from that and kind of where that led you. So I'd love to hear that story.

Speaker 1: 17:53

You know. So the biggest takeaway from that, you know, when I called my boys and said, hey, we're going to Vegas and blowing all of our money and coming back and filing bankruptcy and becoming pizza delivery guys Right, was the burn the bridges mentality. You know, every time I've gone all in, it worked out for me, you know, kind of like, hey, look, we doesn't matter how bad this is going to get, we're going all in, kind of thing. It always worked out for me. But so in. So in 2008, I had my own mortgage company. So I was like everybody else, we're slaying it, we're killing it, everyone's got the cars and kind of living the life. And it was totally like Wolf of Wall Street level, like dialers, you know. And when the market crashed it was pretty much overnight. So we went from you know, 50, 60 loans a month to like one like it was dead. So I call my buddy and these are all my buddies I went to high school with that were working for me, cause we're still pretty young, we're like 20, 21, 22, you know, or 23. Yeah, 23. So we're all young and and we had, you know, a couple of girls working around the office that would bring us food and like clean the office and make sure papers. I mean, we had the whole thing moving Right.

Speaker 1: 18:56

And about two months after the crash I remember it vividly it was in. It was in July of 08, when the July of 07 is when it started and then really got bad in 08 even more. But when that, when, when the phone stopped ringing that day, we sat back for about two months going what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? Coming in every day, going to the gym, kind of still living our life. Going, okay, are we going to be naive and do nothing, or what are we going to do here? And so it just based off everything that we're reading, I'm like, okay, this isn't good, this is okay. I got a brand. I just bought a brand new house at the height of the market. I got an option arm loan. Not only was I slinging option arms, I was taking option arms and all my buddies are living with me. Each room had its own bathroom, so I had all my buddies. It was a crash pad, for sure.

Speaker 1: 19:41

So I ended up going to my guys and every Monday we have like an office meeting, like a kickoff meeting, right, so I go to my guys on Monday and they go hey, here's what I think is going to happen in the market. I don't think this is going to turn out well for us. I think this is what we need to do Because if you look at the pizza delivery guys, they're making money right now and because everyone's broke, everyone's just ordering pizza, right. So pizza does really well during a distressed market, fyi, and that's why a lot of people open up little pizza shops. Man, it's pretty cool, but anyway. So I go to them and I go okay, this is what we're going to do Friday. We're going to fly private out to Vegas. I think it was about 80,000 I had. So I said I have about 80,000 left in savings. My burn rate's 80,000.

Speaker 1: 20:26

So we're not Hyde, which is uh at Bellagio when they first came out right there over the uh, the fountains. We're at Hyde and I'm buying bottles and everyone's like this one guy comes up to me and he goes what are you doing? Buying bottles for everybody at Hyde? Like you know, the market started kind of getting more and more busy and everyone's like coming from other clubs cause I'm buying drinks. So it's like spreading, you know.

Speaker 1: 20:47

So, uh, at the end of the night it's probably around two, 33 in the morning, this guy comes up and I've seen him. He was around the club and he had kind of some business meetings going on. It was more of a lounge, you know. So this guy comes up to me and you could tell he kind of just said he does well, and he had an IWC watch on Prada glasses and under roof indoors at night he's got probably a $5,000 suit and super tailored, a Chinese guy, well fit, but speaks perfect English. And unfortunately and I say it respectfully you can't tell how old these guys are. So at my first glance, my at my first glance, I was thinking he's probably in his late thirties, maybe early forties. Very well put together guy, speaks perfect English and starts asking me you know what it is I do and why I'm doing all this? Right? And he just laughed and he goes man, you're, you're the guy I want to talk to. He goes, here's my card and he goes to show up. It's probably going to be worth it for you, especially if you're telling me everything that you're going through and what your whole purpose to be here was, telling them the truth, right. So he goes, so. So at the end of the, at the end of those, we go, my buddies and I go. So this was Friday night, so Saturday night, sunday night, we go out, we have our fun, we have fun.

Speaker 1: 21:58

But I was like so I go to this thing Monday morning nine o'clock sharp, I'm wearing whatever I could, that's the nicest, and I walk in and it's private. And when I walk into this building it's on the north side of Vegas. I walk into this building, there's private security outside, really kind of nice cars, didn't really think anything of it. I go into this 13th floor. He's got the entire floor completely filled with analysts, so cubicles that were really small but they're all analysts. I get walked in with security. I'm on a list puts me on, you know. I walk in through security into the back of this back room which is a big, huge conference room and what it was was an REO Mac or Rio Mac auction and what that was was is that so in the FD?

Speaker 1: 22:46

So we hear, like with SVB bank and signature bank, you know, basically in essence collapsed, the FDIC comes in and bails out the banks or they force JP Morgan or Bank of America to come and help buy the banks or give them some money and keep them up sustainable right Back then in 2008,.

Speaker 1: 23:01

That wasn't how it worked. What it was is that they relied on the FDIC and whatever liquidity they had to help bail out banks, but it was so. It was such a huge crash that the FDIC couldn't do anything about it, so the only way to bail these banks out was to start bringing in external money sources right, and that was local billionaires, billionaires from out of the country, and so this is what that auction was, and what he did is he had worked with a, with a, an attorney or the law firm, with the FDIC, and came up with a product where he would help auction off the assets that all of these banks had that were distressed or non-performing. But when you buy banks, you're not just buying the real estate portfolios. You're buying auto loans and credit card debt and locations, and you deal with employees, and it's a big deal.

Speaker 2: 23:48

You're buying huge banks right, so his was like the software implementation of that.

Speaker 1: 23:52

Yeah. So what he did was is he ended up coming up with? He married up with other uh, let's just call it governmental um software technology that they use to track how many men to women owned mortgages, how many two, 28 liboras were out there, option arms, 30 year fixes. They pulled all of their data together collectively and then basically built an asset management software is what they did. So when they went to the FDIC and said, hey, look, this is what we'll do. You guys don't have the back office for these billionaires to come out and repurpose these all these assets, but we do. So all of those analysts were basically saying, hey, you're one guy that has a multi billions of dollars. You can come buy all of these distressed assets for pennies on the dollar, but my firm will repurpose those assets. And that's what he did.

Speaker 1: 24:40

Our government had no idea how to repurpose these assets. So he was brilliant. He was a former pension fund guy out of China and he managed a $6 billion family office out of China and he came over here knowing that this was going to happen, and so he landed in Vegas because Vegas was the foreclosure capital of the country. So he opened up shop about a year before the crash. He knew it was coming. So he's been basically digging his heels in for almost a year before this had all happened. So now he's already built his relationship, saying, hey, now that we are where we are, I can provide the back office support for all of you guys to repurpose these assets. Hence, how I got into the business was the JOBS Act, where you can now solicit to raise capital for startups, and the Kickstarter side of it to kickstart businesses. It all kind of pollinates together Through like a reggae yeah, through a reggae, which we could talk about in a second. But that it all kind of pollinates together was bailouts and kickstarting Right.

Speaker 1: 25:38

So the these, these billionaires would come in and buy all these assets at this auction. They were literally had paddles buying billions of dollars in assets at auctions at this auction and they had a whole board that literally was giving you the data of how many men to women own, you know, mortgages, or both or married couple. I mean the data is all the data. You know how many you know option arms are out there, how many adjustable rate mortgages are going to be coming due for refinance. You know people's income levels and, mind you, these were all stated income loans. Everybody did stated income loans. So this was like we're going to have to clean up this balance sheet and let people get hurt bad. Hence that's why the short sale kind of forgiveness act came out saying, instead of you living in the house and go through a full foreclosure and we have to kick you out and do it, if you just short sell your house and come out of the house, we'll forgive the debt. Right, so they. So it was like it all pollinated together.

Speaker 1: 26:30

So that's how I kind of got in the business. So once what happened was is when I was at the auction uh, I, obviously I don't have the money. I told her I was very clear on how much money I had. And by that time I was pretty much broke. You know, going on two more days of partying like that, I was broke.

Speaker 1: 26:45

So you know, monday morning he comes up to me after the auction and it was a very quick auction, maybe two and a half, three hours I was in this thing he comes up to me and I'm kind of sitting in the back by myself and he just continues to favor me and he goes. So what'd you think? And I'm like, well, I mean this is. It opened up my eyes to how the world works. You know and what we hear and you know on the news and FDIC is going to come, and so I was. He came to me when he was asking me. He's like would you like to be involved in what I do? And I'm like, at some level, yeah, because I have no other option. You know, I was very humble and he goes this is what I'll do. I'll give you anywhere between 30 to 50 million a month. What I need you to do is work with local agents and brokers to repurpose a lot of these loans and do like regular hard money loans, but keep people on their properties.

Speaker 1: 27:38

So, going back to the old finance model where you have to verify income, verify that type of stuff, but it's going to be private money, so it's not necessarily income driven, it's can they actually really afford it, and it's not DTI driven, right. So I went back and started doing private money mortgages to keep these people in their homes. But the reality was is they were still lying and people were losing their jobs, and so we couldn't. I can only do maybe five or 6 million a month. So the first two months I was only doing five, $6 million and he's like I need you to be at 30 to 50 million. You need to figure it out. So it got to a point where I'm like, okay, well, give, this is the only way for me to keep income coming in. I mean, there is no loans going on. So I'm like why don't we go to? And this was when modifications started getting big.

Speaker 1: 28:20

Remember that, where all these and then all of them, what happened was and I want to say it's SB 94. I remember what it was. But what happened was is all these attorneys were trying to get short sales and could not get short sales or couldn't get the modification and were converting their homeowners into short sales, or they were collecting upfront fees, and you can't collect an upfront fee. So these attorneys are now getting looked at being disbarred. They're in panic mode, right To try to modify these properties. So what I did is I went to him and I said well, why don't we do this? Why don't we start going to all these modification attorneys? Have them, send us all of their short sale clients or their modification clients and move them to short sales. We'll come in and buy this property at 70 cents on the dollar right Given, whatever the market value is. 70 cents is what we'll put the offer in on. Then the attorney will negotiate the purchase. We'll go from there to do a full blown lease back with an option to purchase after 36 months.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Cause one thing that Obama did was not only the forgiveness act after a short sale, but 36 months after a short sale you can get an FHA loan. They could buy back their own property. And at the time when things got bad you know I'm having friends and family calling me they're losing their marriages and kids are getting kicked out of college. And it was bad. I mean that's why divorce rates were at the all time highest was after OA. So it was just a how do? It was just. It was such a emotional tug on me Like I almost felt I had this obligation to try to help the best I can. So the very first thing I did was go to these attorneys saying give me all the ones that people's marriages are on the line and I'll bang those out now. And I built relationship with these those, those people that are still investors to this day. That's how my business has gotten to where we are ultimately today, as all those people that I helped back then.

Speaker 1: 30:03

So what happened was is, as I started coming in and doing these short sale, lease backs, I would go in there and again we would negotiate the short sale.

Speaker 1: 30:10

We would buy these properties at 70 cents on the dollar. We would lease it back to the original homeowners and then give them an option to buy it back at month 36 or maybe a little past that going FHA, so they're able to keep their marriage, stay in their home, lower their payment, get a principal reduction right. It was a win-win for everybody my guys getting money out on the streets. We're buying assets at a discount, so the actual the returns were amazing because the assets valued is this. You're buying it at a discount rates are this, so your actual margins are looking pretty good. So he was getting a 10 clip, 11% cashflow on rents and we did the very first month we launched this. So I opened up the paradigm brand, hence the shifting and having to pivot and kind of be agile. I opened that up in July. I opened that up physically in July I'm sorry, august of oh nine and by November we did 276 short sales for $33 million and banged it out dude, and every month since then.

Speaker 1: 31:08

So I opened up an office in Vegas, as you can imagine, and then I opened up an office or reopened an office after I lost the other one in Riverside. So we just decided to kind of crush it and that's how we got into it. And then, over time, you know, the banks got smart and had more of a short sale department and they wanted BPOs and they wanted to verify the value of the properties. And at the time we were chasing down Wachovia notes, which Wachovia got bought out, right, so. But those are the easiest ones, cause it was all chaos in there. So we're like they'll just accept whatever off we're getting offers, except at like 60 cents on the dollar. So we were just real aggressive at it. And then it got to a point where we're like, okay, well, the banks are requiring that the homeowners can no longer live in the property. So they're starting to sign disclosures that they can't live in the property after a short sale. So that started kind of getting people to go well, we'll just, maybe we'll just move. We can't buy it back. What's the point, you know that's we'd rather buy somewhere else or move somewhere else, whatever.

Speaker 1: 32:01

So then it got into REOs. So what happened was we got okay. Well, I still have this guy who's backing me with money. The short sales are starting to die a little bit. What if I start buying up REOs, working with all these brokers and real estate agents already that have real estate or asset management relationships and I already have asset management relationships and we'll start going in there and buying these homes and then turning them around, put them back on the market and sell them, and back then people were gutting their homes, like gutting them. They were taking their cabinets out of there, they were taking light fixtures and air conditioning units and I mean these houses were literally nothing but boxes and drywall. Once you got to some of them, you know, guys were so pissed they were pouring concrete down the toilets and fucking up the plumbing. I don't know if you guys know about that. That was actually a big scandal between a football player that had a foreclosure and he poured concrete down all of his pipes and froze up his pipes. So you know, so we're going in there having to cut. You know, we're literally I mean we're cutting up foundation repiping. I mean, dude, we're putting a lot of money in this thing.

Speaker 1: 32:58

So what happened was is the banks, though, didn't have the relationships or or deep rooted asset management aspect to their firm to be able to have contractors go out and really bid on these, these REOs, to know exactly what's happening with all these thousands of assets that are in distress or sitting on their balance sheet. So we would go in there and kind of go hey look, we built the relationship with the asset managers, here's our contractors. So we started buying up REOs and negotiating the purchase prices according to what we had to put into it, get it back on the market, and we wanted anywhere between a $30 a 30 to $45,000 margin, and we were very clear with our, our um, with our uh, asset manager hey, this is our margin, because out of that margin needs to go to real estate agents and taxes, and right. So we were making maybe a 20 clip on everyone, but did we're doing 20, 30, 40, 50 a month? Yeah, just crushing a boom, boom.

Speaker 1: 33:51

So we kind of kept that volume, but what ultimately happened was is dealing with that many contractors, shoot me now, right, put a bullet in your mouth. So what was happening is is we were getting to a point where it was like herding cats all the time it was almost too much to manage, but it was scalable. It's like well, how about I go back to doing hard money loans to these guys, getting the interest that I want, getting the points and fees that I want? I'll make the income but I'll do more volume and I'll give these guys, these contractors, the loan and if they fail I'll just foreclose and take the property back, but the property would probably be close to being finished. So that's how I got it back into doing hard money loans and got for the most part, still what we do in some cases, what we do now, because I still manage a hundred million dollar debt fund to the contractor though, yeah, we'll

Speaker 1: 34:39

fund loans to primarily fix and flip. Yep, so that's pretty much what it was. So I ended up building a reputation of being I was a top producer for four years straight in the in the country. You know we were doing anywhere between 150 to 250 million and you know smaller fix and flip loans, so that's the very high volume. And then just kind of got into more as time went on. You know doors open and you know more zeros behind your deals and started doing properties that want to show a million dollar listing and you know doing some of that stuff. So that and just over time just kind of go okay. Well, now I got this network of guys. I'm starting to get into the commercial space. There's a lot of equity plays involved. I got my network started.

Speaker 2: 35:17

You know, call my friends and family raising capital, and it just kind of morphed to where we are today. Oh, that's amazing, yeah. So what I understand is, if the business is struggling, just go get wasted in Vegas.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Basically it all works out. Hopefully you meet the right guy.

Speaker 2: 35:25

Yeah, what a story though.

Speaker 1: 35:27

Uh and the the um, just the level of uh grit required just to go through all those evolutions of what you were doing, to get to where you're at today is fantastic, you know, and I appreciate that, because on the other side of that which is the iceberg concept, is the personal stuff you're going through Having a child. I got a DUI.

Speaker 1: 35:48

One of my buddies was dying in my arms. I was looking at six years, had to fight that, you know went through a gnarly divorce, had a gnarly custody battle, you know, and so trying to continue to build your business and put food on the table while, you know, going through it was very, very, very. That's the real. That's the real grit, you know, is that's a cool story, but what did you really have to go through to get there? You know, that's the stuff I want to talk about, you know, because it's everyone's got good stories and there's a million people like me out there that have the cool, unique stories I've made money that are doing okay, or what have you. But it's like I want to know, like it's the mental capacity and the strength and the fight and the gray hair that makes a man. I love that.

Speaker 3: 36:37

You know, yeah, no, that's a hundred percent, because you, you do. You only see the highlight roof on social media and those are the real stories you know. Those are the real stories of you know, and I have multiple of those stories. I know, you do, I know, you do, I know you do Ups and downs, having to move my family back to my parents' house sleeping on my child's baby mattress and my feet hanging off it, so my kids and wife could have the bed. Those are the good stories.

Speaker 1: 37:02

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 37:03

And those are the ones people you know really connect with you on. That's how you build a real community. Because it's like, oh like. I'm not much different than you. I'm going through the same struggles.

Speaker 1: 37:11

You got to do.

Speaker 1: 37:12

You got to clean toilets, bro, and it's not like you clean toilets forever. You clean toilets forever. If you're a business owner, a real leader, you clean toilets forever, period. And I say that respectfully to the people that actually clean toilets to make a living. But you know, there's a part of it that you realize that there is truly a God. Right, there's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.

Speaker 1: 37:40

You get to your point. You get to a point enough in life where you're low enough. You start you almost start believing in yourself because you've overcome so many things. You're like, no, I can do this again. So then you start walking differently, you start acting differently, and I'll tell you one of the biggest lessons, though, of all of that that I've learned over the last few years being sued by one of my best friends for 11 million I want equity in your company.

Speaker 1: 38:02

When he worked for me for a few months, you know, running away from child support and I'm trying to help him. Like just bad shit, right and uh, and it got to. Like the reason why we are where we are is 100% my team, the people I have around me that support me, love me, appreciate me the kind words you gave me it's if you don't have a big support team, you will not be that, and so the a lot of the questions when I see guys that are very successful is they he must have done well by a lot to really give him the support, because you always hear the naysayers and the negative and the haters or what have you. But on the upside, if that guy is still successful, there's going to be a huge group of supporters back there, but you never hear about them. But there's no way for you to get that level of success with that type of support.

Speaker 1: 38:49

So let's talk about those people that support you and the ones that typically do support you. They're taking bullets too, and they do it with a smile because they just feel rooted. And the root is that relationship, that one-on-one. And as time goes on and that relationship has been strained and you've overcome it. There's such a deep-rooted love. It's like a marriage, like you get to that 10-year mark and everything's downhill from there. You got to get to that 10-year kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 39:14

It's true whether it's any relationship, but once you have that relationship in your life and you have multiple of them it's the most powerful thing any business owner can obtain is having those people in your life that can get you up to where you really want to be. You're just the front man, but you got they're the shield. You're the front man, you got to take it, but someone's got to do the do the dirty work and get the naysayers Right. But the rest of the team are also benefiting from from those bullets. So what's happening is my team is going. Ryan, my, my retirement plan is on you. You keep going and I'm going to keep loving and giving you the support and I'll hand I'll, I'll keep it up, I'll keep fighting with you.

Speaker 3: 39:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:52

You know it's the best feeling in the world. It's been probably the biggest thing I've been going on for the last two years this kicker of my team. But man, my I. I literally almost have tears in my eyes because I literally tell everybody with my company, I love you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I cannot do this without you. I need you to be by my side and anything you need, I'm the person to call. And guess what? I am that person. They call when they need something.

Speaker 3: 40:14

So nothing more better, yeah, same. I mean, let's talk about that, cause, yeah, that is important and you know, we, we obviously go through the same type of things Like how did you, how did you build that, how did you get that and build that team? Cause I'm sure not everybody that's come through was stuck around and was loyal.

Speaker 1: 40:34

I mean, you just said you're. It's 19 to one. Every 19 people I hire for a specific department, one sticks. That's kind of friends, wow, yeah, wow. Marriages too, if you look at the data right.

Speaker 1: 40:46

It's kind of the way it goes. So I, I, you know my, my wife, is doing a lot of energy work and she's been through her own set of pain and maybe one day you guys will do a podcast and hear her story. It's pretty wild, In fact it's. It's very enlightening, uh, because I hear her story and I go well, shit, man, I don't think I've been through as much as you have. I can handle this.

Speaker 1: 41:03

Me to continue, kind of me looking inward to identify why I am the way I am. That's probably the most important thing. Most men are starting to get to that point. So all of us I think we're all there like why did, why am I really that way? And always wanting to better yourself, no matter what, right, just constant student.

Speaker 1: 41:29

But I would say that I think a lot of it came from self-esteem issues, what I? I was too much of a giver for a long period of time because I was looking for recognition, I was looking for love back and it started when my mom, my mom left when I was one, my father raised me and then, when I got married, that marriage didn't work out. And of course there's two sides to every story. I don't want to say anything bad, but I also did not feel appreciated or loved in that one too, and it and you kind of goes on and on. When you go through a divorce, if you have kids, it's probably the most icky thing in the world to go through. There's a reason why people say you don't know who you married until you go through a divorce right.

Speaker 1: 42:05

Especially when you have kids involved and money involved. And there's, you know, people are saying bad things to your kids and about you, and it's just icky man, it's just a horrible thing. And I've never. My father always told me that one day, buddy, you'll grow up and you'll know exactly who your mother is.

Speaker 3: 42:21

So I don't need to say anything bad, and I always loved that I appreciate that.

Speaker 2: 42:24

I loved that you and I had probably a very very well, let's talk about it there.

Speaker 1: 42:34

And happened was is I have looked inward going. I am too much of a people pleaser, I keep giving too much away down to like I'll sign on loans for people and I did this and I did that, but guess what? I'm always the one stuck holding the bag. Nobody ever had that pound of flesh in a relationship like I did nobody. And um and uh, I got to a point. My wife is the only one. My current wife, it's only two wives.

Speaker 2: 42:57

Okay, how many wives does this guy had?

Speaker 1: 42:58

he's got really fucked up. Why don't we talk about?

Speaker 2: 43:00

that. Just get the first one. Yeah, yeah, that's what I say. You gotta get the first one out.

Speaker 1: 43:04

Man in and out man and so, but my wife is the only one that put that pound of flesh in the game, um, and even from a culture. But but her background, her family, so all of them are still married. You know, that type of stuff. My family's not that way, necessarily, but anyways, point is, is that in business I always knew that I was stronger in numbers, so I always wanted to have partnerships and so I was really big and all right, we can do this together. Let's do this, let's do that.

Speaker 1: 43:29

We all did as young men, but I never none of them worked out, but I was always the one stuck holding the bag. You know, guys would leave and I had. I had a guy ripped me off for two and a half million dollars and he was raising capital with my company and a lot of the investors would come through him and then he would take that money and invest into other projects outside the company, but using our brand and his clout with the company to build a private relationship with them and move them outside. After a couple of years I found out that that project went south and I was like wait, what Are you? Using our emails and you can imagine where this is going. We're talking SEC level problems here and I ended up calling those investors and literally writing them a check and it had nothing to do with my company, just to keep my company clean, and I couldn't sue the guy because the Louis, he has two knuckles to rub together. Bro, what am I going to do?

Speaker 1: 44:20

So I literally and this is after I, after I rebuilt, after oh, eight went through a divorce lost everything, again rebuilt, I got married. I fucking lost it all again. You know, I'm like God over somebody else's actions because they were greedy. You just get to a point, you're like God. I'm always the one that's getting stuck holding the bag. So what I did is I said no more partnerships, but I'm going to treat everybody in my, in my company as if they're they're my partner and I'll give them stock in the company, I'll give them equity, but they don't have voting rights. Basically, yeah, you know, and but they don't have voting rights. Basically, yeah, you know, and they're never going to have access to certain things that could ultimately hurt me, right, those kinds of things. And I just kind of started you know trust, but verify, know that there's a devil out there and it's in everyone. You know that type of stuff. But what happened was is I think I got to a point where my confidence finally kicked in, where you know what.

Speaker 1: 45:10

I've earned a lot of stripes and I'm in rooms where people have been in the business five years, 10 years I've been doing this. Now, going on 23 years, I've I've seen a lot going through. Oh wait, I've had very high volume guys. So my exposure to deals is like nobody's business. I'm seeing stuff across the country. I see how contractors operate, I see different materials. I'm literally operating in all 50 States. So I'm kind of going yeah, I definitely have more exposure and more confidence.

Speaker 1: 45:35

And as my company started growing and I was going through, you know, taking shots, I got to a point where, like you know what, I don't need a partner to get me to where I'm at. I can do this in essence with my understanding, but with the right people to support me, and that's when I really kind of moved over that. But my wife was also one that you know, and I think everybody in you know, has issues in their marriage. Let's just be honest, it's the way it goes and it never ends. My father always told me don't exchange one problem for another, because every woman has their problems right. So pick it, love it and move on. Man, you know what I mean. It's just the way it goes. But even in my marriage, you know, she had a lot of healing to do.

Speaker 1: 46:11

So I was constantly giving for many years without having my needs met or being appreciated or feeling appreciated and so forth, and I just kind of got to a point I know this sounds really cheesy I said fucking, who cares anymore? I'm done with this feeling shit, I don't. I have an objective and that objective is I have two boys, two. I have an eight year old and a 16 year old. My 16 year old is a division one baseball catcher. He wants to wait until he gets married to have sex. Couldn't tell you how much I love this kid. He's a good man, he, uh, he, straight a kid, I mean just a good boy, my youngest, smartest can be.

Speaker 1: 46:44

And I'm sitting there going like this world is burning, this world sucks and they need me right now. I don't care about this emotional roller coaster, I need to operate, I need to act. And what happened was as soon as I stopped worrying about how I felt about certain things, knowing that, no matter what, I didn't get dealt the right cards and got put stopped the poor me forward when I, when I did that, everything, my whole life changed down to fitness and dieting and the fuck with that guy thinks you know kind of thing. I don't care what anybody said. I have this, this commitment to things that I feel and I want and I need to believe in myself and the decisions I've made and continue to make decisions without other outside influence on what I want to do. And if I do that, we'll probably be okay.

Speaker 1: 47:34

And since I've done that, it's really why we've gotten to the point where we are today Just no outside influences trying to guide my company. You know, this is what I know. You have not been in the business as long as me, so I'm not going to listen to you. I just say it with respect, right, but I listen two ears on one mouth, because maybe there's a landmine that they see that I don't see, right? So I'm also kind of playing that card, um, but I've also gotten to a point going.

Speaker 1: 47:58

You know I'm also. I do want to be a nice guy. I don't want to be an asshole. That's who I am. That's why I've been so giving, because I was insecure and had self-esteem issues. I kept giving because I thought I would get that loyalty and love back. When you realize that's not normal and that's not how people really operate, they have to be that person to give that love. So if I love you, rio, you're going to give me that love back because that's who you are. You just started that out. Great, because that's who you are. So if that's who you are, you're going to be that way to everybody. But then you're going to realize, like not everybody's that way too, and that's okay. So surround yourself around people that are like you, are equally yoked, and if you could do that in your business, the likelihood of everybody being a part of the mission not about me. That's when you're going to win and that's the point.

Speaker 2: 48:44

To have that awareness is very difficult to take personal inventory and say I'm making decisions so people like me, instead of they respect me as a business owner, as a leader and and very similar upbringing where I had a lot of childhood trauma, where I was making decisions so people would like me. I was trying to validate my self worth through other people and you just get taken advantage of 100%. And I still battle with it today.

Speaker 1: 49:12

And it's not that they do it on purpose necessarily. You don't think that these people are necessarily taking. Some of them do yeah, they don't take advantage of you on purpose. They just they start to treat you a certain way yeah, and they're used to treating you a certain way, and then that just kind of pollinates into you're being used and you're being taken advantage of because you're just not a person that stands up for yourself, or what have you and now you're just that person in that corner in their life and they get to do whatever they want.

Speaker 2: 49:37

Yeah, I felt like for me it. It gets exploited. When things go really well or really bad, then they take advantage of you on both sides and so that that awareness though is very difficult to take that personal inventory and then have the wherewithal to make adjustments in your decision making every day as a business owner, and your relationships. That's hard to do, man, it's very hard to do.

Speaker 3: 49:57

But I'm curious on that though, because you said, you know you just got tired of it and it was but was it because I I know some people that it's just like whatever, an epiphany, whatever, and it's like day one done, I'm not doing anymore? Was it that? Or was it kind of it still took time to kind of work yourself through that?

Speaker 1: 50:16

my father. So my father as my best friend, right, because he raised me um, my father always told me, just like the women I date, or whatever, and I would, my dad would like you keep putting up with all this stuff. I don't know why you keep putting up with this stuff, our friends, or why you keep putting up with this stuff, but what happens is I've always had kind of that light switch Once. Once I shut off, I'm off, there's no going back. You know, respectfully, my ex-wife tried to come back and I was like I just don't, it's done, I can't, I'm so broken inside for you. So I think what happened was is I was it's.

Speaker 1: 50:45

I know this sounds a little cliche, but I was so tired of feeling pain, meaning I'm so tired of these icky feelings or not sleeping over things or not feeling like having to worry about this or worry about that, and you know, you know because a lot of times you were you. 99% of the stuff you worry about never comes true anyways. But what I was realizing is that's just the people that are in my life that are making me worry or not making me feel valuable and whatever, and I'm like you know what, but I'm the one putting food on the table for all of you guys. There's something off, you know, and I'm sitting there going like you know you have to get to a point where you're like, okay, I'm here, I'm here, I'm shutting that down. You know, I'm going to shut that down and what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back to me and I'm going to rebuild. She almost have to get to a point where you're going to throw in the towel and you're like I'm done, I can't. I mentally just can't be stable for everybody anymore. I just don't. I'm going to shut this the right track or maybe rebuild and I had to do that, but not from an economical side. It was a mental thing for me and once I did that, it really did help out. But here's what happened. You know, they always say that men have to be alone and drown out the noise to find themselves. My wife and I went through a real serious hardship about two years ago and I was in Nashville when I was moving my headquarters to Nashville. So I would just stay in Nashville while she stayed out in California. So I would just extend my time when we weren't doing good, but I was, by myself, the waking up every morning. When you have three kids to waking up every morning by yourself, it was a different. It was a two different lives. And then I was like, okay, now I'm able to live these two different lives, what life do I really want? Where do I want to be? So all of this hard work, all this pain, all this stuff that I went through with work and stress I did it all for them. Now I'm by myself, Something's up. So I actually sat back and I breathed and I took some deep breath and one of the things that one of the biggest moments I know this is weird too Ed Milet had a podcast with Dane Cook.

Speaker 1: 52:54

I love Dane Cook, we all. I love Dane Cook, but I don't know if you know his story. It's impressive. Might watch it one day, but or listen to it one day. But he said something he goes.

Speaker 1: 53:07

When I was at the lowest time of my life, I wasn't so quick to get back up. He goes, I wanted to. He said I learned so much about myself when I was down there that I wanted to stay down there because I felt the value. I felt me build this inner strength that, just like I can take on anything, and it was almost like you're finding this power on your own. You don't need outside sources to give you validation, you don't need these people, that you don't need the success. And I it stuck with me and in fact I was driving a four.

Speaker 1: 53:42

I was by myself, still in that whole situation, four hour drive out to a place I have in East Tennessee with my mom, cause I reconnected with my mom five years ago, very humbling, going through her story. I was going out to see her and I listened to that podcast in the middle of nowhere, not been there before, you know, no reception, I'm telling you at least getting some podcasts breaking up, and it was just a real big eye opener for me. Going like you know what, it's okay to be down here. And so I stayed down there for a little while. And so my wife and I weren't we weren't in a rush to break up, we weren't in a rush to try to make it work. We had kids that we had to. So let's just breathe for a second. And that's kind of how I played that card and that's exactly what I did. Is I recalibrated and I came back.

Speaker 1: 54:21

A different man is what happened, and I came back with like I wore a lot of her pain. I thought it was me, like I should be fixing her. Why is she still the way she is she? I should be the one that helps her or fix her. So when she would act like, let's say, lash out, because we never yell at each other, but like when she was off, or she would say certain things, I stopped taking it personal. So then I stopped responding negatively. I was able to go babe, this is, this is something you need to deal with. I'm here to help you, but don't, that's. I can't help you and I can't come down to that, because you need a rock in your life and I'm in a good place and I could tell that this is something different. I don't need to wear that. So then all of a sudden, I became her rock, which helped her heal faster, because now I now that that punching bag in essence no longer exists. Now it's more of a mirror, yeah, and that was very powerful.

Speaker 1: 55:14

So once that changed everything in my life, including my business, my relationships internally, my relationships with my employees. They became not employees, they became family and I'm like, everyone has their hurdles, everyone has their things behind the closed doors, everyone has their marriage issues, everyone. I need to be compassionate towards the people that love me, support me. I'll give them the same love. But, like, how can I elevate them and be big? So everybody that's in my company at an executive level started from the bottom and now they're executive. So they're like very proud to be here and so. But you know, in the right environment people can shine man. I mean outside, you don't need PhDs, you can do very well with you have the right environment and the right doors open. So anyway, his point is is that that was the most powerful time in my life, was drowning out the noise. It wasn't about anything else except for me and God.

Speaker 2: 56:04

Basically, you know just taking you down to raw form, man, and you can rebuild yourself back how you want.

Speaker 1: 56:10

My dad told me when I was going through this I was sure the only person I would share this with was with him. And my dad says God can't paint a masterpiece unless it's on a blank piece of canvas. He's like it's like a blank piece of canvas. He's like it's like a tattoo. You can't go get, have an old tattoo and go try to make it look new. You can if you do the same thing yeah but that will also fade.

Speaker 1: 56:29

But if you want to build a new life, god can't paint a masterpiece unless it's on a blank piece of canvas. And I was like damn yeah so let me so. Then I start crying like just give me all that pain. Just I'm talking drain me now, because I want to come back strong and I'm going to come back a better person for everybody that loves me, that I can trust and that needs me. And that's kind of really the 20th part of my life.

Speaker 2: 56:55

Oh, I love that. That recognition of you and your wife's relationship. Like a lot of people will will say, you have to become one, and I've always a buddy of mine told me I've always kind of stuck with this philosophy. It's like no, no, no, you have to be a whole person first. She has to be a whole person, Then you can have a really healthy marriage. So you got to a place where you could be a whole person for her and that allowed her to heal. Now she's a whole person. The relationship is flourishing.

Speaker 1: 57:23

Oh yeah, and she's got a business now for that helping others going through it. A lot of them, ironically, are people that have marriage issues. It really is the most painful that and financial or losing a child those three things are probably the worst you could ever go through in your life and so a lot of them are like marriages. She's like this is relevant for me, like I got you, let's go, you know. So she's helping a lot of. She does a lot of energy work and mental health work and she has a nonprofit and so forth, but that's her passion is to help people.

Speaker 2: 57:49

Oh, it's fantastic. So cool stuff, living proof. It's cool Really, yeah.

Speaker 1: 57:54

Men don't talk about it anymore. They don't do it. But you need a community of men, dude.

Speaker 2: 57:59

Yeah, good communities, it's powerful yeah, and, and we, we need to get that out of our system and discuss and support each other for it you know why?

Speaker 1: 58:08

it's because we are dying for our family and we have no one to talk to. That's what people don't see is we're out here literally okay, you got a nice car and you're going to work and you're enjoying your life. Yeah, to an extent, but it's I mean the, the pain, the stress, the playing chess how you play the cards, how you play, build your business it is constantly 100% a fight, all day, all the time. So when you have a man like you because how many kids you have Eight, eight kids that's stress in itself. But then trying to put food on the table for eight people, like no one ever talks about that why? Because it's because it's people expect it.

Speaker 2: 58:50

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 58:51

But not only do they expect you to put food on the table, they expect you to be there, be a good dad, not lash out, not beat them, not the list goes on and still be the best husband and be fit and be this and be that there's no, I don't know it doesn't, it's just almost impossible, but we're making it happen. So why aren't we talking about what it actually is taking to get there? And it starts with your mental. But you have to get to a point where you literally are, you're humble, you put your tail between your legs more than most to be able to do it.

Speaker 1: 59:19

And that's a real man to me, someone who understands the strength and his power and is dangerous, really, but he can control it Right. And that's what. That's what all these men do, because if you don't, then one stupid mistake can ruin everything and hurt all these kids, whether it's a DUI or the list goes on. So you can't just do whatever you want to do, you know kind of thing. So that's where I think a lot of men need to be compassionate and bring it up and talk more about it, but let the world know like hey, don't underestimate a man that's actually doing it, because that's that's a fight in itself Getting up early when we don't want to feel like getting up, you got to do things that you don't feel like you got to you want to do. You're hurting, your pain, your back hurts, everything's hurting all the time.

Speaker 3: 1:00:06

It's like dude, guys, you don't understand this. I deal, yeah, right. Well, I think it's tough too, because it's like you know, I think a lot of us can relate. Like you know, our wives are our best friends and you think about that we are, we're going through this mental battle every day. It's a war zone, and then it's like I want to go home and like she's the only one I want to talk to. Well, when I'm ready, I need a little space first, but normal, it's like you know what and this is kind of more of a recent revelation is where it's like and somebody said I can't remember the podcast, maybe, Um, but it was like I'm offloading all my stresses, all my, onto her and now she's carrying it.

Speaker 3: 1:00:36

And now I see her acting different and like, and I'm like I can't do, you can't do you? Almost can't. You can't do that Cause she has to, you know, carry the household and make sure the kids are good. And now, if she's bad, now it's getting onto my kids and so you have to harness it.

Speaker 1: 1:00:52

So, because you're coming home to something that's bubbly and happy and okay I dealt with this with the kids and the low level problems and, to say respectfully, the low level problems she has makes you feel better because the shit you just got done dealing with every single day. So you're like, babe, I love you, what can I do to help you? But you don't want to offload your onto it, because then you have two people in the same room with the same problems and that's not good and they carry those issues differently.

Speaker 2: 1:01:20

So for like, as a man, to provide has been a massive pressure for us and for my wife to care for the children in particular ways and you know, even just having discussions about this boy did this to one of our daughters, or do we do this? And the clothes they're wearing. In my mind I tell myself like, okay, this is something I need to or should handle. But for her that pressure is probably similar as to the pressure to perform financially for me in how our relationship works. But you have to be strong for her and you can't just go dump that garbage on her. Like you were saying. There should be a group of guys that have that relationship, man.

Speaker 1: 1:02:00

You know what my father told me too he goes. You know how you're so passionate about your work that it's you're so emotional about it. So when you come home you've got to decompress like, but you don't want to bring it to her. Well, what she does when she comes to you about her problems for her day and with the kids and the issues that she has with her kids, is because she's equally as passionate about being a mother and being that close to the kids that she needs somebody to dump on too. But you two people can't dump on each other.

Speaker 1: 1:02:25

Ain't gonna work so who's gonna make that choice to just shut up and take it?

Speaker 1: 1:02:29

you know that's us because because if you can help because why you really need to make sure that environment for the kids is the most important right and to keep your marriage and somewhat pick your battles right but if you can help her mental that it's going to pollinate under the children and so if you can let her unload a lot of times sometimes you can. If she unloads like you, you actually stopped thinking about your shit sometimes, right Cause you're like, okay, well, what got to do over here? I'd rather deal with some of that stress than the work stress. For sure, I'll deal with the kids, you let me deal with it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:08

I got this, you know, but um, when she unloads, she feels better, and then all of a sudden she's like so what can I?

Speaker 1: 1:03:11

do for you. Like, baby, take my back tonight, you don't?

Speaker 2: 1:03:13

need that much but the and the permanency of those, those roles. So I have to remind myself if I can help influence my wife and children for the better, that relationship will never go anywhere for my entire life. I will have it right If we do this right. Something happens at work. We can start in our business tomorrow, we can hire a new employee tomorrow, we can go out and raise capital for this problem or fix this. But the relationship with the kids, man, that's got permanent deal to it.

Speaker 1: 1:03:40

You know what I mean Because you want your kids. You know, we all want our kids to turn out like us, and then on the good parts, and then we don't want our kids to be anything like us on the bad parts, and but at the same time you kind of need them to see it all. You get to that point too. At certain ages do you start exposing yourself? And that's where I'm at with my oldest kid. My oldest son knows pretty much everything about me. I'm no longer Superman.

Speaker 2: 1:04:02

You have two or three, I have two boys and a daughter through marriage.

Speaker 1: 1:04:06

So my oldest son and my daughter, which is Kara's my wife's daughter are both 16. They're two and a half months apart, and then my wife and I have one together that's eight. So he's our glue in our family.

Speaker 2: 1:04:17

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:04:18

So, but I have two boys and my oldest son I would say he's got. He's got my number. You know he knows who dad really is. I'm not Superman, but I kind of still am. You know, he's so proud of dad and he works his ass off Cause he knows like I'm doing it, he should do it too, like I can't beat every game, but that's okay, because one day he's going to be in my shoes and he even looks at I'm going to take over dad's company. If baseball doesn't go, kind of thing, or when I'm done with baseball, I'll go over and work with dad. So he wants me to build what I'm building. So I have his support. Right? My youngest one, dad, where are you? What are you doing? I'm like I'll be home. Buddy, I'm right there. You know that type of stuff, which it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:05:09

Yeah, and not just putting food. But social media has been a catalyst of comparison, and so people and my children. I feel like I've done well as far as economics are concerned in the last x years. And then I see on social media you know that they've got a friend that took their private jet to their sixth house and I'm like, well, um, are you? Are you expecting that?

Speaker 1: 1:05:34

because I'm not. I'm not there. So it's true, it's totally. Yeah, I think they're definitely that. I feel like sometimes the kids don't care about that. Once they get older they do. Once they're in that 16, 17, 18 range, they start comparing. But like the younger kids, they just want your time.

Speaker 1: 1:05:52

Yeah, good point they really do. They just want your time, and I think that a lot of times helps kind of create a loyalty component to it that it's like no matter who you are, what you are, what you make, it doesn't matter. There's that love and loyalty is there and I think it starts at that young age, that connection, because I can have conversations with my son where he may see a friend that's doing really, really well in their family. But I mean, I'm pretty smart. Now I can be like well, there's a reason why he got that. No, well, hey, buddy, he sold the company. Yeah, he's got $200 million. I don't have $200 million, so good for him. He's definitely a half a percenter, not a one percenter.

Speaker 2: 1:06:28

We're getting there.

Speaker 1: 1:06:28

We're getting up there, but we're not that guy by any means. But at the same time it's like you could have that too, buddy. So it's like, hey, of that too, I have the knowledge in the capital markets. I can get you there if you want to get there. But let's talk about the pain you got to go through to get there. You know, that's what you don't see is what that guy has to go through to get there. You know, probably he has. Yeah, you know what. He's not very close to his son.

Speaker 1: 1:06:49

Well, there you go, you know, so you kind of just and not saying to be, but that's just the road they took. I said everyone's got their cards. Dude, you know I'm not able to be there. My dad, papa, wasn't able to be there for me on certain things. Everyone's got their cards, not saying that's the right or wrong, it doesn't matter, it's what you want. You try to build their life around what you want. What your heart says, you know, and that's how you want to be. If his heart was like I want to go be a multi-billionaire, fine, he went and did it. His kids are going to have to suffer. Other things are going to get to certain parts. There's always sacrifice involved, so don't judge him. It's a great life, but he may have disconnect somewhere else, that's normal.

Speaker 2: 1:07:28

Yeah, I love that man. Yeah, my girls are 14, 15, and 19. Oh so right in that age, and my wish is they're kind humans and they're not assholes, they're good people. I don't care what you want to. I don't exactly what you're saying. You want to make a billion Fantastic. You want to be a stay at home mom Fantastic. It lights you up, some of them probably.

Speaker 1: 1:07:49

they probably go back and forth Some of them. I want to be a stay at home mom, like good.

Speaker 2: 1:08:00

That's you.

Speaker 1: 1:08:01

This doesn't look good for you, I promise you. You know you can go run your business and do your thing, but if you're going to wear the pants of the family, it's not going to work very long. If you have a manly man, you know, or any man really at all, because it's not how they operate, you know so, but yeah, that's good, All right, Do you want to talk more about the?

Speaker 3: 1:08:20

um, well, let's, let's kind of end out. Well, first of all, that that was, that was awesome, Like. I didn't expect it to go so deep so. So that was powerful. We got a little bit of uh, uh, kind of the the beginnings of your career. Let's kind of get to what you're doing now and then, and then we'll we'll get through that, so that'll be on the podcast, and then we'll break up and then we'll do something with it.

Speaker 1: 1:08:42

So yeah, go ahead and ask the question, I'll just go from there.

Speaker 3: 1:08:44

I mean really where? Where's Ryan Garland now? What are you doing now and what do you got in the hopper.

Speaker 1: 1:08:52

So right now, my baby is the barn caves project. That's that project that we're talking about, like the barn dominiums, with, like a huge oversized garage, which I call the man cave, right, because some of them are 28 feet wide by 70 deep. So that's identical to some of our storage units. But ultimately what we want to do is we have a family office and, again, until the fat lady sings, kind of thing, we can't put our eggs in this basket, but we have a family office and a lot of other wealthy individuals that are looking at this product is going. Okay, we think you have something here. So, for example, this is kind of in the attainable, affordable residential space and when I say attainable, not necessarily affordable, because I think people say affordable, they think low income housing. This is attainable. And when I say attainable, it's because what our exit price is going to be is going to be actually a little bit below what's normal for the same square footage and bed bath count in this area. So, with the volatility in the market, my goal is to try to build a superior product that people not only want badly, but it's more affordable, where you just can cast your net and get more in users, more buyers, right, that's where you really make your money. But the design of it is the trendy part. You know, a barn dominium says that's a big deal right now. And then what we want to do is take the floor plans in the community that we're building right now, which is in Lake Havasu. It's 18 acres, 123 units. We're going to take four floor plans and then we're going to also sell those four plans to other people who want to just plop these down on a lot somewhere else around the country. So we're trying to make it at least diversified enough where you can add on, bolt on, do whatever you want to do buy the unit, manufacture it and go drop it. But we're going to start it and kick it off with a community here in the Kavasu.

Speaker 1: 1:10:33

So the largest one is a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath, which is 3,300 square feet, and then it goes down to about 1,100 square feet. Two bedrooms, two and a half bath. So you'll have smaller units, larger units. One side will have a 14 foot garage, so basically your standard RV, boat and RV storage, and then on the back we'll have a standard two car garage where you kind of have more of a standard lifestyle in and out of your garage, go get groceries, go pick up your kids kind of movement, but it's more of an like an alley look, where you just have a smaller road where you get all your trash and all your stuff goes out the back, but then you have the big, wider garage driveways. That's needed for all your toys, right? So you still need to have that wide driveway for those big boats and RVs, especially out there. The boats and RVs just keep getting bigger, you know. So we got to cater to that. So that's where we are. Right now.

Speaker 1: 1:11:21

We're looking at building 35 of those locations throughout the country, but with inside the residential component is also a gym. So the same thing like out here, it's so hot. Right here in Phoenix, scottsdale, it's so hot here. You can't really build an apartment project or some sort of residential project without a pool, right? No way. But most of the time those communities are building, uh, gyms or small gyms. So originally that's what we were going to do. We're going to build a pool that the community can use a community center, if you will and then have a small gym that everyone can kind of go and work out.

Speaker 1: 1:11:52

Well, the issue is is that insurance costs are so high right now, though the insurance for me to have a pool and that gym was so high that I'd have to pass that cost over to my unit owners for HOAs, and the costs were like $300 a month. Who's going to buy a $750,000 house with a $300 HOA? Nobody. It would be dumb to you know, but it'd be a really cool community center, you know, and it's not going to be that cool. I'd have to go much more extravagant to get someone to even justify $300 a month.

Speaker 1: 1:12:21

So what I did was I said well, lifetime fitness is actually by trade a multifamily builder, and what they did is they would actually build apartments and not put in a pool or any type of gym, but they would build a large lifetime fitness gym across the street and give their unit and their tenant owners or tenant, you know, their tenants access to the gym. That was a big deal, and I'm like wow. So what they did is they maximized all the rentable square footage, or all the square footage as possible for rentable income, and build more units and then just give access to the public gym that they have across the street, and that's ultimately what I'm doing here. So we have a 30,000 square foot gym that I say it respectfully.

Speaker 1: 1:13:03

The city desperately needs a good gym. Like it's like rough. So get a nice gym Somebody everybody can go to hang out, work from very similar to like a lifetime fitness feel, cause wherever I, when I travel, I get a lifetime fitness. I just work in the little bar area, eat food, a couple of meals and I just pop up my laptop and I work in between meetings and work out. So very similar to that feel. But now that is a public gym, so all the fees that's generating off the public covers the cost to maintain it. So then my unit owners don't have any of that cost in their HOAs but they have access to that gym and that pool.

Speaker 2: 1:13:40

Oh, I love that.

Speaker 1: 1:13:43

So now I'm able to compress those HOAs down to like under $100 per unit. So the likelihood of me being able to get more of a top tier price for the unit and really move these things is much greater. But we also are building a much nicer community center. I mean, this is a 30,000 square foot gym instead of like a 2,000 square foot gym that nobody's going to use with crappy equipment.

Speaker 2: 1:14:01

And that's how a lot of those regular ones are, and they're rarely used, but you still pay for it in your HOA every month.

Speaker 1: 1:14:08

Yep. So eliminate the HOA but build a huge gym across the street that everybody wants. That's you know. That's like it's. That's its own business, right? I'm bringing in a guy who has 30 locations that you know is going to manage it. We're going to build our own equipment. We're doing all this super cool stuff, so it's going to be a beacon for that location, which is also right next to 720,000 square feet of retail, which is the mall. We have Home Depot. We got the airports of the locations key too. So you want to keep all that in mind, right? So now we got the location, we got residential, we got the affordable side of things, and then you have a gym, which is desperately needed out there and that's going to be a driver. So we're actually building the gym before the residential component. So once you build the gym and it's set up, like hey, you got a gym with a Ferrari hanging from the ceiling as a chandelier and you got custom equipment literally.

Speaker 1: 1:14:58

And then you have custom equipment and you have all this cool stuff. Like this is a bitchin' gym. We're actually building and mimicking Dubai's Club Drift pool. So Club Drift is like the number one pool beach club in the world. Right, I'm actually mimicking that pool there. So I'm building that same pool there and then I have an underground small spa and a cold plunge as well. So very trendy and not much needed. I love the way that feels. So cold plunge as well. So very trendy and not much needed. I love the way that feels. So we're really bringing in kind of all the right amenities for the gym, if you will, and then give everybody access as unit owners to go there. So the gym itself is its own standalone business. But now that building has value because it generates income, Now I'm removing that away from my unit owners and they don't have to worry about HOAs and and it's not going to be in some cases, liability to to the unit owners. So how?

Speaker 2: 1:15:47

cool, is that Right so that's a big movement.

Speaker 1: 1:15:49

A lot of people are digging that. So kind of going back is we got a group that issued us a $390 million commitment it's an LOI really, so a letter of intent to give us a 390 million to build 35 locations over the next 10 years across the country. So, again, until the fat lady sings, we've had a lot of family offices like this, do these type of things. We're a lot farther along than what we call our courtship with them. We have several analysts. We've met with both principals. These are legit people. They've looked us up, we've looked them up. So we're going down that road. We're hoping that they write this big check for us. But that's the it's. It's a very institutionally designed product that marries up with the city's needs. Affordability it's trendy. You can sell these units online to build somewhere else. You got the gym, health and wellness, which is fastest growing industry we talked about earlier. You you got all the and that's going to cater to the city and the demand of the city. You have all these components to not only generate revenue and sustainability and and equity increase, but you're creating something that everybody wants and if it's a win-win for everybody, including the city and utilities it's. It's the likelihood of us make doing well is much greater, and that's what we try to do. Is how's this project going to be best for everybody? So that's our baby.

Speaker 1: 1:17:04

I'm also building a 15,000 square foot one man cave, which is called the cave, and I'm actually making that a kind of a venue for networking, like more high end. We're going to kind of squeeze out the I say it respectfully but squeeze out the guys that aren't really doing that well or trying to fake it. To make it. We're going to have it a ten thousand dollar buy-in you're going to have. You're going to be vetted. We're going to make sure you're a business owner. We're going to understand what you're trying to accomplish. You're going to have four golf simulators, four race podium one simulators. You're going to have all these high-end cars on racks and you can store your cars there. So it's for car enthusiasts as well, and out there it's a big deal. So boating and cars is all kind of kind of pulls together. Have that and then we have I have some more storage that I'm building. It's kind of boring, it's a storage, but uh, those are. Those are my two babies right now that I'm building and I'm focused on.

Speaker 2: 1:17:51

So good stuff, last man so fun. Yeah, very cool beautiful.

Speaker 3: 1:17:56

Well, this was good dude. Yeah, bro, I'm glad we did.

Speaker 1: 1:17:59

This is a good time, um good time.

Speaker 3: 1:18:01

Where can people find you?

Speaker 1: 1:18:03

So I would say look me up on social media. That's usually the best, just so you kind of get to know me and my brand more, which is I think it's RyanGarland underscore paradigm, yep, or just look up paradigm and you can find it. That way you can subscribe to our email list. You get a lot of our newsletters that talk about the market. So, for example, what just happened with the stock market and the kind of, in essence, a soft crash, if you will. You know we talk a lot about that because the CEO of my company is a former hedge fund guy. So bringing a wall street level kind of communication center to tell our investors what to expect from a public side and private side. We try to provide that type of, I'd say, education, so you can even subscribe to that. So and then my book too, my book. I'm launching a third book, so that'll be coming out here shortly. So, but the best way to do it is all through social media, because I'm very active on social, so everybody can find that stuff through there.

Speaker 3: 1:18:53

Yeah, no, we appreciate you, dude, appreciate you coming out flying the chopper out. This was, this was awesome and yeah.