Lost $50M in 2008 Rebound to Multifamily Millionaire with 12 Million Download Coaching

Right. Uh, welcome to the top M&A entrepreneurs. I have a special guest today is Rod Cleef. Rod is got a great story, uh, immigrated to the US when he was 6, struggled to get by, bought clothes from Goodwill, uh. You know, you're stealing my thunder here, man. That's go ahead and tell you it. All right, you tell it. It's on your LinkedIn, but I love it. Uh, thanks, thanks, buddy. I appreciate you having me on. Let's have some fun today. So yeah, I immigrated when I was 6. I was born in the Netherlands, you know, think wooden shoes and windmills and Um, really, we ended up in Denver, Colorado, immigrated with my brother, Albert, my mother's mansion. And, you know, we really struggled initially. I, uh, in fact, I remember, you know, eating the expired food. We went to an expired food store when I was young. We drank powdered milk with our cereal in the morning, which wasn't very good. I will tell you, uh, I remember, you know, wearing clothes in the Goodwill and the Salvation Army all the way through junior high school till I lied. About my age at Burger King. So when I was 14 to get a job flipping burgers so I can buy my own clothes. But, you know, I'm sure, you know, you've got listeners, especially in the entrepreneur, uh, arena that had her harder than I did. It seems like entrepreneurs very often, you know, have the challenges early on in their, in their, uh, childhood and, or adulthood, um, that, that spur that, that drive, you know, like I did. Well, Um, but, you know, I knew I wanted more. And, um, luckily, my mom had an incredible work ethic. So she, uh, babysat kids so we'd have enough money to eat. And with her babysitting money, she, uh, she invested in, in, in stocks and in real estate. And the first real estate acquisition was right across the street from us. Uh, she bought a house, and when I was 14 for about 30. when I was 17, she told me she made $20,000 in her sleep. And I'm like, what? You made $20,000 you didn't do anything? So I got into real estate right when I turned 18. You know, my first year in real estate, I made about $10,000. 2nd year, about 10 to $12,000. My third year, I made over $100,000. And so, you know, what I'm known for on my podcast. How old are you? I was, I was 1000, I was 20. Yeah, which, so this is 1980. It was pretty decent change, uh, 1000 80. I think I listen to rock and roll and right, right. Well, I, I was too, but I was very much a capitalist. But, uh, but you know, what happened was I met a guy taught me about mindset and psychology and how really 80 to 90% of your success in anything really is your mindset in psychology, you know, fast forward to today, I've, I've built 27 businesses. Uh, I don't call them failures when they, when they don't make it. I call them seminars. Um, and, and several of those were worth tens of millions of dollars. Most were spectacular flaming seminars. Um, you know, in, in 2006, my net worth, my, my net worth actually went up $17 million while I slept. And you might be like, wow. And I was like, wow. And, you know, I thought I was a freaking real estate god, uh, cause, you know, I, I'd, I'd, at that point, I'd owned 2000 houses that I rented long term, multiple apartment complexes. And, but, you know, I got a head so big I could barely fit it through a door. You know, when that happens, God of the universe will give you a nice little smack. Well, that was 2008. I lost $50 million in 2008. So, yeah, yeah. So, you know, uh, on my podcast, I, I teach people how to buy apartment buildings. And on my, on my podcast, you know, I talk about the mindset it took to have $50 million to lose in the first place, but then just as importantly, the mindset it took. To get back to the success that I have today, but we can, we can go as mechanical as you want, brother, uh, about, about and merge about business. What I, I gotta talk to you about the mindset part. So, first of all, I want to go back because I had called a friend of mine who interviewed you earlier, Joshua Wilson down in Florida also, and he said, yeah, yeah, good things about you and said, uh. Yeah, you gotta talk to him because he went up, crashed, came back and went back up again. Like, what, so we all know it was the crash, it was the ego, it was the overextending yourself and you no, not, not, not in my case. Let me tell you what it was. The reason, the reason I crashed and burned. So I had 800 houses, um, uh, and, and I was only a 30% loan to value. People are like, oh, you were overleveraged. No, I only owe 30 cents on the dollar, OK? But here's, here's what went wrong. So, I had 800 houses and I had several apartment complexes. Well, my houses were 2 hours north of me, 2 hours south of me, everywhere in between. OK? So very difficult logistically, but here's the things that killed me, the big ones. So, Florida has no state income tax. So property taxes are higher, which impact what? Cash flow, right? OK. I had properties in wind and flood zones, so they had higher insurance, which impact what cash flow. But what killed me was, these were C-class houses, you know, there's A, B, C, and D class. D is the Hood, these were C, just above D. And, and so, you know, tougher demographic, number one, older properties. So there's a lot of maintenance. And so, if I send a guy to one of my apartment complexes, you know, everything's the same. You know, the, the plumbing parts are the same. The HVAC parts, the, you know, the appliance parts, the door locks, everything's the same. So you can stockpile parts and they can be in and out in an hour. Well, if I had to send somebody one of my houses that's 1 hour, 1 hour and a half one way, they'd have to go see what was wrong because every house is different. Go to a Home Depot or a low. where we have an account and then I don't know about you, but when Rod's happy ass tries to fix something, he goes to Home Depot more than once. I it's the same thing with maintenance people. And so, you know, what took an hour at one of my apartment complexes took all day at one of my 800 houses. So that really killed my cash flow. So, so it's like, this is very interesting because I was reading some history about some acquisitions in the funeral home business and, uh, HMO business back in, back in the years. It doesn't scale because everybody's different. Well, this, this didn't scale because every house was different, OK? And so, you know, it, it, listen, it was great while the gravy train was running in 2006 and, and nobody could see the end. Well, this is, by the way, it feels all, this feels like 2006 all over to me again right now as we record this. Um, but, uh, but, um, you know, so the, and the last thing that's kind of specific to real estate is I didn't pay. attention to my tenant demographics. I mean, if they had good credit and they had a job, you know, I let them in and they paid a deposit. Well, you know, come to find out, most of them were plumbers, electricians, drywallers, painters, roofers, all of which fell off a freaking cliff in '08 and 9. So I didn't have a job. So it was just like the perfect storm. And then what's really crazy is I actually went upside down. My portfolio dropped more than 70% in value. So it's like, OK, I'm done and I threw the towel in, but, uh, Uh, but, you know, it, it, it, again, my, I, I'm known for talking about, you know, the, the, the mindset it took to, to be there to start with and then the mindset it took to recover and, you know, I've bought thousands of apartment units in the last few years and to get back to where I am now and But, but again, we can take this wherever you want. Yeah, yeah, so I wanted first, we're gonna get to that what's happening now and what does it look like, but I wanna ask you about what you, you're in a hole, you're digging out this first time. What, what was the mindset and what was the change you did to climb that out of that sand pitt? Yeah, yeah, and, and, and honestly it's, it's very similar to, to, to get there in the first place. OK, it's becoming very, very clear. And what I wanted and why I wanted it. So, you know, if you come to one of my boot camps, I've got a boot camp coming up at the end of July in Denver. I only do one live event a year and it's the 3-day boot camp. But, um, and I'll tell your peeps how they can come for literally $197 and it's not a sales pitch. But, but the point is, when you come, the first hour and a half are spent doing goals. I mean, it's, I call it goal setting on steroids because how the hell do you get anything if you don't know what it is with clarity, and then, as importantly, know why it is that you want it. And so this is the first thing we, we do because you have to create what Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich calls a burning desire. You gotta want it. And so, that's the first thing we do. And so that was, that was how I recovered that one of the ways, there were several things, but one of them was knowing exactly what I wanted and reassociating with that. Instead of focusing on the pain and the loss, you know, if you're listening to John, I know you're a leader, OK? And right now more than ever, the world needs leaders. As a leader, it Critical that you direct your focus to the things that you want, not what you don't want, because whatever you focus on gets larger. Don't get me started on the fake news and, you know, the news isn't there to inform us. It's there to scare us and startle us. You know, that's an example of that. But it's important that you focus on what you want. And, you know, like, for example, they asked Mother Teresa when she was live, if she was anti-war, and she said, no, I'm pro peace. You know, this is just a play on the same thing. But the point is, that's the point I'm making there. And, and So, you know, I reassociated with my goals. That was the number one thing that I did, and got realigned, reassociated, and, and just, you know, picked myself, dusted myself back off. And, and then I, then, uh, you know, I got around people that were actually thriving through the crash. I was in this mastermind, very high-level mastermind, about $1000 a year. And there were people there that were killing it. And they're like, OK, 50 million, get up, you big baby and get back after it, kind of a thing, you know? And that's, so, so who you hang out with is critical. as well, OK? And, you know, and, and I will tell you, you know, as entrepreneurs, it's very easy, you know, when we, when we first have a dream or vision about a business, it's a fragile thread. We got to be very, very careful who we share it with, because, you know, people out of their fear or fear of losing you or fear of feeling less than because you succeeded or, or jealousy or whatever, they'll, they, they can squash your dreams. And so that, yeah, because family and who you surround yourself real close. Did you lose and sometimes, by the way, sometimes that's family, you know, that's, and so, and so what you have to do, I tell you is love your family, but choose who you allow to influence you, right? Proactively, you know, so many people will default, but in their peer group to people they work with or people they went to school with and, and that's not being proactive. You know, you wanna be around people that want more out of life, you know, like, like I've got a, uh, a a student program. I call them my warriors. They're my coaching students. There's about 1000 of them. In there and I brag about something I'm really proud of. They now own somewhere between 60 and 70,000 units that we know of. And I've only been teaching a little over 4 years. But the, the, that's, that's the kind of group you, you want to be in a group like that, you know, in, in a, in a meetup group or a group of people that, that have similar vision, want more out of life, and, and, and that are gonna validate and motivate and not, you know, discourage you. They're gonna, they're gonna, uh, you know, inspire you and push you like, like that group that I was in. And so, You know, that peer group is a big piece. But you, OK, it starts with the burning desire, then, you know, you, you have to make that decision. And, and I made a decision that I was gonna quit whining and feeling sorry for myself. And, and the, you know, and, and if you're just getting started, you gotta make a decision that you're totally committed because, and when I say decision, I don't mean a toe in the water. I don't mean 1 ft in. I mean, if you're attacking the island, you're burning your, your ships because you're taking their damn ships home. That's a freaking decision. It's done, OK? It's total commitment. And when you've totally committed like that, you're like a train on a track. If you don't commit, you'll get knocked off track. You know, motivation will get you started, but that commitment is what, is what brings you home. And so, you know, once you've committed, then, um, you know, I will tell you, uh, obviously you have to plan, but you have to be able to push through any fear or limiting beliefs that you have. And You know, I remember when I immigrated to this country, I didn't speak English and I got thrown into school and I found out what bullies were for the first time. And then my mom, proud Dutch woman that she has, thought it would be a great idea to send me to school in wooden shoes and those leather leather shorts. My dad was in the Air Force. We lived over in, uh, uh, there and we visited, uh, and I still have my wooden shoes. Yeah, yeah. Well, you didn't get, you didn't get to have to go to school and encounter bullies with your freaking wooden shoes on. So I got my butt kicked again. I learned how to fight back yet. And then the bullies were chasing me home from school and my mom had chased him off with a fly swatter. So the next day I got a butt kicking again. And so, you know, I came up with this limiting belief that I wasn't good enough, you know, many people have these, you know, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. I'm not analytical enough. I'm too old, I'm too young, whatever. And there's a reason the acronym for belief systems is BS because 99% of them are just that BS. But that's why that, you know, the goals are so important and that burning desire is so important because You know, that's what's gonna get you to push through that crap. But, um, but then you gotta take that first step, you know? And, and, and in my case, it was, it, I just had to get myself back up, you know, but for somebody starting out, you know, that's like in my business that I, you know, in multi-family real estate, that first deal is always the hardest. It's the scariest. My students, you know, they'll be Crying and whining because it's 6 months. They don't have a deal yet or 8 months or whatever. And then they get one. Next thing you know, they have 5, you know, and it's the same thing, you know, with anything, right? I mean, once you push past that and you realize, you know, anything you give your total energy and focus to is gonna flourish, then you're off to the races. And, and, you know, and, and we don't want any regret. And, and I'll tell you, you know, I, you know, some people fear failure. Like maybe you're listening to John here because you want to start a business and You know, you wanna be an entrepreneur and may, but maybe fear of failure is holding you back. Let me give you a warning here. There was this nurse in Australia named Bonnie Ware. She was a hospice nurse, and so she was taking care of patients when they were about to die, and she asked him a question. And the question, John, was, do you have any regrets? And she wrote a book about it. It's called The Five Regrets of Dying. You know what the number one regret was? Not doing what I know I'm capable of. Not, not living the living somebody else's life. I can't think of anything worse than that. So, you know, you know, being very, very clear on what you want and why you want it is that, is that fuel to get you to take action, to grind for a few years like most people won't, so you can live the rest of your life like most people can't. That's, that's why you've got to have that, um, so that you take that first step. Um, but, um, You know, I can keep going. There were a few other things monopolize the conversation, but what do you do? What do you do? I know what I do. It's like a momentary failure or something didn't happen your way. What do you say to yourself in your head? Great question, great question. So, so here's the thing, there is a formula for success, OK? And I mean, success is never a straight line. It's like a, a, a, a boater or a pilot. You're off course 9. 99% of the time. Now, do you make it? Yes. OK. But, but, but you've got to recognize it's the same way with your goals. So when you get your nose bloodied or your butt kicked, it's critical that you refocus on your ultimate outcome, your goals, and then you change your approach. And when that approach doesn't work, you refocus on your ultimate outcome and your goals and you change your approach. And I think you, you can rinse and repeat here if that doesn't work. And I mean, cause you're gonna have walls drop in front of you. And I can tell you, I've had several situations. I had a big litigation support company that I built after I, um, after I lost everything in 2008. This was a company that helped people in foreclosure, and we, we helped thousands of families save their homes. And, but in the end of 2010, it almost went bankrupt. So I like you, so you were at the bottom. All your are below market value. So you started a company to help other people not lose their homes. So, correct. That's your first shovel. That was. You're helping people to help yourself. Well, I was helping people and it helped me as well. I mean, it was, it was for fee, but, but we saved a lot of homes. It wasn't a fun I will say this wasn't a fun business. Nobody's happy when they're losing their homes. I sold the business a few years ago, but it was a $10 million company with 60 employees. But the point I wanted to make there is it almost went bankrupt in 2010. And I had to innovate, OK? I had to pivot. And I, I, and I, and I, and I didn't bankrupt it. I just changed something where we actually, uh, I built law firms. In 5 states and we supported those law firms, but I built them ground up. Nobody had ever done this before. And, and I had to innovate. And another example, uh when right before COVID hit in February of 20, I had 800 people scheduled to be in Orlando at a live event and I'm like, what the hell are we gonna do now? And so I had to innovate. And if you go to multi-family virtual bootcamp.com, you'll see Rod on his phone recording. I still haven't changed it. I need to change it, but I'm recording the video for that event cause like I did like the next day, I'm like, hey, we gotta go virtual. And so I, you know, we react. It's probably quicker than anybody else did as far as, and I built a video studio now here in my compound in Florida. But, uh, you know, so sometimes as an entrepreneur, we have to innovate, we have to pivot, OK? And we go through these transitions and guys, there's a recession coming, OK? I don't know how bad it's gonna be. I, I, I, I don't think it's gonna be as bad as 08 and 9. All the indicators indicate it's not, but to think that it's not gonna happen is naive. It is absolutely gonna happen. And, and if you're not paying attention to it, I mean, I'm having conversations with my team every day about it. Because it's coming. And so, um, but anyway, let me, let me, let me go to this, son, because there is a storm coming, but it's a looks a little bit different. I mean, we've both been on the planet for a while, so interest, the Fed is pumping a ton of money out there. Uh, interest rates are less than inflation right now. Uh, it makes holding cash a losing proposition. So, um, higher, higher interest rates will slow the economy and cause unemployment. It's gonna swallow up tax revenue. Because the government has to pay interest on the massive debt. It's also increased the rate of default on home mortgages. And, and commercial is coming too, just so you know, commercial. That's how the 2008 market seized up kind of like a doom loop, um, and it encourages more inflation, but In contrast to 2008, there's still trillions of dollars in private equity family office money looking to be put to work. That is absolutely correct. What is the play here? I'm trying to. Uh, you know, you, you, everybody wants to play this poker game of like, what's gonna come out in the next. So, so my, my brother and I had a conversation at dinner last night. I, my brother's a brilliant guy, uh, top of his class, uh, engineer, and we had dinner because I wanted to ask him that question because we're both in a lot of cash right now, and it's killing us cause it's like, it's just like depleting. But, but, you know, I know that, that with Christ, cash is king. Now, It doesn't have to be your own cash. It, it can be just availability of cash. But, you know, there are exponential opportunities when things like this happen. And so, you know, I, I was like, oh God, I got to invest in something. It's killing me, it's killing me. And he's like, you know what, maybe you should just sit tight and wait for some opportunities to come because they are coming and he's, he's kind of right. Now, we're still looking at deals. I'm, I'm probably gonna put something under contract today and in the, uh, what, a $12 million range and we got another. On the $40 million dollar range, but you know, we're being super conservative right now. We are stress testing the hell out of these deals. Now this is real estate, you know, I know you talked more business, but you know, real estate is a, it is a business. these multi-family apartment complexes are absolutely a business, you know, we do a business plan and we raise money and then we have to follow the plan and, you know, but, but debt is so challenging right now because really all that's available is bridge debt in my realm, um. Um, for these, for these assets, and that's adjustable rate debt. It's a 5-year term, so typically 3 years with 2 1-year extensions. And, you know, inflation though, like what is it, what are you seeing? Well, you've got to buy, you've got to buy a rate, OK, for the term of the loan. I can tell you they used to be about $100,000. We just priced one out on $25 million and it was almost a million dollars for the rate cap. And so you got to factor. You know, Jimmy Carter type rates or what it's, no, I don't think it's gonna get that bad. But they have to, they, you know, they've talked about 5 more rate increases. They just raised it 50 basis points a couple of weeks ago, 0.5% interest, which is staggering, frankly. And sellers are just now finally starting to realize, hey, you know, I screwed up, I should have sold earlier and I'm gonna have to adjust my pricing if I want to sell before it really gets bad. And so, there's gonna be some, some incredible opportunities. In MySpace, in the multi-family space, but possibly also with businesses as well. Now, you know, as it relates to businesses, you know, I've been reading that, that it's anticipated that service industry businesses will actually do quite well because there's that pent up demand for travel and people may not spend as much on goods, but they, but they, but they, they might spend things on movies and fun and, and, and travel. So, I thought that was an interesting perspective. Yeah, well, the, uh, if any, marker, the Doctor Strange movie from Marvel, they kicked butt over the first couple of weeks. So people, it was kind of man to man to go to a popcorn and spend $20 on a pop. Right, right, right. I think people will do that. Um, and so, and, you know, the other things that, that indicate that, that are indicators that it won't be quite as bad as employment right now is insane. I mean, you can't, you can't hire good people and I mean, when McDonald's is paying 615 $16 an hour. Hobby Lobby's at 18, Amazon's at 18. I mean, you, you know, the, the, the, so the, so the rate of pay has gone up and the employment, uh, you know, unemployment is very low, you know, you can, you, you, you factor that in, and then, you know, in my business, you know, I can't speak the business understand the employment like, why is it low because you're waiting, sitting around looking for $25 an hour. Good question. I, if I, if I knew the answer to that, I'd be helps run a small business and hiring people today to do what she needs them to do is just a few years ago, a $15 an hour. It's now 25 dollars. Right, I know. Same, yeah, same, same. Maintenance is maintenance people in my, in my, is, is literally Almost doubled in salaries and, uh, you know, fast food and all these things have gone way up. And, uh, so, you know, it's, it's gonna be interesting to see what industries do well through this. And my brother and I were trying to figure this out last night to capitalize and get the highest cash on cash return for our investments. But then we kind of the conclusion at the end of the night is, hey, we're just gonna sit on our cash right now because You know, we both feel like they're going to be some exponential opportunities, um, to really get exponential deals. OK. Now, we're still, like I say, we're still buying and looking and doing all that, but there could be some exponential opportunities. By the way, let me just say this, if you allow me to plug my, my event. If you are interested, if you're interested in multi-family, for God's sakes, come spend 3 days with me in July in Denver. It's not a sales pitch, it's 3 days of training. I expect. You know, somewhere between 800 and 1000 people, um, and, and I teach every aspect of this multi-family business, buying apartments, and there's no greater hedge for taxes than multi-family investing. It's the greatest asset class out there by far, uh, you know, much better than retail or office or industrial because, uh, for a lot of reasons, we don't have to get into them. But the point is, it is. So if you're interested because you know. Yeah, yeah, let me say that. It's, it's Rodindenver.com, or you could text my name Rod to 72345 now. The price is going up in a couple of days. This probably won't air by in time. It's $197 now. If the price has gone up and, and just DM me on any social channel, I'm on all of them, and I'll make sure you get that price. Also, please remember this, if you are interested in this, I've got a bonus. Special right now that uh, if you're a friend of John's, just to let me know, you heard me on John's podcast that if you use the word bonus when you check out, you get my deal evaluator software and my document library held the two of those are worth $2000 minimum because I've spent tens of thousands on the document library. So you get that with it for $197 it's kind of a no-brainer, honestly. If you're interested in this business, if you're not, no, no, no harm, no foul. But let me just say this as well. Um, so I have a podcast, it's called Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing. It's the largest, I'm blessed to say, that's not ego, but I'm blessed to say it's the largest commercial real estate podcast in the world now. And every week I do a clip called Own Your Power, and it's motivational. And so if you, um, if you, uh, You know, if you want to get juiced, if you're having a down week, come listen to my podcast. I promise you, you give me 5 minutes, I'll juice you. I do one every week. There's hundreds of them there. And if you just remember this, Rodslinks.com, if you go to Rodslinks.com, you can, you can see all my free and all my free stuff. I got a ton of free stuff there, but there's also a link to the podcast there, but it's called Lifetime Cash flow. 10 million downloads, 13 million. We're about to get 13 million, 13 million in the next week. What kind of doors does that open for you? Well, you know, I, I gotta tell you, it's, it's, it's created some my ability to meet some great people like you, you know, and, and, and, um, and, and if I want to raise money for a deal, you know, we just bought a $296 296 unit asset in San Antonio, and we raised the money very quickly. Um, so, so it does all that. The mechanic. What's that? What kind of like, uh, SEC filing did you do that. Syndication. That's, that's a syndication where you actually do a what's called a 506C3 syndication so you can, I can only talk to accredited investors. That's why I'm able to talk about them on the podcast. Back in the day, if you raised money, you had to have a, uh, uh, you know, had they used to have what's called a 3-touch rule. You had to talk to somebody 3 times before you could tell them about a deal. It's called the 506B program, but now they've got since the Dodd-Frank Act, they came out with this, so. But you know, you can reggae and the 506. So I just want to point out to that that social capital you created has made raising capital for your investments. Piece of cake. So much easier. piece of cake. And, and, and of course it's, I, I've developed, you know, I used to tell people early on in my podcast, I'll never sell you anything because I never intended to do anything with it. And then they hit a million downloads like, OK, knucklehead, you probably had to do something with this. So I wrote a book, I gave away 20, I gave away 20,000 copies. of the book, but then people are like, please create a course or something. And now, of course, I've got 1000 students around the country and I do sold out live events. Every one of my live events is always sold out. And, and, you know, and I love it, man. I freaking, in fact, look on the wall behind me here, you can see some of the hundreds of thank you cards from listeners. The whole wall back there's covered. You can't even see it behind the green screen. You know, when you love what you do, work is play, right? So let's let's go back to that conversation you had with your brother about Yeah, what their criteria you're kind of putting in a filter for what businesses cash on cash return, buddy. That's it all the way down the line. It's all about how much money my little dollar soldiers are making, uh, for their work. So it's all about my cash on cash return. Um, and if you're not familiar with that term, you know, if you put $100,000 into something out of your pocket and you get $10,000 back the first year, that's a 10% cash on cash return. So that's, and it's an annualized number. And, um, 10% used to be our bare minimum on our multi-family assets. Now we've dropped that because we've had to with what's happening in the market, but, you know, it's down around 767, but that's still better than you're gonna get. You know, Do you also look for kind of a, uh, targets of opportunity that, you know, hey man, I gotta sell and see, see, the thing of it is I'm kind of in a unique position because we have deals coming from us from all over the country.s just had a student give us a deal. I, I can't say where because we haven't locked it up yet, but, you know, they need 3 million. I can raise that in a day. And so, you know, uh, we get deals that other people don't get. And so, by the way, if you are, if you are an accredited investor, um, and you know what that means, and you have an interest in, you know, being in our pipeline, just to, if we get a deal to find out about it, just text the word partner to 72345. And then, and then, then register on our portal so that you get first glance at a deal that we get cause I'm very, very conservative cause, you know, hit me once, shame on you, hit me twice. It's my own fault, right? So I'm very, very conservative and even with that, we're still finding great deals. And so, But yeah, you know, look, there's two parts of this I love. If I wanted to get your, you know, take on what's gonna be happening, where the opportunities are, uh, with what's happening right now. Because everybody, once you start talking about a shit storm coming with the economy, uh, people start going, OK, conserve cash, conserve cash, conserve cash. And then they still look for opportunities, but it's, there's a different level of criteria or filtering they put. Correct. Correct. The second part is what you did with your celebrity status, uh, and sharing your story and that social capital you created to actually help your business grow faster. Yeah. I'm actually doing a course right now on creating reach, uh, because my students, you know, in this business, um, they have to, they, you know, to, to do what I'm doing where they, you know, they raise money, they've got to have some sort of a presence somehow. Do their own meetup group or their own, I've got a few dozen students that have done podcast interviews, some award-winning, I mean, podcasts, um, you know, uh, uh, Facebook groups. Um, you know, I'm blessed to host the largest multi-family Facebook group on Facebook, uh, over 45,000 people in there. And I was just working it, you know, but, but, um, you know, I, but I'm on all social channels now. My team's even got me on TikTok. I couldn't even spell TikTok, um, you know, 3 months ago. And now I've had videos that are almost at 800,000. freaking yeah, so, so like, what, oh, that's funny. Oh, that's funny. And then you're like uh 30 minutes later you're like, oh, I know, oh no, it's in those algorithms, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen the Social dilemma, but those that movie, the Social dilemma, those, you know, those supercomputer algorithms know how to suck you in. I mean, listen, I don't even want to look at my phone as how much time I spent on those damn videos because you just get sucked in like crazy. But, but anyway, the point is, You know, there are so many ways today to create reach and you don't need the millions of downloads that I've got you don't need to spend millions of dollars. You build it on LinkedIn or you do it right, but here's the secret, OK? There's two secrets to this. And, and in fact, Josh and I talked about this when he was down in my compound here last time I saw him, your buddy. But, uh, you know, there's two secrets here. One is you've got to add Value, period. If you put crap out, you are crap. I heard that, that's somebody else's quote. But the point is, you've got to add value. That's number 1. Number 2 is you have to be consistent. So whatever vehicle you decide to choose a Facebook group, a LinkedIn page, a YouTube channel, a podcast, a meetup group, whatever it is, to create that reach, you've got to focus on how you add value, and you're not gonna be in it for a few months. This is something you're gonna do consistently. And that's how you build that. And if you want to do that, like, uh, they asked me if I want to start a podcast, and I go, here's what you want to do. Set a goal for 100 right off the bat. Not just like if it's gonna do 10 or 15, 100, right, right. Otherwise, don't bother, you know, and there are times I do not feel like doing a freaking episode like I do those on your power clips. Those are all from me, written from me, you know, and I'm like, oh man, I feel like crap, but I get one out every week. I do have a question for you. You know, I do an hour podcast or a 302 minutes or 40, uh, like this right here. How different and change like. And like attendance and audience, did you get when you started doing the smaller clips, the 92nd? Well, listen, listen. So I'm known for mindset and psychology, OK? I, I, I talk about it all the time. I really believe it. I, you know, that's again, that's how I had 50 million to lose and how I got back was all mindset in psychology. It's not, I'm no techni, I'm not, I'm not technically skilled at all. Um, and so, you know, um, The, the, I will tell you, I think the reason my podcast has done so well is people don't remember what you, what you said, but they remember how you made them feel. And, you know, you come to one of my, you come to my boot camp, you will cry. I promise you, you will tear up, you will laugh. It's not your typical real estate boot camp, because not only do we spend time on goals, I help you create your identity statement, which is critical to pull you into it. And we do all these exercises that, that, so you freaking take action with what you learn. So it's not. Just, you know, you're not just like most people, they'll go to an event and never do a damn thing with it. Not my event, OK? You, you, you will leave super juiced, super motivated, super ready to take action and, and, uh, with the, with the, you know, plan to do that. And so, I take that very seriously. And like, when I talk about adding value, let me show you something. I, I, I, I've written, there's, here's some of the books I've written in the last, gosh, 2 years, OK? Cause I'm always writing, and I give it away, I give them away for. free, OK? I, I just, they're, they're lead magnets for me, you know, what that means, where you get somebody's email address and then you can keep, you know, sending them stuff. And so our digital marketing people, so they know what that is. Yeah, right, right, right. Exactly. So, so, you know, and, and I'm always doing that. I just finished one on asset management and, and again, I give them away for free, but they're quality. I mean, they are freaking a couple of these are the best in the business. And so, you know, I'm adding value, and I'll tell you, if you sit and look at the most successful people on the planet. They're the ones that add the most value. OK? I mean, look at Bezos. Bezos, I can buy your hat on Amazon in 30 seconds right now. I could go on there and buy that hat that you have on. And I mean, that's, that's adding some freaking value, right? And, you know, Musk turning around the electric car industry. I mean, so, so, again, you know, focus on adding value. And when you do that, success is inevitable. Uh, it just is. Yeah. And you help the point where you help people save their houses when you were coming out of that 1st 2008. I mean, that's a, that's biblical where you live. Well, thank you, brother. I actually have a better story than that, and I'd like to share it because typically, typically what I'll do on these interviews is I'll talk about my goal setting. Um, because I, I, I'll describe the process, but here's what I'll do. If you go to that rodsins.com, I did my goal setting exercise. It takes about an hour and a half with music, with a guide you can download on January 1st this year. I do it every year on the 1st, and it's there, and you can do it with your spouse, and I'm gonna encourage you, highly encourage you to do it, to get aligned on what you want. So go to Rods Links, go to the bottom, rodslinks.com, go to the bottom and you'll see my goal setting workshop with the guide. And do it. But, um, and why did I bring that up? Oh, OK, so, so right, right, right. So one of the stories I like to tell was, you know, I, I grew up in Denver, and, but I knew I was wanting to live on the beach and there's no beach in Denver, obviously. So I would visualize the palm trees and the sand and the surf and the waves. And 20 years later, I built this. $8 million 10,000 square foot mansion on the beach. OK. I had the beach on one side. I had my boat lifts on the backside. It was called a Gulf to Bay. It was a slice through an island, which was unthinkable when I was 18, but I made it happen. But the point is, two months after I moved in, so I worked for this thing for 20 freaking years. Two months after I moved in, I'm floating in the pool at night. And, I mean, just to describe this house, OK, it had a waterfall, giant waterfall on the 2nd floor balcony into the pool. You had to walk through the waterfall to get in the pool. Pools and magazines. Um, elevator, wine cellar, big giant spiral staircase up through the middle of the house. I'll land the plane with this. On the second floor, there were aquariums that were built around the staircase. It cost me almost 2000. So that gives you an idea of the house. So, two months after I moved in, I'm looking up at this testament to my ego, because really that's what it was. It was to prove the world I was good enough, you know, and And uh that's the truth, it's a little embarrassing, but I look at it and I got depressed. And this again, I worked for it for 20 years, 2 months after I moved in, I got depressed. I'm like, what the hell? I mean, really depressed. Like, what the hell is going on? You know, I just achieved success. I had the Maserati in the garage, the Lamborghini, the, the, the, the Mercedes. I had all the stuff. I had a beautiful family, beautiful house. What I realized was several things happening. Number one is it's never about the goal. You gotta have the goals to, to juice you and get to create that burning desire. But you know, they say the happiest days of a boat owner's life are the day they buy the boat the day they sell the boat, right? Yeah, it's about who you become on your path to the goals, and happiness comes from progress and growth. But there was a bigger thing happening. I'd realized that I was totally focused on Rod. Show the world I matter, show the world I'm good enough, Rod, Rod, Rod. Well, that was the year I went and saw Tony Robbins, cause I went out and bought some books, and one of them was his, and I'm like, oh, I really like this stuff. So I went and saw him with my brother. And I saw that he fed families for the holidays. And I'm like, what a concept. Do something for someone else. I'm embarrassed, sad to be 40 to get that memo. Well, I went back home and I called my brother, and I was gonna go visit him in Denver for Thanksgiving. I said, hey, let's feed 5 families. Well, let's have some fun. So he went to his church and found 5 families that really needed help, found out if they had kids, and we went out and bought big Thanksgiving dinner, frozen turkey, toys for the kids, and boxes of food. It was a blast. And the third family changed my life, John. We go up to this house, there's this woman in there with 5 kids in this crappy 1 bedroom. It wasn't even a 1 bedroom. And she comes out and she sees the food and the toys and she starts crying, and her kids come out, and the older ones start crying, I start crying and I'm hooked. And I'm blessed to say in the last 21 years, we've fed 110,000 children here in Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida. And I'm not telling you this to brag. There's a message at the end of this, really important one. We've also done tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies to local kids that don't have the basic supplies they need for school. Don't get me started on that. Greatest country on earth kids don't have supplies for school. We've, we've, uh, you know, I've done tens of thousands of teddy bears to local police departments for their officers to keep in their vehicles so if they counter a child that's been traumatized they can comfort the child and the reason I bring this up is, you know, as an entrepreneur we've been taught to achieve to be happy like we can't really be happy until we've achieved, you know, a lot of people have that. Mindset. I'm gonna tell you, Tony Robbins calls it the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment, where achievement really is a science. If you want to learn multi-family, for God's sakes, come spend 3 days with me. There's a, there's a map and a blueprint. You just have to take action. But but fulfillment really is an art. You've got to find something that juices you and, and, um, Um, and, and incorporate that into your life. For me, it's kids, maybe it's the elderly for you, or the environment, or animals, whatever it is. But if you're sitting here listening to the show saying, yeah, you've got blood dripping from your teeth, yeah, I'll do it when I have the money. No, big mistake. Do something right now, because instead of achieving to be happy, you'll be happily achieving. And I know it's a play on words, but it's an important one. And you'll get to Success much faster. Now, you don't do it for that reason, but I'm just telling you, um, so, so if you're not giving back in some fashion, do it immediately, even if it's just your time because you'll be, your success will come quicker. I just promise you. But again, that's not why you do it. Yeah, and uh I, the way you see it in every achievement, you're gonna be more grateful for that achievement, and it just grows. You're more your achievements. Absolutely, absolutely. Rod Cleve, how do people get in touch with you? Yeah, audience is on LinkedIn. So what's the best. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn for sure, but, uh, you know, um, real estate with Rod is the best way to get to my website because nobody can spell my last name. So if you go to real estate with Rod, it goes right to rodlieff.com. Um, and there's tons of free resources there, you know, uh, links to my podcast, my boot camp, my lots of free books and videos and articles and stuff. If you have an interest in this business, come check it out. And again, if you're not interested in the business, but you, you, you feel like you could benefit from some motivation once a week, for God's sakes, subscribe to my podcast. I promise you'll enjoy it. I'm really, really proud of it. Yeah, Rod, thank you so much. Thanks, brother. I appreciate it. Pleasure to meet you. All right.