Podcast Transcription
Oscar: So, we’re good? We’re ready…
Tim: It’ll happen at least three times this part.
John: At least three.
Melina: Welcome to “Flippin’ Off,” a purpose-driven podcast about flipping houses and making a difference.
Oscar: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Flippin’ Off Podcast. This is Oscar Solares. I’m filling in for Melina today and I’ve got the boys with me. I’ve got Christian Rios, John Slater, Tim Wilkinson and Frank “The Tank” Luna.
Frank: That’s right. That’s actually what they call me. Did you know that?
Oscar: Yeah, you have a label.
Frank: Oh.
Oscar: It’s the t-shirt you wear all the time. So, hey, guys. Today we’re gonna talk a little bit…I guess we’re picking up the conversation from where we were on the previous podcast, but really focusing more on what we do, how we do it, the benefit of being around us as a community, right, and then taking it from there and talking about taking action and really the benefit of it all as a group versus trying to go out there and do the solo thing, right? Is that about where we are?
Frank: Yeah.
Oscar: So, who wants to kick it off? They’re all pointing at each other. Frank.
Frank: All right. I got volun-told. Me personally, when I look at the years of developing what we’ve been putting together, when I first started doing this, I see in all of the people I’m training, myself when I first started, the questions, the self-doubt, the is this gonna work, I’m not good enough, all of that stuff, and even to the point where when I first started, I think I went through almost every cycle of everything from the self-doubt to, “Oh, is this gonna work? Is this for me? Am I meant to do this?” All that stuff. And so, when I’m working with people, I can almost always identify where they’re coming from or why they’re making a statement, right? It’s not what they said, it’s what they didn’t say, many times. And I can almost always say that their belief on what we’re going to do for them is tied to what they think of themselves. And they kind of project it onto our system, right? They don’t think they can do this. They don’t think that they’re meant to do anything other than punch a clock, so they start projecting that onto, “Well, this isn’t gonna work.” And then they blame us instead of just going, “You know what? I don’t believe in myself.” That’s a very hard statement to make.
So, in doing the training…I mean, it’s 10 years, right, and having this conversation and developing, being developed, being poured into, that’s what I believe comes up more often than not. People projecting their own self-doubt onto what we do, and then it’s not going to work and it’s some failure on our hand, on our side, when we see result after result after result. And the common theme for those people having results is, number one, they didn’t have self-doubt, or number two, they just put their head down and went to work and did what they were gonna… That would be me, actually. I just…I’m gonna go back to work after two years of trying this. So, I just did it for two years, period. Like, it wasn’t any conversation. Well, the first year, there was a lot of conversation. There was a lot of getting ready, getting ready. But once I just said…I scheduled my…I gave myself a limit. And once I did that, it was, “All right. I popped up for air five years later, it seemed like.” And I guess I would be one of those people that just listen to Dave and my mentors, Melina, and just said, “Are you doing these things?” And I just started being better about following instructions because I’m actually not good at following instructions.
Oscar: You know, we were just sharing right now, it just reminded me of those last three days of training that we went through. And there was a lot of self-doubt in the room. And I’d say 70% to 80% of the people in the room had been to something else and they’ve been chasing the real estate investor dream for quite some time, some 10 years, some 20 years, what have you. But the theme was the same, was self-doubt. Is this really gonna work? Are you guys for real? And those types of things. So, I know you guys had some conversations with them as well and it just feels like that weekend really ties into this topic of the benefit of being around us and then dealing with that PTSD, if you will, of having gone through other things and dealing with the aftermath, right?
Christian: Yeah, if I can hit on that. Just from the training this last weekend, Nathan Iverson, Dr. Nathan Iverson, he had a specific section where he was talking about people’s identity. And I think this ties in to this conversation like, even when he was saying he was going to go to school, he was like, “Man, do I really belong in this classroom?” Like, he’s from farm country and people that come into our room in our training, they have that same thought process. “Am I really going to be an investor?” They have to believe that they can actually be an investor from the background that they come from, whatever race you are. Like, that is the biggest thing. And I think what came to my mind is just if you could have the belief where, “Hey, you know what? I’m an honest person. Hey, I want to help people. Hey, I wanna serve people,” which goes hand in hand with that, but, “I’m motivated. I’m ambitious. I want more for my family,” like just like that, you’re already almost an investor. And then it just comes down to you’re not trying to figure it all out, but saying, “Hey, Frank, you know what? I got this complicated real estate situation, or what do I do?” That’s really like the easy part. The hardest part of what we always talk about is, like, in your head being…
Oscar: The mindset.
Christian: The mindset, being in your head.
Oscar: Yeah, John, you were sharing a bit about that.
John: Yeah. So, I look at it slightly different. I wasn’t in the podcast, the last one. And I was listening to it thinking that, we talked a lot about the shiny object syndrome. We talked about, can I stay in this? Does it make sense for me to see something else, go do something else? And when I remember back to my training, it wasn’t that I didn’t believe I could do it. To be really honest, it was I didn’t really know what it meant to actually be there anyway. So, I didn’t know what it meant to be an investor. I hadn’t experience going out there and I didn’t have PTSD from all the training sessions and seminars and stuff. But I could see it was possible because I was surrounding myself with people that were doing it. But for me, it was still just a dream until I closed my first deal and I had a check in my hand. And the challenge that I had to go through was, “Do I keep doing this? Do I keep moving forward? I can see other people closing deals, but I’ve not closed the deal yet.”
And I think, I’m speaking for me personally, I know I went through a stage of, “Maybe this just doesn’t work for me.” Not that I wasn’t working hard enough. It was maybe it just doesn’t work for me. And I started to have that self-doubt of, “Well, maybe not the shiny object syndrome, but maybe I should just go get a job, a better job that’s gonna pay my bills and maybe I’ll come back to real estate at some stage when maybe it will work for me.” So, I nearly saw the instant success which I think there’s two sides to this you see. You see the instant success and then maybe you don’t do enough with it, or it takes you a little bit longer to see that success and now you put in the grunt work and now it makes it worth it and now you can see that really there is a future in it.
Oscar: Yeah. So, we were talking earlier and you mentioned that you had this quick thing that happened, right? You found an opportunity. You’re working with some other folks, and it fell apart, but you were already cashing the check, kind of, in your mind.
John: Yeah. First day out, door-knocking with my coach. We found a short sale, a homeowner that wanted to sell. It was with an agent, very quickly. It was an agent not connected with our club, an outside agent. She kind of didn’t do things as good as what she should have done. I mean, I didn’t know any difference back then. But we saw the opportunity. We were gonna make about 30 grand. We worked the numbers out and our cut was 30 grand so we were all excited and planning what we were gonna do. Celine quit her job, or getting ready to quit her job. And then the deal fell through three months later, which, okay, we took it down as, “Well, this is part of the process.” We were able to bounce back from that, but whilst we were cashing the check in our mind, we actually stopped working. We didn’t work as hard for that three months, but then we had to start again.
Oscar: Yeah. It’s the reason that we should say that to people when they first join, right, all the time is like, “Fill up that pipeline because that’s what it takes because you don’t know what’s gonna happen.” And you get five in, one of those might close. You might actually be successful. And you get some encouragement words for him, right?
Frank: Yeah. Many times I’ve shared this when I’m talking with students. You have students who are like, “How quick can I close a deal? Can I do it in 30 days, in 15 days? How quickly can I do this?” And I was like, “You know what? I don’t know. It’s a numbers game.” You have that conversation. And then for me, the worst thing that can happen to a club member is they come to class, they come to the training, and they actually close a deal like in the first couple of tries. I had a student actually got a deal the first door knock they ever did. And that person disappeared because they thought it was gonna be like that every single time. So, what I share with them is like to contrast the people who are like, “How soon can I get a deal?” have that conversation. That’s an easier conversation to have and explain to them. My worst fear is a student would just go out there and all of a sudden they have a deal, which was I was sharing to you that you were lucky that you didn’t get lucky.
That is to me… Oh, man. My student, they got a deal almost immediately and they’re gonna disappear after they realize it’s actually hard work. So, that was good and I think that’s why you’ve had the longevity. Personally, I think those students that put the most effort in and stick to it the longest and get a deal eventually, those are I think the hardest working students because they know what it takes and they just work harder, actually. And then they start getting good at the conversations. The other ones that get lucky too quickly just…it’s not a good thing.
Oscar: Yeah. So, let me go real quick to Tim because I think he was like super lucky he didn’t get lucky.
Tim: Super.
Oscar: And I say that because it took you quite a bit longer to have your first transaction, though it was a success and all that, right?
John: He’s the most lucky.
Oscar: The most lucky.
Tim: I did get a deal within the first six months is when I got my first deal. And it took me like a year and a half to get my second deal. And that was the hardest thing. I mean, like what Frank just said, I mean, at the end of the day it’s like, I’m glad I didn’t knock on the very first door and have a deal because it was hard enough the amount of time and effort I put into that first deal in six months and then to get past the fact that it didn’t happen again for so long. I mean, it was hard to keep going when the deal wasn’t coming as quickly as… All of a sudden, I had in my mind like, “Oh, I can do this. I can close deals.” And then it was just real reality hit. And then looking back, I mean, the first deal happened to be, it was a referral. It was a friend of a friend. So, looking back, I know that that’s the reason why I got that first deal. It had nothing to do with me as a skill set or anything like that. And the biggest thing I think you can give to somebody is just a really clear understanding of how much they’re gonna have to work on their own personal conversation, their communication skills.
Because we’ll talk to people, like this weekend who are…they’ve been to other things. They spent a lot of money. They’ve been educated. They ask questions, not necessarily because they need the answer but because they’re testing to see if you know the answer. And then you ask them if they did their homework, and they didn’t, and the reason why they didn’t is because they were scared to pick up the phone. It’s like, well, the education obviously doesn’t work. I mean, you can know it all but if you don’t pick up a phone and talk to a seller, you’re never going to close a deal. So, getting to that mindset and that…getting past that fear of failure, of success, whatever that fear is for you, that’s the hard part. That’s the real hard work that is done. And that’s what we do as a group is to come alongside you and pick you up after you’ve fallen a couple of times.
Christian: Hi, this is Christian Rios. As many of you know, I’ve been a member of New Wealth Advisors Club for over seven years and got started when I was 17 years old with absolutely no real estate experience. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from being in the industry is the need for authentic relationships. If you’re looking for an actual team locally in Southern California with all the resources needed to close deals, register for one of our free workshops by visiting www.joinnwac.com. Thanks for listening to the Flippin’ Off podcast.
Oscar: Yeah. So, the previous podcast, we talked about everybody chasing the dream, right? And they go after that shiny object and all that. So, now it becomes a reality, right? That’s the real talk of, like you just said, Tim, you have to put really a lot of work into yourself to be that person. And if I remember correctly, you said something before in that previous podcast about you show up a certain way and you have this masks and you have this facades and all these things and you think that you should have it because you went through all this education, all this training, and all these things should be like clicking for you and all that. And you don’t realize that it’s not gonna happen because you haven’t worked on yourself, right? It just hasn’t happened yet. So, that really ties it into what our purpose in life is as a group, as a community, is to really help people with all of that and get them through those things.
The reason John stuck with it, and this is from my perception, is he understood that, “Man, that was a mistake and I can still do this,” but you still had some self-doubt and some things going on. But you knew that, “Man, I see the success around me. So, what is it that I have to do to change and to continue to stay in the game?”
John: Well, self-doubt started to creep in probably after about 11, 12 months. We used to talk by then and my mentor used to say, “You probably…if you find 10 deals or get 10 contracts, then work on a 50/50 basis. Five will fail, 5 will work.” Well, for me, what happened is the first five failed. So, at that stage, when the fifth one failed…homeowner filed bankruptcy, bank denied the short sale, just different reasons as to why they failed. But now I’m thinking, “Well, where’s that 50/50 ratio?” And that’s where I started to find that self-doubt of, “Is this really for me?” But I think what tied it in for us was you have to come into this with the mentality of the bigger picture. Not, “Where do I want to be in six months?” I mean, those short-term goals are great, but you’ve got to go the longer-term goals and say, “Where am I gonna be in one year, three years, five years?” And if somebody had just said back to me way back then, “Hey, in five years, what if you could be a full-time investor running your own business, closing deals, mentoring, coaching students?” I don’t know if I would have believed them.
Oscar: Yeah.
John: But that’s what happened. The first five deals failed, but then the next seven closed. So, I wasn’t better than the 50/50 ratio. I just had to go through the five bad ones first to get to the seven great ones. So, it’s understanding the game that it is, the numbers game that we talk about, but from a personal perspective, you have to see what it is that you want to get to. Yes, you have to have a belief in the system, the people around you. Melina would always say, “I believe in you sometimes more than you believe in yourself.” And that’s not easy to hear from…especially if you’re a little bit older, I think. It’s hard to imagine that somebody else has a vested interest in your success maybe more than you do.
Oscar: Yeah. She coins it as, “If you can’t believe in yourself right now, believe in my belief in you.” Right?
John: Yup, absolutely.
Oscar: And it is. Being the older guy in the room, it is hard to receive that especially if you had success in life and all of a sudden you hit a wall, and it’s like, “Man, why isn’t this working? Why isn’t this going?” So, I love the fact that Christian here got started at such a young age because he didn’t have all that garbage that we all bring along. So, it was a definitely a different journey for him. The other side of it is that he’s also very vested in his personal development and constantly growing and learning and always coachable and trainable and all those things, and that’s really the shift that we all had to go through, I believe, to get to that point. You come from a coaching background, right?
Tim: Yup.
Oscar: And you kind of pour into people, but it was still a little bit of like shift to be on the other side of it.
John: Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. And I think it also ties in well to on the first day of our three-day training, we talked about the characteristics of a partner, who are you looking for, what type of characteristics does a partner need to have for you to work with them. But also, you got to look at your own characteristics.
Oscar: How are you showing up?
John: How are you showing up yourself to be coachable? You want a partner that’s coachable, but are you coachable? I’m 45 years old and I partner with Christian and he’s one year older than my oldest kid. But I listen to him because he has a proven track record. So, age, for me, doesn’t matter. It’s talk to me in the right way, teach me and I can be open and I think people have to come in with that really open mindset to say, “I’m connecting with a group of people that are already doing this, that are experienced, that have the track record. Plug in and join for the ride.”
Oscar: That’s a hard thing to understand though.
Christian: And something Amir shared with us recently that really stuck with me, and I think we’ve all been doing it without actually putting into words, but what he said was, like, run this business to make a business, not to get a deal. And for the club members or people that are getting involved with us, I think it’s a paradigm shift where you don’t wanna do this business just to get one deal and be like a onesie-twosie investor. Like, the way the club is created, we want to level everybody up. And I think of like Eric and Manny where they got started just doing what leaders do when taking students out. Now, they’re junior partners and now they have leverage and now people are coming to them and they wanna work on deals with them. And I think that is how you really build a business. So, it’s for people to step up. The opportunity is there in the club. If you pour into people, it’s that leverage component, it’s gonna come back to you. So, I want people to really focus on that where it’s not just looking for a deal but it’s like, what John is saying, looking long-term where if you look back five years ago, he was probably like, “Man, I didn’t know I was gonna be a full-time investor,” but that’s probably subconsciously that’s really what you wanted and that’s why you really stuck it out.
Oscar: Yeah. One of the other things that comes to mind is…so, one of those tied in. John’s talking about coachable and the characteristics. Who do you want to be around? And, really, people that come to us need to really start thinking about that as, “Who do I wanna be around? Who do I enjoy being around? Who do I wanna hang out with? And who can I learn from, really?” Like, they’re really doing this stuff out there in the market today and have been successful at it. And the other is the long-term goal that both John and Christian were talking about is staying focused on that long path versus the short victories and defeats because you’re gonna have… It’s like doing battle in this thing. And I know, Frank, you’ve been around the longest I believe with New Wealth. So, not that you’re the oldest, but you’ve been around the longest because you knew Dave and Melina before I did. And I know you’ve had that whole wave we talked about that Melina teaches on. You’ve had your ups and downs and successes and challenges. We all have. But it was…what was it that kept you in? What kept you in the game?
Frank: That’s a really easy question to answer, but I don’t know…I would say there’s layers, right? So, obviously, my family. The not wanting to fail, being somebody who has in the past given up one time on something, and I never gave up. I was like…I’ve gone through things where I had a sense of loss and regret of completing something. So, I even remember sending my timeline and actually literally thinking, “All right. I’m gonna close one deal,” right? I mean, my relationship with Dave and Melina for me was very important. And I really…like, to the point where Dave and Melina saying that, “Believe in our belief in you.” Like, that really, really stuck with me and I didn’t want them to be disappointed. I did not want them to have spent all that time because I knew that they were doing and I knew it was possible. I was seeing people do it. I didn’t want to be…I don’t want them to feel disappointed that they couldn’t get me to close a deal. I really wanted to have that success and walk away with at least one or two deals.
That was 10 years ago. So, by the time I picked my head up from working so hard to make sure that I didn’t fail, I didn’t disappoint myself, I didn’t disappoint my family… And my friends that were pointing all this time and working with me and saying that they believed in me, that really got me attached to not quitting until I could say, “Okay. I was successful. You guys were right,” because I knew they were right. Just who they’ve been in my life for 20 years and the things that Dave had said and my conversations with Melina, they weren’t people to me that just said words. Like, they believed in what they said. They had integrity. They had character. So, when they said to me that they knew I could do it, I believed them and I was like, “Okay. Then I guess I can. I don’t see how it’s gonna happen, but…” And that’s why I stuck to it.
Oscar: Yeah. Tim, how about you?
Tim: So, to clarify the question… You guys.
Christian: What kept you in?
Tim: What kept me in in the down times? I’ve had this conversation many times with a bunch of different people and sometimes I want to say that it was pure pride and grit. And, I don’t know… Honestly, I can’t really answer it other than I had some vision of myself, and I always wanted to be a teacher. When I was in high school, I always wanted to be a teacher. And I tutored in high school. I tutored Spanish. I tutored math, science. And when I went to graduate, I decided to go into the electronics field and go…I wanted to get into the workforce. I didn’t want to go to college. And teachers didn’t make enough money. So, I went and didn’t do that. And now I think the thing that kept me in is that I saw the potential to get back to what I really, really enjoyed doing which was all the way back since high school, like teaching and really spending time with somebody and helping them to just get it. I always really enjoyed that.
And I think I saw that as an opportunity for myself and I just wasn’t willing to give that up again and I just continued to move forward no matter how painful it got. And it did get painful. And I went into the deepest financial valley that I’ve ever been in ever to the point where if it wasn’t for family and friends, I would have been homeless. And, I don’t know. I think the reason why I stayed in is because I had the support of the group and the support of…luckily, I had the support of family. I didn’t have people in my life outside of the club that were pulling me away or anything like that. I really just had support. And I think the support is the reason why I stayed in.
Oscar: Okay. John.
John: I think for me the first…I had a couple of different switches. The first year… Oh, let me go back. The first day of training, Melina says, “Don’t make this about money.” And the first year, it was all about money. I was tired of being broke. I was tired of living paycheck to paycheck. Money for me represented the opportunity to change. And I made it all about money the first year. Then the shift changed to be more around you guys, seeing the lifestyle that you had. I’m not talking lifestyle of spending money, but I’m talking about lifestyle of being your own boss, running your own business, being able to be around the club way more than me having to go out coaching. I couldn’t be there in some trainings and meetings and I felt the stuff that I wasn’t able to be there. So, I wanted the lifestyle change and to be a full-time investor meant I could have that lifestyle. Then the next change for me happened when I closed a few deals and then now started to work with students or the members because now I fit back into my coaching role of helping other people.
So, I went through those two or three shifts which, I’ll speak for myself, but I know I could go close real estate deals. I know I could go do it on my own, and I know that we could probably do a lot more financially by getting out there and doing it yourself. But our club is way bigger than that, which is why I enjoy being around the club. I enjoy finding some broken people at our initial training and helping them reach a goal that they want to get to. So, that’s why I stay in it now. I stay in it because of the lifestyle that allows me to give back to other people inside our club.
Oscar: Nice. Christian, I know you kind of left for a minute.
Christian: Yeah, yeah. So, for me…for those that don’t know my story, I got in, traded at high school, 17 years old. And really what…like my baby face, it’s still a struggle sometimes, but I was in a position where I really wasn’t seeing that much fruit being 18. So, I started working for a real estate broker for a little bit and I was doing all the legwork. I was doing all the grunt work, and I was like, “Man, I could do this…I could really do this for myself.” So, it was about just seeing the opportunity that the club really has and then saying, “Dude, I’m going to go all in,” because at that point, that’s really when I found out I was gonna be a dad also when I was 20. And it wasn’t about me anymore. It wasn’t like I could make 20 grand a year anymore. It was like, “Dude, I gotta provide for a family now and I gotta put my head down and really get to work.” So, that’s when me and you, Oscar, started working really close together too and I just took the mentorship, the guidance, and the rest was history.
So, for me, I really didn’t have a choice other than to make it happen and I think that’s what people have to do. Too many people, and we’ve talked about it in other podcasts, get comfortable and they have a plan B and they don’t have to make it. They don’t have to make it. I just had to do it.
Oscar: Yeah. Yeah. So, keeping your eye on the prize, right? So, I’ll share. And I was just thinking as you guys were talking that…and I clearly remember, Frank, right, over time, Christian. But I remember Tim, how he was and then there’s a gap for me of who he became. And it has nothing to do with Tim, right? And then John, I remember you showing up but there’s still a gap for me. And that gap is when I was down, when I was down and out, right? Because that’s about the time that you came in.
John: Yeah.
Oscar: And I was there. Physically, I was there, but everything else that was going on in my world really took me out to a certain extent. And so, it’s interesting to now sit back and you’re like, “Holy crap. I missed like…I missed the evolution of Tim and then the induction of John to the group and all that,” which kind of sucks because I missed some things. But I definitely appreciate the time that I spent in that valley because it took a lot of effort. And you guys touched on everything about that, that it’s…you can call it grit. You can call it drive, whatever you want to call it. But, ultimately, I was in a valley and I needed to be able to come out. And it wasn’t until I, like you did, Christian, said, “No, I’m done,” and pull myself out that I could kinda get back into it. And so, it’s…but it has everything to do with everything you guys talked about, Dave and Melina and Frank talked about, the community that you talked about, the group. John, same thing. You were talking about, “Man, I love pouring back into people.” And I do as well.
And it’s really difficult to do that when you’re down, right? And then Christian, you know, “Man, if he can do it, I can get my old ass out of bed,” right? But it’s definitely…so, I guess the point of all that is we all go through our peaks and valleys, and the benefit really is that you don’t lose focus on…or the strategy should be, be coachable, be trainable. Don’t lose focus on what you set out to do, and then stay connected with the community that we have. You guys agree with that?
Together: Absolutely.
Oscar: Yeah. And I think when we talk about that, really what we’re talking about is take action, right? You got to set goals. You have to take action towards those goals. You can have some ups and downs along the way. You have to be okay with that. And as we’ve learned through Dr. Iverson is that, man, there’s a lot of science behind what we do that we didn’t realize there was science behind, right? So, I think it’s gonna be great to get him on board and have some conversation with him because we’ve all had some training from him, some education behind it. It’s allowed us here recently to really start doing our thing. So, with that, any last things you guys want to share on that?
Tim: No.
Oscar: No?
John: No.
Oscar: Good? Okay. So, with that, guys and gals, we are going to sign off for today. But, hey, we’re going to be back and I’m gonna push for Dr. Iverson to join us and have a great conversation about what it looks like to set goals, take action and a few other things that make sense that…and then start to see how the science behind what we do actually works and impacts lives and changes them. So, with that, appreciate you all. Have a great one. Enjoy your day, everybody, and we’ll be back.
Melina: I’m Melina Boswell, your host of the Flippin’ Off Podcast. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you did, we’d love for you to subscribe. Give us a five-star rating and tell your friends all about us. You can find more episodes of the Flippin’ Off Podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher or wherever else you like to listen to awesome podcasts like this. If you like what you’ve heard, we’d really appreciate it if you’d follow us on Facebook and Instagram and tell us the stories that you’d like to hear.
Tim Jackson is our senior producer. Luke Jackson is our editor. Brothers. Josh Mauldin is our producer. Sound design by Frequency Factory. Our executive producer is Mind & Mill. This was all created by Dave Boswell for New Wealth Advisors Club.