Kaizen Blueprint

Aldosius Chandra (00:00)
Mr. John Lee, how are you doing today, brother? Yo, what's good? This setup is insane, man. I love it. I love it. Love what you're doing out here, man. Thank you. It's a starter, but it's going to do a really, really good one. Yeah, I know. I get it. But we have a lot of stuff to talk about. Sure. I know you from a real estate event. Actually, that same real estate event is what got me started into real estate. So we'll dive deep a little bit about being in real estate, but tell us what you do.

Yes, so I am a full time real estate investor as well as a real estate agent. I predominantly invest in the city here in Philadelphia and I also am a realtor in Bluebell. That's where my office is. Predominantly, my clients are in the suburban market, more specifically in Montgomery County. But I do invest in the city. So I do have a couple of clients, investor clients in the city as well. And what makes it different?

Now that you're both investor and agent. Investor and agent. Yeah. So just kind of giving you a backdrop. like initially got my license because, and I mentioned this in a seminar before, about like my story, but I was buying in the city and I really couldn't like, I really couldn't find an agent that was willing to help me find houses that were priced like 30, 40, $50 ,000. Cause obviously the commission on those is very low.

So the motivation for an agent to help you is rather low. So at a certain point, I was just like, fuck it, I'm gonna just get my license. So I ended up getting my license for myself. And then I started posting on social media. Everyone loves the HGTV type of like, hey, here's the before and after. So I started posting several content pieces of like before and after construction. So that's what like got me a little bit of traction for clients.

So people started asking, are you an investor? Are you a real estate agent? And then I'm just like, I'm actually both. I'm a real estate agent and I can help you. So I think that's also a big confusion for a lot of beginners too, the difference between the, you know, between the two. And then obviously that gives me an opportunity to explain the differences as well. So you started off with, with being an investor and then you got your license because you wanted to find properties for your own. Correct.

And eventually you start posting that what, what the investments that you've done and people were like, you should, are you getting any clients? Are you representing anyone? that how that's, that's, that's the base of it. And then, I just started to propel from there. And, and, and, and obviously I started getting more clients. And then at a certain point, I just went full time. it. And what makes you start in, real estate?

I started in real estate because about five years ago, I used to sell Medicare insurance and I used to be in the city all the time. And I was literally watching the skyline change. Like, I mean, you live here in the point breeze area and like, you can literally see skyline, right? Like, you talking about, I literally saw houses change, the skyline change and

I thought it would be a great opportunity because I always wanted to invest in real estate. just never had a good reason to until I finally actually just did it. And what made you take took that action? That action? Yeah. So, when I was in Medicare sales, you passively actually make money. So when you obtain a client, as long as they're your client, you actually get paid a residual. Wow. Yeah. So I did that for five years and I did pretty well. And.

Having just a taste of that really brings perspective as far as passive income. And I always wanted to develop that and continue building different pockets of passive income. And obviously real estate is one of the pockets where it's quite often, people use that as tool quite often. So I decided to say, let's jump into real estate. And I honestly had insider information, I guess.

One of the things that's pretty cool about real estate is that unlike stocks, like you can't have, it's illegal to have insider information, right? My insider information was the ability to see the city change and understanding certain pockets of change. based on what I could afford, my first experience was actually in Cobbs Creek. So,

West Philadelphia. Yeah, so like that's Southwest Philadelphia for people who don't know and four or five years ago, I was buying those properties for 30 40 $50 ,000. And now those same properties are probably worth like, you know, 250, mean, 225 250 ish. So I, you know, again, the wind was on my back, I was very lucky, you know, and also, I would, I would also credit the fact that the market was in a good place and

To be honest with you, I don't know if I was even actually good. Like I kind of had an idea of how to do it, but I think I also got lucky because of the market being extremely favorable. Had I did the same thing now that I did maybe five years ago, I don't know if I would be in the same spot. Yeah, absolutely. The economics are...

Definitely different now with the higher interest rates and obviously sellers are still trying to sell their house at a 2022 -2021 pricing. at the same time, there's not really a lot of cashflow for investors, but let's go back into the segment where you mentioned about insider information. What exactly information did you get at that time to allow you to want to move forward and invest in West Philadelphia?

Yeah, so you and I are cut from the same cloth with like Nick Tang, right? So like we learned or I learned a lot about like the actual like the landscape of how to like look at the data of a city, the median income of a city, the jobs, the employment, the percentages of employment and the population of the city. So those are like all the...

the micro, macro type of things that I looked at. And I looked at not just the city of Philadelphia, I looked at each zip code. And then based off of each zip code, I looked at the median income and then based off of what I could afford. That's what it really came down to. Based off of what I could afford, what is the most profitable, potentially profitable area that I could be in?

Based off of my experience of just driving around as well, that's what I mean by insider information. Like again, I can't really explain it to you other than when you go out. insider information. All right. Like when you go outside, like you kind of have to have some level of street smart and common sense. Like, are you seeing people on the corner selling drugs or do you see Sally walking her dog? You know what I mean? that. both.

Or both, or both. like Sally walking her dog to the area that's like a little bit more, how do I say it's safe, right? So like, those are the common things that I have. And I think that's a bit more of a gift that I have and that I had that ability to discern, I guess the best way to put it. And I use that skill based off of five years of just me being in the city and all the pockets. So I got so good, Aldo, at knowing the city, I can remember zip codes. If someone says,

19111 I know that's Fox Chase. If someone says 19145 I know that's point freeze. Yeah. You know, like I just, know all those pockets. If someone says 19115 that's Northeast. Like again, I were four four German town, three eight German town. So I got so good with Medicare sales in the city that I just remembered the zip codes and I remember what the streets look like. I literally remembered what the streets look like. So that was my insider information. Yeah. It's very important that people

go outside of the Zillow, right? Go outside of the Redfin, the Realtor, and especially the Google Street View, because sometimes the Google Street View are outdated. It's like 2019 or 2020. you're at, right now it's 2024. You're looking at houses from four years ago. Obviously there's maybe some rehabs or new construction, or maybe just change of scenery altogether. And I think that for somebody who wants to invest, it is important for you to drive around, or even like out of state investing.

go to that particular state at least once or twice a month and actually drive down and look at the neighbors, look at how it's changing over the years, not just looking at the data itself. can't just look at retfin .com and look at, okay, pricing have been increasing steadily, but you have to understand why. Yeah, and it also comes down to like...

If that's the only information that you have, that's the only information that you can go by, but that's what everybody is doing. Everybody was doing initially what I would be doing, which is the median income. That's all public data, right? The general population, job growth, that's public data. But imagine if you knew, although, that there was gonna be an Amazon...

like store or something that was going to be built or something that was insider like a new department store or something that was going to be developed in that part of the city that most people had no idea that was going to be developed. That is insider. That's insider information. And that is perfectly allowed. Yeah. So unlike the stock market where you might have some insider information that other people

Might have but that's completely illegal. You can't do that. But in real estate, it's perfectly allowed. Yeah, and they talk about this in seminars and bigger and bigger pockets things like that, right? So it's it's as an investor. It is important for you not just looking at what the data is from censored .gov, which is two, three years outdated anyway from the recent times now or all the other like market data research because they're all just that what that is a research but that doesn't necessarily correlate to what's

going to happen. It's just projected going to happen. But if you have conversations with people, if you're actually driving around the neighborhoods and actually learning what is inside those neighborhoods, you could go so far. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's that's what I mean by like the insider information and just looking at the streets and also having common sense and discernment. Got it. So let's talk about your first home. What made you kind of pull that trigger? Is it you have the insider information, right? Okay, I want to invest here. And then

there's a certain particular house. I don't know what type of house was it, but there was a certain house that you bought and what got you into pulling that trigger and it's like, okay, I want to buy that or invest in that property. Okay. So full disclosure, my first home was a house hack. So technically I lived in the suburbs. So we could talk about that later, but if you're referring to like my first investment in the city,

What really made me pull that trigger was honestly the numbers it came down to just and I think we talk about this quite often and it hit all the metrics of the numbers sure and The renovation number was exactly where it had to be. The price point was pretty low I think I bought the house at like $25 ,000. Yeah. Yeah, it was like something stupid and even at that I was like, alright, that's a slam dunk and

The median income was the highest that I could afford relative to what my price of entry was. Had I had more money, I think I would be in a higher entry point, but that's what I could afford. But ironically, I think I scored. I think most people would say I scored. That level of speculation, again, I don't highly recommend that everyone speculates, but that level of speculation is kind of what...

plays into part of appreciation, right? mean, that's most most investments are like that, right? They're all speculating. People talk about these bigger developer deals. They're all just assumptions. And that's what that is. We just assume that this is what's going to happen without being it actually happening. And I think if you're starting out as an investor, you get so much data and then you get so much information that sometimes it could be overwhelming and make you choose not to invest. I think the most important thing is that

get as much information as you can and then make some sort of assumption what's going to happen and worst case scenario and then just jump the gun and then just go for it. For sure, for sure. I let me ask you this. Like, I know this is technically a podcast for me, but like, how about you? Like, what was your kind of like your thought process when you first jumped in? When I first jumped in, I'm more on the analytical side and for me, I needed like a proof of concept.

And what that means is that I need to see someone is doing it that's close to me. And that's what got me, you know, when I don't think we first met, maybe we did first met at Nick Tang's events, but when I go there for the first time, was 18 at the time and I

I keep forgetting how fucking young you are. my God. All right. was 18 at that night tank place. So I didn't know anything about houses or investing ARVs rehab, things like that. What's wholesaling. So I start networking with people and found a mentor work for him for free for six months and eventually took actions then between wholesaling. And then after that six months, I bought my first fix and flip. And that's what got me.

taking that action was that, I found someone who gave me all the proper information outside of the courses outside. Like he was walking me to his house. He literally owned an entire block of 56th street. I had to do a little bit of property management. I had to know what repairs are. I was literally sitting there with like a contractor and he was, I don't know, fixing a baseboard trim or something like that. So now I know I have somebody behind me that have all the information and actually done it for a few years.

that now I feel confident just in case if something does happen on my fix and flip and something did happen, like I could ask a question. But ultimately in my opinion, you learn so much by just doing it as opposed to researching and going to bigger pockets because in real estate there's a lot of little nuances that you don't know that you can do and you can learn so much from it. So there's a saying, right? How do you eat an elephant? Like was it one bite at a time? Is that the saying?

So like for me, when I started going to Nick's events, right, I made it as simple as doing one thing at a time. Nick would say, put something on their contract. Okay. I put something on their contract. Then Nick would say, okay, put something on their contract and then back out. So I put something on the contract and then I backed out. And then it would be like, well, I want you to start guessing what the after repair value is. I started guessing what the after.

I'm not guessing, you know what mean. started doing math, projecting for the ARVs. So then I was actively just piecing that puzzle together until I had the full puzzle. And when I had the full puzzle, that's when I decided to go. And that's the important thing about having a mentor, right? Where they'll teach you the ropes, but they're also pushing you into the next level. Because I think for a lot of people now, they're trying to invest or looking to invest. All they do is have this

analysis of like, okay, I want to invest but they don't know perhaps the next steps or they don't feel comfortable on the next step. Sometimes you're looking at a million houses but you haven't done the numbers yet and you haven't submitted any offers yet. It doesn't matter if the house is like 300 ,000 and you're offering like 100 ,000, you're still step up as opposed to just looking at houses and walking through houses. I think for most people, when you wanna reach to that goal, you gotta step.

Like you, like you mentioned, little step at a time and be okay. Bit with that uncomfortability for you to move forward to reach that goal. think a lot of it also is, in stock terms, they call it paper trading, which is like play trading. Right. So that's kind of what I did. I would act like as if I was buying the property, but not actually using my own money. And I would say, okay, does this number work? Does that number work? And there were several times where I will look like a hundred properties. And then I finally found one.

And then I decided not to do it. So you know what I mean? And then, you know, you do that a couple of times and you finally say, you know what? I, you know, I think, I think I got something going on here. Then your level of confidence goes a little further to say, okay, I got that property. Let's put it on the contract. Let's see what happens here. wait, there were six other offers that to me, when I had six other offers came in, that means

Dude, I must be doing something right. Like other people are bidding on this property. means I must be doing something right. So that was like another aha moment. So there was all this experience that I was going through that eventually made me take the next leap to the next step. there were obviously some mistakes that I made along the way, but that's the price of tuition. think you and I have talked about that on my podcast as well. yeah. And I think it's important, right? We talked about the beginner investors now and then.

Let's talk about the experienced investors and talk about that sequential events of growth that now you've done one deal or maybe two deal Okay. Now you feel comfortable with two single -family for example now you want to do a triplex you feel more comfortable with it at a higher price of points or maybe a More intensive rehab. Maybe these two are like lipstick on a pig kind of cosmetic rehabs now you're looking at okay, there's termite damage or asbestos or crazy things that

happened but it's okay. You have built relationship from the previous projects from contractors or agents or just people in general. Now you're okay with moving up and I think in real estate it is important for you to go in that growth. If it's not then it's so be it. You feel as though it's still just a smaller investments for you and you don't want to have it too much time of your life. But I think as experienced investors and same thing as the concept from the newer investor is like you start.

growing and you start being more uncomfortable by doing maybe bigger deals or more units in a deal. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it came to a point where I got almost too cocky. Like I got really like I had a really good system of doing like light to medium rehabs. And it came to a certain point where I can desktop it. So like I was looking at properties, assuming that the property didn't have structural issues, because I'm not physically going there to see it.

In Philadelphia, most three bedroom, one bath homes that are like a thousand to 1300 square feet are relatively the same. So the layout of how I did everything was all relatively the same, assuming that the pictures were correct. So I had that system down. had I continued that system, I think I would be at a higher union account than I am now. but you know, to your credit, like, like we tried to challenge ourselves, right? So I got into.

you know, a duplex, and then I got into a fourplex, and then I got into that fourplex where I was, you know, completely gutting it out. That was my experience, like pulling all kinds of permits, fire suppression systems, sprinkler system. You know, that was my first experience doing all of that and like expediting. Like all of that was just a whole learning experience in a lot of time. So I was on hard money, spending a lot of interest. Like it was just like, like,

Like if I didn't have an active job of working a realtor and doing well in it, I don't know if I would be talking to you and saying that, I don't even know if I'd be a real estate investor. Yeah. hardest thing about real estate investors, right? Especially starting out or maybe a little bit of experience on both sides here is the short -term cashflow. Real estate is a marathon, right? It's a long -term gain. It's a long -term investment. So once we invest something, whether that's a

lower down payment or maybe 20 % or 25 % depending on the loan product, we're putting a lot of cash up front and we're not going to get that cash back once we either refinance or sell the home. And if you're doing it for the long game, you're not going to do either of those until maybe economics has changed or maybe you have enough equity to do. Yeah. Yeah. Do you see or I mean, you probably do see it, but what are your thoughts on people trying to achieve?

you know, that short term cashflow in order to fund their longterm investments. Short term cashflow to longterm. Like, I mean, what do mean by that? Like, sure. Yeah. So let's say you buy, you buy your first home, right? You have the W two income and that is basically enough for you to, to qualify for that home. And let's say that home is a duplex and you just save a lot of money. You have, like I said, you just had that W two income and you save a lot of money.

And now you're, you're putting that money into that down payment for that house or maybe closing costs or anything that relates into a home purchasing. Now that you spent that cash, right. It's completely depleted and you bought a duplex. Congratulations. Right. You got no cash, but you have no cash. have that W2 that's going for you. But let's say now you're a full -time investor, right? You don't have any W2 anymore. You're like, okay, I'm, I'm receiving enough.

somewhat cash flow to fund a house, but those cash flows are stuck with that investment. You're not doing it for yourself. So do you see other investors are struggling to find, especially the ones that's doing this full time, struggling to find that cash in order to pay for more houses for down payments and such? Yeah. So I find that a lot of experienced investors are trying to get their cash out through equity. So that's what they call cash out refinancing.

and they try to do it as quickly as possible. there are some products without going too much in detail of it, but there are some products that you can like do that right away. Most banks require what we call seasoning. So it requires a period of time before you can do a cash out refinance. I'm not sure if that answers your question. does. Yeah. Most experienced investors do want that ability to cash out quickly. So they're able to do that process again. So

The story that I have that I think is a big product to Nick's group was that in two years I had 12 properties just because of cash out refinancing. like I said, I'm not going to lie. I think I got lucky, to be honest with you. Part of that was luck. Obviously part of that was skill and implementation and hard work and a little bit of both.

I was able to cash out refinance very quickly without, without seasoning. So I could just get in, get in and out of the deal. And then I was able to get my money back and do it again, do it again, do it again. And it was a pretty like quick process. And how long did you do from the first time you bought that house and up until refinance, how long did it took you? it two years, three years, four years? No, like I can, I can pull a house and like

Like three months, like quick, like I'll get in like one or two months later, like it's done, the refinance, I'll get my money back in. you basically did a burr. Yeah. I burred it every, like, like every time. And the thing is, I didn't even know what burr meant. Like, I just thought it was called common sense. Yeah. Like, then I like all, all these, like, I guess Brandon Turner and all those guys, like

I actually knew this system before it would publicize from the BiggerPockets community. Yeah, because of Nick. Wow. Because Nick was teaching it. He was teaching the concept. So then I was like, okay, well, like, duh. It makes sense. And the thing is, yeah, it makes sense in theory, but obviously there's a lot of...

You're not confident in yourself when you first start because you don't know renovations. You don't know anything about renovations. don't know. Although I knew Philadelphia, I was like, shit, this is a good market. I still didn't know prices of homes, you know? And I wasn't entirely confident on what the homes would be worth after it's repaired. And I didn't know what the homes would be like, what it would cost to repair it. And then obviously the refinancing part, you have to think as an appraiser.

That's the other part that I was entirely, I wasn't entirely confident. I was like, all right, is the appraiser going to praise this at this price or that price? Like, and then you just kind of have to know that all through honestly, experience. You just have to go through that process. if not, someone has to go through that process with you or, know, you have to get some kind of level mentoring or coaching or something like that. it. Besides mentoring and coaching, I think most real estate investors that get killed on

the rehab costs because we could analyze deals all day right you look at comps right all the information are there depending on where you are and Then you already know what the purchase price is because that's technically the asking and that's up for negotiation right but where people are getting killed is perhaps they don't include the closing costs and And rehab might be you know? Underestimating it's gonna cost more than what is going what you anticipate. It's going to cost so

As a new investor, what do you recommend for someone to analyze a property on the rehab cost itself? I would definitely see if you could partner up with someone that has a little bit more experience than you. again, Brandon Turner always says this in bigger pockets, 50 % of a deal is better than 0 % of no deal. So I know that equity, like everybody wants 100%. So I get it. That's one thing that I understand.

But when it comes to like, you're going to have to pay for that either way, one way or the other, either you're going to pay through it through risk, you're going to pay through it out of your own pocket as the price of tuition, or you're going to pay through it, you know, like paying someone else to walk you through it so you understand what that number is. The other thing to do if you don't want to like give up equity, which again, I completely understand is to at least compensate a contractor to go out there and give you a quote.

And that way when you get multiple quotes, you have an idea of renovation numbers. And I think that's the biggest thing that a lot of wholesalers fail to do. think a lot of wholesalers are newer, so therefore they, and to be honest with you, a lot of wholesalers don't even own their own properties. Like there are several there that are just like, how are you wholesaling a property? And that's the same thing with realtors, by the way. There's realtors out there that don't even own their own homes. So it's like...

It's a crazy world that we live in. like, think that if you are willing to pay at least someone who is experienced to give you those numbers, you should definitely like, you owe it to yourself to do that for like, I mean, that's a big, that's a big cost if you get that part wrong. Yeah. And it can, can cost you significantly because if you're doing rehabs, you're doing the short -term loans and these are high interest runs. if you're, and you know, I made a mistake as well that

I thought the GC was everything and then they costed me more because they delayed and time is money, especially in a short term. Especially if you have interest on your loan, there's a lot of things going on there. Yeah, of course brother. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How does your investment strategy change now since you first started now we're in different times, right? Interest rates are higher price price of the homes. We've mentioned this earlier. Price of homes are still high.

not a lot of sellers are selling their home because they're stuck in that 3 % interest rates now. How has your investing philosophy changed over the years? So although just like you, was, I still am everyone, every investor should be analytical in some degree, as far as making sure that the numbers make sense to them as far as an investment goes, right? The difference now for me is that I look more for equity positions.

So what I mean by that for simple terms for our listeners, right? Let's just imagine two extremes, right? Let's just imagine a place like Hawaii, right? For example, right? And then there is another place like Detroit. Okay. So those are two extremes, right? So in places like Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, right? People, investors are willing to lose thousands of dollars a month off of rental income in order to make

millions of dollars off of equity, if that makes any sense. appreciation of equity. Exactly. then the inverse of that is that Detroit is not known. I mean, as much as people want to like advertise Detroit as a growing city, historically, Detroit is not known to be a city that has high levels of appreciation, not nearly as high as like New York and San Francisco and Hawaii. But it cash flows very well.

So that's the inverse and that's what the game that people are trying to play. Right. So when I first started, I wanted to have a lot of cash flow. Right. I wanted to cash flow. But as I kind of got into more experience in the real estate market, I realized that equity positions were a little bit more important to me now. So that's the that's the main difference now of how I'm starting to change, regardless of the rate, just to let you know.

why the sudden shift or why the shift in general? Yeah, because the reason why, well, I'll get to your question, but the reason why I love Philadelphia so much is because it's an overlooked city. That's the first thing that I can say. And I'll answer your question in a second, but I'll get to it. The reason why I love Philadelphia so much is that it's an overlooked city. It's what, the sixth largest city in America, if I'm correct. And it's often overlooked by New York, right?

But in our market, we still have pockets like Detroit where you can cashflow very nicely. And we have pockets in Philadelphia where there's high equity appreciation place, right? Like New York or San Francisco, for example. So I personally like to, I really like to look at kind of the shift of going into equity positions because typically the

the neighborhoods are a bit more easier to manage. And although I am not cash flowing much or very minimally, because I'm kind of at the point where I'm actively working a lot as a realtor, I'm a full time, you I'm a dad, you know, like, there's a lot of responsibilities that I have. One thing that I failed to realize is the amount of energy and time that you spend to get that cash flow.

is it quote unquote worth it? That's the thing that you have to analyze because the types of tenants that you get in cashflow markets are typically lower income markets or areas that have lower price points. And when you're dealing with those tenants, right? Is it through like section eight or is it just your regular like kind of leasing? ironically, most of them are

like regular leasing, do have a couple of Section 8, but I am starting to turn them over to Section 8 because the retail market right now hasn't caught up to like the rents where like, I would like to say what we deserve. I don't think we deserve it per se, but I think most landlords will say that. So with that being said, the market rents at Section 8 are higher. So that way I'm starting to convert a couple to Section 8.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's just the preference. Some people, they prefer that cash flow and money coming in on a monthly basis. And they see that there is an opportunity for them to raise the rents because it cash flows. And the more rents that you get, the more income and you make more money, obviously. But then it comes with a lot of time. Turnovers might happen. Evictions more likely to happen as opposed to, you mentioned, the

What was it? San Francisco? No, Hawaii. These are A plus class markets where, next year it could go up to 100 grand or something like that. But because it's more expensive, the cash flow might not be there. You might be break even or maybe have to pay out of pocket for a little bit. But you're betting on that appreciation that you make money and then you can refinance. And that's when you make the money.

Exactly. the thing is, a lot of times people are scared to touch those markets because they aren't cash flowing. You know what mean? I'm not saying to buy a market that's not cash flowing, but at the same time, people are willing to do that. And they're making millions of dollars. And most wealth is not built on cash flow. Most wealth is built on equity and appreciation. So that's one thing that definitely is, to me, I think is a fact.

Have you ever played the cashflow game? I have. Yeah. I played with my wife and she hates it. It's a great game. It is. It's a great game. And, and, and, and sorry, I'm going to cut you off. okay. The re the way you win that game is not the cashflow. It's not. You win. It's when you sell and that shit just goes up. the prices of those houses go up. So you win based off of the equity of what you, of the appreciating market and you sell at a stupid price. And then.

You're not in that rat race anymore. Anybody that's listening and might not know what the cashflow game is, it's a game made by Robert Kiyosaki and his wife. It's basically a real life scenario of an investor. You're giving a dice and then you have these three cards. You have the small deal, the big deal, the do -dads. What was it? It was...

market. Yeah. So the market would have some sort of like economic changes that could affect your investments either positively or negatively. The doodads are actually truthfully, it's, it's, it's really bad. Yeah. It's bad, but realistic. Like for example, you're paying, you know, a parking ticket, a hundred bucks you have to pay out of your cash. And then the small deals and big deals of self -explanatory, but, then you roll the dice and then you get amount of cashflow. The best thing about the game is when you first start.

You don't choose your occupation. You could start as a lawyer, which is amazing. You get high income. It's amazing, but you have high expenses or you can have like a janitor, for example. I it was like a business owner janitor, but a lower income occupations. And the crazy thing about it is that you could still be financially free much faster as like a janitor because you're lowering expenses. And when you're financially free, what does that mean? It means that your passive income exceeds your

your expenses exactly and sometimes I think I prefer the like those types of professions because you don't gotta buy so many houses to fulfill like my four grand expenses I'm like I can't do this I have not I'm gonna be in a rat race forever Yeah, but yeah, the most important thing is that that is kind of like the paper trading that you mentioned earlier, right? Right as an investor you're you're even though

These are not technically your houses or your investments or your businesses, whatever, but you're still making the same kind of decisions based on the numbers, right? What are the cashflow, what are the appreciation, how much money I can make off of this. And based on that limited information, you're dictating whether you want to invest in that or not. Yeah. So, I mean, to kind of add onto that is that I used to be so rigid, like, man, it needs to cashflow 300 to $400.

per door after expenses and cap X and you know this and that and that because Brandon Turner said it you know and because and the thing is Brandon Turner is correct because he is where he is because he obviously used that formula absolutely but at the same time when you look at it in appreciating market right and you play let's just play you let's just say you play cash flow right

How excited do you get when you get that property for free? Like that down payment where you don't pay for anything and you know, like, or you put something really low and then next thing you know, that property skyrocketed. You know what I mean? That's kind of like the equity position that really generates and propels people to a higher level of wealth. And typically, when you're buying in a cash flow market, you're speculating. Kind of like what I did with...

cops Creek, I just got lucky. Like I had no insider information as far as like, I mean, I kind of did as far as like me seeing the city, but I didn't have like developers coming in and you know, I hadn't, I hadn't, I didn't have that kind of information. Yeah. And when, when you're investing in those, in those deals, right? I think most investors, they, we get the saying you make money when you buy, but there's so many different things after you buy.

that you can make money off such as how you run your business. Is it running efficiently? Is the tenants all good? Are they paying on time? Like those things play a huge role as well. Sure, when you buy, you got to buy it right or maybe at the market price, depending on how the deal is. But that's just kind of, think a small portion of it. And the other portion is how you run your business in terms of are you getting the right tenants and are you making sure maintenance is up to date? No major.

you know, leaks or breaks that that affects your cash flow greatly. And then obviously the equity position that that continue to grow based on the appreciation of the home. is important. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. As as now shifting into like being an agent, do you see what do you see right now in the market? Do you see a lot of sellers? Do you see a lot of buyers? Do you see now it's a buyer's market? What do you see now?

That's a question. So right now it's very favorable to still be a seller. So if you're looking to sell your home, you will still get a very, very good deal. Still in Philadelphia? Both markets, I would say. Mostly Montgomery County would be more desirable just based, not just Montgomery County suburbs, because of the school districts alone. But even in Philadelphia, I do think that you are finding that there are more sellers.

having a favorable outcome than buyers. And buyers have to have concessions to a certain degree. What I mean by that, they would have to be willing to waive an inspection over asking those types of situation. Now, the market currently is what we call stabilizing. So what I mean by stabilizing, I think a lot of people think that the housing prices are falling down.

No stabilizing means that the housing prices are starting to just level off where they should be technically priced exactly So it's a good entry for buyers to potentially get in because there is going to be a very fragmented time For buyers to get in when these interest rates are gonna go down. So most likely at the time of this recording in September I will tell you guys most likely their rates are probably gonna go down. Yeah one more time. So

At that point, there's going to be a small window of time for you buyers to jump in and get a good rate and also get a decent home at a decent price. Just because of the election. Of the election, yes. But also the opportunity of time because all of these things before prices start going back up because of supply and demand, there is going to be some lagging effects. if you want to jump in, that's probably a good time to jump in. Jump in now actually because

You would have to look for now and then by the time you find something and close it'd be like, yeah, yeah. Everybody's going to jump ship and like just starting investing and now you have more competition. What do you see going to happen in terms of interest rate? Maybe a year from now. What are your predictions here? Yeah. So I wish I could tell you that I really don't. wish like, you know, but what I do know is that experts are saying that once rates hit around fives,

Then everyone's like everyone's gonna be jumping in like it's gonna like people on the sidelines are gonna be people People on the sidelines are potentially waiting for rates in September to jump in So then like if you're looking to buy a house, let's just say in September October November like you should probably start looking now so that you're kind of like Beating that wave of people that are gonna be jumping in in September because that's a that is it gonna be a milestone in time

And regardless of who becomes president, Like it's gonna be very interesting in 2025. I'm just gonna tell you that. Yeah, it's gonna be, I mean, people are still on the sidelines now. If you're just sitting on the sidelines, you're just worrying about your investments. And obviously if you have a real estate company, you're only sustainable as the deals that you pull through and finance and refinance and make money off. Right. Yeah.

Speaking of, you mentioned this just a little bit, you are a dad now. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. How has that changed your philosophy in terms of investing, time management, things like that? Yeah, so, man, that's a great question. So, I've done many things that have been very difficult in my life, right?

But being a dad has been, I'm not kidding, the hardest. I look around and I see a kid here with their parents, a kid there with their parents. I'm just like, I'm not the only motherfucker who's doing this. I think that I'm the only one that is going through this pain. But then for me to look around and it's part of life. Everyone that has a family is.

being a dad, like that is a dad or a mom, it's like, man, like how do you do that? And I still ask myself, like how am I able to go through this every single day? Now, my son is nine months old, so obviously that will probably change later down the line, like it becomes different kinds of things that I have to solve and stuff, but right now, that's how I feel right now. And the biggest saving grace for me right now,

is the time blocking. So I have very limited time to just like do whatever the fuck I want. Like I have to be very rigid. Like it's kind of crazy because when you're working for yourself as an investor, like realtor entrepreneur, a lot of people think and miss have that misconception that we have our own time. That's actually our biggest killer, I think.

When we have our own time, we just do a bunch of bullshit that we think is a good use of our time. But in reality, it's not. So it came to a certain point where I have to beat my son. Like I have to wake up before him. Right. that's what you mean by beat your son. sorry. mean, beating my son as far as wake up time. I'm kidding. I'm trying to try and get me arrested. I have to like beat my son as far as like wake up time. And then.

And then, and then, and then getting some of the stuff done before he wakes up. And then after he, like, you know, I put them down or, know, I, I give them to my mother -in -law. My day starts. And one thing people don't account for when they're time blocking or working is that for me, I only have a certain level of capacity, like of quote unquote working hard, right? That's literally from like.

nine or well it's five because I wake up at 5 15 so like that's literally like from 5 15 to like 1 p after 1 p like I'm a few like I'm that's like straight pure work ethic if I'm like if I'm even doing anything I'm on an appointment it's a little bit more even keeled after 1 p so that's that's like kind of like my biggest thing that I try to do which is time blocking so

Let's go over your kind of typical schedule here. So you wake up at five and then are you with your son from five to? No, I I try to I try to wake up before him. I shouldn't say beat, but I try to I try to wake up before him. So then so five fifteen is wake up time, you know, obviously brush my teeth or whatever, whatever, whatever. And then I tried to do some level of like stretching or like some kind of exercise. Lately, I've been.

going to jujitsu classes Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the morning. So I would train in the morning, come back, and then around eight o 'clock, or 7 .30 I'll take a shower, around eight o 'clock I'll come and every morning we have a, I have a mastermind meeting for like realtors. So I'll go in there for about 30 minutes, and then from 8 .30 to nine I have my morning meeting with my assistant.

And then after that nine through like 11 ish, it's prospecting follow up, like realtors type of stuff business. And then 1130 to 12 around that time, I'm eating lunch and then I actually take a nap after that. Yes. Yes. I know it's kind of crazy for me to say that, but I do take a nap because I don't drink coffee. I don't drink coffee. I don't do none of that. But that period of time gives me enough energy to then start like

my day at one, if I have appointments or if I have to like, literally like force myself to do some extra work, I'll do it, you know? It holds me over. So after one is kind of unpredictable? So, sorry, I'm being so loud. Yeah, so I think around one o 'clock it gets a little bit more unpredictable, but again, I try to keep it more rigid with appointments. Try to keep more appointments in there and...

Yeah, I would say one is a little bit more unpredictable than before that. does the work for investing comes in for you as an investor, your investor had here? Yeah, that's a good point. So to be honest with you right now, not much. Just because of the balance of me being a dad and then actively working as a realtor, it's been very minimal. Right now I'm managing a project for two new construction builds. I think you obviously know.

in Roxborough and there was like a heavily amount of capital in that deal. And I just didn't want to do anything until I got that capital back. So I've been extremely focused on that first. So until that project is done at this point, I haven't really looked at anything. Got it. And speaking of time blocking, right? We talk about being productive and you having these time blocks. Do you feel as though when you first starting to have this schedule, do you see your energy?

shifting in a way. And what I mean by that is when we put stuff on our schedule, on our calendar, we usually do it ahead of time. And sometimes we might not know how we feel or what type of energy we have at that time. because some people would stack up their entire calendar, right? But that's not necessarily equates to an energy level that you have.

Right. For example, you might be prospecting around what time was like 11 or 10 o 'clock, right? 11. Yeah. 9 to 11. Yeah. But what if that day you just don't have enough energy, maybe something kept you up at night or you had issues that's that's came up that you were stressing out about it and you don't have. Have you seen that happen when you first started or just basically what I'm asking is how has your energy level has been?

During the time that you put these time blocks. So well, so my coach right so I have a I have like a real estate Realtor coach like who helps me one of the things that he mentioned to me was if you Scheduled an appointment and you honored the appointment which I do. Hmm Why don't you honor the appointment for yourself? That was one of the things that he told me So after he told me that it really made me realize that I need to honor my schedule as best as I can

As best as I can so if there even is employment even if there are appointments that potentially make me money I actually try to book it after my time block So afternoon is typically the time where I allow that to happen Not during my time block now. Here's the thing You can't beat yourself up when you aren't able to accomplish those things because at the end of the day you're only human which I understand right but

I find that it's a lot easier if you start off your day with the harder things. what I mean by that, the first thing that I'm doing at 9 a is prospecting. So that's the hardest thing, right? So that's why I put that first. And what is prospecting? so prospecting is literally like calling someone like, you know, asking for someone for business or like, just like.

I'm very community sphere driven, like people who know me or know of me, I'll take them out to lunch or I'll just have a real estate conversation with them. That's considered to be prospecting. So that aspect is far often overlooked in the real estate agent type of part of the business. They think that it's kind of like HGTV where I just show a house. And that is a part of what I do in the afternoon time.

But to be honest, that's like the easiest part of the job. Like the hardest part is like the prospecting part because again, you have to put yourself out there. There's the fear of rejection. There's a lot of things going on there and that's why I have that first. Got it. And I guess the meetings and appointments come after that you already have that existing relationship, correct? Most of the people who want to see me at a house is people who like I've done prospecting already. Some level of prospecting.

Yeah, I think it's important, right? It's eat that frog and you do the hardest things first and getting that rejections can be really, really difficult, that cold calling. But speaking of time management, you mentioned that you have an assistant. When did you realize that you need an assistant? What does the assistant do for you? Is this somebody that you hire from overseas?

Right. Tell us more about that. Yes. So he is a virtual assistant that I hired and a big part of the reason why I hired him was there is a book that I read by Dan Martell. By Back Your Time. Your Time. So there is an equation that you definitely want to consider when you want to outsource when you want to outsource something right. You want to equate that right. So hypothetically I'll do let's just say you and I make two hundred thousand dollars a year. Right. That's roughly about a hundred dollars per hour.

Right? So what you're going to do is you divide that hundred by four, which is about $25 an hour. That is the hourly rate that you can allocate for outsourcing. So a lot of the times people are willing to, you know, pick, what's it called? Pick up pennies to step over quarters, whatever that's saying is, right? So like with that being said, like,

You want to figure out what your hourly rate is versus how you can allocate it and delegate it to someone else, assuming that you're working, right? If you're just sitting around, like, you know, not doing much, obviously that's a different story. But that was a aha moment for me, for me to allocate that time for a lot of administrative tasks. And that was the first thing that I hired. Got it. And what are those some of those administrative tasks? Is it realistic related, personal related?

It's a little bit of both. like my assistant handles a lot actually so he handles a lot of the back -end things for not just like the the realtor stuff but also like the investment like as far as making sure like if someone made a payment like he records it If there is water bills that need to be filed he files and then he follows up And then a lot of it's also follow -up. So like a big part of being an agent as well is that

I hold myself to a certain standard as far as follow -up goes. If my client needs to contact me to tell me how to do my job, that means I've already failed. I should already be following up with a client to let them know how things are going and where we are in that process. So that level of standard is still something I'm working with my VA.

because it is a high level of standards. there is no way that I can just do that on my own. So that's why I have that help. Yeah. And is your VA overseas or? Okay. Philippines. And when you hired the VA, right, what do you see or what do you require and where do you find these VAs?

Yeah, so I know that there's like other websites that people use specifically like I forgot that Filipino website like virtuals virtual staff dot like pH what's called? Yeah. Is it virtual? No, it's work work that peach or something like that. I forgot, but there's a website and to a pH. It's a very popular website that I've tried using. and I got a lot of like hits on that, but ironically I like upwork. I got my VA from upwork and

The way I hired is actually off of instruction. So on my description, I say, not respond to this job description. Email me a video of why you want this job, and then also email me your disc profile. So if they're not doing that,

immediately I do not hire them. I don't care. I don't even look at the resume because all the ones that are just not reading the description and they're sending it through Upwork means that they're not already following the instruction. So all the ones that now are in my email inbox, I then look at the disc profiles. So a virtual assistant, someone who is a good administrative

Assistant typically has high levels of s's and C's. So can you explain to us what the disk? Yeah, so it's just again a lot of virtual assistants know what this is because a lot of companies ask and they are like they take the test so The s's and C's are highly Like they like stability They're also typically like detail oriented. So that's like kind of like what?

you need right from a virtual assistant, you need someone that like slows things down, make sure that all the tasks that you are doing are technically in order, right? Yep. We as real estate agents, entrepreneurs like you and I were very vision oriented, right? We're very driven, right? That's qualities of a D and I, right? So you don't want that from from an administrative assistant, you want

someone that is a little bit more detail oriented, someone who's a little bit structured to help you kind of miss some of the things that are in your work. So imagine if I'm looking at the forest, well, the virtual assistant should have a quality of looking at some of the trees. If that makes any sense. it. Look at the small details. Got it. So that's what the disc profile really...

without going too much in detail, that's what it really conveys. And when you first started with the virtual assistant, let's say, I found someone who is willing to work, who is very detail -oriented and things like that. How do you onboard them? Do you have a certain process or how do you go about with telling them or teaching them or perhaps show your systems of how you run things or how you want them to run your things? Yeah, so...

The first thing that I really tried to do is treat them like a human being. like my virtual assistant not only gets American holidays off, but like this fool gets like, he gets Filipino holidays off and it's like pay time off, pay time off. In addition to that two weeks, like in addition to that two weeks. So, like as far as benefits go, that's like, that's really good benefits that a lot of people,

just don't give and I think a lot of people don't treat them like human beings. Like they have a livelihood and you know I have like a lot of empathy for like especially for my virtual assistant I really try to treat him as as my own and then also I'm trying to give him incentives right so like

Like the transaction fee, right, that I have, like I try to give, like the talks that I have with my assistant is that I will give him like a part of that transaction fee for every deal that I do. again, assuming that he's able and capable of taking the additional responsibilities that I'm asking. So the level of expectations that I have are high, but at the same time, it does pay accordingly to, you know, to.

to the level of standard. Got it. And do you micromanage him? No, actually I don't. A lot of the times, people have these softwares. You can see how many times he clicked. I don't have any of that. And part of that is because I don't say that I don't need to. But you know when someone's doing their work, you're just like.

do this, this, then this, and then next week you're just like, what the fuck? This should not take like one week, you Like you kinda realize, like, cause you've done, I've done all this work myself, so I kinda have an idea of how long it should take. So if it's not meeting to kinda your standards of like how quickly it should get done and how effectively it should get done, then that's kinda the point where you do wanna consider letting them go.

Do you teach them your systems from like a video kind of recording or do you do these in the meetings that you have almost every morning here? So I kind of got lucky because I hired my second assistant and I just like taught him like on the fly. I hate to say that, but like I taught him on the fly and I like, again, that's part of me just being a high D and I like, I'm not like rigid with like, but the thing is,

The good thing is that he created some content pieces and video of the training that we did go through. And then he obviously organized some of the things that were not so organized. So he is picking up some of the pieces where I left off. again, it's not completely perfect, but having him around is...

Way better than me not having him at all. So that was like a huge, huge, huge like burden that was lifted. And honestly, he, he probably had made my business a lot better. Wow. Yeah, a lot better. It's like content creation, for example, like I have a post every single day. Now, granted, I have to be the face of the social media posts, but although you know, like how long it takes to like put something on it, like literally put a caption and put, you know, and

And not only just putting it on Instagram but putting on LinkedIn Facebook like he does all that so that is a huge time like saver for me and and again Honestly a blessing. Yeah. Have you ever read 10x is better than 2x by dr. Benjamin Hardy that book I did not read but it's literally on my shelf to read. Okay. Yeah towards the end he mentioned well the the main purpose of the book is that

You want a 10x your life and that could mean many different things not necessarily like a quantification type of aspect but You know you being a dad that's like a 10x for example, But he why I referenced the book as towards the end he mentions about the different levels of entrepreneurship

And level one is kind of where me and you kind of started. Like we did everything ourselves. We think we're productive. Sometimes we're really not productive and we're not really moving forward, but we're wearing many hats, perhaps on our first investments or dealing with our first client as a real estate agent. So that's level one. And level two, I think this is where you're at, where you have that first hire, that assistant.

Okay, I can do a lot of things, there are, I figure out like what are my most important things, your highest dollar per hour. And then whatever else, like the admin stuff, that's when you start hiring people from the Philippines, virtual assistants, things like that to do all the nuances. And then you go from level three, which is you have a team. You don't necessarily have just a virtual assistant. You might have an executive assistant now, maybe right next to you all the time.

But you also have a team that is still need your guidance and need your approval on certain things. For example, an investment like maybe you found an acquisition manager that like, Hey, I found this deal. and then you have this finance guy that like, okay, I found a loan product that we could finance work together, just need your approval and you just sign off. Right. And then how this is the level four, this is where I think most entrepreneurs should try to be. And that's called self -manage company. So you just.

on a highest seat, you're just an owner of that company. And then you just have your own CEO, you have your own CFO, and they just probably just need your guidance on the highest level of things. And you do what is important at that time for your company and perhaps the biggest fire drill or the biggest growth that you could possibly do. But I think most entrepreneurs don't know that. think when you first starting out as a company, like you're so busy doing so many different things at once.

I don't think I want to run a company anymore, but in reality, know, most successful businesses runs on the people that they hire. course. And, you know, that's why the Jeff Hazos, the Zuckerberg, know, Tim Cook, they all have people who are maybe even smarter than them. Right. But at the end of the day, it's up for them to approve and they have their own internal team that helps them out. Yeah, even for me, at like the most basic level to hire a VA was

was just that concept of the buyback rate. I think that's a good place for people to start. like, if you make, like I said, if you make 200 grand, and you are, that's $100 an hour, give or take, right, on a 40 hour week, like $25 is kind of that limit where you want to say, it worth it? So you can quantify that in so many different ways. Like, is it worth it for you to cut that grass? If that...

if that person who's cutting your grass is $10 an hour, or $5, I'm just making this up, $5 an hour, right? You might wanna equate that. And again, it's not giving you a reason to be lazy, because again, you wanna utilize that time to continue working, right? Because you're freeing up that time. But you can free up that time for other things, like playing with my son, or going out, or whatever, but.

At least it allows you to free your time to do things that are a bit more productive. So yeah, that was a big aha moment. Yeah, and absolutely. you know, hiring out in Philippines, they're cheaper, right? Significant amount, you know, cheaper for the amount of hours. Easier pill to swallow too, as far as like the cost goes. And the one thing that for me, even like, even though I was paying, like I thought I was paying a lot, for me, it's like,

I'm not paying that like for the full year. Like I'm not paying them, you know, for the full amount for the, I'm just paying them for like, I pay them weekly. pay my assistant weekly. So if for whatever reason it doesn't work out, I can end it, you know, that week. It's not like a, one -time investment type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, now that you have your son and then you have these, this real estate, as, as an agent and you have the investor and you know, you have a lot of things that's

juggling a lot of balls here. What are your future aspirations now?

Yeah, I think my future aspiration for right now is just to survive. I hate to be kind of funny there, but like literally, think time blocking is so important right now. So like getting back to the basics is so important because I had a certain lifestyle that was very consistent, quote unquote comfortable before Jordan, my son was born. And after that,

after he was born because I was just so ignorant and just clueless of how to, I was like, I didn't know I had to wake up this many times in the morning and I didn't know I had these kinds of obligations as a father. In fact, I was probably a really bad dad for a couple of months just because I was just trying to figure it out. yeah, I think what I mean by the basics is I was,

Such a, and I still am in like a survival mode right now, like I was just trying to get adequate sleep, like I'm not sleeping too well, but I'm at the point where I just need to be consistent. So if I'm going to be consistently not sleeping, I might as well just do that. Like, you know, it is what it is until it gets better, you know? I was just so like inconsistent of like sleep schedules. Like I would just sleep and then wake up whenever I want. And then because I'm waking up whenever I want. is before your son.

This is actually when he was born. So before my son was born, it was very rigid. was like, I woke up pretty early and stuff, but when he was born, because I'm doing, like there's a new person in my life that I have to take care of, you know? And everything's so new. I was just, I just said, fuck this schedule. Like, I'm just trying to survive, you know? And then I kind of did away with it. You know, I did away with like my schedule, right? I was just trying to sleep, you know?

but it came to a point where I had to go back to being rigid. As hard as that is because when the baby wants to wake up, the baby's gonna wake up, you know what I mean? But I think I try to, we try to create a better schedule of his sleeping habits and then also for my wake up time. A big part of that is like, I didn't mean to say beep, but I wake up earlier. I wake up earlier than my.

sun because of that reason of like of the time block and yeah I don't get as much sleep but at least I'm prepared. Preparation is key so I'm prepared to start the day so that's the most important part. Yeah yeah and I think that's what's successful with being an entrepreneur right. If you're working in a corporate world or just on an hourly basis obviously you're capped at that salary but also that you have to show up a certain time and

You could leave at certain time. depending on what company you work at, there's some sort of control that they have over you. And as an entrepreneur, technically you have your own hours. You could wake up whenever you want, could do stuff, but at the end of the day, you have to be fulfilling your goals or your clients and things like that. You have responsibilities of your company that you're running and it requires self -discipline.

And I think what most entrepreneurs don't know, it's like, I quit my job and then now I'm going to run this business. And then now they start running their business. Like, I'm not making an income. Now you start have to figure out what is your best source of time? Like what, where, where can I make the most dollar per hour there? And I think that's our biggest fault as entrepreneurs is because we got out of nine to five to create our own schedule and not follow one. ironically,

our success drives a lot higher in the probability of being higher if we do follow some kind of level of schedule. So that's where I think it's kind of like for me was an aha moment, especially with all the coaching that I've gotten and stuff like that. Yeah. I think we could call that like the entrepreneur paradox. Is that what it is? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, because I would ask, I would ask people who make millions of dollars, I'm talking about millions, I don't know what they do.

pretty regimented. They know what they're doing in the morning. They're very specific too. Like I'm in the bed with my coffee in hand. I'm in the bed reading a newspaper with my... They're very specific on exactly what they're doing exactly at what time. And that time block is sacred. They don't let it go. So then that's kind of the level that I'm trying to get. And I'm striving to get.

Well, once you have that time and you're dedicating your time into that routine, you work really hard on that routine. then whatever time that you have, maybe at the end of the week or on a weekends, you work really hard and already dedicating so much time and fulfillment during the weekdays. that weekends is like they could do whatever they you know, flaunt their F you money everywhere.

I want to shift gear and ask about like sacrifices. What sacrifices have you made in order to make your investment successful and perhaps now are you making sacrifices on your real estate investments for your kind of time with your son now? like fuck the real estate stuff. Like honestly, like for me, what I mean by sacrifice.

When you said sacrifice, I'm sorry, when you said sacrifice, the first thing that I thought of was my son. I would be the first person to admit that, like I said before, I wasn't lying when I said I wasn't the greatest dad. I know people look on the outside, they see Instagram and stuff, like pictures and stuff, but I was kind of in a really tough spot with my wife and I because my Muay Thai fight.

was like the primary reason of kind of the friction between my family and I. So I was supposed to fight, which was like my last hurrah, right? Like, hey, this is a bucket list thing. I'm just going to get this thing out the way and boom, we're done, right? But the preparation of a Muay Thai fight, like, if you ain't trying to get your ass beat, like you can't just half ass that, you know what I mean? Like, so you need to prepare.

like very diligently for that. So my preparation for that was supposed to be a fight in, well, before October because Jordan was born in October, but let's just say sometime in the fall before he was being born. So I was going through like multiple fighters backing out and this is while I'm still training, right? So I'm away from my wife while she's pregnant, you know, in the later terms of her being pregnant and then leading up to it,

It got pushed back to May. So then my wife was like, all right, fine. You can fight in May. And then I had to beg her for June. So that's when my fight actually happened in June. So imagine all the preparation leading to fall to May to June. Right. Yeah. That's like six months, roughly. Yeah. So, so literally like for months on end, I am literally you saw, know, my time block, right? I'm like waking up in the morning.

you know, being busy as an entrepreneur, then going to appointments, then going straight from the appointments to the gym, and then I'll get home at like 8 .30, nine o 'clock and my wife and kid are both sleeping and I'm not seeing them. So at that time, for many months, I was non -existent. Like literally all that burden was

on Jen, on my wife. And that was one of the hardest things that I had to deal with. And part of that was also me not seeing that. And part of that was like me just being a little bit selfish to a certain extent of wanting to accomplish a goal for myself, you know? And like me being set on a goal and not letting anything stop it, you know? From a very selfish standpoint. And graciously, I don't know...

how many wives will allow that to happen, you know? And I, after the fight was done, I actually posted a video. I don't know if you saw it, but I posted a video and I was like in tears. I was just crying. I was just like in tears crying about it because of the, all of the relief of me like, like.

Not saying that I'm not training anymore, but it was more of just like all the pressures of just training and putting myself through that and all that weight was just lifted at that point. And that was a big moment for me to like come back to reality that I have to be a better dad. Yeah. Yeah. So that is what I'm working on right now. My focus right now is to be a good dad or better dad. And that holds the...

That holds the biggest priority. like, as far as sacrifice, going back to that question goes, that the biggest sacrifice is honestly not me, but like my family, my mother -in -law who's taking care of Jordan, and my father -in -law and my grandma, my grandmom -in -law whole squad. She's like 92 years old, you know, like she's part of that family. Jen, my wife. like, there are so many supportive people in my corner.

that have allowed me to accomplish this quote unquote like Muay Thai fight. And like I said, it was.

Some people will look at it from the outside and say, John, like, that's awesome that you did that. And I think it is. It really is. It's cool too. It's like a story that I can tell also. it also makes me realize what's important in life. And honestly, at this point, it's just being a dad. That's like one of the most important things. And, you know, as a man, right?

We're kind of making a decision on a daily basis on what we should focus on right? Is it our purpose? Is it a goal personal goal that we have is that our family is it business? Is there our clients, right? We always fight with Whichever is like the most important thing about like your you have like ropes all around your hand, right? And then you have different buckets here that you're carrying. It's like

you know, which one is important. And it's a battle that we do every day. And your Muay Thai fight is important for you, obviously. But it's affecting everything else in life. Of course. And now that you're focusing on the dad is also affecting everything else in life. And as a guy, even though we might have like for myself, right, if I'm training for a triathlon or maybe I'm going for a Muay Thai fight or something.

there's a lot of sacrifice and it's very difficult when you have a kid. A kid, a family. Because the hardest thing for Jen was that if she tells me that I can't fight, then for her, she seems like she's being selfish. Although it's not, I don't think it is, it's completely fair, but that's how much of a beautiful person she is. And that's how much love that she has for...

for me to accomplish a goal for me. again, if anything, I was ironically being more selfish than her. And for me to come back to reality and just talking about it now, I'm kind of like, this is an awesome podcast, by the way. Thanks for allowing me to evoke my feelings on this. But it really helps me.

realize the important things in life, which is honestly family. It's like being a better husband, being a better dad, and all those things, just being a better family man. Yeah. I think, you know, once you have those successes at real estate and you make, you know, a good amount of money from your investing or being a real estate agent, things like that, like those things started to die down, right. It's like, okay.

Cash flows, great. It's awesome. I'm making money. That's great. I'm growing my net worth. But it's a different feeling when it comes with your family, your partner, your kids, right? Eventually down the line, like, I'm glad I made those sacrifices. That goes for a story that I had with a billionaire that I had a conversation with. And he owned a big...

kind of like multi -family apartment, buildings type stuff and over 300 employees. So this guy is, and he's a billionaire. He does really well. Yeah, he does really well for himself. Granted that he's been doing this for 30 years, so kudos to him for working really hard. And I asked him, was like, hey, Ken, that's his name, how much do you work on a...

daily basis, like because you're running a big company, you have a lot of employees. Obviously you're having conversations with different people, different clients, and you're doing bigger deals, things like that. It's like your schedule must be really packed. And he was like, no, I only work maybe one or two days a week. And on Tuesday I work on my business and it's only two 90 minute blocks.

And he would have meetings with us like his top executives and he would look at the deals and just make a decision just like that. But that's just two days out of the week that he'd work. then all the other times, you know, he'd just do whatever that he feels is important in his life. And that is mostly hang out with his family. And he told me he was like, you know, once you get older, you start realizing like what is important for your life.

Think about the people who are in hospice, for example, and you ask them, what are your biggest regrets in life? And I guarantee you that none of them have a monetary value. None of them is like, I should have invested in that, in that deal. No, for most of them is not having enough time for their loved ones. And I think if you look down, you know, when you die or when you get older, what are the things that

you're going to regret in life and then start working on those things. And I think now for you, you start investing your time in Jordan. Yeah. And you're going to see the fruits of that labor down the line. Definitely. Yeah. And it's still hard because like, you know, kudos to Ken, because obviously 30 years in the business, I'm sure he had to build that up with a lot of hard work. And the thing that I find myself asking myself is, well,

why am I really doing it? So I'll tell you what I mean by that. The biggest reasoning of why I tell my wife, like, I'm working so hard and yada, yada, yada, is because I'm doing it for our family. It's like a common answer that we as men have, right? But then sometimes I stop and ask myself, I think sometimes realistically, it's because it's easier for me to work.

than honestly taking care of my son. I'm just gonna be honest with you and say that. And for me to reflect on that and ask myself that honest truth about myself, it makes me realize that I need to spend more time with him, you know what I mean? instead of making that an excuse of like, hey, I'm good at this real estate thing, let me do it.

It's just like sometimes a terrible excuse for me to not spend time with him. So I'm still trying to figure this one out, to be honest with Aldo. I mean, talk to me in about five years from now and I'll see if I'm a good dad or not. But I guess there is some level of accountability that I'm going to hold myself here to. would you advise someone who is potentially is going to be a dad or maybe potentially having a family and running a business at the same time? Yeah, I think exactly what I just said. Like really like

I don't know if every husband or man falls into this category as I did, like, you know, when you have certain levels of success in your business and you know what you need to do in order to generate that success, sometimes you use that as an excuse to not hang out with your son, like in simple terms, you know, or daughter, however you say it. So I think I find myself.

giving that excuse quite often. And I think I have to reflect on that and I've gotten extremely better. I have, my wife would definitely say that there's been extreme amount of improvements, but again, I can only get better at this point. So that's what I'm looking and striving to be. Yeah, absolutely. And just being self -aware of understanding why you make that decision or is this something that's truly how I feel or is this kind of like a disguise?

Exactly. And that's like the deadliest thing where you think that like you, get what I'm saying? You don't even know that it's killing you and your family. So like for me to even realize that I think that's like a, it's an important thing. And for me to address it, it's also pretty important for us to even unpack that. thank you for the therapy. Yeah. We talk about a lot in it from time management, from real estate investor and,

virtual assistant and perhaps the sacrifices you are making as a business owner and as a dad. I want to shift gear and go to the last segment. And I ask this question all the time for all the guests and for the future guests. And the name of the podcast called it's Kaizen Blueprint. Kaizen is a Japanese term for continuous improvement. Shit man. Look at this. Okay.

So John, what are the things that you do on a daily basis, whether that's habits, systems, tools that you use to improve your life or that benefits your life that could benefit other people?

Wait, say that one more time. Say that one more time. So what are, what are the things that you do on a daily basis? Like every day? One example is time block, but perhaps a different example that you do on a daily basis, such as habits, systems, tools that have greatly benefit you in your life. You think that benefit other people. Yeah. I think one of my strongest.

Values that I have is health I think mmm, like I we didn't even talk about it, but it's honestly health like I Don't change you jitsu and Muay Thai. Well, I do it to acquire like skill in like a martial art But honestly, I do it because I want to be healthy like mmm, like I look around and I see what other successful people quote -unquote obviously success is defined in so many ways, but

I can look at a millionaire and if he's like fucking 450 pounds and he's five too, you know what I mean? I don't think he's gonna be living too long. You know what I mean? So I kind of look at that as a very important aspect of life because I think not just necessarily fitness but just being healthy, like genuinely healthy.

Lately, I haven't been eating healthy. That's like poor like it's because you know, it is what it is. But one thing I don't really compromise and it kind of gets Jen upset is like I work out quite often like I'm doing some kind of level of exercise. Sure. So as far as health goes, I think that is one of the most consistent things throughout my whole entire life. It's the general fitness and health of my life.

Yeah. And that is important, right? Because if you're not healthy, then you're not going to live long. And obviously now that you're a father, you want to see your son or maybe future to live, you know, to maybe to see your grandson or grand daughter. So that is important. Yeah. I know it's kind of like a silly thing, but like, honestly, if that is like, if you're asking me, what is the strongest suit of my like ability? It's honestly that because it's been the most consistent.

Even when I wasn't sleeping, and at the peak of Jordan's crazy sleeping hours, I was still doing some kind of level of exercise. Whether it's walking, running, doing a push -up, something. What do you recommend for someone who maybe want to start martial arts of some sort? Any tips on that? Yeah, I would think of...

You would have to be interested in it. Some level of interest. for me, it was like, and again, I think I offended some people when I said this once where I was like, was like, dude, I, like, I thought it was kind of pointless. I was just like lifting weights. I got like a trainer. I got a trainer guy that kind of offended. And I didn't mean it that way, but like, for me, it's like acquiring a skill, right? Like,

the ability to one, be able to defend myself, right? In confrontation, defending my family. And then also like the sport of it, like in competition, right? Now I don't think I'm at the peak stage of my life to compete anymore. Or at least at a high, high, I never was at a high level, but like at just at a competition level, just in general. But in sport, I was, I always loved to compete.

I always like to challenge. There's some kind of level of challenge, right? So if you have one of those categories, I think doing like a martial arts, it doesn't even have to be martial arts. It can be like rock climbing or it can be racquetball or pickleball, whatever it is. Like you can find those passions that elevate your fitness, if that makes any sense. So instead of doing like a hundred pushups and a hundred jumping jacks, right?

See if you can find something that you might like as far as like an actual like sport or like an activity, even if it's like bocce ball, like I don't know how active that is or I mean, like golf even, right? Like if you're walking a course, obviously, instead of being in a cart, right? That's like a huge factor. like things like that, I think is something that I would highly like.

have people consider as far as their fitness. And again, I'm not like a fitness guru. You're not talking to a physical trainer or anything like that. But this is coming from someone that has rarely compromised like a workout. I find myself working out almost every day. Yeah, for the most part. Yeah, it started getting to be a habit, right? It's ingrained. At this point, that's one thing that I've sacrificed a lot of things, but this is one thing that I haven't like given up.

Yeah. And that is important. mean, your health and fitness is important because you want to be healthy. want to see your, you want to see the fruits of your labor and you want to be there when deals are happening. Right. You don't want to be in a hospital bed or some sort of, but yeah, I think, you know, in, in, in terms of health and fitness or trying out a sport, it is nice that you're able to do, you know, a couple of pushups or pull ups or whatever, but the ability of

finding the things that you enjoy and try, even if you haven't found it yet, try out many different things and see which one that excites you the most and figuring out like an underlying goal of what's going to take you to the next level. Right. And then seek to, you know, not to a professional, maybe you can do that, but seek to find a better way to acquire more skills, to, you know, spar better people or get better at sparring or just other things in life. And that is.

that is really important because that translates into other things in life. Now, I think we mentioned this in this podcast of the sequential order of growth. Right. I in Muay Thai, for example, you first learn how to throw punches and then you throw kicks and then you start learning about clinching and sweeps and takedowns, things like that. So it all translates into other parts of life of continuing to grow. For sure. Now I have my own biases with martial arts like Jiu Jitsu or Muay Thai, but it doesn't have to be that.

Yeah, not at all. All right. Well, John, where can people find you? Yeah. So on Instagram, I am johnlee underscore real estate. I think that's like my most active account. I'm also on LinkedIn as johnlee, Facebook, johnlee. There's a lot of johnlees out there. So let's, let's just start with Instagram, Instagram, johnlee, wait, johnlee underscore real estate. Yeah. So, and then if anyone has any questions or anything like that, feel free to DM me.

Yeah, I'm pretty open. think I've been as honest as I could be here on this podcast and I think that's the level of honesty that I have with the people on my podcast. think that's the same level of honesty that I'm trying to show here today. Got it. Any final tips for the dads out there?

God. There's a couple of new dads are coming out that I know. Whoa, a couple new dads coming out. It's like a sitcom. I would just say, I would just say.

Just survive. Just survive and do what you need to do to survive. That's the best thing to do. If you're running a business, kind of like an entrepreneur type of business, then definitely time block. Don't give that one up. I think that's important. Obviously there's parts of it where you have to be a bit more flexible instead of rigid, but having some level of time block is also pretty important because that's one thing that I did give up. It actually made it worse. Got it. Okay.

Awesome. Well, thanks, John, for being on. Yeah, of course. been fun. Yeah. Now we'll see you on the next one. All right, brother. Yo.