Video version of full episode.
Video version of full episode.
0:00 Adam Williams is the host of the Mint Project podcast and Elves Capital, a private equity firm that buys apartment
0:07 communities across the country, funds hundreds of units at a time, and [music] is by many measures very good at
0:14 building wealth and relationships. Very excited to talk to Adam today, not only about money, but about meaning in the
0:20 same breath, about [music] getting back up and what it actually takes to build something that lasts. Adam Williams, welcome to Acquiring Meaning.
0:27 Thank you. It’s great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I’m so excited. I I do a couple things that are a little bit different, some ice
0:32 breakers to get us started. So, this is a lightning round. I’m going to give you one to two word topic. I just like you
0:38 to kind of respond how you feel about it, your thoughts, and a short one to three, four word response at most.
0:44 Um, first word being podcasting. I think it’s very underutilized. Rocket
0:50 boosters. Rocket boosters. Done right. Yeah. Okay. Um, raising capital
0:56 [sighs] skill set. Nice skill set. Tithing, man. That’s what we do it for, right? If
1:03 you can’t give back, you’re not doing enough. I love it. Forgiveness skill set. [laughter]
1:09 Skill set, but necessary skill set. I like it. Parenthood. Everything. It It is our job to raise
1:18 good children and to teach them values and common sense and morals. Sorry, I know that’s more than three words, but
1:24 that’s okay. That’s okay. That’s great. Uh, Arizona home. Home home. Love it here. So
1:30 grateful to be here. Real estate as an investment. Everything. It’s the most valuable
1:38 investment vehicle in the world. Multif family or commercial? Multif family all day long. People will
1:44 always need a place to live. They will not always need an office to work in or a store to sell stuff out of.
1:50 Distressed assets. It’s what I do. [laughter] Uh, the United States,
1:56 the best country in the world. Happy birthday. Happy 250th. Big 250. Let’s go.
2:01 So excited to live in this land of opportunity. Awesome. The US dollar
2:07 scam. [laughter] [gasps] Uh, and and the last one here is uh
2:14 robotics. I just ordered two. They’re coming. And I am excited. I’m excited for the
2:19 robots. What kind of robots did you order? The Tesla. The Tesla. And I actually have not been able to order them yet.
2:24 I’m I’m I’m on the speed dial of the the guy at the Scottsdale Tesla store. I’ve
2:29 been going in there for the last year and a half since they put up the little dummy one. And the first time I walked in and saw it, I said, “What all will it
2:36 do?” And he said, “Anything you don’t want it. Anything you don’t want to do.” And I said, “I’ll take two of them,
2:42 please.” And so, um, he knows. I I check in with him about once a month. Supposedly, we’re going to be able to
2:48 order them sometime next year. And are you talking about like the Optimus? the Optimus. Yeah, the Tesla
2:53 Optimus. Yeah, you know that Elon just killed the couple of models of the Tesla, right? The Model S and one other
2:58 one. And that factory has been repurposed 100% to build the Optimus. Wow.
3:04 So, it’s happening. Do you know what the retail price for those are? So, 20 to 30 grand uh is what he’s
3:09 telling me. And but it like a Tesla, it’s or any other vehicles, you know, 99
3:14 bucks a month. Wow. So, think about how that’s going to impact not only us, you know, just
3:20 humans in your home and blah blah blah, but how is that going to impact certain workforces,
3:26 right? We we talk about it all the time. I’m I’m I’m really excited about it. And I don’t think that I don’t think it’s a
3:32 scary thing of like, oh my god, Americans are going to lose jobs. I think the job force just evolves. you
3:37 know, we’re at a really exciting I mean, similar to uh the industrial revolution
3:42 and going from horses to cars, this AI robotics revolution I think will be
3:49 really incredible if if managed correctly. Uh which I believe we we can do that. I’d like to maybe go back just
3:56 to who you were as a young man and and a kid. Were you always entrepreneurial?
4:02 Was that in your family? Where did this drive come from? Yeah, I I I grew up
4:07 with incredible parents, incredible mom, incredible dad. They loved me so much,
4:12 hated each other, fought tooth and nail. Um, and so I always got a ton of love. I always had a
4:17 roof over my head. I always had food in my mouth, but we were very poor. Um, and my mom was, you know, she worked two to
4:24 three jobs all the time. Uh, when she was with my dad at a very young age, they got divorced at seven. And then when she was a single mom, she probably
4:30 tacked on an extra job. And she just always made it happen. But we were always on welfare. Literally, people don’t know this, but back in the day,
4:36 I’m 48, there were literally government cheese and butter lines. Like, literally, you would go and you would
4:41 get a ticket and based on how many kids you had. And my dad would lie every year. Well, I was an only child, but my
4:47 dad would lie every year and say he had more kids than he had so we could get extra cheese. And they were they came in these cardboard boxes. My kids laugh at
4:53 me because they don’t they’re like, “What?” Understand? Like, they came in these cardboard boxes and they were these giant blocks of cheese. And my dad would get these and
5:00 then butter too and chop them up in like you know portions or whatever like yay
5:05 size blocks and wrap them in tin foil and put them in the freezer and that was all all year what we had for that. But nevertheless very much loved my mom
5:12 worked the jobs. My dad was always an entrepreneur. So my dad he ran a little construction kind of roofing business
5:19 doing some stuff on the side and he owned a couple of pieces of small real estate like very class D in the hood.
5:26 Um, but he would take me with these for gosh, I remember four or five years old. Like literally helping him clean out
5:32 apartments, right, that people would move out of in the middle of the night because they didn’t pay rent for three months and cleaning out, you know, old,
5:39 disgusting. I remember the smell so horrible furniture and you’d pull a chair out and the cockroaches would
5:45 scatter everywhere. And so my dad would always tell me, “You got to get into real estate.” And I did. I was very entrepreneurial-minded.
5:52 You got to get into real estate. Got to get into real estate. But as a kid, I was like, I never want to do this. Like, this seems horrible. Like, this is
5:58 disgusting, right? I didn’t realize at six, seven years old that there’s more to it than that. There are options. But
6:05 as I got a little bit older in my childhood, my parents and my my um my relatives and everybody would always
6:10 say, “Man, you’re going to be a politician one day.” which never had any desire to go into politics will never go
6:17 into politics but just the way you talk the way you negotiate the way you are you this they would say our little
6:22 politician who would so it was good man I I had a a wonderful childhood learned
6:28 a lot grew up very very early on realized that I was never going to be poor ever and uh just started working
6:35 really hard at a young age I started working for my father’s uh roofing company at 12 wow
6:40 so I would go to school I would get off of school. I would go to work uh on the weekends. I’d be up bright and early
6:47 hitting the roofs with him and writing proposals and measuring roofs and slanging roof tile at 12. I fell off a
6:53 roof at 12. Um and he just taught me like the the the value of a dollar and
6:58 that it takes you have to go do the thing if you want to earn money, period. Nothing is given to you for free. And um
7:05 learned a lot of lessons, learned a lot of lessons early on. Um, and just really always enjoyed work and in a sense
7:13 enjoyed the art of building something, right? Um, and when I say building
7:18 something, I mean business, like building something that you you you you think of this idea. We all have ideas.
7:25 You come up with an idea. Dana was showing me something really cool. One of her friends, 10-year-old child, came up with this idea, right? You come up with
7:32 an idea, you draw it out on a they say the back of the napkin, and then to take that idea and build it into something
7:38 meaningful, which is what I watched my dad do. And my dad never became like some multi-millionaire. He was never
7:43 super successful. He just grinded it out. But nevertheless, childhood was really, really good. Uh, and I think
7:49 having him in my life, my mom was wonderful, very loving, very caring. But having my dad in my life taught me that
7:55 entrepreneurial spirit and like you can go do your own thing. you don’t have to rely on punching a clock and drive into
8:00 a job that you you dislike every day. So, I think that’s amazing uh that you had
8:06 parents that showed you that that was an option. I think a lot of people go their whole life unconsciously in a pattern
8:12 and stuck in the rat race and not even realizing there is an alternative. Um, I
8:19 was doing some research and you you’ve talked about maybe some challenges from childhood, uh, business failures and
8:26 that success doesn’t just come from grinding and hustle culture, but it comes from actually healing the the past
8:33 and and your inner self. Can you talk a little bit about that that journey for me?
8:38 Yeah, I mean there’s a reason why, you know, entrepreneurialism isn’t for everyone
8:46 and there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, these days everybody wants to the
8:51 the quick route. Like you see all these things on social media that everybody driving Lambos and making a bunch of
8:57 money in two days and you can trade this and you can do that and you you know, my son brings me stuff all the time. I’m
9:02 like, dude, don’t waste your time on that. like everybody, not everyone’s cut out to be an entrepreneur. Some people are better
9:09 entrepreneurs, but if you have that entrepreneurial spirit and you really do want to go after it, I always say this,
9:15 you absolutely should number one do it because you’re going to find out one of two things. You’re either going to find
9:21 out that it’s not for you, which is okay, or you’re going to find out, man, it is for me. Maybe this idea didn’t
9:28 work, but let me go jump into the next thing I have. May let me go jump into the next thing I have. And then the other thing that I tell people that has
9:33 been very valuable for me and I learned this the hard way because when you do your first thing when you go to build your first thing you always think like
9:41 hey man I’m going to make this much money and this much time it’s going to take me this much and it’s this much effort. I always say when you’re when
9:47 you’re building out your financial model or kind of your you know your forecast on what your targets are over the first 5 10 years. I always do a 10-year
9:53 financial model. whatever that says. Multiply the time
9:59 that it’s going to take by three and the amount of money it’s going to take by two to three as well and you’re probably
10:04 close to the target. It just takes way more effort to do the real thing and
10:10 build the real sustainable thing than most people think, especially the first time you do it. Now, maybe on your third
10:15 or fourth, you’ve built a company, you’ve sold it. You built a company, you’ve sold it, right? Um maybe that
10:21 does get easier cuz you you bonk your head on some walls. You’re like, I’m not going to hit my head on that wall again. And so you don’t make the same mistakes
10:26 over and over. You get better and better. Andy Fcella is one of my favorite humans on the planet. And he’s like, “Dude, like you know, you learn
10:32 every every step you take. You learn and then you iterate. You learn and you iterate.” So that it does get easier as
10:38 you move forward. I mean, you I’m sure you know this, but that first journey out. Number one, do it. If you’re if
10:44 you’re looking for it, go do it. Don’t be the person that sits at a job that you hate for 20 years, 30 years, and had
10:50 all these ideas and desires to go do something and never go do it because you’ll get to an age where you can’t.
10:55 Um, so go do it. And number two, just be realistic with yourself. You know, push through that deep, dark, black, muddy
11:04 time of when shit’s really challenging. Um, be willing to do it. And and and
11:10 also I would say don’t think, especially for the young people that are watching this, don’t think you’re going to do
11:16 this three-hour side hustle thing and make it. It’s just not the way it works. You know, you got to be willing. I mean,
11:22 I’m a I’m a 80hour, 7-day a week, 80 80 hour a week, 7 day a week guy. I work
11:27 eight days a week if I need to to get it done. But it’s also like my wife and I after this are going to go take a three-day weekend and shut the phones
11:34 and the laptops down and really just allow our minds to rest. That’s the beauty of working for yourself.
11:39 Hey, real quick before we get back into it, we just opened up a few new slots
11:45 for clients at Parkland Capital Partners. [music] And if you’re running a lower middle
11:50 market business doing 700,000 to 7 million in IBIDA and you’re seriously
11:57 starting to think about your exit or how to scale to the next level, tap the link
12:02 in the show notes. Let’s talk back to the show. Right. Yeah. So
12:07 there’s not really a shortcut of three hours a week uh to to really build
12:13 success. Um but making those sacrifices does give you a certain level of freedom both
12:20 financially and from a time perspective. Um and you got to find the balance to enjoy that as well. Sometimes I have to
12:26 remind myself that. Uh for me I think what brings me the most enjoyment is doing things I love
12:34 with people that I love and connecting on a deep level. Often times that looks like traveling, planning big trips with
12:39 close friends, family. Uh but in order to do that, I really have to create that margin in advance. Absolutely.
12:45 Typically several months in advance and have it in the calendar so someone doesn’t schedule something. Yeah.
12:51 Um and really protect that time. when you look back at uh your life and when
12:57 you see other entrepreneurs, I I kind of feel like I’ve fallen into this category of this uh overachiever and that driving
13:05 from a place of not feeling good enough at a younger age um and wanting to prove
13:11 people wrong. Basically, I’m going to become so successful that I’ll show you kind of thing. As I’ve gotten older, I
13:17 think that’s transitioned closer to more of ambition driven from purpose and
13:22 service. How do you tell if an entrepreneur is operating from purpose or maybe unhealed
13:30 wounds? Ooh, that’s a good one.
13:36 You know, I don’t really know I don’t really know if if you can tell that
13:42 easily unless you know the person. I’d agree. Right. like if if if it was my brother
13:47 or something and you know I know a lot about him and that would be one thing but um
13:53 I can just say for me like you know it does it my journey has been it shifted
13:59 early on and I think we all get into business because you want to make money right like and money is just a necessity in this world but mine has 100%
14:08 shifted to I want to be the example for my children for my employees for for my
14:15 wife, for the people that I’m around. And I’m the only person in my family other than my father, which is long done. He’s been long done working. I
14:21 mean, he’s still alive, but he’s long done working. But, um, I’m the only person in my family that did the
14:27 entrepreneur thing. Everybody else did the go to school, go to college, get the job. Then, so be the example to just
14:33 show it’s possible. That’s been my thing. And, you know, people harp on their kids about stuff. I’m like, no, just go show them like do it. And
14:40 so our children, they see every single day what mom and dad do. And that’s so much purpose and so much
14:47 more rewarding to me than the paycheck that comes with it. And so maybe tell me a little bit more
14:52 on why you chose real estate specifically.
14:58 Well, you know, I I got the the early real estate kind of
15:03 opened my eyes when I was just a a little kid, a little boy, right? Like I said, three, four, five, six, seven
15:08 years old. Yeah. just running and and it and and it put a horrible taste in my mouth cuz I was again I was like I don’t
15:13 it was it my dad did section 8 like on a very tiny level too. He didn’t make a bunch of money. Um I think he bought his
15:19 first 5-unit apartment building for like $12,000 like he lit literally like in in the town I grew up in which was in the
15:26 on the worst corner in the city you could possibly be in period. So uh real
15:31 estate originally for me was like I’m not going down that route. And what happened was I I started at a very young
15:36 age building businesses. I’ve been building businesses over 30 years now. And my first real like kind of
15:42 successful business was a marketing and events company that I started. And my dad kept telling me like and so I was
15:47 making good money in this business. Good active income I call it, right? And my dad kept telling me, “Hey man, you’re
15:53 doing good in your business, this and that, but you really should invest in real estate. You really should invest in real estate.” So he was always in the
15:58 back of my ear and I was like, “Yeah, Dad, whatever.” Like whatever. Um, I met
16:03 a guy, uh, I was in my early 20s and I met a guy that, uh, I I got invited to a
16:10 party for Halloween, uh, by a friend of mine. And I drove up to the house and it was literally the biggest house I’d ever
16:16 seen. It like wrapped around this whole side of this mountain. And I go up to the door and the guy that
16:21 invited me to the party, who was my friend, answers the door. I was like, “When did you get this house? Like, what what what are you doing that I don’t
16:27 know about?” Right? uh cuz I was making money, but I’m like, “Dude, this dude like is a rockstar.” And so, and so he’s
16:33 like, “Man, this isn’t my house.” He goes, “Let me” He goes, “I live here in one of their bedrooms, but my friend owns the house.” So, he introduces me to
16:40 this guy and I’m in my early 20s. This dude’s 18. Wow.
16:45 18. And I’m like, instantly, I’m Adam. What do you do? How can I get involved? [laughter] Like literally like that was
16:51 like the opening conversation. And he laughed and he’s like gave me his card and he’s like, “Come to my office on
16:56 Monday. We’ll chat. like enjoy the party, right?” And that was it. And so I went to his office and what I found out, long story short, was that he owned a
17:02 mortgage company, but that’s not really where he made his money. He was investing in real estate, single family homes at the time. And so we struck a
17:09 little deal on how I could partner because I owned a marketing company and so I could drive like leads to him and
17:14 he owned a mortgage company so he could help get the deals done and he had investors and so forth. So, we partnered up over the over the course of the next
17:21 three years and we did there’s a lot more to that story, but we ended up uh acquiring 252 single family homes in a
17:27 very short period of time and that was awesome and I was making more money than I ever ever made in my life. So, I got into that, but then what
17:33 I realized early on was I don’t want to do single families because I just don’t feel like I can scale this to the level
17:40 that I want to scale it to. So, I found a guy that was doing only apartment buildings and I went into apartment
17:46 buildings and I just never looked back. And I’ve been doing that the better part of 20 years now. And a lot of the assets and deals that
17:52 that you do, these are 20 to 150 million transactions called 100250 units a lot
18:00 in the in the Sunb Belt. Is that accurate? Or what does the asset classes and geography typically look like?
18:05 That’s asset. Yeah, that’s accurate. So all multif family. We don’t do anything that’s not multif family. And generally
18:11 it’s 100 to 400 unit uh apartment buildings. These are class B and B+ assets. So, they’re not your shiny brand
18:18 new glass and steel buildings like you see the Optima down here, a perfect example of that. And they’re not your
18:24 class C and D properties that are some of the stuff that my father was doing back in the day. These are right down
18:30 the sweet spot of that affordable housing, very nice apartment buildings, but they’re more like a garden style, right,
18:37 apartment building that most of us lived in growing up. um uh if we ever had our own apartment with a roommate or
18:42 something, you know, when we were getting our first place and and in markets that are, you mentioned the Sunb
18:49 Belt, uh obviously we live here in Arizona, this is one of our markets. Um but in markets that are booming, like
18:54 they have a lot of m in migration coming in, like people moving here, that’s the most important. A lot of job growth,
19:00 right, is is important. You got to have jobs growing and companies building and expanding their workforce that so that
19:06 people can afford the rents in those places. And our model is very very simple. We acquire the asset. Um we we
19:13 renovate the units. Um we increase rentstomarket rents. And generally when we’re acquiring the asset, we’re
19:18 acquiring it at a very large discount because there’s some sort of distress like you mentioned early on. We’re just
19:23 getting it back up to where it should be and then we’re selling it for profit. So kind of a value ad strategy. Um
19:29 reposition these. Is there a typical hold time? Yeah, generally three to five years. Okay. uh we’re we’re in and out as
19:35 quickly as possible because for us we want to get velocity of capital for our investors. And there’s nothing wrong
19:41 with holding an asset 10, 12, 15, 20 years or forever, which is some some people’s model. Um but it’s really
19:48 challenging if you’re buying a brand new shiny Aclass glass building and you’re holding it for 20 years. you’re kind of
19:55 just uh you’re kind of just relying on market appreciation over time rather than if you’re buying the types of
20:00 assets we’re buying, we’re able to force that market appreciation, double that investor capital over 3 to 5 years and
20:07 and really move on to the next one. Right. And so you’re you’re basically providing
20:12 what I’d call semi institutional grade deals for everyday people. I I think I
20:18 saw somewhere that I mean, you’ve had investors invest as little as 10K to get
20:24 into real estate and and start building wealth. Uh to me, that says not only are
20:29 you doing this for yourself, but you’re also opening this up for others to see the power of real estate.
20:36 Yeah. Look, I think everybody should have exposure to it. Um the challenge is is not everybody has
20:43 access to it. Uh most people don’t have access to it. They don’t even know where to start. and even if they do get access
20:48 to it, they they don’t qualify for some reason or they don’t, you know, man, I don’t have $100,000 or whatever it is.
20:55 So, we try to provide number one, education. Everything we do is education first. Whether whether or not you ever
21:01 do a deal, you should know that this exists and you should know that it is available to you and you should know the
21:06 ins and outs and the power of it as an investment vehicle because what most people do is right, they work their job, they max out their 401k and they kind of
21:13 hope and pray at the end. This is a way to really really not only diversify but to boost that kind of retirement
21:21 strategy, right? Look, we all got to get off the treadmill at some point. Whether we want to stop working at some point or
21:26 whether life forces us to stop working, we got to get off at some point. And so, um, I believe that through the education
21:33 and then allowing people to get access to these deals at at a lower barrier to entry, we’re kind of doing our part,
21:38 right? And what does a typical return look like for investors? And are these syndicated
21:45 projects or kind of have a small pool of LPs that you’re typically working with or
21:50 Yeah. So the way that uh so the way that our our uh firm works is they are all
21:55 syndications. So uh we have a few different offerings, but our primary offering is we’ll set up a a single
22:01 entity that will ra um we’ll we’ll our one of our operating partners will come
22:07 to us and they’ll say we got awarded this 200 unit building in Dallas, Texas. uh it’s a you know $40 million
22:13 acquisition purchase price. We’re going to raise $20 million in equity. We’ll tear apart the deal. Uh the data room,
22:21 you know, underwrite the deal ourselves. If we greenlight it, we’ll say, “Yep, we’ll go ahead and raise that capital.” We pull our investors together and we
22:28 have um we have people that invest a million dollars a deal with us and we have people that invest, you know, $25 $50,000 a deal with us, but we pull that
22:35 capital together and then we go buy that building together. And then my firm manages the equity, manages the
22:41 investors. We we manage the capital. So, we’re kind of like the bank, pseudo the bank in the deal, and the operator
22:47 manages the property management, the construction management, all the data. They’re swinging the hammers. That’s what they do. So, it’s really a a kind
22:53 of a match made in heaven type partnership. And the investors, what’s so beautiful for them is like if anybody
22:59 out there’s ever bought a single family rental or, you know, Airbnb or some of this type of stuff, you’re pretty much
23:05 self-managing it, right? You’re you’re dealing with all the headaches of that. In this, you’re completely passive. So,
23:12 you invest your capital, you let us do all of the work. You never get a phone call. If a tenant moves out, you don’t
23:18 get a phone call. If the air conditioner breaks, you don’t get like, you never get a phone call. You get a monthly report every single month showing you
23:24 exactly what’s going on in the property and with your investment down to every single dollar that’s been spent that
23:29 month. By the way, the bank ledger. So you can see you you like ride shotgun. I say you can see complete transparency
23:36 into what’s going on. And then we pay monthly distributions. So around the 15th of every month, you’re getting your monthly cash flow while we sit in the
23:43 driver’s seat and we manage and do all the things and deal with all the headaches and execute the business plan.
23:48 And then when we sell the asset for profit down the line, three to five years later, whenever that is, um, you
23:54 get your principal back. Let’s say you invested $100,000, you get your $100,000 back and you get your share of the
24:00 profits on the deal. So, you got to collect your cash flow along the way and then you get your profits on the deal. And we’re always targeting what we call
24:07 a 2x equity multiple, meaning if you invest $100,000, we’re looking to get your $100,000 back plus $100,000 in
24:14 profit or somewhere around there. And then and then the last thing with that is 92% of our investors choose to 1031
24:20 into the next deal because like we acquired nine deals last year. We’ll generally do eight to 10 a year. So we
24:25 always have another deal to move into. It’s not required but most people choose to 1031 into the next deal because they
24:31 can just kind of double their capital without the tax burdens, right? Um and just continue to double their cash flow
24:37 as they go along. 1031 exchange huge benefit of real estate. You’ve also talked about bonus
24:44 depreciation, cost aggregation. Um, amazing ways to hedge even for high
24:50 income earners. Um, can you talk a little bit about the other benefits of of real estate around
24:56 taxes? Yeah, t tax specific. And I’ll just say like disclaimer, I’m not a tax
25:02 professional. My attorneys make me say that. But look, everybody has one and and if you’re in
25:08 business for yourself or you’re an investor, you probably have a tax advisor. So talk to them. Chad GBT or Claude or whatever you use is also
25:14 amazing at this. You can drop any of this in there and it’ll tell you everything you need to know. But the tax benefits are uh some of the strongest of
25:21 any investment vehicle on the planet. Period. Um we get tax benefits all along the way. And look, I invest in every
25:28 deal. So, and I’ve been doing it over 20 years, so I know this person. This is a p personal. This is what I do. So, I
25:34 invest my let’s just use $100,000 as an example. I invest my $100,000 into the syndication that’s going to go buy this
25:39 apartment building. the uh when we acquire the new building, we do what’s
25:45 called a cost segregation study, which allows us typically you would have to take 27 1/2 years to depreciate that
25:51 asset. We’re able to take all of the depreciation or most of that depreciation in year 1. And what happens
25:57 as an investor is we you’re an equity owner in these deals. So, we pass that depreciation on to all of the investors
26:04 per pursuit of their ownership. And that shows up on what’s called your K1, which is essentially your tax return on that
26:10 investment at the end of the year. Now, I ga I did I invested in all nine deals that we did last year. And I averaged 72
26:18 cents on the dollar. Everyone’s a little different. Some were 68, some were 88, but I averaged across my nine
26:24 investments last year, 72 cents on the dollar. What does that mean? That means for every $100,000 I invested, I got a
26:32 $72 ,000 write off on my taxes that went directly
26:38 against my passive income. So the monthly distributions that I received from all of my investments last year, I
26:44 pay zero taxes on. If I get $10,000 a month in passive income that I didn’t show up to work for and I didn’t lift
26:49 the finger for, I keep $10,000 a month. I don’t shell off 30, 40, 50% of it to
26:54 Uncle Sam. Right now, that’s one big thing. That’s a huge benefit, right? The second big benefit is if you have what’s
27:01 called real estate professional status rep, so you can just go chat GPT it. Um,
27:06 and you are a real estate professional or you qualify per the IRS code, then
27:11 you can also use the excess passive losses that you receive on your K1s to offset active income. So, if you work a
27:19 job like we do, like I’m a full-time real estate professional, I don’t use near all the depreciation that I get to
27:25 offset my passive income. So, I take all that extra depreciation and I offset my active income taxes as well. And then
27:32 the third way, we talked about it just a minute ago, is the 1031 exchange is the most powerful compounding, wealth-b
27:39 buildinging vehicle ever. Uh, so grateful we have it. I have some Canadian investors and they don’t have
27:44 it up there. Um, but basically what that says is that I invest $100,000 into a
27:49 deal, three years down the line, I get $200,000 back. I can take that $200,000
27:55 and I can invest in the next deal without paying any capital gains on it. And if I do that all the way until I die
28:01 and I never break that chain, not only does my cash flow every year double taxfree, but my wealth every year in
28:09 That investment vehicle doubles tax free. And I can pass that giant amount of
28:14 wealth that I built over 10, 20, 30, 40 years onto my heirs, right? My children, my charities, the things that I care
28:20 about essentially tax free. There’s they’re going to bang you on some other stuff, but it’s [clears throat] it’s a it’s a
28:25 really powerful way. And so I deal with a lot of people um I work with a lot of
28:31 clients that come to us in their 60s, even 70s that have said, “Oh
28:38 retirement’s here.” Mhm. Or very soon it’s here. Uh I don’t know.
28:43 I’ve got a gap. I’m not where I need to be. Life’s getting more expensive and my 401k is not going to give me the passive
28:48 income that I need. How can I close that gap quickly? Is it too late? And this
28:54 is, in my opinion, the cheat code. Yeah. Right. Even if you only got five or 10
28:59 years, 15 would be wonderful. But if you got five or 10 years, this is the cheat
29:04 code if you do it properly to be able to close that big gap in a shorter amount
29:09 of time. I love it. I love it. Um, you you’ve spoken about the most important skill in
29:16 real estate is not actually finding the deal, it’s funding the deal. What does that
29:23 actually [clears throat] look like? I assume your marketing background probably helps, but how how do you actually fund this and how do you
29:29 maintain those relationships? Grant Cardone would put me in a headlock right now uh because he says the most
29:35 important thing is finding a deal. And and you know, I’m not saying he’s not right. He’s obviously built a $5.5
29:42 billion real estate portfolio and raises a few hundred million bucks a year, so he knows what he’s doing. I got a lot of
29:47 respect for Grant. Um, but to me, we find a lot of deals. I mean, we under we
29:53 underwrote about 550 deals last year. So, there’s an abundance of deals out there. Um,
30:00 now out of 550, we only actually acquired nine. So, it is a needle in a haystack. So, finding the deal is
30:07 challenging. But the reason I say what I say about I believe the most important part of the deal is being able to fund
30:13 the deal is because if somebody came and offered you a 200 unit apartment building right now that was $50 million
30:19 and it was the best deal on the planet but you had never raised a dollar in capital in your life. Do you got do you got $50 million check you can stroke
30:25 today? Most of us don’t. Right? And so the best deal in the world can drop on your lap.
30:31 But what holds most people up is they don’t know where to find the money. And
30:37 so if you can get really really good I I teach a lot on raising capital which is
30:43 100% a relationship business right and and I don’t want to get deep into it today because we could be here for eight
30:49 hours talking about raising capital. I do a lot on this on my YouTube and teach a lot in the in my school community. But
30:55 um maybe one just quick protocol like one quick strategy on how to how to do that. Uh well two things. Number one uh
31:03 relationships first. It is our first core value in our office on the wall. Relationships first. That’s it. Period.
31:08 Relationships organically just grow. Because if you treat people really,
31:14 really, really well and they get into your world and they begin to trust you and invest with you, they are inevitably
31:19 going to tell the people that they care about most to come do the same thing with you. So, relationships first. And
31:26 number two would be always be raising capital. Whether you have a deal or not,
31:31 always be raising because it doesn’t mean that you’re taking people’s dollars into your bank account right now, but
31:37 you’re planting seeds, right? You’re talking about what you do. Hey, man, we just acquired this deal. Hey, I just put
31:43 an offer on that one. Hey, we did these two last year. I’m looking to get my first one this year. Would you like to
31:49 be involved? Here’s what we did. Even if you haven’t done a deal yet, it’s okay. Hey, I I underwrote five deals last
31:54 month, and here’s what they look like. I haven’t found the right one yet, but I believe I’m close. Would you be
32:00 interested when I do go ahead and find that first deal? Right. Always be raising capital.
32:05 Love it. Love it. Um, talking about relationships, um, you’ve mentioned some some partnerships that you do. You
32:12 mentioned Grant Cardone. Um, you you also do a podcast with Justin Colby. I
32:17 believe you’ve done some work with Rise 48 Equity, Zach. Um,
32:24 first, what does a good partner look like? Do you have advice for entrepreneurs when it comes to finding
32:31 partners? Um, and second, funny enough, I actually interviewed Zach maybe 2018,
32:39 2019 on a bootstrapped podcast I used to run way back in the day. So, I I thought
32:44 that was cool that you knew him. Yeah.
32:51 Awesome, man. Uh my advice to people looking for their
32:57 first partner or considering their first partner would be proceed with caution.
33:02 And what I mean by that is that everybody is giddy and happy and excited in the beginning when you have this idea
33:05 and the dopamine’s flowing and you’re talking about making a bunch of money. But business is not easy, right?
33:12 Business is difficult. You get punched in the face over and over and over and over just to get a glimmer of hope and
33:19 then get kicked in the nuts the next day. So, you gotta if you’re going to partner with somebody, you need somebody that understands that and is willing to
33:26 go through the trenches with you because it is not all puppy dogs and rainbows as they say. And the good times are the
33:31 good times, but chances are, especially in the beginning, you’re going to have some really challenging times. Um,
33:37 talking about the three individuals that you just spoke about, um, you know, Justin Colby is is is is our partner uh
33:44 in in our community, our school community, uh, school.com/more club. MORE stands for maximizing
33:51 opportunities in real estate. And Justin, my wife and I met Justin from his podcast originally, hired him as a
33:58 coach seven or eight years ago. Um, I had been investing in real estate forever, but I always have a coach. I
34:03 always have multiple coaches both in life, business, real estate, all the things because I I show up every day
34:09 like I know nothing like what can I learn today and so I try to get around people that are doing different things and this that. So hired him as a coach,
34:15 paid him like 12 grand to coach us for a year. Uh we just end up hitting it off cuz as a coach I think you meet very few
34:22 people that are what we call doers. A lot of people want to learn. Very few people actually take action. And so
34:28 Justin was like, “Holy crap, this guy like does you know and it wasn’t just me. It was Dana. he’s my business
34:33 partner, right? So, it was both of us and so we ended up doing nine partnering with him on nine deals over the first
34:39 like year and a half and actually doing deals and making money together. And so, we became very good friends um and then later on uh
34:46 became partners with him and he is one of the most transparent uh down-to-earth
34:53 humble humans that just truly wants to help people. Love him to death. very
34:58 grateful to have him in our lives uh both personally and professionally. Uh Grant Cardone, who I’ve been following
35:05 Grant for 20-some years before he even was publicly in real estate. He was doing real estate on his own, but nobody knew
35:11 that about him. He was like doing sales training forever for car dealerships and just always had a lot of respect for him and his just business acumen and his
35:18 just drive and ambition. Um but I’ve gotten to know Grant really well over the past couple of years and gotten
35:24 really close to him over the last year. He was just actually on my podcast about a month and a half ago. And um
35:30 [clears throat] that dude is special, man. A lot of people know him for like the Grant you see online and the flashy
35:36 this and that and 50% of the people love him, 50% of the people don’t like him and talk trash. He is a he is an
35:42 incredible human. That man truly cares about people. Um he he gives so much. Go
35:50 look up his foundation, the Grant Cardone Foundation, and what he actually does for for kids, inner city kids that
35:56 a lot of will never have a role model to show them the way. He does 150 events a
36:02 year just for those kids through his foundation. Raises millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to
36:08 help those kids. Takes time out of his day almost every day to help those kids. And he just really cares. So, there’s a
36:13 lot more to Grant if you do a deep dive that people just don’t see on the surface. And if you get to know him and
36:18 what he’s all about, you’ll go, “Man, that’s a that’s a very u that’s a real dude right there.” Zach, uh, also one of
36:25 my favorite humans on the planet. Um, and if you interviewed him in 2018, he probably hadn’t even bought his first
36:30 piece of multifamily real estate, his first piece of real estate, period yet. I think he was just getting started. Yeah. 36-unit building, like bootstrapped
36:37 it, like scraped every dollar he had saved together to do the deal. And man, what a guy. He is uh mind-blowing what
36:45 that young man has achieved in such a short period of time and not without headwinds. Uh he has never missed uh so
36:53 he over $2.7 billion in real estate acquisitions. Uh over I think he’s just
36:59 acquiring his 70th apartment building, almost 13,000 units. Um never missed a
37:06 debt service payment with a lender. Matter of fact, when lenders are foreclosing and taking back assets from a bunch of other operators that can’t
37:12 refinance right now, they’re renegotiating all of Zach’s loans because of the human that he is and
37:18 because he’s the one that comes to the table and makes it happen. Never missed a debt service payment with a lender.
37:24 Never lost an investor dollar. That’s a lot to say for an operator that started what, eight years ago, seven, eight
37:30 years ago now, and has just grinded it out. He has an incredible team. Um, and and I and I he’s a friend. He’s a family
37:39 man. He’s he he’s he’s a he’s a faithful man and he he has become a
37:44 friend and a partner that I absolutely cherish.
37:50 When I hear you talk about each one of them, I I hear that this isn’t just about the numbers and the financial side. Um, success is about that
37:58 connection, that impact that you can have. Can you talk a little bit about the your the idea of where the the Mint
38:05 Project came from and what that content typically is focused on for people that might be interested in learning more
38:11 getting into real estate?
38:16 Yeah. First and foremost, look, money is a byproduct of doing certain things,
38:21 right? And and and success to me isn’t about how much money you make or what’s in your bank account
38:26 or what kind of car you drive. Success is is happiness, period. And happiness are derived from a couple of things. is
38:29 number one, love. Um you find true love in your life, whether it be your children, whether it be a spouse,
38:35 whether it be um a dog. Yeah, that that’s true happiness. Um and the
38:41 other thing is is is happiness is derived from sense of accomplishment,
38:47 not money. Um sense of accomplishment means every single day as a human, we have to accomplish something. We need a
38:54 problem to solve. Um, humans get humans get sense of accomplishment and
39:00 happiness off of having a problem to solve and finding the answer and solving that problem. People are like, “I don’t
39:06 want problems.” You want problems. Trust me, you want really big problems to solve because when when you run out of problems to solve, you will go freaking
39:13 crazy. Period. You see it happen to people. Human nature like you your mind
39:18 works off of chemicals that get excited because you solved a problem. You overcame a challenge. And money is just
39:25 a byproduct of how many problems and challenges can you get really good at solving and how many people can you solve those problems for. That’s all it
39:31 is. Um, back to the podcast. So, we started the Mint Project about two years ago. Uh, we ran it for we ran it for six
39:39 or seven months and and it was a lot of fun. We took a turn and went a different direction. And moved over to the MOO
39:47 show is what we do now. MORE again stands for maximizing opportunities in real estate. And the reason that I
39:53 pivoted was because the Mint project was about bringing on it was Mint stood for mastery in no time. And it was about
39:59 bringing on entrepreneurs and whatever they did, it could be anything. And having them teach our audience their
40:05 skill set. What do you do? How did you, you know, how did you learn this? Where’s your success? Where are your failures? All the things. And it was really cool and it was a lot of fun. And
40:11 I met a lot of amazing people. But my world is real estate and it’s what I
40:16 know. I it’s it’s just it’s it runs through my veins. It’s all I know, right? Like I know business and I know
40:23 life and all these things, but like it’s what I do every day. And so in real estate, there are a million ways to make
40:29 money in real estate, right? Fire hose. And so what we decided to do, and Justin hosts the show, he he’s the main host
40:36 and I co-host with him. But um what we decided to do was we have all these relationships, the biggest people in the
40:42 world in real estate, like the Grant Cardones of the world, right? The Zachs of the world. Let’s bring them in and
40:48 find out what you’re doing, how you did it, where did you bonk your head, what can people learn from you? Because
40:54 everybody should know about investing in real estate. And everybody should absolutely invest in real estate at some point in their life. It’s just a it’s
41:01 just a a wonderful way to close those gaps like we talked about. And so we did we pivoted over to the Moore Show. Um,
41:08 it was really actually cool because in partnering with Justin Colby, he’d been
41:13 running a podcast, the one that I found him and met him on, by the way, called The Science of Flipping for 13 years.
41:19 Um, and very successful. It was like number one, number two in business and in real estate many, many times. And he
41:24 would do like sometimes he was doing an episode a day. It was crazy. Had a ton, tremendous amount of success in the
41:30 science of flipping. But Justin doesn’t flip homes anymore. He flipped like 3,000 houses and decided to quit the
41:36 flipping thing and he went all in on multifamily about a year ago and partnered with us on a bunch of stuff.
41:42 And so I I presented it to him, you know, Dana and I, my wife had come up with the concept of more and starting
41:48 this community, the school community and all this stuff. And I said, Justin, I said, you don’t flip houses anymore. You
41:54 have this podcast that has a massive following. People love you. Why don’t we instead of starting the more show from
42:01 day one with nothing, let’s just transition the science of flipping and the mint show and just morph them, you
42:07 know, bring them together and make it the more the more show. And so that’s what we did and it’s going really, really, really well. Like I said, we
42:12 were just out in Grant’s office about a month ago and did the the the podcast with him and go watch the episode, man. It’s awesome.
42:18 I’ll definitely have to check it out. Definitely have to check it out. Um, as we kind of wind down, I’m going to share a few photos of you that might be kind
42:25 of meaningful. I’d like you to just share the background story with the audience and then after that we’ll do a
42:30 lightning round. Did I have hair in? Uh in this first one you do not have hair. Oh man. I’ll give this to you.
42:35 Oh cool. Yeah. Golfing with my son. Um yeah him and I you know uh [sighs]
42:42 man he he just turned 16 and it’s crazy. I I think back of him when he was,
42:47 you know, this high running around doing his little Hot Wheel thing with me and
42:52 it’s crazy. I have, you know, I have a 16-year-old son. We have a 8-year-old daughter and I remember when he was that small thinking, man,
42:59 one day he’s going to be a teenager and now he is. And I’m just so grateful. Our children are so wonderful. And so this
43:05 is him and I on the golf course. It’s one of his favorite things to do and to get out there and to be able to share that moment with him is really special.
43:10 That’s awesome. That’s awesome. If you swipe over to the right. Okay. Oh man, you’re going to make me
43:16 cry. [laughter] It’s my beautiful wife, Dana. I She’s my everything. Like I don’t even This is on
43:22 our wedding day. Obviously, we got married in Cabo San Lucas. Beautiful. Very small group of wonderful friends
43:28 there with us. And uh this was the toast right after we did the thing. And she is
43:33 just man, when you find when you find your person, you find your person. And she is my everything. She’s
43:39 I say it in the very front of my book um to her, it’s like like she saw the vision before it was visible. You know
43:46 what I mean? And she stands by me every single day and and just rides with me in life and in business. And she is she is
43:52 my world, man. So, that’s a good one. Ah, that’s Millie. That’s Millie. That’s that’s our our baby little rescue
43:59 Chihuahua mut. Um, this is a an animal rescue. My wife and I are big animal advocates. We like
44:07 to advocate for things that can’t advocate for themselves. That’s awesome. And so, we we we volunteer at a place
44:13 called Sky Sanctuary in Phoenix. And um and this we’ve always had dogs, but but
44:19 this little girl uh her mom came in uh the the owner owned the mom and the mom
44:24 was pregnant, was having some difficulties in her pregnancy [snorts] and um the the owner took them into the
44:31 vet and just said, “Just put them all down.” Oh man. And our rescue Sky Sanctuary, they are
44:36 wonderful. Go find them. Help them. They are the most wonderful humans on the planet Earth. They got the call from the
44:43 vet. They came and got mom. uh paid for everything, saved three of the babies.
44:48 This was the only little girl. And uh Dana and I started bottlefeeding her at two days old. Oh wow.
44:53 And so we weren’t gonna we weren’t going to get another dog. But as Dana was like holding her inside of her sweatshirt,
45:00 like tucked to her chest, she looked at me like the third day and she’s like, I can’t let her go. And so that’s Millie.
45:06 Yeah. And she just turned uh she just turned two. Yeah, she just turned two. So
45:12 doing great. Thank you for going through those with me. I think it always adds some some color to who you are outside of just what you do with work.
45:18 My pleasure, man. My pleasure. And I have a couple maybe different questions for you. One is if it wasn’t
45:24 real estate, you couldn’t work in real estate. You have to do something else. What would you do? Build businesses.
45:30 Okay. Yeah. And I don’t know what those businesses would be, um, they’d have to be interesting to me. I don’t want to ever do anything or show up to work and
45:36 just do I’ve done it and do the thing to make the money. It’s not rewarding and fulfilling at all to
45:41 me anyways. [clears throat] So, it would have to be something I was interested in. I’d probably go into something that
45:47 had to do with with animals. Um, there’s a lot of need out there for animals and,
45:52 you know, thank God for the rescues and the organizations that help animals, but there are a lot of gaps in um there are
46:01 a lot of gaps in finding homes for animals, right? There’s 100x animals
46:06 that need homes that uh than than there are homes that know that that animal exists. So, I’d probably build something
46:12 around that, more of like a a tech play or some sort of a service to help all of those rescues kind and there’s some out
46:18 there, but we’d find a way to probably help that, but it would be business. I’m I have to be building something. I have
46:24 to I’ll tell you quickly when my my marketing and events company I ran for over 15 years successfully, made great
46:32 money doing it. Um, when COVID hit, that business was gone in a day. Nobody was
46:37 doing 2500 person conferences in Las Vegas when they couldn’t even leave their homes, right? So that business was
46:43 literally wiped out in a day. And I spun around in my chair for about 6 months
46:48 going just going stir crazy. No sense of accomplishment. What am I going to do? And it wasn’t a money thing. It was like
46:54 what am I going to do? Like I’m bored and no sense of accomplishment. So uh it was actually Dana’s idea. She’s like you
47:01 you do all these real estate investments. Like everybody wants to get into your deals anyways. why don’t we start our own private equity multi-family real estate investment firm and I was like oh my god thank you like so yeah it would be building business no
47:12 matter what it would be it would be building something I love it I love it um what is a belief
47:19 about money or success that you held firmly maybe 5 10 years ago that you’ve
47:26 completely changed your mind about now?
47:32 I think it’s evolved over time and that is the belief that that money is scarce.
47:38 Uh, and that is the belief that it’s really hard and difficult to become wealthy. That’s a really good answer. And I think a lot of people hold that in
47:44 their mind and in their heart. And it’s just not true. Yeah. The fact of the matter is is that there
47:51 is such a huge abundance of money out there for anybody that is willing to get up and go get it. Um, and and and
48:00 anybody can do it. I don’t care where you’re from. I don’t care what your background or ethnicity is. I don’t care
48:06 if you’re straight or gay. I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman. I don’t care if you live in Africa or you live here.
48:12 You have to be the one to first and foremost shift that mindset and understand that there is an abundance of
48:18 wealth in the world. I need to go get my piece of it. If I truly want that uh and then just go do the thing, right? That’s
48:25 probably it for me. And then when you think about success and meaning, is there a spiritual or faith dimension uh
48:32 to that for you? 100%. And it wasn’t always like that. Uh I was the guy that was like, “If I can’t
48:39 see it, I don’t believe it.” My entire childhood. And my family, looked, they I went to church as a kid because of them
48:45 that my family was all pretty religious and faith-based and Christian and so forth. And so, I did all that as a
48:50 child, and I was just turned off by it. Um, and I’m not a big religion guy at all now, but but about five or six years
48:58 ago, my wife said something to me that hit me pretty hard. She said, “We’re doing all these things and this amazing
49:04 stuff and we have wonderful children and our life is really good, but I feel like I’m missing something.” Mh.
49:10 And that ended up being faith and whatever faith is to you. So, she gave me a book uh she gave me a book called
49:17 Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza. And that book sat on the shelf for another two years. I didn’t even crack
49:23 it open. And we went on a a little just her and I a little vacation for a few
49:29 days. And I took that book with me and I read it all while we were there. And it
49:34 changed my entire world. Literally, I I now give that book to a lot of people or
49:40 or or encourage them to go read it or download it and listen to it. Um and since then, I came back and I started
49:45 meditating every single morning without fail every morning. um deep in meditation for my I do it’s 20 minutes
49:52 doesn’t take long and I do my thing every morning but with that also came my faith in the universe and and in in in
50:00 really putting out there what you want and all the things that people talk about we don’t need to get deep into it but also ca opened my mind up to faith
50:07 in God and so I deeply believe in both I
50:12 believe in the pole of the universe what you put out is what you get back what you focus on is what you get it’s the
50:19 direction you move in. If you focus on negativity, you’re 1,000% going to get negativity in your life. If you focus on
50:25 positivity and you do the thing every day, you are 1,000% going to move in a positive direction and pull that stuff
50:31 towards you and pull those people around you. Uh and and every morning what I do,
50:37 my little routine is I wake up, I go wipe the crust out of my eyes and, you know, use the restroom. I I crawl back
50:42 in bed, I put my headphones on, I do my meditation for 20 minutes. It’s the same every single morning. Is it guided?
50:48 Silent. It’s guided. Um, and the second that that’s over, I pull the headphones off
50:53 and I and I say a little prayer for the day and I just thank God for the simple things. Thank you for allowing me to
50:59 wake up in a calm environment. Thank you for allowing me to not have any pain today. Thank you for allowing me fresh
51:04 fresh air and, you know, clean water and beautiful children, healthy children and a wonderful wife and all these things. I
51:11 never ask for anything. Yeah. And then and then I I end it thanking God for the opportunity to go out and serve today
51:17 and put one foot in front of the other. I love it. And and it h I get goosebumps, man. It
51:22 has served me. My life has become so abundant over the last 5 years since I started that practice.
51:28 Just primes you in the right state to start your your day. I have a fairly similar when I’m doing what I I should
51:34 be uh morning ritual with uh meditation, prayer, reading my Bible, and then uh
51:41 I’m a big proponent of sauna and cold exposure. Huge for me at least. Um and
51:48 then breath work has been really beneficial. Uh last two items.
51:53 Favorite exercise? What What has been a few maybe key protocols for you to maintain health? You look amazing. Um, I
52:01 think that gets more and more challenging for some people as their business grows and as they get older.
52:06 Uh, making the margin for that. Are there any secret hacks or protocols have helped you?
52:11 Consistency. So for me, um, you know, look, I’ve seen very successful,
52:18 monetarily successful people throughout my life that never paid attention to
52:24 their health and that died very young or that are just very unhealthy and miserable, even if they have a billion
52:29 dollars in their bank account. Um, and so early on for me, uh, I I got very
52:34 serious about my fitness and I just never stopped. Um, I mean from like very early on, like 18, 19, I was in the gym
52:42 almost every day. And I just never stopped. And it wasn’t about being some bodybuilder, some buff guy. It was never about that for me. It was like, dude,
52:48 I’m going to go out and crush it in this life. I am going to build something meaningful. And I want to be around to
52:55 enjoy it and not just be around living. I want to be around feeling amazing. It’s it’s it’s awesome. Um, my wife just
53:01 got this scale thing. I don’t know what it is, but you hold your arms up on this thing and and it’s got an app on your
53:07 phone. It just got delivered a few days ago. I’m 48 years old and it tells you what your metabolic age is.
53:12 Nice. I’m 36. Let’s go, bro. So, if you’re not doing it, just
53:18 it’s consistency. You can’t these I’m going to, you know, now you got all these peptides, which I’m not against any of that stuff. If you need that to
53:25 get you where you’re going, awesome. Like I I a few years ago my my tea was very low, so I started taking
53:30 testosterone for the first time ever. It’s actually been like 18 months ago and um and utilizing a peptide to to
53:38 kind of keep me where I want to be. So, I’m not against any of that stuff, but you can’t you got to do the work. You
53:44 need to show up and do the gym. And it’s not just for your body and your health. It’s for your mind. Like for me, I do
53:50 that morning routine like I talked about of meditation and prayer. And then the very first thing that I do after getting up, taking care of the pups, and you
53:57 know, hugging the wife and kids is I hit the gym. It’s the mental component of
54:02 it. Your mind gets sharper the more and more and more and more you get consistent about exercise. So if you’re
54:08 not and and I’m so grateful because more and more of the world has woken up to this over the last 5 years and I think it’s just getting more normal now. God
54:15 our parents never saw the inside of a gym, right? Ever like that. We we laugh all the time. I keep saying I’m I’m
54:21 almost 50 years old. At 50 you looked at our I looked at my parents at 50 and they were like a hundred. I was like oh my god that’s
54:27 like death. Now I feel I’m I’m 36 in thing and I feel 26, right? It’s just
54:34 incredible. That’s great. Um I I’m single. I’ve had a couple relationships.
54:41 I can’t say I’ve had any great relationships at this point. You seem to be very happily married and in love. Um
54:49 how do you find someone? And do you have any tips for finding someone to get married to as a man?
55:01 Did you know when this could be hours? Did you know when you met her? I’ll keep it very brief. Yeah. So, uh,
55:06 quickly just her her and I I was married 10 years prior. She was married prior for a number of years. Um, we say all
55:13 the time sometimes you got to burn your first pancake. Um, and you know, not not bad people at all, just different
55:20 different targets, different things that they wanted in their lives. And you got to be on the same page.
55:26 Mhm. So I always say don’t settle because if you if you meet somebody and you settle which a lot of people do or
55:32 that the butterflies are flying in the first six months but then you get into life right 3 4 5 6 10 15 years down the
55:39 road if you’re not on the same page you’re not on the same page and so I
55:44 think trying to when you do meet somebody because you don’t know until you meet them and you get to know them and so on and so forth. So go out and
55:49 start meeting people first and foremost hinges how we met which was wonderful. Um and there’s a whole another story
55:54 behind that but nevertheless get to know that person on what do they really want in life as quickly as
56:01 possible. What what what’s important to them? What do they want? What are their values? What do they believe in? What
56:06 because if you’re not on that same page and she’s a W2 worker but you want to be an entrepreneur, it may never work. Most
56:14 likely it’s not going to work. Um, and it doesn’t mean that either one is right or wrong. It means that you’re not
56:19 aligned, right? Grant and Elena talk about it a lot. Like they got fully aligned really early on and he’s a freaking alien,
56:27 right? And she was like, “Go be an alien and be the best alien, the biggest alien you can be.” And he’s like, “This is my
56:32 girl right here.” And they’re incredible, right? 20ome years later. So once I found Dana, my wife, uh, she
56:38 found me actually, and we found each other. We were inseparable from day one. and I will be with her for the rest of
56:45 my life um and hopefully beyond. Awesome. Uh Adam, I really appreciate you making
56:50 the time. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation. If someone’s interested in investing with you, learning more, how
56:56 can they get connected? Yeah. Um learning more, I do I put out a couple of long form YouTube videos just
57:02 strictly educating people on what we do, real estate, retirement, the whole thing every single week. You can go to my
57:08 YouTube uh Adam Williamsinvests. Um, and then you can go to elestcap.com.
57:15 Uh, that’s our, uh, private equity firm where you can come and talk to us, you know, speak to one of our, uh, investor
57:21 relations team members. If you’re interested in investing, we can answer all your questions. And then the last thing I’ll say is, uh, Justin and Dana
57:26 and I started an incredible community. It’s completely free. Uh, schools skol.com.
57:34 More club. Come join us. Awesome. Adam, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. This been wonderful.[cite: 12]
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