Podcast

UNIN 26 | Real Estate

Naaman Taylor On Building Wealth As An Army Veteran-Turned-Real Estate Investor

  Being in the army is a patriotic duty that gives you overflowing pride, but time will come and you need to move on from the service. Going into real estate is one of the best investments a veteran can do, given its wide variety of assets and available opportunities. Many retired soldiers only don’t know about it because they’re not exposed to it. Our guest made it his mission to educate and expose the power of real estate investing to his fellow veterans and how to grow steady revenue with it. Join Tim Herriage as he talks to the CEO of Marching Time Capital and real estate soldier, Naaman Taylor. Listen to his journey from serving in the United States Army to getting into the real estate industry. Discover how he grew his wealth by learning wholesaling, fixing and flipping, and more. Learn why education and community are important in this career, especially for up-and-coming real estate investors. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   Naaman Taylor On Building Wealth As An Army Veteran-Turned-Real Estate Investor I’m here with the Real Estate Soldier, Naaman Taylor. Naaman, thanks for stopping by. Thanks for the invite. Why don’t you start and tell everybody a little bit about yourself? I was in the Army for thirteen years. I joined straight out of high school. I got into real estate investing about a decade after that. While I was in the Army, I went to Iraq and Afghanistan and did some time in Korea, Germany, and a bunch of different duty stations. I got to do a lot of traveling. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to get into real estate investing, so I could travel. After those ten years of service, I started getting a little interested in real estate. The pandemic pushed the gas pedal on that because the Army slowed down. For years and years, I was on missions. As soon as that slowed down, I decided to educate myself on something. That was what got me started in real estate investing. Aside from that, I’m a husband, father, and friend. I pride myself on having a good social circle and a great relationship with my friends, my wife, and my new business friends and associates. First and foremost, thank you for your service. I remember what it was like when I got out. You were probably in elementary school. I don’t even know. You were probably like eight. I start every show with a segment called the Bottom Line Up Front, the BLUF. I was in intelligence and I had to brief the commanders all the time, and they always said, “Don’t bury the lead.” Give them the bottom line up front in case the briefing needs to end. They know the most important information, and they can take action. Imagine there’s someone about to be doing something. Their phone disconnects and they forget to finish reading. Let’s give them the most important stuff, the things that you’re seeing in the market, the things you think people should be doing, the things you think they should be avoiding, and ultimately the bottom line of the real estate market nowadays. Are you good to go? Take it away. The information I want to share isn’t even specifically about real estate investing. It’s more don’t get lost in your business in your day to day that you forget to live a good life. Everyone gets to a point in their business where they’re feeling a little overwhelmed, in their marriage where they’re feeling a little stressed, or with their family when they’re starting to feel maybe a little neglected. Remember every day to live a very good life. At this point, we’ve all figured out how to make a lot of money. We’ll all earn 7 or 8 figures, but ask yourself when you look in the mirror every morning, “Am I an eight-figure husband? Am I an eight-figure father? Am I an eight-figure friend?” It’s easy as an investor and as someone who sees my path of success and knows that I’m going to make a lot of money to get lost each day, and I try to find reasons each day to find myself as an eight-figure husband, father, friend, and business partner. Remember to put those that love you first. Have a good social circle, live well, and earn well. You should trademark eight-figure. That’s powerful, but it’s also important. This business can be lonely and your social circle and truly amongst those that are doing this business successfully is small. Being a good member of that circle is important. Business-wise, what are you up to? What is your core focus, area of operations, and area of responsibility? I’ve got a couple of different businesses and I play different roles in each one. Our smallest business is probably our rental car business. We have a bunch of cars that are on the Turo platform, and then we also rent some privately. I’m more of the money behind that company. I hired an operator to do the day-to-day on that one. Another business that I’m more of a partner in is our education business with my friend, RJ Bates. We run a couple of different education things. We have a small community. We have Crucible that we run every quarter or so, and then we also have our house flipping business and then our whole selling company. I see both of those companies and make high-level decisions. Every now and then, I like to get on the phone and close some deals. There is a lot to unpack there. What is the Turo platform? I have never heard of it. It’s like Airbnb for cars, a ride-share company. You can list your personal car on there and rent it out to people. There are all different cars on there. I’m sure if you looked at it here in Dallas, you probably have some sweet

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UNIN 25 | Real Estate

All Things Real Estate: Getting Started, Scaling Your Team, And Living The Dream With Jason Mcdougall

  Finding opportunities in the market has always been hyped and encouraged—but it is actually as challenging as it is dreamy. In this episode, Jason McDougall shares with us his financial journey and all the gold nuggets he got in real estate from learning the hard way! Jason is a DFW All-Star, real estate investor, and founder of Next Era Home Buyers. How do you pick a market to focus on? Why is success in social media not as perfect as it seems? How do you gain freedom from real estate? Tune in and learn all about getting started in real estate, scaling your team, and ultimately, living the dream! — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   All Things Real Estate: Getting Started, Scaling Your Team, And Living The Dream With Jason Mcdougall I’m here with a good friend of mine, Jason McDougall. Jason, thanks for stopping by. Thanks for having me on again. Jason is a DFW all-star real estate investor. I’ve known him for about a decade now. Jason, why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about yourself? I got into real estate in 2016. I had a W-2 job that I felt like somebody wanted way more than I did. I fired my boss in 2016. My wife was a few months pregnant. I started out wholesaling and flipping and then got into the rentals. That’s where I am now, stacking up the rentals. That’s a good time, 2016. I’m not sure about the whole pregnant wife part being a good time. It was fun. We don’t know what we don’t know. We forget what we did know. I like to start every week with a segment I call the Bottom Line Up Front, the BLUF. When I was in the Marine Corps, I was an intelligence guy. We had to brief the generals. They would always say, “Don’t bury the lead.” You have to say the most important thing up front in case there’s a mortar attack or people have to get up and leave or whatever. Bottom Line Up Front, up to two minutes, anything you think people should be thinking about now, maybe focusing on, maybe avoiding, monitoring in their business or the economy. Take it away. The most important thing to look for right now is opportunities. Back when I got started in 2016 is when I started buying houses. I was in real estate in 2011 trying to learn the business. Those were the best buying opportunities of most people’s careers. We’re about to get into the same situation now. Don’t be fearful of the market. Buy them, but buy the houses responsibly. Make sure you’re buying them deep enough to account for any drop in value in the future or something like that. Also, stack up some cash to make sure that you’re staying liquid during that time too. Both those things are super important. A lot of the people that are on the sidelines right now are going to miss some great opportunities to buy some good deals to hang onto for many years to come. That’s my advice. You said some things that are important that we have to peel back the onion. Buying deep. Why do you say buy deep right now? We all don’t know what’s going to happen with the market. It could go down by 10% or 20%. I personally don’t think that’s going to happen, but you never know. Buying deep where you have enough equity portion to always make sure you’re not upside down, and there’s enough juice in that deal. Maybe if you have to refinance it in a few months after your rehab and the market’s changed, you’re still good. You’re not going to be stuck with something in a bad loan or whatever. At RCN, to do well over $1 billion in loans, and as I shared with you at lunch, trying to do another $500 million or so by the end of the year, we’ve always got to have cash. When you’re funding hundreds of loans a week, you have to have cash. There are some people that say cash is trash. It rhymes and it makes a good little meme. You said during the BLUF to sit on cash or conserve cash. What is your business or investing thesis on how much cash to keep at any point in time? I don’t know that there’s a number. For each person, it’s probably different. For me, I want to have enough where I can maintain if there are no rents for six months across my portfolio. I want to make sure I’m not going to have to give those properties back. I want to make sure I can cover the debt on those. Also, for opportunities. There are some opportunities that might come up where maybe a lender isn’t available or maybe you can’t get funds fast enough or something, but it’s a great deal. You want to have cash available for that too. Cash is trash. I’ve heard that. I know it is because of inflation and stuff, but it also makes you feel good to be sitting on some cash. You can’t put a number on that investing-wise. There’s no return on how you feel. A great mentor of mine used to say that real estate can make a millionaire out of a multimillionaire quickly. You can get real estate rich and cash poor. You can’t service your obligations, but you also can’t take advantage of opportunities. That opportunity cost is huge. Real estate isn’t completely liquid. It’s pretty liquid. You can sell a house, but that takes time. If you have an event where you need some liquidity and all your liquidity is tied up in equity, then you’re stuck. What amount of cash these days can buy a house? You hear everyone complaining about how affordable homes are. You hear everyone complaining that you can’t get started in this. What’s the

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UNIN 24 | Renters Warehouse

Renters Warehouse: Leveraging Your House To Generate Income With Noel Christopher

  When you own the house, you can’t generate wealth from it if you don’t leverage it. In today’s society, where people are moving five to ten years from now, how can you create wealth by owning that house? In today’s episode, Noel Christopher, the Senior Vice President of Renters Warehouse, shares his insights on homeownership and how you can leverage your house to generate income. Tune in and learn more about how you can optimize homeownership and create a long-term investment plan! — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   Renters Warehouse: Leveraging Your House To Generate Income With Noel Christopher Thank you so much for stopping by. I’m here with a good friend of mine, Noel Christopher. Thanks for stopping by, bud. Thanks for having me. Noel, why don’t you take a minute and tell everybody a little bit about yourself? I’m the SVP of Portfolio Services for Renters Warehouse. We are a national property management company. I manage about 15,000 homes in 45 markets around the country. I run our Portfolio Services Division, which focuses on institutional investors, family offices, and private equity that want to invest in a single-family rental scale. Everything from sourcing homes, if you want to buy off the MLS, off-market sourcing, underwriting, acquiring, renovating, leasing, and property management. A little bit of asset management light in there as well. We are going to get into your background. There is probably a lot more in-depth here but you are not just a guy at Renters Warehouse. How long have you been in the investing field, and how many houses have you bought? I started in commercial real estate in Chicago back in the ’90s. That’s where I cut my teeth. It was a doggy dog world. It still is. After the Great Depression or the Great Financial Crisis, I got into real estate investing personally in Chicago, buying 2 and 3 flat buildings. I bought a few hundred of those. Renovated them, and you couldn’t get a purchase loan. We worked with a lender and did refinances. We did Fannie Mae and Freddie’s refinances. We did almost a thousand of those overall but I owned a couple of hundred. In 2012, through a mutual friend that I went to college with in Arizona, the late Todd Farnsworth, who is a good friend of mine from college, introduced me to Dallas Tanner when it was still Treehouse Group, and they were about to go big with Blackstone. My real estate group was the main broker they used in Chicago. Previous to that, as a commercial real estate shop, we were buying other brokerages and doing a lot of different things. We started buying homes from Invitation Homes, and the rest is history. Since then, I’ve worked all through the industry. I bought thousands and thousands of homes, whether that’s buying directly for a fund or representing different funds. I have some very close friends and deep connections in Chicago, some of whom I’m sure you know, that I still do a lot of business with. I decided in 2012 that this was what I was going to do, and I’ve been doing it since. I start each week with a segment we call the bottom line up front. What I’m going to do is I’m going to ask you to look into the camera and spend two minutes talking to that individual investor. That investor that’s out there only heard you blush over, “I bought a couple of hundred homes.” As we know, I’m a client of Renters Warehouse and most of your customers don’t own a hundred homes. There’s a lot of fear out there. There’s a lot of misinformation. There’s a lot of, “What should I do?” Imagine that after these two minutes, they are going to stop tuning in. They are going to stop at a gas station to get some gas. In two minutes, pour into the audience the most important things you are seeing, the things they need to know, things they should be doing, and things they shouldn’t be doing. Take it away. If you look at where the market is now, I talk about this a lot. What’s happened in the last few years is that it’s gone up to about 40%, 42%, and 45% in some areas. A lot of people talk to me if it is time to sell their house. What should they do? What’s going on? The fact is that if you think that the market was going to continue to go, for example, if we were back in 2019 and fast forward now and we said, “The market went up 3.5% to 4% in the last few years. The rent went up from 3.5% to 4%. We had all been clapping each other on the hands, saying it was a good couple of years. Now, it’s gone up 40%, and people are having a little bit of a conniption with it going back down maybe, and I’ve heard some projections, 15% to 20% in certain markets across the country. That’s a huge opportunity because it probably will not go down and what will continue to go up incrementally is rent. That’s what’s going to drive your investment. The cost of the capital is going to adjust over time, so you buy and invest now. In a couple of years, you will probably be able to refinance into a lower term. You are taking a higher equity risk now and for the next year so that you can realize huge gains in 18 or 24 months. That’s whether you are a large institutional investor, whether you are a small or a medium-cap investor. You have a 1031 exchange, you are investing a couple of million dollars or you are a small investor buying one home. Don’t look at where the market is today and where it’s going to be tomorrow. Look at where it’s going to be in 5 or

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UNIN 20 Gonzalo | Wholesale Real Estate

Finding Experience And Success In Wholesale Real Estate With Gonzalo Corzo

  Experience is the best education you’ll ever have. Gonzalo Corzo is well familiar with this. Instead of taking the college route, he started his real estate career by working for a wholesale realtor brokerage for free for a year and a half. Soon after, Gonzalo equipped himself with the knowledge that came from that experience to grow and become a successful real estate investor. He is now the President of Cash Geeks and Host of The Cash Geeks Network Podcast, where he is not only investing but also helping others find success in the industry. Gonzalo joins Tim Herriage in this episode to take us deep into his journey, his thoughts on the ESBI Quadrant, and his advice to investors out there looking to succeed. He then discusses more wholesaling, selling to hedge funds, and transitioning to flips. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   Finding Experience And Success In Wholesale Real Estate With Gonzalo Corzo In this episode, I’m with an all-time rockstar, Gonzalo Corzo. Gonzalo, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I’m super excited. I’m glad you’re here. I’d like to start with tell everybody a little bit about yourself. I’m based out of Jacksonville, Florida. I own a wholesaling company called Cash Geeks. We do about 300 to 350 wholesale deals a year and our goal is to keep going nationwide. There are a lot of young people out there reading and thinking, “These old real estate guys.” You are still young and one of the most successful. You’re in the top 5% of investors in the nation. We’re going to get to that. I’ll start every segment with the Bottom Line Up Front. Think of it like the CliffsNotes version of the show. We want to give people in two minutes the top things that you’re looking at, thinking about, pursuing and maybe avoiding. Mainly, I want to focus on thinking big and treating your side hustle like a business. That’s the biggest thing that’s impacted me. One of the biggest things that make my business different from every wholesaler out there is we’ve taken the professionalism and the Corporate America approach to wholesaling and it’s blown us up. That’s the mindset that has made us who we are. It’s the main thing I want to focus on. I’ll have to dive right into this. You want to treat the business as a more corporate professional business. You’re not necessarily an old person. Where did you learn this? Honestly, it’s my business partner who is older than I am. When we connected, he had already a successful business that had a bunch of employees and systems processes. When I got into wholesaling, I got into it through FortuneBuilders. As they were teaching me wholesaling, I learned about the E Myth. I learned both at the same time. I’m a big fan of Robert Kiyosaki’s CASHFLOW Quadrant, where he exposes the difference between being self-employed and owning a true business. I knew because of my age, I had the time to build a true business and not just focus on something that’s self-employed, making a lot of active income. When I connected with my business partner, it meshed perfectly. That’s why we also work super well together because we have that clear vision of how we wanted to treat our business from the very beginning. In three minutes, you’ve mentioned two of my favorite books of all time. You’ve also mentioned FortuneBuilders, who’s one of the largest and probably most successful independent education companies for real estate investors. With the exposure to FortuneBuilders in a TV commercial or a radio commercial, is that how you learned about real estate or learn more? No, that’s how I learn more. Shout-out to my older brother. He’s a realtor and real estate investor. When I was eighteen, my older brother got into real estate. He had been trying to get me into real estate and shove Rich Dad Poor Dad down my throat. I was like, “No, I’m going to be a cop.” I was going to community college for my degree in Criminology. He took me to a personal development event where it was put on by a bunch of successful real estate investors. I got to hear David Green talk from BiggerPockets several years ago before he was anything big. He was a cop that was in real estate. I was like, “I’m going to be a cop and my older brother’s going to tell me about real estate.” We were talking about having a different voice in the locker room and a different show that you had. I was like, “My brother’s right. I need to get into real estate.” From that personal development event, driving home from the airport, I was listening to the radio and I heard a Than Merrill’s FortuneBuilders ad. It was like, “We’re coming into your town. We’re looking for some people that can help us buy houses with no money.” I was like, “This is what that event was telling me about. I need to be there. Say yes and figured it out later.” Two weeks later, I dropped out and started my real estate career. “We’re going to be in Dallas on,” it’s the old recorded same commercial insert city name but it’s led to a lot of success and successful people. I don’t knock any education, honestly, unless it teaches people to do things that are unethical or illegal. Let’s go back to the ESBI quadrant. A lot of people misunderstand that quadrant. In my opinion, they think they have to move from the E to the B to the I. I’m not sure a lot of people understand that you can occupy all four quadrants at the same time. I would like to know your thoughts and view on that. The biggest thing is understanding active and passive income. For me, when you break that down, you’re always going to have active and passive income.

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UNIN 21 | How To Raise Money

How To Raise Money To Get Through Tough Times With Brandon Brittingham

  With the current market we’re dealing with, raising money is a challenge for everyone, especially the investors. Many business owners make a mistake as they walk on a journey of a sale’s mind instead of walking through a consumer’s mind. In this episode, Brandon Brittingham shares how you can raise money with a business owner mindset to get through tough times. He also shares his experience on how he was willing to gamble to build a massive brand in the first recession. Tim Herriage took the chance to squeeze out some more insights from Brandon, not only about how he maintains trust from an ethical point of view but also how it impacts doing business. Tune in to this episode to gain more gems of wisdom from Brandon. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   How To Raise Money To Get Through Tough Times With Brandon Brittingham I’m with an absolute rock star. Brandon Brittingham. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you. Tell everybody a little bit about yourself. I do a lot of cliff notes. Anything that has to do with a home sale. I own a company around it. I have been in the investment space for a long time too. Why I originally got into real estate was to be in the investment space, and then I got into the retail side. I tried to create Amazon in real estate to how we can make it easy on the consumer. I have always had an affinity and love for investing in real estate. I have always done that too. I was lucky enough to sit next to you at Kent Clothier’s boardroom in Chicago. I remember I was sitting there, and I had no idea who you were. I got up and spoke. Sometimes I’m a little bit of the alpha in the room. People don’t want to give me feedback, and you like popped up and quietly, “I can help you with that problem.” I heard the authority come out. It was like, “What did you do then?” I was like, “Who is this guy?” The more and more the day got on, it was so fun to watch you pour into people. I’m excited to have you here. I start every episode with the bottom line up front. Do me a favor, take two minutes, tell the audience the single most important things in this market they need to be doing, avoiding, focused on, and changing. Whatever you think the bottom line is for this real estate investor. In this market, a lot of people try to make the mistake is timing the real estate market. If you look at real estate over the whole, you are going to make money if you understand how to underwrite a deal. If I could do anything over again, one thing that I would tell people is to figure out how to go after the bigger deals because it’s another zero. Your underwriting is the same, and everything is the same. In a lot of apartment deals and things like that I have done, the underwriting is easier than a smaller single-family portfolio, and it is way less pain. The appreciation and the economies of scale that I have gotten from apartments are insane. Asset classes like apartments and single-family houses, over time, are going to beat anything that’s out there. It’s one of the safest places to place your money but people are always trying to like, “Should I buy now? Can I time the market?” You underwrite a deal. It’s a good deal or a bad deal. Over time, if you buy and hold, the key to wealth is buying and holding and not emotionally selling and buying on a whim. Underwriting is being smart about what you do with your money and holding for the long-term. If you study and pay attention to anybody that’s wealthy, they hold cash-producing assets. They never pay taxes on it. Keep buying more and figure out how to never sell it. Pull their cash out of it to live off of but they never sell anything. If you follow that model in real estate over time, it’s going to make you wealthy. Don’t care about timing the market. Now, we are going to see some pain across the United States. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s real. There’s going to be perceived pain from people that were probably smaller investors or they didn’t know what they were doing. There’s opportunity. I would tell everybody to raise as much money as they can. Stack capital because there’s going to be an opportunity. The bulk of my wealth that I have was because I bought a ton of stuff between 2008 and 2011. Now, those assets that I bought are 10X and 15X. Stack capital now and wait for the opportunity. Opportunity is going to come but if you see a good deal now, don’t wait. If you know how to underwrite a deal and you are going to hold it for the long-term, you are going to make money either way. Don’t buy and sell. Buy and hold. Buy and hold make you wealthy. Stack cash and assets and take advantage of the compound effect of appreciation. Too many people underestimate the compound effect of appreciation. I spoke at Scale & Escape and was looking for some good examples. Besides Tim, the lender tells them, “Buy houses and always pay interest.” It was an interesting thing. I found that in 1971, Warren Buffett bought a home in Laguna Beach and borrowed $120,000 against that home. The CNBC host says, “Why would you have taken a mortgage? You didn’t need it.” He said, “The interest rates were a little high but I figured I could do better with the money than the interest would cost me.” That house he bought for $150,000. It was worth $11 million when he sold it

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UNIN 22 | Invest In Yourself

Invest In Yourself: Building Up Your Fundamentals So You Can Find Success In Your Industry With Jason Matthews

  If you really want to succeed in your industry, you need to have a knack for learning. The ability to just constantly educate yourself. Read every book, do research, get mentors, or listen to podcasts. Do what you have to do so that you can succeed and don’t make mistakes. Strengthen your fundamentals and move up from there. Join Tim Herriage as he talks to real estate executive Jason Matthews about his journey into real estate development and construction. Discover how he did it by investing in himself. Learn how he put some of his sports philosophies into creating a successful business. And find out how Jason is helping ethnical minorities break into the real estate industry. Start educating yourself today! — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   Invest In Yourself: Building Up Your Fundamentals So You Can Find Success In Your Industry With Jason Matthews I’m here with my good friend, Jason Matthews. Jason, thank you for coming to town. Thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to it. One of my favorite guys. I don’t know about all that, but let’s start off. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Jason Matthews, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and played high school and college basketball. I used that life of basketball, that vehicle, to guide me through my business career. I’m now living in Tampa. Many years as a real estate investor. I’m married. I’m a dad of three, great kids. I’m happy to be here in Dallas, Texas with you. I’m glad you’re here. I like to start with what I call the Bottom-Line Up Front. Imagine someone’s reading, they’re excited, they have to stop to do something for 5 or 10 minutes, and they forget to go back to reading. Let’s try to find a way to tell them the most important things happening in the market now, your opinion about that, things you think they should be focused on, things they should be doing, and maybe some things they should be avoiding. The most solid advice I can give people at this point in time is to focus on their education. You have to dig deep into the fundamentals because the fundamentals will teach you how to make adjustments. In the real estate market that we’re dealing with right now, things, underwriting guidelines, and values are changing so rapidly. You got to drill down into the fundamentals and know how to make adjustments. Our approach has been to study what’s going on, relying on the knowledge that we’ve gained over the last 25-plus years, and make the right adjustments. We’ve done a great job so far of doing that. We also have an action plan with more rate hikes to come. We also have an action plan with looking at some different uses for our short-term rental portfolio that we have. That’s what it’s going to take to be successful and get through the next few years. I’ve invested in my education on a continuous basis. I’ve invested in a couple of courses that have helped me. I’m investing in some more excellent coaching. I’m in a phenomenal real estate mastermind group that has a lot of talent, knowledge, and experience. I came into the year 2020 expecting to have to make these adjustments, expecting to build our infrastructure a lot stronger with the growth of our portfolio. That’s what we’ve been able to do. It’s worked well for us. I got to meet you in the Boardroom Mastermind in Denver in June 2022. You were immediately one of those impressive human beings, not because you’re a short man because you’re rather tall, but because you were soft-spoken but intelligent. I like to have intellectual conversations at times. I want to go back to something you said in the bluff. You talked about education and a team. It seemed like you were leveraging other people’s knowledge. Going back to your time in sports, because we talked a lot about that when we first met, what is it about having a team specifically in times like this that helps you? To be a part of a team, to have a team, I was fortunate. My dad put me in team sports at four years old at tee-ball. My dad was my Little League coach for ten years. It’s a phenomenal experience. You have to be on time and prepared. It’s not all about you. You can’t win the game by yourself. My dad was big on sportsmanship. Knowing how to get along with your teammates and realizing that even if you’re right, it’s okay not to have to tell everybody that you’re right. That transferred into being a businessman. I’ve never liked the vertical management of our businesses and being an entrepreneur. I’ve always preferred to work in a team. Whether I agree with it or not, I value the input from others on our team because they have different perspectives. They live in different neighborhoods and cities. They’ve had different experiences, personal experiences, family experiences, and business experiences. I want to look at the whole global view of what’s going on out here. I believe that a major reason why I’ve been able to stay in this industry for many years through all the real estate cycles and ups and downs and things of that nature is that I am willing to listen and learn from a variety of different people. I’ll give you a good example. When I was younger in the business, if I had a major business decision to make, I would intentionally ask one of my mentors’ opinions. I would ask one of my colleagues’ opinions. The third person I would ask would be someone that’s not even in the real estate industry. That was my process. They gave me three different perspectives. I added my perspective and then I move forward with the decision. That was a practice

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