Episode 11 | Mike Robb | Military Millionaire Podcast

00:00 - 05:00

David:

What's up military millionaires. I'm your host, David Pere. Today we have an exciting episode with Mike Robb in which we're going to talk about real estate investing, personal finance, private lending. Yes, he's a private money lender and networking and so much more.

This guy's a connector and I'm super excited about the show if this is your first time listening, thanks for joining the community. The podcast is produced every week for your enjoyment. Show notes are found at Frommilitarytomillionaire.com. Now relax and enjoy the show.

Intro:

You're listening to the military millionaire podcast, a show about real estate investing for the working class. Stay tuned as we explore ways to help you improve your finances, build wealth through real estate and become a person that is worth knowing.

David:

Hey, what's up everybody it’s Dave with military to millionaire today I am here with Mike Rob.

Mike has been in the Navy for about 19 years he was a he got all the way up to Chief Petty Officer he seven and then commission. So he's now a lieutenant in the Navy. He's bought and sold a couple different rental properties. And then he now focused more on private lending and like managing mobile homes and started to work on some mobile home stuff as well as a couple other things down the pipe.

So, Mike, welcome aboard. It's good to have you tell us a little bit about yourself.

Mike:

Yeah, so thanks. Um, like you said, I joined the Navy in 2000. Worked my way up the ranks, constantly learning from those that had done it before me.
So like that's the big path to success in the military is don't recreate the wheel. Just start learning from mentors and start seeking responsibility.

So say I moved up to Chief Petty Officer back in 2008. And then the commissioning program got me my civil engineering degree. And now I'm a civil engineer crosser for the Navy station out here in San Diego, California.

David:

Awesome, awesome. Yeah, San Diego, you Pendleton, right?

Mike:

Yes.

David:

Yeah. I love Pendleton.

Alright, so Mike, tell us a little bit about, I guess some of your history with I know you've had a couple rental properties. And then kind of what you're working on in real estate right now.

Mike:

Sure.

Yeah. So back in 2003. Now here in San Diego, my wife and I decided it was time to buy a new property. Like all good E fours, you know, I actually came to the property with 20% down which was unheard of at that time. So I think we did pretty well bringing a good sizable downpayment. During that time, most people knew the market was just taking off so we wrote up some appreciation on a little two bedroom condo and planned on holding it.

The big thing we found was HOA’s can be pretty bad. You can kind of ruin the investment grade of the rental real quick if they have some issues with the HOA so had some issues with the HOA. And luckily, we sold that property back in O7 right before the downturn.

So I took that money in O7. And I started researching and learning how to invest in the stock market. So I took all those earnings when I moved to Hawaii in 2008. And started investing in stocks in O9. So while I was deployed for a while, got really engrossed in learning how to do it, how to save money, how you know, how to save on fees, I did that for a couple years.

And then like we discussed, I got a commissioning program which took me over to Virginia. So at that time, the market was starting to come back around again. And at that point, we decided to build the house, knowing we were going to be there for a few years.

So we built the new construction from the ground up and converted that to a rental in 2013. Again, as luck would have it, we had some good market timing and rented that out for a few years and just sold it at the end of 2016.

So that's kind of what we've been doing with our investments up until now. And as you know, with the stock market 2009 to now has been a good run. So since I'm about the last year, I started researching private money lending and that's what we're working on now is we're using our Roth IRAs to lend private money, and also learn how those deals work.

So it took me some time to really learn how to underwrite a deal to feel comfortable lending and then learn how to do the private money deals. Now that's what we're doing currently.

05:00 - 10:00

David:

That's really cool.

Do you guys have a specific niche that you try to lend to? Are you looking for guys that are trying to flip houses? Are you looking for buy and hold? Are you lending through maybe one of those platforms you can find? Or?

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, so out here in San Diego, it's harder to find a first lien position with the amount of capital that we're trying to lend on.

So a lot of times, what you'll find is guys have, you know, they have a first lien position from a hard money lender, and you'll be in a second lien position.

So, the local deals here, we're doing second lien position, and smaller deals from all our side. But what I've been doing lately is looking at a state, I want to get to the point where when we're investing, we're in first position, and our money is the entire deal. That way, you know, if things go a little wrong, we have the asset, and there's, you know, as a buffer there, so, so the current deal we're doing is actually in Kansas City, Missouri, and it's ground up construction.

So this is another tricky one that you kind of have to underwrite really well and feel comfortable with, with the execution of how they're going to, you know, do the plan from building.

David:

That's really cool.

Do you mind if I ask what kind of returns you're getting from private lending? Or what?

Mike:

Sure.

David:

What kept you doing that? So that's kind of unique for a lot of people.

Mike:

Yeah, so right now we're getting about a 12% return. And that's annualized. So as long as your money's out there, it's about 1% a month. So my goal there is to, you know, keep turning over about 12% to grow the Roth IRA big enough to where, you know, we can put some more assets in there down the road, I'd like to do some note investing down the road. So that's kind of how we're building it right now.

David:

Yeah, that's killer. I mean, in theory, if you do that you double your money every, what, six years, and some change five and a half years.

Mike:

72.

David:

Yeah, I tried to do the math in my head. But I didn't want to embarrass myself. So I gave about, that's really cool that you're able to do that. Because especially once you get to where you're doing first position, because now you can, you know, if someone defaults, you can control you can get a house and a, you know, chunk of change back.

Mike:

Definitely.

David:

But the fact that you're able to do that. I don't know. I think that's really cool. Especially because you're locked in at 12%. So, like with the market right now, I mean, heck, this week, we this month, we've seen dow go, you know, do one of these, and then everybody's trying to play the I mean, you hear everybody saying, oh, it's the President's fault is doing good. No, it's not. And then it turns the other way. And oh, it's the President's fault he is doing bad. Oh, it's not it's like a stupid game. where it's like, what blame does the president have? It's like, not his fault. But anyway, I made a whole post about that yesterday, cuz it’s like...

Mike:

Yeah, I saw, I saw your post.

David:

He's like, I just want to be on record.

I just want to be on record saying it's not his fault, that he's going crazy. It's called, you know, cyclical markets, but getting locked into 12% interest on a physical asset when the market is I mean, turmoil I think is the right word for it. As of jumping, the longest largest dip in years, followed by the biggest day in history, followed by a half of that gone the next day.

Mike:

Yeah.

David:

Super cool to be locked in on that. I think that's really cool that you guys are getting to lend on that.

Are you long term? Are you wanting to use that as a jumping off point? Are you wanting to stay in the private money game? I mean..

Mike:

So I call it paying the play. So I'm trying to double duty that money. So we get experience lending, depending on who you choose to lend with. I'm kind of upfront on the fact that I really want to see the back end. So that's our goal, too, is as we land, we want to really see how the deals go. So we can get that, you know, exposure to it. And ultimately, we'll want to take on private money at some point, as well.

So once I have that comfort level, and I've had enough association with, you know, the different type of deals that we're lending on, then our next step is to JV with somebody with more experience. And then, you know, slowly graduate into doing our own deals. And as you and I know, you know, Navy, Navy, Marine Corps, your hours fluctuate, you know, the workload fluctuates so, so I'm all for trying to, you know, double duty, you know, outside of work and your W2, but at the end of the day, I got to balance those demands, you know, so, I think sometimes you can try and do too much in too little time. And then you're not really giving either of them the attention they deserve, you know, your side hustling the job.

So for now, that's working, but we transition out in June, we're going to move in June. So once we move in June, that's when we're going to wait to get the job kind of settled in, and then get our footing. And then we'll look at, you know, doing a flip in the local area there.

10:00 - 15:00

David:

Yeah, that actually sounds like a really smart strategy. And I really, like want to kind of key in on something you mentioned there, the pain to play.

So we talked about this idea a lot. You know, it's mentioned a lot on bigger pockets, I talked about it in different people brought up that there's this word mentor out there, that's like the scary term. You know, I mean, in a lot of regards, because it's kind of awkward to ask the question, but then, when you're getting asked to be someone's mentor, it's almost like, you're being asked to take responsibility and hope that, you know, it's not an easy gig.

And so we always talk about bringing value to work with someone. And so the idea that, hey, like you're lending on something that is helping out someone else, and kind of throw it in there, the piggyback of like, hey, you know, we're willing to lend on this as a second lien and help you put less capital into this deal. But we want in on learning what you guys did, learning how you're learning your strategies and learning, you're essentially learning from their mistakes, which I mean, is just as good as learning from your mistakes, if you're intertwined in the deal.

And then you're also building a relationship with them that can be used down the road, when you start when you when you go and start looking to JV, you know, you've got relationships now with people that have you, as you lend, you can see who's, who's a good prospect to JV with because you know, who's got their stuff together. And I think that's really, really smart play.

Mike:

Oh, yeah, yeah. And the downsides, pretty well protected. So like you said, If you study 12, you're doing well, I mean, and then there's other investments out there where I can make more than that, you know, you can do some smaller single families or turnkeys, those sort of things.

But the challenge is that money is tied into the Roth IRA. So a lot of guys make the choice to pull it out, and then do with it, you know, after they pull it out, but I look at it this way, and you and I both know, we get a lot of tax advantaged pay, so I get my tax advantage pay, then I put into a Roth IRA, now I'm getting double tax, you know, buku savings on it.

And the five year goal is to just grow that account as big as we can get it. And then in the event that I want to take some of the principle out that I contributed, I'll be able to do that, because I've already paid the taxes on it.

So anybody that's read, what is I'm drawing a blank here, the richest man in Babylon, there you go.

David:

It's a good one.

Mike:

When he says make your goal that your slave make its children's children, your slave, that's kind of the premise here is, we want to just turn that money into more money with the intent that, you know, I can grab that money if I need later on.

And that was a decision I made years ago. By not going into some of the longer term, you know, traditional IRAs, because I always felt like I might want to use that money for a different purpose at one at one point in time, especially transitioning out of the military.

David:

Flexibilities a good goal, hey, that's why I'm at I'm at 10 years in the military, and I opted into the new Retirement System, because I mean, it's a coin toss on any given day as to if I'm going to make it to 20.

And so I realized as much as the old retirement system would be better financially, for me at this far along in the game, the ability to take a portion of retirement with me if I leave before that 20 year mark, is better than the option to not.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

David:

Anyway, so yeah, flexibility, I think, at least to me, is more important than the return provided, it's still a good deal for me, obviously, I won't take flexibility over getting screwed. But um, alright, so I kind of wanted to, I wanted to poke the mil capital growth, I wanna hear this kind of your business. Let's Let's hear a little bit about that.

Mike:

Sure.

Yeah. So my wife and I, we've, we've talked about this, you know, on and off for a couple years in, in trying to figure out when was the best time. And, you know, as you know, in the military, if you're really charging, sometimes you're doing classes after work, you know, extra assignments, those sort of things.

So, for pretty much the first 18 years in my career, there wasn't much extra time. You know, I was always doing classes after work or deployments. Then when I went to college full time, that wasn't happening, you know, the first couple geo tours at a battalion. They're time intensive.

So, so now that we have the bandwidth, and I've made those career goals, if you will, I'm starting to develop the company. And that's going to be on a parallel path to, to our retirement.

15:00 - 20:00

Mike:

So kind of T minus five years, if you will 2023 is to build it enough to where we transition into that full time. So the goal of mil capital growth is similar to yours. You know, I think some of the biggest things I saw as a chief petty officer was, you know, finances, that's a huge stressor. In military families. You add deployments, you add moves, you add all these other things, but finances are huge. And a lot of people are just kind of overwhelmed by the options, or they're afraid to take a little risk, or there's, you know, they just don't really know where to go. And with mill capital growth, that's the goal is we want to have the ability for anybody, but you know, active duty veterans, spouses dependents to find financial freedom through investing in real estate.

So I kind of look at it like the oxygen mask on a plane. Yeah, you know, you gotta put it on yourself before you put it on somebody else. So I feel like our ability to give value in the company is predicated on our success over the next few years in our real estate investing.

So as we gain enough experience and exposure to different deals, I want to be able to provide almost like a consultative approach, you know, like you would do to a junior enlisted is sit down and look at their finances and think, okay, where are they at now? Where are they trying to go? Obviously, we have BRS, we have other, you know, life insurance, all these other things that a financial planner would look at. But most of them won't take you down the real estate path, right. So that's what we want to do. And the big thing with our company, too, is we want to be able to partner with people in the industry. So we want to be able to partner with the big names, you know, the bigger pockets and, you know, the folks that may offer courses that are, you know, bonafide good well run courses. So we can bring those things into the fray and possibly, you know, do scholarships or some some way to, to give back.

But yeah, that's that's the bulk of it, right is this framework in it and bringing it all together is kind of those missing links, because there's a lot of folks that we network with that deal with accredited investors only, but you know, mil cap of growth, the goal there is to be able to help district common military investor.

David:

That's awesome.

So are you looking into maybe doing some syndication type stuff with that? Or is that going to be more like a guidance rule?

Mike:

Yeah, so eventually, so I took a good four day course, back at the beginning of 2018 on apartment investing, so that took me all the way from, you know, market research all the way up to letters of intent, and, you know, all the financing.

So we got a good, solid understanding of that. And the other thing that my wife and I are working on, like we had talked about earlier is the mobile home parks. So, those are two assets that I probably would be more comfortable doing some syndicating on, but we'll probably start doing a smaller deal. You know, maybe a buy and hold quad Plex. So we get, you know, we get familiar with the legal side of bringing the deal together, setting up LLC. So that's where we'll start with probably a closer circle, right, like friends and family.

But, but eventually, yeah, that would be the end state right, we're doing those bigger deals, but as long as they're accessible to the investors that we want to help out.

David:

Yeah, that's really cool.

For those of you who don't know, I use big fancy non military word syndication. Actually, I could try to explain it, would you care to tell the audience what syndication is, you probably will do it better than I am.

Mike:

Yeah, I could take a swing at it.

So I'll quote laying out there in Hawaii, right? He paints a picture, like you got a plane and you got the pilots. And then you got the passengers. So a lot of times with a syndication, you've got the general partners, there's different terms you can use. But the general partners, those are the operators, those are the guys bringing the deal together. And those are the guys that you're looking at, as the subject matter experts on, you know, let's say, you know, an apartment deal.

So when they, when they syndicate, they're going to bring the deal together, and they're going to raise the money through the limited partners and those of your passive investors. So those would be all the people on the rest of the plane. So they're raising funds through the limited partners, and then the general partners are running the deal. And they're going to handle you know, the reporting the distributions, and in the whole project, if you will.

20:00 - 25:00

David:

I like his, I like his airplane analogy. I think it is a good one, Lane’s a good guy. And I like the idea of hey, we want to fly from here to there. We have a pilot. Well, that's great, but he still needs a copilot while you're the copilot, but you don't have your flight attendants while you have. So do you want to get 20 people over there? The easiest way to do it is for all 20 people to pitch in and make it happen. So yeah, yes, it's not that people can buy a multimillion dollar apartment in, you know, in cash. So.

Mike:

No, no and, and the thing that's a little scary nowadays is, you know, we are in a big period of expansion with the markets generally throughout the nation. So there's that kind of, you know, that Warren Buffettism, where it's not until the tide goes away, you see who's been swimming naked. I don't know if that's exactly how he says it. But that's the thing I caution nowadays is it seems to be a lot of people doing syndications. But I don't think their pedigree is such that they weren't able to bring all that kind of money. And because they're there, you know, they get acquisition fees, there's different things that they can structure where they're pretty well protected on the downside, but, you know, you might be an investor putting in 50k, and that's, you know, a good chunk of your life savings now.

So that's kind of why we've, we've not progressed much further into trying to go into bigger deals. But what I've done is try to, like you mentioned, I'm not looking for mentors, I'm looking to provide value. So if I know somebody that's operating, and has done a few deals, and you know, has the pedigree we discussed, then I'll look to them to maybe bring them a deal, you know, and, and bird dog or do whatever I can through networking.

David:

Awesome. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. So we mentioned some finance stuff. But one of the questions I always like to ask is, if an E1, E2 walked up to you, and you only had a couple minutes to talk to them, but they asked you for advice on finances or whatever?

Mike:

Yeah.

David:

What would you tell them?

Mike:

Yeah, so that's a tough one. Because if you surround yourself, if you're around me often, in the, you know, in the shop, or wherever, you're always going to hear it, we go hiking, you're gonna hear it, we go surfing, you're gonna hear it, you know, because I always try to weave it in there. Because I don't want people to repeat some of the mistakes I might have made, or, you know, that sort of thing. But, uh, but I looked at that question ahead of time. And I think for me, the biggest tipping point was tracking and forecasting.

So, you know, when, when you're young like that, the money can come in and go out, and you don't even notice it, you know. So Dave Ramsey, a lot of folks might have heard of him, he's got a, he's, he's got a process. I don't agree with some of his investing principles. He's a big no debt guy, no financing. But, uh, he's got an app called every dollar budget. So it's every dollar and, and that's what I would say is track your money going into the month, so you know, where you intend to spend it, and then track it at the end of the month. And then that way, you know, where your money's going.

And then forecast, you know, I think there's huge power in forecasting, where you want to be and what your plan is to get there. Because then you know, it, you know, that's going to be attainable if you just stick to the plan. And I think that's where a lot of people who like we said they get overwhelmed, because they don't know what their number is, they don't know where they want to be. And if you build the plan, it's easy to follow it and then you can see when you're on or off the course.

So yeah, track forecast. That's, that's from the finance side of things, you know.

David:

I like it. Yeah I like it.

Mike:

There's tons of other military advice I could give them.

I got, you know, the list over here. But, but yeah, and I would say that any military advice you can give, is generally going to transfer into real estate investing, you know, always seeking more responsibility, you know, learning from the people that are ahead of you, you can go down the list, you know.

David:

I would agree most of those self development or leadership skills are very transferable.

I like tracking and forecasting. You know, because when you say, budgeting, people seem to cringe about like, oh, you want me to spend my hard earned cash, which, I mean, that's true in some respect, because if you spend it all then what are you going to do when you're 60?

But I like I like the way you put that. I'm going to probably use that at some point. All right. So what is something you think you wish the military taught to you about finances or investing or life earlier on? Because as you kind of hinted towards that earlier. So I need to start prefacing this question by saying, I don't think it's the military's job to teach you real estate. Because everybody always says that, I understand that. But you mentioned they do a very good job of teaching us about, you know, the retirement system and medical care and the dental and the how to stay in shape, but how to not get fat and how to do but when it comes to like, investing, and actually making your money, do more than just sit in a savings account. It's gotten better, but it's still I mean, you'd be amazed. How many people leave their money sitting in the G fund for the entire time they've had a Thrift Savings Plan? Or don't even have a Thrift Savings Plan? You know, so what?

I guess that's my long preface for a short question.

25:00 - 30:00

Mike:

Yeah, that's a tough one. I mean, I, from the time I joined back in 2000, there wasn't as much training, I think it wasn't until about 2008 that I saw this program they had, there was a two day called the millionaire sale or something like that, you know, and that was really good, because it covered a lot of basis.

But um, I think for me, just them providing resources, and in kind of driving you towards the resources. So that would be the best option I can think of, because it's a gray area, if they're trying to get you to really start crunching numbers on a cash on cash return and some of these other things. But if that kind of modeling is showing you what's possible, I guess, is a good one. But yeah, they have lots of resources, I think it's just a matter of making sure people go to them, and, and leverage them. And possibly, they could branch out, because I think as far as I've seen, they go up to like, you know, buying your first home. That's I've seen that as a course, you know, or a fleet and Family Service Center on the marine equivalent. What do you guys, you know, your, your resources areas.

So, I've seen those, you know, buying a car buying your first house. But yeah, I think that's the missing link that would just open up more avenues for resources.

David:

I agree.

Yeah, yeah. And the one thing that I always think is comical is like probably the number one homebuying benefit that vets have is the VA loan. And yet nobody knows how to use it.

We're pretty terrible about, as service members. So I think maybe a resource for that would be I mean, there's some out there. But like, it's kind of comical that that's such an awesome, awesome strategy. And we don't allow, we can't have a VA rep come and talk on base, because like you said, that's a conflict of interest, because now they're pitching a product. And so there's like this void of people who know the VA loans, awesome, but have no idea what they're doing with it. And then we can't bring someone in to teach about it, because that's a conflict of interest.

So it's like, how do we find like this VA guy who's not affiliated with anyone to come talk about? So yeah, anyway, it's my..

Mike:

Oh, yeah, definitely.

David:

Yeah. I guess my next question is what makes the Mike Robb method of investing so unique or successful?

Mike:

Well, I, you know, like we mentioned, some of it, I think, was a little dumb look, but a lot of it was patience, and education.

So, I mean, we'll talk about the real estate component, but I had a Jay over the house a couple days ago. And I told him before I bought my first house, I read Home Buying for Dummies, right? I wanted to be on somewhat of a level playing field with the people around me, that were staring me in directions, whether it's a mortgage, or this value of a house, or that, you know, type of house, that sort of thing.

So, I think, with any investment, get your education, that's huge, you know, so education, prior to stepping off is huge. So, you know, read Home Buying for Dummies and some other books. And then when we went to go sell it, read, home selling for dummies, you know, just get a good awareness there. And same thing with stock investing, you know, if you're getting tips from a buddy on how to invest in stocks, and he's not wealthy, or successful, yeah, you're probably getting the wrong source. Right.

So that's my advice on personal finance and investing is just to get educated, you know. And then and then take calculated risks within tolerance. But yeah from the real estate side of things, I think the more I've learned about, you know, let's say turnkey single family versus commercial. Personally, I want to go more in the realm of commercial, just because the ability to add value with some of these assets is hugely different than trying to, you know, add value to a property and then be beholden to the market conditions, if you will.

So there's a lot of transferable skills that I have developed through the civil engineer corps that will work well in the commercial real estate investment space.

David:

Yeah, absolutely. That's a very transferable skill much, much more so than me driving trucks, which, yeah, does not really equate to much in the real estate world.

Mike:

No or me shooting Tomahawk missiles at buildings. That's yeah..

30:00 - 35:00

David:

Yeah, but I mean, that was least fun.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah.

David:

So you were enlisted?

Mike:

Yep.

I was a, I was a tomahawk fire control man.

I love that I love the job of a Chief Petty Officer but being a tomahawk tech, didn't I didn't jump out of bed every morning running to work because it didn't excite me. So they had a mission of the Civil Engineer corps just it's just awesome.

David:

Yeah, yeah, it sounds a little bit more in line with what you're where you're going in life to. So that's awesome.

Alright, what is a resource, book, website, course or whatever that you would recommend to anybody looking at getting into real estate investing?

Mike:

Yeah.

So I'm kind of a, I got books for everything, right.

So it really depends on who's asking and where they're at in life. And that's one of my favorite things is, is kind of going okay, where are you at? Where do you want to go? So I would say anybody should read Rich Dad Poor Dad cashflow quadrant. So that's a, you know, a very highly gifted book of mine, that I give to a lot of people because that's that mindset shift, right? It gets you in the I quadrant and start stop, you know, stop trading time for money. So definitely, that that's the universal book that I'll give to anybody because, you know, real estate investing isn't the only way to, you know, get out there and replace that W2.

So, it prime's you for maybe owning a business. So, when I thought about getting out of the military, I looked at franchises, there's a lot of good franchises that are very transferable from what we do in a leadership position right.

So I'd start with that book. But yeah, it depends on where you're at in life. So a lot of the younger guys are coming in. I'll give them Scott Trenches. Book set for life, because that's got a whole mindset thing, kind of what you're talking about house hacking, and, you know, budgeting saving on your lattes isn't going to get your head but saving on your rent. That's gonna get you ahead. You know, I talked to that book a lot. Depends, you know, if you're doing apartments, multifamily millions, that's a great resource, Dave Lindell. And then, from a self development, the classic Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

That's a good foundation right there to know where you're going.

David:

I have to check out the multifamily millions. I think that's the one I hadn't read off that list. So.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, if you're a single family guy, and I know you're just trying to buy and hold and build that portfolio, I always recommend the millionaire real estate investor.

David:

Gary Keller, it's a good one.

Yeah, there's a ton of and I think that's kind of cool. So I'm, I'm looking at the idea of like, doing some coaching on the side, because I think it'd be if nothing else would be fun to be to test and see what happens.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

David:

Like the first week, I put in there, like, okay, I'm gonna give like two different books as homework throughout the six, eight week period. And I was sitting there trying to think of what book and then it finally clicked. And I was like, that's not the right question, the right question is to ask that, after I have my first conversation with people and figure out, because I could just say, oh, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And that's a great book. And that will probably be the book if nobody if they haven't read it, but and there's so many good books. And you're right, it's all about figuring out hey, where are you? Right now? Where do you try to go?

Mike:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, if I got a guy that's got car debt, bike debt, student loan debt, I'm over here on Dave Ramsey's total money makeover, and we're getting you some envelopes, and we're putting cash in pockets. And, you know, it's a whole different mindset. But, but yeah, if you're, if you're at another level, then we're going to bring a book at another level. And I think that's the huge benefit of just just building that library, you know, just just learning from all those people that have gone down the path ahead of you.

David:

I agree. I like a lot of books, the cashflow quadrant set for life, those set for life. So one that I've given quite a bit to people, some solid, solid books and advice there.

Awesome!

So any parting advice or big ideas that you want to talk about before we kind of wrap this thing up here a little bit?

Mike:

I guess the big thing for me, I think the tipping point where we're at right now is, is finding good deals. So you know, if and if anybody's got mobile home park deals, we got cash to buy. So we didn't really get into those details. But I'm partnered up with a guy that has cash to buy. So we've got the ability to take down financial deals, you know, that needs some deep value add some looking for, you know, I'm just constantly networking and looking for those types of deals right now.

35:00 - 40:00

Mike:

But that's kind of leading me into the big big tip, which is, you know, there's that kind of net your network is your net worth. But, you know, something I loved about being in the Chief's mess was, if you want it to make something happen, you need to know, who knew what, who, you know who could do what, and bring it all together. And that's kind of the big thing with real estate is, is like you and I think talked in previous conversations, being a connector, so not just listening to what somebody's telling you, but listening to what they're telling you and thinking of where there might be value with somebody else right?

Bring those people together and just on, you know, unselfishly build value for everybody. I think that's the big thing for me, because, you know, that whole rising tide lifts all boats, that's where I'm at is, the more value you throw out there, the more people you network with, and the more ideas you bring together, it's going to come around, you know, it's going to come around and, and you're gonna, you're gonna make it. But if you yeah, if your garden, your position, and you're, you know, you're not really working through the process, it's gonna be a tough road.

David:

I was actually going to get a plug for the fact that you're a connector here in a second, so that works out perfectly, because I thought it was funny. When we first talked the other day, you know, you reached out to me on Facebook, and we started talking because our, a lot of our goals align. And then all of a sudden, it's like, hey, you're on the phone today with someone that I know, you're gonna be talking to someone else tomorrow that I know. And Holy smokes, you know, this guy that I know. And it was just like, I just read the go giver, like, go, and it talks about the connector, and that was immediately. Yeah, hmm. Sky is connecting with everybody.

And I think having been a recruiter, networking is like the number one skill that I got out of it. I mean, sales is great and all but being able to network with people. I mean, it's amazing what happens just by knowing people and talking to people. I mean, learning is great. Self education is great. Taking action is great. But like, building a network is just so cool. Because you may have this one problem. And you could read seven books and not find an answer for it. And then you bring it up in conversation. The guy's like, oh, yeah, I did that three years ago. This guy’s right here, so you need to talk to you. You're like, I just wasted so much time trying to do that on my own.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

David:

Yeah, yeah. So that's super cool. Such a great point.

Where can people get a hold of you? Is there like, if someone wanted to reach out? And I guess, connect with you? What would be a good website?

Mike:

Email, Oh, that's gonna be Mike and [email protected] growth.com. MIL capital growth, all one word.

David:

I’ll write that down.

Mike:

That's the best way to contact me. We have a domain, but we haven't really set the website out yet. But that's going to be the same, you know, www.milcapitalgrowth.com, so.

David:

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Mike, unless you got anything else, I think that'll probably wrap it up. I really appreciate you being on here. I'm super stoked to hear when you get to venture in a couple months, about your flips, and what you're able to do with all these connections in this private lending that you've built up a portfolio with. I have to stay in touch.

Mike:

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, maybe we'll check back in.

David:

Well, I'm sure we’ll be.

Mike:

What's up will tell you if the deal went well, or went back.

David:

If it makes you feel any better. I'm in the midst of the deal that went bad. And I'm learning more from this than anything else. And I'm sure I'll update people with more details on that later.

But for now, just know that even when is a really bad deal. You'll get something out of it, so.

Mike:

Oh, yeah, that's my note right here.

So you know, I got tons of them, but fail forward, right, fail forward is huge. And then I gave a retirement speech a couple months ago, in the rocking chair test was the big thing that I kind of, I don't have the quote right off top my head. But, you know, in your 90’s, let's say, when you're sitting on a rocking chair on your porch somewhere, it's all the things that you didn't do that you're going to regret, right.

So that that's kind of the premise I take is, I think now when I'm, you know, in my final years, I don't want to look back and think, oh, I should have done that. Or I was going to do that. Or I should know, you gotta think big, act big, you know, just do big things. And, and that way, you're not going to live with regret later on in life, so.

David:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's one of those. What's the other phrase I've heard that kind of goes in with that is the five and five or something like that. It's not going to matter in five years. Don't spend five minutes worrying about it.

Mike:

Yeah, that's what I'm working on right now, so.

David:

It’s a good one!

Mike:

Yeah, I got the shiny object syndrome. So I'm trying to bring it back down, you know.

David:

We all do.

Mike:

Yeah.
David:

Squirrel. What?

Anyway, alright Mike, I'ma go ahead and do the recording here. But uh, it's been awesome.

So thank you once again for joining us.

Mike:

Yeah, thank you, brother. And I'm great watching you do what you're doing.

David:

Appreciate it. It's fun.