Episode 98 | The War Room – Stuart Grazier, Marcus Long, and Adam Whitney

00:00 - 05:00

David:

What's up military millionaires. I'm your host, David Pere.

Today's episode is gonna be a little different. I'm gonna bring on Stu Grazer, who is my partner on the mastermind group we host and we're going to bring in two different members of the mastermind group.

And what we're going to do is we're just going to talk through accountability, kind of what a mastermind group is, specifically what this mastermind group is like, and how being around like minded people will help you grow.

We're also going to talk about a little bit of the future of the group towards the end and also discuss some of the different ways that people challenge each other and just some cool conversation at the end for sure, so stick around, but this episode is geared towards helping you understand why you need to get around of people who are thinking in the same way you are that will challenge you to grow.

With that being said show notes are always found at Frommilitarytomillionaire.com/podcasts. Now relax and enjoy the show.

Introduction:

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? Its Dave from the military millionaire podcast, we're doing something a little bit different today I have my partner's Stu Grazer from the war room mastermind on the call, we got two other members of the mastermind group and we want to just talk about accountability, some of the benefits of a mastermind group and some of the different things that you can get out of this because we get asked about it all the time. And it's not always the easiest thing to explain. So we thought, hey, why don't we just put it on a podcast and then everybody will always have a way to learn a little bit about what we're doing here, and why it may or may not be a good fit for you.

So Stu is a naval officer. We've been partnered together on this since October, but we've known each other for like two years now. And then we've got Marcus and Adam on the call who are both service members, one is in England and one is in Twentynine Palms, and we're gonna let them introduce themselves.

But real quick, Stu, welcome to the show.

Stuart:

Thanks, man.

I'm excited. I'm wearing my military to millionaire shirt. And ah.

David:

I see that up. But Adam is...

Stuart:

Excited to be a co-host today.

David:

I know this is weird for me. I'm like, I have to introduce my co-host. I have to introduce myself. I have to like to remember everybody to introduce everybody's new.

Alright, Adam, Marcus. Welcome to the show, guys.

Adam:

Thanks for having us, brother. Appreciate it.

Marcus:

Yeah, stoked to be here, man. Whoo. All right.

Stuart:

So um, so both these guys have been a part of the war room mastermind and they've both been crushing it and growing, and it's been a lot of fun for us all to be a part of, you know, holding each other accountable and learning together.

But I kind of want to get into just introducing them.

So, Adam, we'll start with you.

What's your current business and focus?

Adam:

Okay, yeah, so currently I own a couple single family properties. I've got a buy and hold real estate strategy.

But I'm starting to get into multifamily kind of multi families my goal and it's been great so far, working on a duplex working on a larger multifamily deal with as a limited partner. And it's been awesome.

Stuart:

Cool, Marcus, how about you buddy?

Marcus:

Yeah, right now you currently have that sitting in for about 14, buy and hold single family a couple commercial properties and stuff that I've accumulated over the past 15 years or so.

Since I came over here to England, we can get more into some of the details. So just since the first of the year, I started doing a little bit of private lending, working on, you know, some limited partnership in syndication and just kind of expanding out from the divine holds.

David:

That's, that's awesome. I like the fact that both of you are starting to mess around with different strategies, which is cool, because that's people always told me I had to focus, focus, focus, like Yeah. So okay, we got to be able to pivot a little bit here and there. So.

Alright, so we're gonna, the next question we're gonna ask is to tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got started on it. When, where, why so, Adam, what got you started in real estate?

Adam:

Okay, so believe it or not, it was about a decade ago, I was driving across the country on a PCS and I listened to a book you may have not heard of. It's called Rich Dad Poor Dad.

So write that down. Go read it.

Stuart:

What? I've never heard of that book before.

Adam:

Yeah.
Stuart:

What's that? What's that about?

05:00 - 10:00

Adam:

That planted the seed. I took a long time for that seed to grow mature. About a decade later, I bought my first house I lived in 2017. turn that into a rental. You know, parlaying that into a turnkey rental is a really great experience. I took that I worked on a couple duplexes in Northwest Arkansas I failed, probably four or five times. And between that and the next duplex, I'm actually getting under contract now.

I got into a joint venture 42 unit. I've been experiencing a lot of stuff. But it really started in 2008. I bought my first house in 2017. I bought my first investment property in 2019.

Now I'm working on a duplex. I'm a limited partner in a larger syndication, and I'm also doing private lending.

David:

Awesome.

Stuart:

Crushing it, love it.

David:

Mr. Marcus, what about you? Tell us a little bit about your journey.

Marcus:

Yeah, you know, so I kind of my real estate journey really started 2004 the first property that I ever purchased was going through an enlisted to commission program, I went back to Columbia, Missouri, bought a condo that I lived in. And the house hacked it before we were all cool and called house hacking.

And so I did that for three years there. And when I left I went out to Hawaii, you know, obviously pretty expensive as deploying a lot. And I didn't really, at the time, I'm a finance major. So I've always enjoyed finance in that aspect, but I wouldn't really say I was necessarily intentional, or, you know, dedicated real estate at that point in time.

So I was out only for a few years, moved to San Diego A few years later, and it wasn't until 2010 when I bought my next single family property. It's kind of opportunistic to buy and so what I really like looking to do is just kind of kind of came along.

And then 2013 I was still in San Diego and I ended up buying about a 36 acre farmland. So over the course of you know, 10 or 12 years, those are my only three purchases, you know, so it wasn't really intentional or quick, it was just kind of as things came along, late 2016 started a LLC with my two brothers. And then about six months later, our two brothers in law joined us as well. So there's five of us all together.

And we're just kind of, you know, our goal with that was really kind of building up, you know, for our families and stuff to build up that equity and some generational wealth there to pass down. And a lot of that was kind of revolved around our, our hometown, our community, so a small community in northeast Missouri and trying to try to, you know, create better properties there and give back to the community. And so over the past three years or so, we've accumulated about 10-12 properties, mostly single family, as I mentioned, a couple couple commercial properties but so at that time, obviously the pace was kind of picking up a little bit. There's kind of there, towards my I was in Colorado for a few years where I met Stu and stuff. And it's kind of during my time there, you know, kind of after we had started the LLC, as a family and doing some buy and holds, I really started getting a little bit more intentional. You know, I was going to a few meetups that Stu was holding, they're starting to read and kind of educate me a lot better than I had in the past. And I came over here to England about a year ago.

And so it was just right, I was getting excited about meetups and networking and stuff and you kind of throw that wrench into international move and stuff, you know, so see, I cover conversations with Stu and, and it was that was part of the reason was exciting for me, you know, for the mastermind and stuff to kick up kind of gave me an opportunity to still do some of that networking, talk about that more later on.

But, you know, and being over here have continued to buy a couple buying holds during that time frame, but it's given me an opportunity to kind of, you know, as we've talked about before, venture into some other other opportunities, private lending and some limited partnerships and stuff. That's where I am today.

David:

Right on.

Stuart:

It's it's a good transition to kind of talk about our mastermind group a little bit more in a David and I started it back in last October and both of you were fairly early members in our group and just kind of curious what why did you why'd you decide to join a mastermind group and why ours were remastered, remember?

Adam:

Yeah, I think, I think I was. You're not your first member and if not..

Stuart:

I think you were, I think you were, man.

Adam:

So member number one here.

So it makes me think of, you know, similar to Marcus right? You start surrounding yourself with people who are thinking like you because when I look around right now, without a mastermind group, there's not a whole bunch of people around me doing real estate.

10:00 - 15:00

Adam:

There's not a lot of people to talk to you about it. It's a great quote from Napoleon Hill from Think and Grow Rich where he says if you find yourself weak and persistent surround yourself with a mastermind group, like okay, so I want to continue to do this. I want to be persistent, consistent and intentional about all the things I'm doing. Like I need to find people who are doing what I want to do, people who are where I want to be, and people that I can talk to you everyday about it and that's that's what I got out of the group that that was that was my mindset, find the people who are doing what I want to do things that I'm passionate about, you know, great people. Just be intentional.

Stuart:

I love it, man.

Marcus, how about you, buddy?

Marcus:

Yeah, so you know, I think like, probably a lot of the other military people and stuff I had this aspiration or or loosely defined goal, I guess of that, you know, I wanted to replace my military income with you know, passive income or other cash flow and stuff by the time I retired, and, you know, I haven't been for 19 years at this point, you know, it's it's coming up right around the corner.

So that was kind of my goal and stuff. And over the past few years, you know, I've kind of talked more, especially after we were starting to accumulate more real estate and, you know, with my brothers and stuff about how that passive income was going to replace my military paycheck.

But if I was honest with myself and stuff, you know, I wasn't really being intentional about it, and I wasn't really on a glide path to actually make that happen. So, you know, I was kind of really looking for the accountability is kind of the initial thing that drew me to it. And since Adam threw out a quota Alton point as well, but I think it was John's dilemma or something that said something to the effect of accountability is what separates the wishers from the action takers that care enough about their future life to account for their daily actions.

And so I think it was because I was looking for that accountability to take account for my daily action. And put myself on a glide path. To do that I think joining you know, the benefits of far outweighed just the accountability aspect. But I think joining was kind of a pivotal moment. Although I had taken some action in the previous years it was kind of a pivotal moment to really get intentional and be accountable to myself and to others about the actions I took.

Stuart:

At das, did you guys prepare with those quotes? Or did you really have those like memorizing? I'm pretty impressed if you haven't memorized.

Marcus:

No, I got like three or four Napoleon Hill quotes that are like stickies on my computer that I'm a big fan of.

I won't say yeah I won't say I have that one memorized because someone fact checks me I might have missed a word or two but you know, over the over the past I think we started this in October and stuff right so I'm kind of in full drive right now to make sure I meet my goals by the time I retire here in a couple years and stuff and so that that has been one that is kind of stuck to me in that transition transitional period for me, I think.

David:

How do you feel like the mastermind group has impacted your business? Adam like how's it how it helped you out a little bit? Or not help you?

Adam:

I mean, I'm, I'm kinda like a numbers guy, a factual guy. So yeah. Like what have I done since I joined the group? Right, so I bought one single family working on the duplex right now with the purchase agreement signed there.

I got two other duplexes under contract that went through due diligence that, you know, had bad plumbing, we had to abort that. I got into a 42 unit joint venture deal, a couple million dollars worth, through due diligence, couldn't find common ground in having to abort that one as well. I've been able to do private lending and I'm a limited partner on a syndication so like when you say, how did how it is going since you've been a mastermind, like all that credit is to the people that are surrounding me. Because without really having the confidence of other people's experience, it's harder to take action, right? Because it's education, take action, and then you gain experience. But for them with a mastermind group, I'm able to call Marcus in England and say, hey, I'm looking at this thing, what do you think or I'm able to call Tom or some of the other guys in my group and say, this is what I'm thinking about doing. And they can either say, Adam, you're just looking at the numbers, you're not looking at all these other things as I normally do, and help me out but they've helped me to grow exponentially.

And that's not just me like in my team. One guy on my team has added 10 doors since we started just since October. Two other guys have bought single families and are working on other ones. And, you know, one of the guys has a multifamily deal here in Twentynine Palms where I live, that he's just about finished repositioning so I'm super excited about what he's doing next. It's awesome.

15:00 - 20:00

Stuart:

That's cool, man. That's cool. It excites me.

David:

Yeah, I didn't buy 10 doors

Marcus, what about you buddy?

Marcus:

Yeah, you know I mean really similar to add them and stuff you know we started this back in October so we're like what eight eight months in or so nine months I'm not gonna do that public math here but I didn't really I didn't really wouldn't said took any specific action probably from October to December it was mostly just you know, kind of getting to know the squad get into you know, educated with our monthly call some of that kind of stuff. And I think after the kind of come around the turn of the year and stuff things have taken off quite a bit. You know, as I mentioned, we've kind of accumulated a couple new buying holds after the first year then I think three private lendings already, you know, a limited partner and a syndication that all just since the January late January timeframe.

So I think it's, you know, just remarkable the the escalation of action taking and stuff and, you know, the stuff that I have with my brothers, you know, we've been able to, you know, learn like systems and things like that, that we've, you know, been exposed to from other talking with other people to try to, you know, make things more systemized and, you know, Adam kind of hit on it, it's, it's really amazing. And we have the, the meetings, weekly squad meetings and stuff, we're kind of accountable for our small groups, you know, we have the large groups where you guys have brought in some, some awesome, awesome speakers that have exposed so you know, sometimes people are like, Oh, it's just a pod podcast, I was I never get to talk to them. And, you know, then we get the opportunity to engage with them, and everything. It's really, really cool.

And like Adam said, like Adam and I are, we're not in the same small group and we communicate back and forth messages and stuff just as much as I do with some of the people in my squad and so, you know, you can bounce ideas off I came into this just doing buy and hold. And so just the education and stuff that you get from the other guys about different opportunities. It's not it's not salesy by any means, but the relationship that we get with each other, you know, you start to get access to or opportunities or exposure. And, quite frankly, we start to really start to trust each other, you know, and so I think, you know, are how things operate the speed of trust, we've all seen a book and stuff.

You know, so that the opportunities just start, you know, happening quicker, you are comfortable with people around you, the advice that they're giving, I think it just really, you know, speeds up the action taken. And as Adam mentioned, I think, you know, you get excited about other people's successes and stuff too. So as I see him, you know, he succeeded. I'm excited for him and people are excited for me and I think you kind of work off that like motivation a little bit as well. So it's been awesome.

Adam:

Hey Dave and let me let me say this to you.

I got into a joint venture with four other guys okay, one was a retired NFL linebacker. One was a dentist, one owned an Electric Company in Milwaukee. And one was like the operations guy on the ground. All four of them are paying over 20 grand a year for coaching and mentorship and friendship. And this is what I'll tell you is our team is doing as much as they're getting. So our war room team was doing as much as they're getting in, they're paying a collective hundred thousand dollars for the same thing. You know, we have in our military group, it's incredible.

Stuart:

Maybe we should bump up our prices.

David:

Rookie numbers, rookie numbers.

Marcus:

Speaking of that, jump back in, if you don't mind real quick on that, you know, talking about bumping up your numbers and ROI you know, when we started this back In the fall, we all kind of put like, what's our, what's our goal, like our 12 month goal or whatever. And, you know, eight months in, like I said, like, I didn't take any action really specifically between October and December. So just since January of this year, you know, I've already exceeded what my goal was by two and a half times. So whether that was making, making, making, making too low of a goal, I'm not sure I think you can see like, surrounding yourself with these kinds of guys like what that will do for you. And girls.

David:

Yeah, finally, no. We do have a few girls in the group. So it's not all guys, but I guess when you have a military background, it is kind of expected that it'll be a little skewed towards males. I don't know.

Man, that's, that's awesome, guys. That's exciting. Yeah, I know. When Stu and I were talking about, like pricing on this. That was like our number one thing was like, Dude, it's servicemembers. The goal on this is not to like gouge people for money to go on. This is to make it just just enough that people actually join the group. Because I think Stuart did it as well. But I'd been in three different free masterminds that never made it past the first meeting. Like, they just maybe maybe the second one, but I remember one mastermind group had five guys and I only ever met with one of them once.

It was like, oh, okay, well, this was fun. And I just kind of realized, like, man, when there's when there's not, like, even even a small price on it. People don't finish things. They're just they don't there's no skin in the game. And so anyway, that's cool to hear. I don't know the brand is the skin we need to have in the game most do is stay without that.

20:00 - 25:00

Stuart:

Concur. Concur.

What's been I can kind of, guess what your answers are gonna be. But what would you say you're, is your favorite thing about the mastermind group so far?

Adam:

Well, for me, it's the people, man. It's the people.

Stuart:

So I know you're gonna say that.

Adam:

Let's check it out. Like here. Here's an indicator of you know, the spirit of trust like Marcus mentioned but so we meet weekly we, you know, there's a framework that's put to it says, okay, here's kind of the way you can take notes and questions you can ask each other. And we recommend everybody meets weekly and then once a month that we do the, the big call with the whole group, right?

My group talks every single day, we've got a signal chat that we're in. And, you know, yesterday, we're texting about somebody's tenant biting the mailman, or that somebody tenants dog biting the mailman, like, I'm getting that experience, I'm not experiencing it.

And so I'm researching, you know, all the things I can for my fellow teammate here about that. And that just as an indicator of what's the best part about it, it's the people. They're awesome people, you want to help people you want to be in the group. You want to do better because the group expects you to do better.

Definitely the people.

David:

That's cool.

Marcus:

I have to, I have to second add him on that, you know, I couldn't steer in a different direction. You know, as I mentioned, when I came over here, I was just getting into the, you know, meetups and really going and talking with people about real estate and everything. So I was really excited about the opportunity to do this virtually and stuff of course, everybody's been doing it virtually a lot a lot lately, but yeah, as he mentioned, just the communication that we have with each other, learning from each other's experiences, you're invested in other people's goals, they're invested in yours.

You know, like, just yesterday, Adam, Adam tagged me, you know, challenged me to run at 10K, you know, what I do this morning, I got up and ran at 10K.

Adam:

I was just thinking about that.

Marcus:

Yeah, so it's awesome. He goes beyond real estate, you know, you get invested in each other's lives and you know, want the best for each other. And I hadn't run more than a 5K for a few months, you know, so it was, you know, wasn't like I just go out there and do that every day but pushing each other to be better.

Knowing that they're there for you. We have that foundational level. of trust just from being military to start with. And then when you get in this environment and start to bounce ideas off each other and, you know, ask each other hard questions to make sure we're making sound financial investment decisions or other life decisions, and yeah, that people's number one thing.

David:

Yeah, that's awesome. I had something that I was gonna say and I can't remember what it was so, I guess.

Marcus:

I thought it was gonna be profound, too.

Stuart:

We're like all on pins and needles waiting for this amazing

David:

Oh man, so profound.

I Oh, there we go. It was just gonna be the fact that like, one of the benefits to having an a mastermind group that's specifically servicemembers veterans is the when you talk about the people and how much you guys get along like, there is I mean, we all know there's something special about other service members and other veterans like norley whether you're Air Force, Marine, whatever, y'all get a on some level from that connection, and so we have this really cool bond in the group where everybody just ornately has something in common.

And it's been cool. I mean, I've personally, like I have personal friends that I've known for years, you've asked to jump in the group and I'd be like, no, sorry, man. I was like, I was like a firefighter. And I'm like, dude, I love you. But nope, like, close, no cigar, like, sorry, we set this up as this way when we joined when we started it, and we're gonna stick with it.

And I think that's really cool, because there's already a bond. And so it makes like getting to know everyone. I mean, it's really cool to be able to, like just click with every single person in the group over something as big as like, you're probably one of largest life decisions you ever made. So I'm a huge fan of that for sure.

Alright, so the next question we're gonna ask here is what would you tell others if they were considering, you know, real estate or joining a mastermind group? That seems kind of like a cliche question, so I'm just gonna ask more, more like, what is it about accountability that you guys think has been and so beneficial like that word people people hate that word because it means being held accountable. But like that's what you get a lot of times in a mastermind group. So I guess I just asked what your thoughts are on, on why accountability is important and how it's benefited you?

25:00 - 30:00

Adam:

Hey Dave, let me let me ask you, if you've had this feeling as a marine before, you're like running a few minutes late to something. And you're, you're just having emotions running through like I'm late. Ah, like the world is obviously gonna fall apart when I get there. People are gonna be so let down. Even though you could easily just call somebody in a pic. Okay, cool, great, man. You know, just be safe, don't rush. But as a Marine, it's wired in you to never be late. You get that same feeling. And a mastermind group. When I tell the group, this is my goal. Here's my plan to get there. And when I say every week, this is what I'm doing now this week and I come on to the call on Saturday morning at five o'clock. And I said, did you accomplish your goal, I don't want that feeling. I don't want that feeling of I'm going to be late, the whole world is going to fall apart. So I make sure I do what I say I'm going to do. And I think that, that kind of microcosm of accountability is why you don't want to let people down especially as a service member. It's not in our fabric to let people down, we just make it happen. And the group has really driven me to do that with real estate. So when I say I'm gonna call, you know, four different leads, and I'm gonna do this analysis like I do it, so I'm not gonna let my guys down.

Stuart:

I hate when my group gives me the disappointed dad look, you know, like, man, come on, say you're gonna do that. I don't like the disappointed dad look.

David:

Well, the fun thing is people are okay with you. Like, like, so I'm in a mastermind group that I've been in for probably about a year and a half that I paid a pretty decent amount for.

And there's one guy in the group that we've been given him busting his chops for, like, I don't know, probably probably two months now, because he keeps saying like this my way, this week, I'm going to do my taxes. And like, finally, somebody was like, look, if you don't do your taxes this week, you're gonna write a check for whatever your return was to my charity of choice.

And he and he agreed to it. He got his taxes done. So like, yeah, it's kind of funny that you can do things like that. So and, like people there, I don't know. Anyway, all that to say, I like your answer.

Marcus?

Marcus:

Yeah, Adams, Adam's answer was absolutely fantastic. It's hard to compete with that.

So just to expound on that, you know, I totally agree. Like none of us want that type of feeling and stuff. And so I think I think about accountability and intention, intentionality and stuff like what we can achieve with that is so more because, number one, we don't want that feeling. But, you know, if I look back over the past few months, coming to those guys every week, or even, you know, interacting with him or others throughout the week, even if I did fall 10% short of what I said I was going to do, I probably achieve significantly more than if I was relying on myself, you know, because it's, it's easy to, to tell myself, you know, I'm going to do this and then not do it and tell myself I'm gonna do this and then not do it.

But when you have other people holding your feet to the fire a little bit, you know, you're writing things down, you're telling people that you're going to do it, so that there are times you know, and there have been days in the past couple months, you know, that have been pretty, pretty challenging. You're not quite as motivated to execute and stuff. But I think man when I really look at it, you know, because I have people holding me accountable, and stuff that I really have achieved so much more than I would have if I had gone through this alone.

Stuart:

Agree 100% man, I've seen a lot of growth within our groups, just just from doing this and pulling each other accountable. It's good stuff, man. So we've had quite a few guest speakers. We have a guest speaker every month that's coming and talking to us about, you know, a different strategy or niche or topic, kind of within the realm of real estate investing. And been really prepping for this. But if you would say like, what, what would be your favorite, I guess speaker or resource or book that, that we've introduced to the mastermind group so far, would you say has been like your favorite?

Adam:

Alright, so for the book, I was a huge fan of the four Disciplines of Execution. I think that's probably one of the four that might have been the first book we read.

I was but but

let's get right. Even if you just take lead and lag measures out of that, and you kind of use that mental model for how you look at things, that's a great book in and of itself.

And then for guests, I just found a lot of value in Whitney Sewell, personally, and I think it's just because it related to me wanting to do something like launching a multifamily. And then Bill Allen, mostly just because he's energetic, and he's got a lot of stuff going on. And it's kind of cool. You know, so Whitney, and Bill Allen, were probably two of my favorites.
30:00 - 35:00

David:

Cool.

Marcus:

Yeah, I think it's kind of tough doing this off the cuff without the list in front of me. I forget one of them. But I agree a lot with Adams there. Those are probably my tops as well, because the four Disciplines of Execution, the lead and lag measures, like I think sometimes it's such a basic concept.

But we just go through life without that realization or moving towards our goals, with focusing on the wrong things, right. And so, I think coming into this, that was a pretty pivotal like mindset thing of like, you know, to ensure that we're focusing on the lead measures to achieve the others and stuff. So that was pretty profound.

I enjoyed Whitney and Bill a lot as well. And Bill, I'm not as much into the area of real estate that he is. But I think following him afterwards has been pretty awesome. He's, you know, just such a positive individual, especially watching some of his stuff over the past couple months.

And some of the challenges, you know, going from where he was a few years ago to where he is today, I think he's just really inspiring and you know, you know, there's just nothing that he doesn't believe he can't do. So I've really enjoyed following him and getting some inspiration.

And Whitney is kind of, in some ways similar like the, as I moved from, you know, just buying holds to some of that like syndication type stuff, as well but just looking at his path and what he's done and and you know, like, I agree grew up on a farm with a lot of horses, we trained horses and stuff. And so hearing that you know about his background and the things that he did, the vast transformation was just really inspirational from, you know, not always just like the strategies or things that they're doing, but just, you know, makes you believe, like, I can do this, you know, you just got to surround yourself with, with people and, you know, go on for the ride.

David:

And that's, uh, I agree. I actually really liked the four Disciplines of Execution as well. So I'm glad you guys mentioned that book. It's one of those books that I need to read. Well, when I say again, probably multiple times, but it's definitely a good one.

Stuart:

Like actionable steps in that book. You know, it's kind of a take away.

David:

Yeah, any I mean, even if you just understand the idea of a lead measure, like that'll completely shape your goals and your future. It's, it's crazy.
How many people sit around and go to lose 10 pounds okay great but what are you gonna do? What do you mean I'm gonna lose 10 pounds? Maybe how, anyway.

Adam:

Just challenge Marcus to run at 10K and then he beats your pace by 20 seconds and now you have to run another one.

Marcus:

To be fair I did tell my wife that I was like I was happy with a slower pace but I was using yours as a goal and so I was pleasantly surprised with with with the pace that turned out considering I hadn't ran one for a while but that's how we beat on each other make each other better.

Stuart:

Adam I think you should post something in our war room group just challenge everybody to attend today on Memorial Day.

Adam:

Oh man Well, I'm running them around the murf we got to do all the Murph Maria

I think I'm doing and we got out of my bad guys.

Adam:

Sorry, we got a bunch of recon guys. Yeah,

David:

That's what I was gonna say is I'm totally out of my comfort zone with this. I'm doing the Murph with one of my roommates today who just got out of recon. Like three weeks ago, and also a guy with an Iron Man tattoo on his calf.

So I'm totally screwed at like, All right, I'm probably gonna video it and just be like all right. Let’s focus on how far behind I am. I'm gonna try to keep that gap under a certain timeline rather.

Adam:

Your military audience has all been out on a run with a buddy, who, hey, we're just gonna it's gonna be nice and easy guys. No big deal. Just you know, you and a couple friends and that guy starts picking up the pace and then you're like, Okay, so you start. Marcus did that in England to me. Now he I don't know how that was virtually possible.
But he did that to me. Now I have to run fast.

David:

I love it. Love it. That's awesome.

Adam:

Hey, let me just hear the best quote yesterday. I put what you might have seen on my social media. Do you see that? You see what I quoted David green. So I was this resonates with me because the guys in my mastermind group are always like yes, and The you got a deal send it to Adam he'll he'll put it in his you know in a science machine and then he'll send it back and tell us if it's a good deal or not, you know because I like to make spreadsheets. But David Green yesterday on the podcast said unlike with a spreadsheet me with a spreadsheet in my hand is like John Wick with a Glock in his hand you know so I'm like I'll take that I'll take that comparison all day.

35:00 - 40:00

David:

Love it.

Stuart:

Like you dude I love spreadsheets like friggin spreadsheet nerds.

David:

Have you guys taken the disc profile?

What are you Stu?

Stuart:

I am high C, high S.
David:

What about you Adam, Do you know?

Adam:

what's the one that?

Stuart:

Middle I.

Adam:

What's the one that says you're like a guardian or so that's the one I did.

David:

Nope, that's not the disk not a disk.

Marcus, have you done the disk?

Marcus:

I have done it but it's been a long time ago. So I don't really even recall what it was.

David:

Stu, this is funny because if you think about this, we're gonna just go off on a tangent for a second.

So I am, I'd have to pull it up, but I swear I'm like a 99 I am like a 60 or 70 D. So if you look at the disc profile, it's like, decision, influence, stability. I'm getting all these wrong, but it's basically like, drive, influence. Like the I which is mine is like a people, person and then drive. So I'm like a visionary. And Stu is like, the integrator if you if you look at, which is just funny, because if you look at if you knew anything about like, Stu, I started this, they were like, hey, let's do this thing. It's gonna be cool.

And then, you know, six months later, however long it's been like, stew basically handles all of the like, behind the scenes logistics application, like it just kind of slowly morphed to where I was like, Man, this dude's got that I'm terrible at that. I'm gonna and I'm out here and I do it all. It's just funny because we never talked about this before, but I'm a huge believer in the whole disc profile. And as soon as you said spreadsheets, I was like, I like I like numbers. I like numbers like I'm the no math work like do it in my head not spreadsheet guy. And so it's just funny how that works out that way.

Stuart:

It worked out in our business storehouse 310 as well with with Davey Tears and I like again like I'm the spreadsheets guy, I'm the integrator like I'm like doing all the project management like sending out tasks, you know, doing all that kind of stuff and then goodies like the talker you like he loves to get on the phone and talk with people, he'll talk to you for an hour about eating cheese, you know, like, it's just a It's kind of crazy how it all works in it.

And that's like when you're looking for business partners and this is getting way off off of subject but I think it's really important to talk about is is how you integrate you know, if you're looking for business partners, you know if, if, if like, Adam and I decided to join a creative business together probably wouldn't be the best but we'd have to find somebody else to be the...

Adam:

We would have an epic spreadsheet.

Stuart:

We would have an epic spreadsheet.

Adam:

That's true color coded and everything.

Stuart:

Grass pie charts, combo, you know, like everything. Yeah,

Marcus:

Yeah, I was gonna say the same things you mentioned that it's been one of the really interesting things too is watching like some of the different teams, you know, different partnerships. And sometimes when people are starting off, we just think we have to do everything ourselves. And we're not, we're not good at everything right.

And so I think it's really important to see that and others and find what our strengths and weaknesses are and find others that have strengths that complement and stuff. So I've been pretty neat surrounding yourself exposed to other teams and kind of visualizing that.

Stuart:

It's interesting you say that because our small group, Dave Brainer, small group, we had this conversation last week about really looking at hiring people out that that we don't like doing ourselves and I think all of us have since decided to hire somebody in whatever realm it is either bookkeeping or admin or, you know, VA with social media. We hired. We've hired two people since our last call.

David:

Nice!

Stuart:

Yeah, we got an admin and a social media.

David:

I've hired anyone I just tweaked what my VA was working on. But yeah, I've definitely come to the realization that I enjoy the Lean Six Sigma stuff that is systemising and optimizing and spreadsheet. Like, I like I enjoy the theory of all that organizational stuff.

When it comes down to brass tacks. Like, that's not what I'm doing, you know, I'm going out of my way to film for videos, I'm not going out of my way to, like, decide which video needs to get uploaded when or how or like now, it's just done, upload, like I had to outsource that stuff. And it's funny you say that I think this kind of like correlates into a lot of what we're doing as we're getting into groups as you're getting to see some of this but yeah, understanding the like how your partner works.

40:00 - 46:34

David:

People jump into groups, like there's a good friend of mine that you guys all know that you You know, we've talked about possibly partnering up on some stuff before but I just don't know how it would work out realistically because I'm pretty sure he's like 175 D and I don't the chart doesn't go above 99 but he would find a way and he's pretty high as well so we would just we would do amazing things in our heads but as far as executing we would still need a third person like and there's I just read the book, Gino Wickman the rocket fuel which is another one he wrote traction which is a book a lot of people are loving right now and rocket fuel talks about visionary integrator mix.

I'm like holy crap Yeah, I need to find me so I'm like I've like drawn out my like chart for like, once I get back to where I'm going to stay long term like hiring somebody for in the office and what I want that person to look like and do so that I can make that happen because yeah, anyway.

Marcus:

And those books are those books like all three. So yes, traction, rocket fuel and get a grip is another one like all three of those books. They're fantastic for, for kind of putting your business together and thinking about like, the big picture business. And I mean, we've used those a ton in building ours.

Adam:

Here's an interesting thought about what you said to do is, as military members were alphas, right, high level of confidence, we execute aggressively. But that is a double edged sword.

We also don't like to fail. So when you get in a group, and you go, I know I need to hire this guy to do this thing that I don't want to do, because I know it's gonna make me better. You're just kind of toyed with it for a while. But when you go into that meeting, and everybody else in the group is like, yeah, I'm doing that too. Because we need to do that. It's going to be good for everybody. It just raises your confidence level, you probably would have sat on that maybe for another couple weeks, another couple months, and then eventually did it but being a part of the group that just expedites your confidence and then it expedites your action. It's incredible.

David:

Yeah.

Stuart:

it's good stuff, man.

David:

I really just hired a VA and basically replaced himself out of a side gig he was doing just kind of cool, like on autopilot so we can work on something else. And like, Man, that's alright.

But anyway, as much as we got a sidebar there, I think that was actually a pretty good little segment as far as accountability, team building and mastermind all that so. But I didn't want to just wrap up with the question for both of you.

How can people get ahold of you if they'd like to talk to you more? You know, Instagram, whatever?

Adam:

Yeah, I'm, I'm personally mostly on Instagram. So REI_AW. But you can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. I do a lot on LinkedIn. So it's just my name there out of Whitney.

Marcus:

Yeah, for me, it's all the same on LinkedIn. Instagram is Marcus.L.Long and Facebook as well. So any of the three will work.

David:

Awesome.

Stuart:

And reach out. Reach out. We love helping people.

David:

Absolutely. Yes. And we do coffee again, if you ever make it out here to Pendleton again.

Stuart:

Haircut and laundry, laundry and..

David:

That's right. The picture was right in front of the laundry room.

Adam:

It's like a perfect marine meeting, you know? Hair cut and laundry.

David:

What else?

What else do you do on the weekend?

Oh, man. I love it.

All right. Before we get off this though, real quick, I do want to just talk for a second.

Stu wasn't aware of this and you guys jumped in. But I wanted to just run through some things that we would like to do in the future. Because I think that's cool.

Anyway, so you all know we had been planning this event that's, that's this weekend. And well, by the time this airs, it will probably not be this weekend since this is going to air down the road. But that was on May 29 and 30th. But it was gonna be in person we're going to run out of we're going to run out of bar restaurant food and be able to find the hangout and get to know each other. So you know we long long run goal like we would like to be able to do some kind of in person event for just the just the war room just the mastermind group and be able to hang out in person more it's just it's the challenge of the fact that we live in you know 50 different area codes so it's a bit of a struggle but there's some definite goals there so I don't know where I was gonna go with this I just thought I'd bring up that that is a definite goal down the road is to do more in person meetups when possible but yeah.

Stuart:

Let's make that goal happen.

Marcus:

Yeah, I was really pumped about Dave when it was previously scheduled to be in St. Louis. I was actually planning on flying back you know from England and stuff to just really super excited about the opportunity to meet in person with some of the guys you know, that we've grown these relationships with. And I think it's still going to be an awesome virtual event looking forward to it. But you know, down down the road, I look to the in person events as well.

David:

Yeah, we'll definitely make that happen and we'll make it happen Adam as soon as we're allowed to go outside of our homes or what's going on anymore.

Adam:

I think we're going to be good come October timeframe so let's put a put a date on the map and let's execute

David:

I like it.

all right well hey guys, thanks for joining us today, and Stu any any parting words?

Stuart:

No man, I think we're all good I got kids yelling in the background.

David:

You know kids sunrises yeah man better day

yeah all day long enough Adams about to get hit in the face.

Stuart:

I was gonna jump in but I got like a kiddo in the background screaming at me and you know, would have it would have been good. But I didn't care. I love that we got to do some meetups and groups and yeah, lots lots of room for growth here.

David:

Absolutely. Always room for growth. No one's good enough. I mean, so wrong to say that but that's the Marine Corps way to say that.

Adam:

There's always room to get better.

David:

There you go. That's what I was. That's what I was going for.

Marcus:

But the Navy happened to save Marines again.

David:

Oh man, you guys all have a great day. Thanks for joining us today.

Stuart:

See you.

Adam:

Awesome.

Marcus:

Thanks Dave.

End:

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