The Real Estate Professional Life Hack with Jordan Linscombe

There are only so many hours in the day. There's only so much of you, and you want to save the best of you for the things that matter in life and for eternity.

Intentionality. That's the word that comes to mind when I think of Jordan Lindscombe. He's an entrepreneur, he's an investor, he's thoughtful and intentional about every move that he makes. In this conversation, Jordan and I walk through his journey from small business owner to real estate professional and all the perks that he's found with that transition. Plus, he shares the decision-making framework that he and his wife use to stay aligned. It's useful for all you married folks out there. Check it out. This has been one that I've wanted to do for a long time and finally made sense. Jordan, thanks so much for coming on the show.

You bet, Ben. Hey, I'm so honored to be on the show. I've learned so much by listening to your guys' podcast. So pumped and excited to be here today with you.

Well, this is so fun because we've got to build a friendship over the past few years. We've been part of several different business masterminds together, and we've come to get to know you and your wife Mindy and your family pretty well and your guys' amazing business. I'm sure we'll get into it as we talk about your journey of building wealth and investing. But give us a little sense of your background and your story and Something New Bridal Boutique too.

Yeah, for sure. So my wife Mindy and I are in our 18th year of owning one of the top bridal shops in the country. In the United States. It's called Something New Bridal and Formal Wear. And out of the gate, I'll just say, when we started this, it wasn't what it is today. It was really basic. It was a dream. It was an idea. But Mindy and I met in college. We came out to Colorado Springs, married in '05 or so out here, and she really did not have a good experience when it came to her bridal dress shopping. And I remember her coming back, having gone out with her mom to Colorado Springs, to Denver, and she's like, man, it was just either it was like snooty people and they were like, hey, what's your budget? Or do you have an appointment? Or maybe the people were nice at another location, but the store was dingy and it wasn't what she was dreaming of and experiencing. So she kind of had this nugget or this vision of like, I think this could be better for Colorado and for this area. So we had always talked about having our own business for a while. And then after thinking about that for a couple of years, she came back and said, I really think I want to go into the bridal industry. So I was like, you know, instead of us being 65 and saying, hey, I wish we had gone for that. At that moment, we were about to finish our master's degrees and I said, let's do our homework. Let's put in some due diligence and figure out how to launch a small business. And when I say like we were starting from scratch, like it was from scratch. Now we did some good homework, but we were learning. I remember one of my most embarrassing, but kind of funny moments was about 3 months in. This lady walks into our 900-square-foot simple store and she says, I'm with the city of Colorado Springs and you haven't paid any city sales tax for like, I don't know, 3 or 4 months. And my stomach dropped, you know, cuz we're new business owners and I was trying to do all the things in the right way. And oh man, we were paying the state, we were paying the county, but I was like, well, let's take care of that. Let's figure it out. So I think I stroked the $5,000 check, got us up to par. But in that moment, I was like, man, there's just so many layers to this. So fast forward, we're really honored. It's gone well after many years to help celebrate brides and grooms and their whole party for many years now.

I mean, that's pretty incredible to start from scratch and let's go take a risk. And I love your motivation too. You said if we would regret not having tried it, at least give it a shot. And then to see what it's turned into, we've had the privilege of getting to see your amazing footprint and your physical location in Colorado Springs, and we'll put the links in later so folks can check it out. But talk about the journey of being an entrepreneur. I think this is kind of the first phase, right, of your wealth building. And it's obviously like the school of hard knocks. You're learning a lot along the way. Did you have any points where you guys were like, let's just give up, let's not do this, it's not worth doing anymore? Or, you know, was it pretty quickly you guys saw the potential and was able to ride that to where it is now?

Yeah, it has not been easy. So I mean, for like you and any of the entrepreneurs, you know, it takes commitment. And we had our moments where we're like, wow, this is really hard, but man, it's been a journey. So a couple of highlights through that is one, we took out a HELOC, you know, so you were in banking, you know this world, but we took out a HELOC in late 2007.

Wow.

If we had waited a couple of months after the dip and things in early '08, we probably wouldn't have got the lending to start the business.

Yeah.

So that was just a wake-up call early on. Like, man, if we had waited 90 days, we maybe had not had the capital or the funding to get this going. Fast forward, we outgrew our space early on from 900 square feet, and then we went to 3,000 square feet, and we were the first people to rent in a building here in Colorado Springs. We took the risk to be the first tenant. Okay. But we tripled in size and we were in that space for 9 years. It served us well. But then we started looking at the model, Ben, and it was like, you have to have more dressing rooms to help more people in an 8 or 10-hour day, right? So we're like, What if we built our own building? And we did that step of faith. But, you know, again, due diligence and planning. It felt like such a dream. I remember talking at first with a couple of folks and they were just kind of downing the idea. But it came time and we did it and we opened our doors, our commercial building, expanded our bridal shop in January of 2020. Again, if we had waited in any of that project timeline, man, things could have gotten really off track. So I would say that a couple of lessons for us was keep taking action and keep moving forward because crazy stuff can happen. Like there is unknown. It's really hard sometimes. And we've had to learn so many different aspects of business, but it's been quite a journey. If I could just one other brief thing is, um, partway through that whole story I just shared, you know, because we're 18 years in now with this company. In 2015, our second born child was 2, about to turn 3. And we started noticing some concerns with him. We pushed for answers and finally got clarity that he had lymphoma. It's like a pit in our stomach. We're like, what does this mean for him, for his future, for our family, for our business? So that was really hard because we had 60 nights in the hospital, 12 months of chemo. By God's grace and the help of some incredible doctors and folks, he's basically 9 to 10 years cancer-free. And we're so grateful for that. But I bring that up because when you start your company and you're dreaming big and want to, want to do exciting things, you don't anticipate some of those life curveballs. I remember cutting checks from the hospital, just trying to do payroll. And all the other things. Meanwhile, I was working a whole complete different job for 14 years of our journey at an incredible not-for-profit where I learned a lot of great things as well too about large-scale companies and entities. And at the same time, we were trying to cultivate our small business. So it's been a journey. The highs and lows have been there, just like every entrepreneur company, but we're so grateful. We wouldn't go back and change it, man.

Well, thanks for sharing the story, and definitely inspiring to know you guys a little bit and some of that story and how you guys have managed through it, and then the success that you've been able to continue have through it all. And let's shift a little bit. So you have success, you're entrepreneur, you're now making money, continuing to grow, you guys start to see success. And now you're kind of pivoting to this, we need more space, should we go and get a bigger lease? Or, you know, what if we decide to actually build our own building? This was kind of your first entry point into real estate, right?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I mentioned we opened in January 2020. 60 days go by, the governor of Colorado forced us to close for 6 weeks. Once things like kind of semi-opened up again, then we were allowed to serve more people because we had more of a square footage footprint, right? And that awkward era of 2021.

Oh, right, things were reopening, the social distancing. You guys had plenty of distance for people.

We had more room. Like, if so, if we had stayed in the 3,000 square feet, we wouldn't have been able to help as many people.

Yeah.

And our revenues would have been even more challenging. And then there was honestly a big pent-up demand as people came back into 2021 and 2022. They were incredible years for the bridal industry because a lot of folks had paused things or pushed them into the future. So it's definitely, you know, the operational expenses and things went up, but separate entities, we're paying ourselves right between the companies.

Yep.

I wouldn't change it for anything. We love the advantages and the leverage it's given us.

You guys were kind of able to maximize some of the space where you actually created retail space in the bottom floor. So you actually generate some income and it's in a great location. Talk a little bit about just your transition. So I love what you said, just the margin idea. And I think a lot of people think it's all or nothing, right? Either I'm going to go all in on W-2 and just try and build a career and increase my income and save as much as I can, invest what I can, or I'm going to go all in and be an entrepreneur and take all the risk and I hope it works out, right? But you guys kind of were in both worlds for a long time and you were able to leverage some of the stability of a W-2 job that you had And it eventually kind of made sense. And talk about that realization where you had enough real estate to actually be able to use the losses to almost have more take-home pay by not working. Talk about that because it's kind of an absurdly awesome idea at the end of the day.

Yeah, I got 14 years at a large not-for-profit that at the time I was there, it went from $600 million budget to $1.2 billion. So I was like witness to some incredible growth and maturity within that organization. But I was full-fledged, like more than 40 hours a week devoted to that work. But then I would take PTO to then work on our own businesses, which is not the true end goal, you know what I mean?

Right.

So walking that line for 14 years was really challenging at times. I started to learn more, one, from shows like yours and other things about some of the tax advantages and things involved with real estate. And so I had been praying and looking and talking with my wife, like, you know, what's the right timing and moment to leave gracefully on my own terms and respectfully. But then I got more clarity. I was like, I will actually save us more in taxes by stepping away and focusing on our real estate work than this great organization would ever pay me. So yeah, it just got to a point where, as I learned more of some of the tax laws and the advantages and things, I was like, I actually need to step away from this work. In order to help my family and steward our resources even more.

Yeah, that's so cool. And I know you're not an accountant and you're not giving advice or anything, but just what you're saying, that you're able to earn more in tax savings from doing the real estate work, that what technically happens is if you become a real estate professional, there's a whole tax code around this, you can actually take the losses against all the income that you generate. And there's, you know, some stipulations with that, and that's a simple way to say it. And so the income you guys are generated from business, obviously you're paying a lot of taxes on that. But if you become a real estate professional, it's usually at a household level. If one of the spouses is that designation, you can now take those losses and it, I kind of view it as unlocks the losses to all your income, right? And it's a pretty powerful thing. I love it. You experienced this firsthand. Is it kind of like, man, I wish we would have done this sooner? Or were you glad for the way it unfolded?

Yeah, I think the timing was pretty spot on, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

6 months, give or take at the most. But the more I started learning about being a qualified real estate professional and that this is a legal way to go about following the tax laws, I was like, wow, we're just, we're primed and sitting on this opportunity. How do we position ourselves and our work and our work hours and what we do even more wisely? So yeah, I've met quite a few amazing couples, you know, that people don't realize this opportunity is out there. And in several cases, again, you got to do it right. You got to follow the things and do all the stipulations required. But I know quite a few couples that they own real estate or they're running their business out of their own property that they own, or maybe they have investment properties. And it can be a great move for folks when the formula is right for them. So really grateful. And bluntly, we're in a season where we've been working on like, how do we legally reduce our tax bill and then create more margin or cash to work with? And then how do we invest some of that? Now, part of what I have been learning in the journey too is, well, some of the stuff with qualified real estate professional work and with our situation is tied up, kind of picture like a net with some resources tied up. And until we invest more and get some passive income, some of that is tied up until passive income earnings can be pushed against that and then release some of that from the net or from the bucket to have those benefits, right?

Yeah.

So that's a little bit of the season where I'm at as an investor right now is, okay, we love real estate, but there is— your dad always gives me a hard time when it comes to this. Bob is like, you're wearing too many hats. And he has a point. To some extent. So we're at a season of like, okay, how do we start doing more passive things? And strategically as well, because that's going to release some of those tax benefits as well for us too, in our current situation. So love real estate. But we're really in a season of like, how do we right-size our allocation of investment and things and some of it's to get more in the passive realm to help with the tax situations.

Yeah. So let's shift a little bit to the portfolio and you know how you guys are invested in also kind of long-term goals of where you guys are planning and things you're thinking about. So before we do that, would you Do you mind kind of giving us an idea or just range of kind of your net worth just to understand where you guys are at now?

For sure. We're at an $8 to $10 million net worth range and cultivating and growing that with our resources, excluding our core company. Because I always try to help people understand, like, your core business is one of your best assets. So, yep, just set that aside. You know, real estate and other elements, that's just kind of a general range. And with that, you know, we both know, like, some people throw that out as a vanity metric or other things. I think we're more focused on like, how do we keep a good ratio of investing and owning the right kind of things? And I think if you have the right attitude on stewarding things when they're small, then that spills over into the right heart and attitude to steward things as they grow, right?

Love that.

So that's a bit of where we're at. And, you know, it didn't start that way and it felt like a good way through our journey. Like, we're going to hit a breakthrough. And really, honestly, as we got a little wiser in our bridal shop business and how we were strategizing on maximizing that company, we really hit some breakthroughs in the last 5 years or so that we've tried to steward well, especially in the realm of real estate investment.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, a little bit of an aside, but I think it's such a powerful thing for people to think about it because I experienced the same thing, right, where it feels like you're doing a lot of effort and you're not seeing the results. And what I've seen for most entrepreneurs I've talked with, it's that work you do upfront, the first bit to get to that first level of wealth. Once you break through that, it compounds quickly, right? You can accelerate very fast. So if you're kind of in that few million dollar range, if you keep doing the right things with discipline, buying the right assets that fit, either it's complementing the business that you're running, or it's something that you're excited about doing, or you understand doing, right? Not just spraying and praying into tons of different things and You don't understand what's going on, but I think there's an element for acceleration and growth over time by just doing the simple things right, and you can really compound it and see that. So shift a little bit to, you know, you said you have a lot of real estate and a lot of it sounds like is actively managed. What would you say is percent of your portfolio that's in maybe real estate versus stocks and bonds or maybe other alternative investments?

Yeah. We're about 80% real estate and we are aware that we want to diversify that and get different allocations, right? However, we're proud of it because we've done real estate that makes sense.

Yeah.

And the whole thing of location, location, location is so true. And so I try to tell our 4 kids, especially our older boys, we're saying, well, we've done this on purpose in Colorado, Florida, and Oklahoma in places that one, we know are great markets. Are stable. We're doing it with strategy and in places that we care about, right? What we feel an investment and we care about those areas. Our company itself is another big part of our portfolio. There's a couple ways to look at that, but we're super grateful for the success in the company to go from nothing to a 7-figure business and growing and just maturing that really well over the last couple years. And then started some investment in other funds and other lending funds and other elements more this year. Just transparently, we're more like, okay, how do we get more into the passive investment? Season of our life. And so I've learned so much from you and Bob Fraser and Jim and the team. So we've got some other elements too, but again, a lot of real estate and then some other passive investments that we're working to grow. And then we want to get, you know, eventually more private equity and some other elements as well too.

Yeah, that's awesome. You're kind of a unique place in your journey and I— you're thinking, hey, I kind of want to shift more to passive and I need to generate this to help solve a tax issue that I have, but I'm assuming there's also an element of, at a certain point, I get pretty limited and I want to keep spending more time with my family. That's the highest priority of everything. So how do I continue to increase income, but also not increase the amount of time they have to spend doing it? There's trade-offs with that. So tease that out a little bit.

Yeah. The core element is, you know, we both have a friend, Rory Vaden, and he has this perspective of like, people get wealthy by doing one main thing really well. It's a controversial but interesting kind of perspective. Well, for us, it's the bridal industry. Okay. And I'll share, there's a couple of sides of that. We have a whole other company called Bridal Owner Success Solutions, where we do business advisory, coaching, and consulting with a very niche market of bridal shop owners. And so while we're pulling income and revenue from a couple of different places by serving people and meeting needs, we are also trying to be in a season of like, how do we really conserve our time and our energy for what we are best at, what we're best positioned to help serve the world, right?

Love that. Yeah.

How can you stay focused on the things that really generate and create that margin? And then you can put every little dollar or those soldiers to work for you to go multiply. So as we're getting more dollars to work with, say, okay, like, let's do some more things that are passive because you're totally right. There are only so many hours in a day. There's only so much of you. I mean, you've got 5 kids. We have 4. You want to save the best of you for the things that matter in life and for eternity. So, yeah, we're definitely in a moment of like, okay, how can we work smarter? Deploying these resources and these little soldiers of each dollar we get, if it's $50,000, $100,000, versus just doing another short-term rental, which would probably send me over the edge, honestly, with all we have going on. Yeah, we get some things more working in a more passive way that can maybe even bring in more or different types of returns.

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like for me growing up, I always heard, well, the average millionaire has 8 streams of income, or whatever it was like, oh, so I gotta go do my job. And then I gotta go start a music production business. And then I gotta go do door-to-door sales. And I was like thinking that I had to go do all these different things and split my time just so I could get to that millionaire status. But what's interesting is I think it's the opposite. I think it's the wealthiest and most successful people get so good at one thing that becomes the primary driver of their growth and their wealth building. And then as a result, they diversify because they want to reduce the risk and concentration of that business that's created the wealth. And I heard it before, said, uh, wealth is created through concentration but is preserved through diversification, right? So it's usually the second step. And I love that you emphasize that because I do think it's very important as things get more complicated, it can actually create a lot more work than you're anticipating. And sometimes it's not always the best approach. Would you mind sharing if you have any, you know, things that come to mind of, you know, maybe an investing mistake or something that was, you thought it was a good idea, looking back, you're like, man, that was either a waste of time or a waste of money and should have just focused more on growing my business that makes me the most money.

Yeah, I'll share our worst investment yet in just a moment. Before I do, I've got to share this nugget, and this is worth the watch or the listen for the whole episode right here. We learned a framework on decision-making and unified decision-making that has helped us so much, and I just want to make sure your audience gets to hear this.

Please. Yes.

Years back, we invested in some marriage counseling and I was like, hey, I'm putting money into my F-150 for oil changes and tune-ups. Like, I should probably invest in our marriage as well too, not just a vacation. So it was one of the best moves we ever made. Got some great tools in our tool belt as a couple, 5 years in our marriage. And here's what a big nugget we learned is that unity always trumps disunity. The idea is as a couple, you want to push towards unified decision-making and what you do in life, and especially when it comes to investments and money, it's one of the biggest, you know, causes of divorce or misunderstanding or disagreement. So we learned a basic system of using a stoplight reference system— red light, yellow light, green light. And you can just basically throw out any idea or opportunity in life, and as a couple say, "Hey, that's great, but based on what we know now, I really have a red light on that," or "That group of people that's involved or the situation or the risk just gives me a red light." Or maybe you're in the middle and feel a yellow light, right? Or if somebody's just like, they're a go-getter, let's do this, it's going to be the best thing ever. Well, they totally have a green light on that opportunity. If you're not both green light, it takes some time and that drives people nuts at times. Like, no, we got to act now, we got to do this. But taking the time to get on the same page and having unity will lead to a lot more long-term success than rushing things. Or if you can't get on the same page at all, that's where there's time to pull in counsel from other people further down the road. So we've used that stoplight method to help us really, you know, grow our business, invest in key things with real estate. And the beauty in unified decision-making is whether you win or lose, whether things go how you want or totally unexpected or worst-case scenario, you can look back and say, we made the decision in unity. Therefore, we're not going to point fingers at each other or blame the other person if things go wrong. And so I'll give a quick example is we had done real estate for years and we had enough, we had a little bit of margin. We were saying, okay, there's this crypto mining opportunity that somebody had been telling us about. And you invest in these machines and it had—

Sounds juicy. Yeah.

Has 8 NVIDIA video cards, is a superpowered computer and everything sounds great. And here's the returns that have been happening in the last couple years. So fast forward, we both looked at each other and we said, Let's be on the same page and at least know that we made the decision together. Fast forward, we just, we were off on our timing. If we had done this 2 years earlier, it probably would have worked really well. But we hit it right at the point where all of the volume of the hashing and transactions just was going in a direction it shouldn't have. So we basically, we probably lost $30,000. Now you'd probably smile. And I know some other folks in our circle of friends we've all met would be like, oh, I wish my worst mistake were only $30,000. However, we kind of laughed. We were bummed, but then we're like, okay, we were in unity. Now we move on.

That's great.

So that's a few things. And again, that framework of decision-making though has been part of what's helped us so much in life.

I love that. I love that. So essentially, if one of the partners is even at a yellow light, but the other one's green, it's a no, right? So it's, you both have to be all in on it for it to go forward. Is that the kind of essence of the system?

That's the essence.

That's awesome. I like that framework. That's helpful. Well, Jordan, this has been so fun to chat with you and just hear some more of the story. You mentioned a few times, and I want to be sure that we provided a link in the show notes here to your podcast and, you know, give a little sense of what you guys talk about on the podcast. And for anyone that enjoyed this episode, be sure to go subscribe to Jordan and Mindy's show.

Yeah, for sure. So Mindy and I are honored to host this Something New show. You can find that on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts, but the show focuses on how working parents can create a life worth celebrating. So we pass on some great tips and things we've learned in the journey along the way, as well as interview some great guests and folks. So, um, we'd love if you follow the Something New show and yeah, like we were talking earlier, Something New, the bridal and formal wear store as well. But thanks so much, Ben. I'm just really pumped to be on the show. I've learned so much from you and Bob and others. So. Grateful to be here with you today.

Thanks, Jordan. This is awesome. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Jordan. I love the stoplight system that he and his wife use. I think it's a great tip for anyone, really in any kind of partnership, a marriage or business. If you're not both at a green light, then take a pause before you jump forward. I'm also leaving thinking about his lesson to do one thing really well. I've definitely fallen into the trap myself of trying to spread myself too thin. And it's so important to build your income streams and your skill sets around one concentrated place where you excel. And finally, quitting his W-2 job and becoming a real estate professional, that was a big step, but I'm so glad it's paid off for him. And I think it's a really incredible option that more people should look into. That's it for this episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, make sure you're following the show, share with your friends Next week we'll be back with more advice and insights in the world of alternative investments. See you there.